Create an ideabook for your next remodeling project!
Browse more than 1,000,000 photos from top designers and save your favorites
Opening Acts: Folding, Sliding and Pivoting Doors
Transform your space with glass doors that open dramatically to the breezes and the views
While the Northeastern region of the U.S. was hit with a Halloween snowstorm this fall, much of the South has been enjoying air finally cool enough to allow doors and windows to stay open, fostering luxurious cross breezes. I have a back door, but all this sumptuous air is making me wish I had a more deluxe indoor/outdoor threshold.
There are so many different door products, but some of my favorites (and most attractive) open completely, blurring the boundaries between outside and inside and allowing for full, open views (and breezes). That's not only great in the summer, but essential in the winter, to keep homes warm and bright and spirits high, even as the sun sits lower in the sky.
There are so many different door products, but some of my favorites (and most attractive) open completely, blurring the boundaries between outside and inside and allowing for full, open views (and breezes). That's not only great in the summer, but essential in the winter, to keep homes warm and bright and spirits high, even as the sun sits lower in the sky.
| Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
|
| Lift-and-slide doors: Everyone is familiar with sliding doors, but have you seen such a monstrous one? Think of all the views you could take in! This is far from the squeaky metal or vinyl sliding doors with which most of us are familiar. While some oversized doors are made custom, companies like BelleHaven Specialties and Door Studio offer a range of size, wood, finish and hardware options. Without inward or outward swings, sliding doors are phenomenal space-savers, especially when trying to achieve large doors spans without taking up precious real estate. This design accentuates the doors with contrasting wood frames. |
Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
If you prefer to let the walls and doors become one, paint them to match.
| Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
|
| Taking lift-and-slide a step further, Nanawall's BeyondLiftSlide product is a multi-panel system of glass walls that glide open on a single track and stack into a pocket or to the side. |
| Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
|
| Marvin offers a similar product. |
by Direct Doors
»
Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
Multi-fold doors. Stacking compactly to the side of your opening, these doors use a smooth track system and are phenomenal for large areas, including patios, sunrooms, swimming pool enclosures and any other indoor/outdoor space you'd like to fully open or close. In additional to Direct Doors, shown here, Nanawall has some of the best on the market, available in several materials and finishes.
by Andre laurent
»
Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
Imagine all the indoor/outdoor entertaining you can do with with such an expanse!
| Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
|
| Pivot doors. Pivot doors swing on a central hinge and are supported completely by a bottom arm, putting all the weight on the floor, rather than the frame. This makes it possible to use extremely heavy doors and reduce wear and tear on the frame. In additional to being aesthetically pleasing and architecturally interesting, pivot doors can be used for fire-rated openings, meaning they are appropriate for exterior use in many applications. |
Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
Frosted glass gives this patio more privacy. The partial-height door doesn't cut off light or air flow, and the pivoting mechanism allows for the use of a large statement door that doesn't swing out as far into one space; the swing is distributed between two spaces and folds against a wall, keeping the passageway clear.
Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
Multiple French doors. If you have an expanse of unconnected windows and doors and would like to open up the space up without going through a huge remodel, multiple hinged French doors may be your answer.
They achieve a similar goal as the previously shown products without the expense of retrofitting door frames to accommodate large expanses of glass.
They achieve a similar goal as the previously shown products without the expense of retrofitting door frames to accommodate large expanses of glass.
Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
Steel panes give the look a more industrial feel. Thanks to the strength of the material, steel windows and doors have slender sight lines, obscuring less of the view outside while requiring less maintenance than wood. Upstate New York-based Bliss Nor-Am has a stellar reputation among architects and designers, as does Hope's Windows and Doors.
More: Sliding Doors Bring the Outside In
These Floors Blur the Line Between Indoors and Out
More: Sliding Doors Bring the Outside In
These Floors Blur the Line Between Indoors and Out
Ideabook updated on Nov. 5, 2011.
What are you working on?
News From Our Partners
Latest Ideabooks
People found the photos in this ideabook after searching for:
View over a million photos:
As in the comment above, (and adding venomous snakes, scorpions and birds) there can be an incredible biomass drawn to the comfortable spaces within. I haven't as yet, seen a good screen system for these systems. So I expect that they will remain closed most of the time.
Another issue for me is, unless you can afford huge glass systems, you are stuck with about a 4' maximum pane of glass surrounded by a frame of varying thickness'. Once closed (most of the time) you are looking at a wall of doors and the view is chopped up like a theater entrance.
As a member of the 99% I'm going to use four-panel Milgard 1600 series aluminum doors. Designed for bigger sheets of glass, they have larger wheel/tracking systems,they are affordable and offer the thinnest and strongest frame which (hopefully) will silently resist our high winds. They are, being aluminium, thermally unfriendly, but when one looks at the energy savings realized on a wall of glass framed in a vinyl, fiber or thermally broken aluminium, the savings are insignificant.
NanaWall and others have screens that will help keep out insects, but this is the only solution we found to keep the cats in.
I've attached some more from Vufold's range, I'm loving the design in Andre Laurent's photo too. Fabulous range :)