I am considering a barn door to separate rooms but I'm concerned
Scott Williams
5 years ago
but I'm concerned about the differing door styles in the house. This barn door will close this opening next to a pantry door. I am looking at old reclaimed cypress doors but I'm wondering if something more modern painted the same color as the ship lap would make more sense.
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millworkman
5 years ago
Molly D. Zone4B
5 years agoRelated Discussions
I'm back! Living Room decisions - plate rail & green paint!
Comments (13)Hi Nutmegxo. I see why you're attracted to those last pictures. The fresh colors & nice workmanship make those rooms seem very attractive. However, you say that your house is a center hall Colonial, and those wall treatments derive from Mission and Arts & Crafts style house of the early 1900s, where the whole idea was to create a completely different--a more modern--feel than the Colonial houses of the century before. Oh, sure, you can mix styles all up--people do it all the time--but while a mix of different furniture styles in a single house can work out just fine, a mix of architectural feaures cobbled together from different styles in different centuries isn't often a success, especially when, as in a center hall plan, each room is clearly visible from the other. Normal size doorways with doors that close allow you to sneak the odd painted room into a house full of stained wood, or add an Art Deco bathroom to a Tudor manse, but the typical broad doorways in Colonial Revival houses make using different architectural styles in adjacent rooms a dicier proposition. That's the thinking behind some of the posters' suggestion above. Let's take a closer look at that blue room you posted. Pretty colors, that's for sure. But there are a few things that show somebody missed the bus. One of the things that bothers me is that the door looks like a generic six-panel door out of the Big Box store. These days, six-panel doors are as ubiquitous as were hollow-core slab doors when I was growing up in the 196Os, and like those doors, these are often used where they don't belong. A six-panel door in a modern house or contemporary condo is every bit as out-of-place as a slab door in a Federal style house, and just because they're easy to find (and some people see them as 'nicer' than cheap hollow core doors) doesn't make them suitable. Even if we assume that whever combined a door style from 1760 with a wall treatment from 1900 knew exactly what they were doing--and I'm not at all sure that's the case--they still missed an opportunity to do it well. Look at the door's cross-member. Now look at the upper horizontal on the wall. How hard would it have been to raise that wall molding four inches so it would align with the lines of the door? Or, if instead of painting the door all white, they really wanted to feature the [mismatched] door, why didn't they space the wall's moldings to match the panels on the door? Doing that could have allowed the blue to flow unbroken across the door's lower panels, better integrating the door into the overall look of the room. But instead of going to the hassle of finding a more approriate period-style door--either a five-panel model with stacked horizontals, or a three-panel model with one square panel above two vertical panels--or, if this wall treatment is new, adjusting it to match the door's proportions, they just took the easy no-thought middle course, buying & hanging a generic door with little thought given to how to better relate it to the other features in the room. Those kind of details are the things that, thought about early enough in the process, can make a a huge difference in the final results, and they often cost no more than doing things the same way everybody else does them and coming up with the same predictable results. Good design isn't about money, it's about thinking. But these days, all it takes is a pretty coat of paint to make a lot of people think a room is well-designed. M....See Morespeed oven and separate microwave -- ridiculous to consider?
Comments (15)One of the best pieces of advice I got here was to have a special drawer just for the speed oven trays. I have the Advantium Pro so that's three metal trays, the glass tray and the wire rack. Turns out there's also room for an apron, a couple of potholders and some microwave covers, but it's mostly just the trays. Swapping them is dead easy and I never miss switching modes because it's too much trouble to switch trays. Switching modes on the controls is just a matter of which buttons you select. My drawer is located right under the oven (and over the warming drawer). This is perfect for me. Another member did the same kind of thing, but put the tray drawer lower down in the stack so that when the drop down door was open, the handle wouldn't block the drawer. I'm organized enough that it isn't an issue for me, but it's a good idea if you have another shallow drawer to put between. An offline friend has the trays in a drawer at the bottom, with other stuff in it, and hates to swap the trays. Someone else didn't like reaching over the fridge to get the trays. Location is really important! OTOH, one member didn't have anywhere to put the trays but in a bottom space not really near the speed oven but she was determined not to let it deter her, and it worked fine. I think the trays did have their own slot, rather than being mixed with serving platters and cookie sheets. I think that's the really important part. It is true that the more you use the microwave the more the gizmo that runs it will degrade. That doesn't mean it will fail soon. It means that it won't be as powerful for as long. All microwaves are like that. If you're microwaving stuff all day long, and have a niche for a $100 MW that you can use up and toss, I see the appeal. Especially if you have a passel of kids using it. Speed ovens aren't cheap! But the microwave gizmo should last with a decent amount of power for the projected life of the unit, and part of the point of having three in one is so you don't need more ovens! If you don't want the speed features, and especially if you have enough room for a separate microwave, just get a small convection oven and a microwave and save yourself a lot of money and worry. I don't use the speed features as much as I projected because some of my cooking needs changed between design and finish of the kitchen, so I, personally, use my Advantium most as a microwave and second as a convection oven, but I do use the speed features, and those are the reason for spending more on a speed oven....See MoreCab doors are in and I'm considering switching. Help me decide!
Comments (126)Without turning this into a meta-discussion, on GW there is generally an unwritten piece of etiquette that once a major decision has been made, people will refrain from further disagreement, no matter how vehement the disagreements had been up to the point of the final decision. And I don't know, I disagree that it's never too late to make a change. Sometimes it becomes extremely impractical or too expensive to make a change. And even if money is no object, there are other people to think about here. I know someone who made several fabrications of slip matched doors for a client who changed their mind a couple of times regarding the configuration of cabinets underneath. When they wanted to change again, the client said "and don't worry we will pay for it again" the fabricators told them they didn't care if the clients would pay for it again, they weren't doing it again, because it was wasteful of materials, and they had other jobs waiting for other people and they were getting tired of doing this one. Ultimately there is no single correct answer for a decision like this, and I don't think anyone in the beginning of the discussion thought that walnut would be wrong. But walnut being elegant and high end doesn't really mean that the ribbed door is a bad choice....See MoreAm I crazy to get the whole house LVP and no carpet? I'm freaking out.
Comments (52)@Chessie The irony is that we actually don't even take baths! The default option was a built-in bathtub surrounded by a rectangular tiled edge, and I knew we'd be bonking our knees and calves into the corners every time we walked into our closets. Similar to this one: So we upgraded to a freestanding just so we could avoid the bruises! Though looking at it now that it's installed, it kind of makes me want to take a bath after all....See More
leelee
5 years agolast modified: 5 years ago- PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
5 years ago 
Judy Mishkin
5 years ago
Angel 18432
5 years ago
ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
5 years ago
PROMark Bischak, Architect
5 years ago
PROCarolina Kitchen & Bath
5 years agophuninthesun
5 years agolast modified: 5 years ago
This opening doesn't seem necessary. I would enclose the area and enlarge your pantry into the space behind it (which also doesn't seem as useful as is). You could then use a barn pantry door there if you wanted.
Scott Williams
5 years agoScott Williams
5 years ago
Sammy
5 years agophuninthesun
5 years ago- PRO
Mark Bischak, Architect
5 years ago Scott Williams
5 years ago- PRO
Carolina Kitchen & Bath
5 years agoHow about a double door like this:
Lake Shore Drive Bathrooms · More InfoThis one is 8" tall and yours would be 6'8". You could play with style, doesn't have to be glass, might be panels or maybe you can make it to blend into the wall, like this:
damiarain
5 years ago- PRO
Carolina Kitchen & Bath
5 years ago 
PROStar-Doors com LLC
5 years agoI suggest that using saloon style door the same design as your pantry door would be rationally. If you use pivot hardware for installation, you don't need to buy and install door frames and casings.
Modern option for barn door can be glass and aluminum design panel installed with barn track.
Bright white glass doors for closets in private house in Fort Lauderdale · More Info
PROVirgil Carter Fine Art
5 years ago
PROBeth H. :
5 years agoScott. just do a regular in wood to match the room. get something like this and either paint or stain. or just do a single.
These would also be suitable for the pantry door, above and below.
couldn't straighten it.
- PRO
Mark Bischak, Architect
5 years ago - PRO
Beth H. :
5 years ago suezbell
5 years agolast modified: 5 years ago- PRO
Mark Bischak, Architect
5 years ago RaiKai
5 years agolast modified: 5 years ago
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