Darius Mojahed's Contemporary DIY Dream Home

Darius Mojahed has the passion of a professional designer. He used his keen eye for mid-century design to tastefully update his Moraga, California home. "My goal was not to make it the home a replica," he explains, "I wanted to add subtle MCM touches along with more modern elements that seemed to fit the original style of the home."

"As best I recall, I found Crestview while researching online," Darius told us. "One search lead to another and, BAM! I'm using Door-o-Vision!" After uploading a photo of his house and trying on a few models, Darius chose the "Burbank" with reeded glass. The oversized 42-inch wide door with the "Burbank" Doorlite Kit and a dark, glossy stain completely transformed their tract home into an elegant masterpiece.

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Door-o-Vision Mockups:

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Even though Darius is in enterprise software for a living, he loves working with his hands using his own designs. He has even been taking landscape construction classes in the evenings which clearly shows from the impressive xeriscaping that frames the front of their house.

Darius and his contractor, Ray Pedrosa, used the instructions that came with the Doorlite Kit to perform the installation. "I chose a new 42-inch door and the existing instructions are guidelines based on a 36-inch door," Darius told us. "So, prior to making the cuts, we literally put up the wood lite frames on the door with blue masking tape, and I eyeballed it to be of similar proportion to the out-of-the-box template."

Darius had a lot of great advice for first-time Doorlite Kit DIYers, and he shared with us a few things he learned in the process.

1) Before installing your doorlites, Darius suggests first painting or staining the inside edges of the wood doorlites (the part of the wood frame that touches the glass) a matte black. This edge of wood will be visible once the glass is installed and painting the wood black will help keep it from being visually distracting.

2) If you are installing a new door(s) with sidelite(s), Darius also suggests making the same consideration for the interior pane of the sidelite(s) as that too will be visible once the glass is installed.

3) And Darius advises painting or staining the door and doorlite frames first, then cutting the holes for the doorlites "since it is much easier than doing with the doorlites installed."

Darius and his wife Tiffany are not done working on their home. With a son, a dog, extended family that visits often, and hopes of continuing to grow their brood, Darius has lots of plans for the house. "I could spend all day, every day working on my house," he says, "But for now, the biggest projects are done: kitchen remodel, front door and guest bath. Next, I will likely redo the master bath, then the front and rear landscape." Doesn't this guy ever take a break? Darius says, "Somewhere in the midst of all of this, I need to finish the garage -- the 'Man Cave'!"

What do you think of the new door? Leave Darius feedback on our Facebook page.