Sidelights and Transoms: How to Design an Entry With More Light and Better Proportions

Sidelights and transoms turn a plain door into an entrance. They bring daylight into a dark hall, give a narrow door more width and a low door more height, and let you keep privacy with the right glass. This guide explains what each does, how to size them so the entry looks balanced, and what to watch for on privacy, security and cost.

We are EHI Custom Doors. We manufacture and install custom fiberglass front doors and back doors, and we build the door, sidelights and transom as one unit so the frame, finish and glass match.

What Sidelights and Transoms Are

• Sidelights (our catalogue spells it sidelights) are narrow panels beside the door, usually glass, running the height of the door.
• A transom is a panel above the door, most often glass, and it can be rectangular, arched or elliptical.
• Together with the door they form one entry unit, framed as a single piece.

Sidelights or Transom: Which Do You Need?

In Toronto the shortest day has about nine hours of daylight, so a dark entry hall benefits from both. Our guide to exterior door glass options explains how to keep that light and still have privacy.

Proportions That Look Right

• The door is the main element. Sidelights and the transom support it.
• Keep each sidelight to no more than about half the width of the door, as one design guide advises. A very wide sidelight can make the door look undersized.
• A very narrow sidelight next to a wide door can look like an afterthought.
• Match the lites and glass pattern in the sidelights and the transom, and match the frame finish.
• Use the same height for the door and the sidelights, and give the transom enough depth to look intentional.

Glass in Sidelights and Transoms

Sidelights sit at eye level, so they decide how much of your hall the street can see. Frosted or textured glass gives daylight with a blurred view. A transom sits above eye level, so clear or decorative glass works there without exposing the hall.

Sidelights close to the lock have a security cost. The Vancouver Police Department advises glass near doors to be unbreakable or at least 40 inches from locks, and our guide to front door security explains how to handle it. Glass also loses more heat than an insulated slab, so ask for the glass unit and read our guide to energy efficient entry doors.

One Sidelight or Two?

Two sidelights give a balanced, traditional feel. One wide sidelight gives an asymmetrical, modern look and costs less. Which side to use often depends on the wall beside the door and the layout of the hall inside. A single tall frosted sidelight is a popular choice on townhomes and narrow entrances.

Arched and Shaped Transoms

A transom can be rectangular, arched or elliptical, and an arched door often takes an arched transom. Curved and arched shapes are custom work, priced to the design. One customer wrote in a Google review that several other companies refused their curved front door with a matching curved transom, and that EHI took it on. You can read it on our reviews page, and our guide to arched and custom-shaped doors covers arch shapes and measuring.

Opening Size, Permits and Fit

A door with sidelights and a transom is a wider, taller unit than a door alone. If your opening is already that size, it drops in. If not, the opening must be widened, which means framing changes and often cutting brick or stone. In Toronto, replacing a door in the same opening of a detached, semi-detached or row house with one dwelling unit needs no building permit, but changing the size of the opening does. See our notes on Toronto permit and heritage rules, and our guide to front door sizes for how to measure.

What Sidelights and Transoms Cost

At EHI Custom Doors a custom fiberglass single door starts at $2,500 installed and a double door starts at $5,100 installed. Each extra panel adds material, glass and build time, and one published Ontario guide puts sidelights and upgraded glazing at roughly $600 to $1,200 extra. The final price varies with the number of panels, the glass and any opening work. Our guide to custom exterior doors cost in Toronto breaks down the factors.

Sidelight and Transom Mistakes to Avoid

• Sidelights so wide that the door looks small
• Clear glass at eye level on a street-facing door
• Glass right beside the lock with no protection
• Mismatched glass patterns in the door, sidelights and transom
• Ordering sidelights without checking whether the opening can take them

Get a Quote for Your Entry

Browse the door catalogue and photos of doors we have installed, then send photos of your entrance. Call EHI Custom Doors at 647-952-2311 or request a quote. We are open Monday to Sunday, 9 AM to 5 PM, and there is no pressure to book on the spot.

Sidelights and transoms work best when the door, the glass and the frame are designed together. Decide on privacy first, then proportion, then the glass pattern, and the entry will look intentional.