A double entry door is not just a threshold. It is the first thing people see when they arrive at your home, and the last thing they see when they leave. At DeMejico, we build Mexican double exterior doors the same way we have built every door for the past 33 years: from solid knotty alder, by hand, using joinery and iron hardware that has no machine shortcut.
This guide covers how these doors are made, what to look for when choosing one, and how the different styles in our collection are suited to different homes.
Why Double Exterior Doors Are Different
A single door opens one side of your entryway. A double door opens both, and that difference changes everything about how a home reads from the street. The proportions are wider, the symmetry is stronger, and there is simply more surface area for the craftsmanship to show.
At DeMejico, we treat that additional surface area as an opportunity. Double doors mean more carved panel space, more iron hardware detail, and a more complete expression of the Colonial style. The best double exterior doors we build feel like a formal introduction to the home behind them.
In Mexican and Spanish Colonial architecture, the double entry was a sign of a serious house. The haciendas and missions that defined the built environment of colonial Mexico featured wide, heavy entry doors built from thick timber, often with forged iron hardware and carved panels. We follow that tradition directly.
How We Build Them
Every Mexican double exterior door at DeMejico starts with solid knotty alder. Knotty alder is not chosen by accident. The wood carries natural character. The knots, grain variations, and subtle color shifts mean no two doors are identical, even within the same style. It is also a stable hardwood that handles the temperature swings of Southern California without the warping or checking that softer woods develop over time.
We cut and shape every panel by hand. The raised panels, carved moulding details, and arch profiles are not produced by a CNC machine running a programmed template. They are done by our craftsmen using age-old carpentry techniques that have been part of this workshop since Robert Luna started building doors in Valencia over 33 years ago.
The joinery follows the same principle. We use mortise and tenon construction throughout. This means the rails and stiles of the door are cut to interlock mechanically, not just glued. A door built with mortise and tenon joints can flex slightly with seasonal changes in humidity without losing structural integrity. A door built with modern butt joints and adhesive cannot.
The iron hardware is hand-forged in a traditional blacksmith process. Clavos, the decorative iron nails that stud many of our door faces, are pounded individually into the wood surface. Hinges, handles, and knockers are forged and shaped by hand, not purchased from a hardware distributor. This is where a lot of mass-produced doors cut corners. The hardware tells you everything about how seriously the door was built.
Styles: What to Know Before You Choose
Our Mexican double exterior doors come in several distinct design families. Each traces back to a specific architectural tradition.
Arch-top doors. The Spanish Colonial full arch is the most recognizable profile in our door catalog. The arched top follows the curve of traditional mission and hacienda entries. These doors work best on homes with tall entryways and enough vertical clearance to let the arch breathe. A full arch door that is crammed into a low-clearance frame loses the proportion that makes it work.
Raised panel doors. Multi-panel layouts are the workhorse of the Colonial door tradition. Eight-panel designs, six-panel designs, combinations of large and small panels with carved moulding between them. These doors work across a wider range of entryway dimensions than arch-top designs and carry their own visual weight without requiring tall ceilings.
Glass and iron grill inserts. Several styles in our collection incorporate iron grills over glass panels, typically in the upper section of the door. The grill is hand-forged and the glass behind it is clear or lightly tinted. This style is well suited to entryways that benefit from natural light in the foyer without sacrificing privacy or security.
Rustic and distressed finishes. Not every Colonial home wants a refined, formal entry. Our rustic double doors use hand-applied distressed finishes that emphasize the natural character of the wood. Cracks, grain movement, and finish variation are part of the look, not flaws. For hacienda-style homes and informal Spanish Revival architecture, these doors are often the right choice.
Size and Configuration
Mexican double exterior doors from DeMejico typically run from 54 inches wide to 84 inches wide across the pair, and from 80 inches to 114 inches tall. The range exists because entryways vary, and a door that is out of proportion to its frame looks wrong no matter how well it is built.
If your rough opening is already framed, bring those dimensions with you when you visit the showroom. We can match a door style to your opening or discuss what modifications are possible. Custom sizing is part of what we do.
For homes with sidelights, we also build configurations that incorporate fixed side panels alongside the double door set. This extends the entry’s visual width without changing the door size itself, and gives us more surface for ironwork and glass detail.
Finish Options
Every door leaves our Valencia workshop in one of several hand-applied stain and distressing combinations. The stains work with the natural color of knotty alder, which has warm amber tones that accept darker finishes evenly. Common choices include medium walnut stains that deepen the wood’s warmth, dark espresso finishes for a more formal Colonial look, and lighter natural finishes that let the grain and knot character read clearly.
Distressing is done by hand. Wire brushing, hand scraping, and selective sanding create a surface that looks like it has been in a hacienda for decades, not months. This is not a decorative film applied at the end of production. It is the actual surface of the wood, worked by hand until it looks right.
Where to See Them
Every door we build is on display at our 30,000 square foot showroom in Valencia, CA. You can see the actual wood, run your hand across the carved panels, and get a real sense of the weight and proportion of each door before making a decision. Most of our customers tell us the doors look different in person than in photographs, and they do. Photographs compress the texture. In person, you see the depth of the carving, the variation in the iron hardware finish, and the natural movement in the wood grain.
We serve Los Angeles and all of Southern California from our Valencia location. Interior designers, contractors, and homeowners all work directly with us. If you are early in a project and still figuring out what door style fits your home, that is exactly when to come in. We can help you understand what works in different architectural contexts and what questions to ask your contractor about rough opening dimensions and installation.
Related Content
If you are exploring the broader door catalog, our posts on Spanish and Mexican single exterior doors and Spanish double entry doors cover the full range of styles. For interior applications, see our guide to Spanish and Mexican interior wood doors. And if you are building out a full Colonial entry, our furniture catalog includes hand-carved console tables and entry furniture sized for the spaces our doors go into.
