They may be utilitarian, but interior doors certainly can be glamorous and beautiful! There is a wealth of possibilities with doors when planning residential design.
French doors.
I love French doors. Classic and dramatic, they add instant glamour.
French interior doors have three qualifications:
- there must be two doors
- there must be glass
- and they must swing (not slide)
The glass can be transparent, allowing an uninterrupted view and privacy, or translucent, allowing for complete privacy.
To really take advantage of a view, do what we did in our Denver LoDo Penthouse project: Install French doors that extend onto the terrace, and if you have a vaulted ceiling, repeat the glass above the doors. By doing so, you create wonderful openness and connects you to the outdoors. It makes the exterior feel like part of the interior.
Full glass French doors swing open to create flow from the living room to the terrace.
Use French doors to open onto display rooms – master suite, home office, or the music room. This emphasizes the importance of these rooms and adds grandeur.
French doors with traditional panes look open onto a home library.
Flush interior doors.
These doors have a clean and minimal look that don’t interrupt the eye. Flush doors have two qualifications:
- They must swing
- They must have no traditional paneling
Typically, a flush door will not have a jamb. Interior designers and homeowners alike appreciate them because they are largely unobtrusive to the eye. We use them mainly when we want the door to disappear, or to blend well with the surrounding décor. I love a clean and glamorous look. To create a unique flush door, choose your material and/or finish well.
Think upholstered leather…
Leather doors add sexy elegance.
Animal hide or print…
A zebra print door is unexpected and bold.
Or something like the juicy lacquered door in this Parisian apartment.
A glossy green door is a surprising balance for the dark teal carpet.
What an opportunity to do something different!
Pocket doors.
I like pocket doors for their simplicity, efficiency, and ability to hide. We use them in residential and commercial design when we have a small swing footprint, or for architectural effect. It keeps everything nice and clean-looking.
Traditionally, pocket doors are for utilitarian rooms, and way-back-when, they separated parlors and drawing rooms from the main living areas. Today, we are using pocket doors to create privacy in open space floor plans. They hide away when we don’t want to use them, and if we want a partition, simply open the door.
This is an opportunity for the pocket door to become part of the art design.
A pocket door the color of lemons becomes part of this room’s art design.
Sliding doors.
With the efficiency of pocket doors and the glamour of their French counterparts, sliding interior doors lend an air of traditional glamour and connote grandeur while taking up less space.
If you are considering double doors, I encourage you to elevate the look of your room and use sliding doors. We use transparent glass when the homeowner wants to keep a sense of openness. Translucent glass and solid doors are options if you want to section the room from the rest of the house.
Sliding doors are space savers, and can be as grand as you like.
If you’ve got the floor space, sliding bi-fold glass doors are trending.
The slim profile of these glass bi-fold doors have a sense of weightlessness.
The sliding single door trend (also known as the barn door) continues, and city homes rely upon it as a space-saving technique. This contemporary art sliding door by Sargram Griffin, called Armoni, is a great example of integrating art and architecture.
Interior doors with artistic flair.
