Help with closet and bedroom doors clashing

9 years ago

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum for this question, anyway, here it goes.

In the house we are builting, just now we realised that the bedroom door in my daughters room with hit the closet doors when they are open. I can see two possible "solutions":

1) Use sliding doors for the closet. The doors stop clashing, but the problem of someone in the closet being hit by an opened door continues.

2) Move the door opening "up" in the layout. This will clear the closet doors completely, but will also eat wall space and create a "dead corner" in the room. Also, the door in the middle of the room (when looking from inside) looks a bit odd to me.

What do you think about it? Do you have any other suggestions on how to deal with this problem?

Featured Answer

quasifish

9 years ago

I spent 15 years of my life with a room with that exact set up. The closet doors were sliders, and honestly, I never thought about it being a hazard, as it never presented any problems.

With sliding closet doors, there's not much issue with the doors hitting each other. As far as someone getting hit by an opening door, how often would that happen? If the door is closed, or slightly closed, you're not just going to throw it open, are you? As soon as you start to push on the door, the person on the other side will alert you. Also, how much time do you really spend standing in front of a closet? When I was in that set-up, the inside-side of the closet is where I kept the most used items, with the side behind the door being where lesser used items were stored. I had never thought about it being unusual or odd until seeing your lay out.

Pocket doors were big on bedrooms back in the 1970's where I grew up. They are neat in some ways, but also look a little dated. Whenever I'd go to the house of a friend whose bedroom door was a sliding pocket door, I felt like I was on the Starship Enterprise :)

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Comments (11)

lazy_gardens
9 years ago
Use a "pocket door" for the bedroom, or reverse the swing so it opens away from the closet.
Luiz Borges Gomide
Original Author
9 years ago
Hi lazygardens,
I've never saw a bedroom with sliding entrance doors... isn't that weird?

Also, changing the swing will mean the when opening the door you will face the wall and the bathroom instead of the bedroom, I would rather not do that.
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cearbhaill (zone 6b Eastern Kentucky)
9 years ago
"Also, changing the swing will mean the when opening the door you will face the wall and the bathroom instead of the bedroom, I would rather not do that."

??
You would enter the room same as before, especially as the door would be free to open all the way.
IamCeeCee
9 years ago
I would go with moving the door frame over and centering the door. In the "dead corner" a dressing length mirror, hanging jewelry and all sorts of girly dressing things would work well and keep with the dressing room theme.
emma
9 years ago
I have the exact set up in my small bedroom which I turned into an office. I am just careful and make sure the closet doors are closed when I get what I need out. I haven't had a problem with it.
Errant_gw
9 years ago
Move the door over. It really wouldn't be creating a "dead corner," since that space is need for the closet doors.
Luiz Borges Gomide
Original Author
9 years ago
I think that just using sliding doors on the closet will be easier. As quasifish and others said, I might not be such a big deal as I first thought so.

I will ask my daugter to decide.
busybee3
9 years ago
can you change the door frame and hinges so that the door opens outward into the hallway?? I had that done in a laundry room to give me more room...
camlan
9 years ago
The hall looks almost as big as the bedroom. Can you bump the bedroom wall out a couple of feet where it abuts the hall? If you keep the closet as it is now, that would allow the door to open against a solid wall.
graywings123
9 years ago
You have quite a bit of space along that wall. You only have to move the door down the distance equal to 1/4 the width of the closet to allow the bifold doors to work.

The closet is 1.5 meters (60 inches) wide, so each bi-fold door is 1/4 that size - 38 centimeters or 15 inches. So move the door down 38 centimeters or so.

This post was edited by graywings on Mon, Jan 26, 15 at 10:40