Yesterday I thought I had a plan. I mean, I still have a plan, but I’m still mulling over this detail. My contractor is literally heading to my house right now. He’ll be here any minute and I’m still undecided about this detail. Do I just widen our bedroom door and leave the opening paneled? Or do I eliminate the entryway entirely and make the current hallway and bedroom one continuous open area?
If you are confused about these details, you can refer to my post from yesterday. But if you are up to date with both options, what would you do?
I had planned to go full steam ahead to remove the door completely and make the two areas one continuous space, but someone sent me this Instagram video yesterday afternoon, and I couldn’t believe how similar it was to what I wanted. do in our house.
If that embedded reel doesn’t appear, you can see it here on Instagram. And if you’re at work and can’t access social media, I’ve got you. Here is a screenshot of the reel. It’s not great, but it’s the best one I could capture that shows the design. The double doors open into a small hallway/foyer/anteroom, and outside of this are the bedroom to the right, the bathroom to the front and the bedroom converted into a closet to the left.
I was so excited to see that!! It’s one thing to have an idea in mind and be pretty sure it will work, but it’s completely different (and affirming) to see a real version of your idea and KNOW it will work like a charm. Of course, the layout of those rooms is a little different from ours. In that example, the three separate areas (bedroom, bathroom, and closet) can be accessed from that small hallway behind the double doors.
It would be like turning the hall bathroom into our master bathroom. But obviously that’s not our plan. Our plan is a little different since we have already converted one bedroom into a master bathroom, and that newer, larger bathroom is only accessible from the bedroom. And then we’ll eventually close the door to the hall bathroom.
So while the Instagram reel example is very similar to what we’re planning, it’s not identical. Where they have three doors accessible from the small anteroom, we will only have two. The first thing that struck me about that example was that I really liked the look of the three doors being actual doors in that example (it’s not the doors but the uniform finish that I like, which could also happen with the framed openings ), but have that balance of three doors on three separate walls that really benefits from three identically trimmed exterior doors.
But seeing that made me wonder. Does that translate to our situation? Or does it not translate since ours would only be two doors from the anteroom, and the two doors we would have are not balanced at all from the perspective of the French doors? In other words, if I leave both doors trimmed (i.e. I leave the closet with a real door, but the bedroom with a framed opening, and both trimmed the same way as now), both doors are on the left side on perpendicular walls each other, and nothing is in balance with the French doors. And the bathroom doors on the right wall will eventually disappear and I’ll just have one solid wall.
After watching that reel, I started to question my plan to eliminate the bedroom door entirely and make the two areas (bedroom and hallway/anteroom) one continuous area. But the more I thought about it, the more I started to think that the reason I loved the reel example WITH the cut-out doors so much is because of the balance, but we’re not going to have that. So although our situations are very similar, they are actually quite different as well. Good?
I know some will say I’m overthinking this, but you should be used to me overthinking things by now. It’s what I do. And I want your opinion. What would you do in our situation? Would you widen the entrance to the bedroom as much as possible while keeping the opening framed, which would add an additional five inches to the width of the door? Or would I eliminate the framed entry/opening entirely and make the hallway/foyer and bedroom one continuous area without any separation between doors, giving us an additional 12 inches of width in that passage area? To be clear, either of those options work for Matt. Anything 36 inches wide or larger makes things easier for you, and adding five inches would make the width of the door 37 inches wide. And just as I typed the last question, I see my contractor pulling up in front of my house. (Update: The door is not load-bearing, so it can be removed quite easily.)
So the options are (1) widen the doorway by five inches and maintain the separation with a lined opening, or (2) eliminate the separation entirely, adding 12 inches of width and making the two areas one continuous area with no separation.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 upper that my husband Matt and I purchased in 2013. Matt has MS and can’t do physical labor, so I do most of the work in the house alone. You can learn more about me here.
