I am working on a floorplan that has a hallway about 30′ long and 7′ wide. I was thinking of putting 3′ deep built in closets along the wall so that leave a 4′ path and a 3′ closet. Since the closets are 6′ wide, I was going to use double 3′ doors. When open, the doors will potentially block the hallway. I can use bi-fold doors but I think it will look way too busy with so many doors (I question the “busy-ness” to begin with).
Does someone make a pocket or flipper door (like on entertainment centers) that rotate to 90 and then slide in the closet?
Any ideas on this? I need to create the storage but I don’t want the doors blocking the hallway when opened.
Thanks!
Ed
Replies
You can't put a pair of 3' doors in a 6' wall. You need room for studs, trimmers, hinges, and trim.
A 4' wide hallway 30' long would look like a tunnel. Sounds like a bad idea.
Assuming this is a commercial building, there's no way you could get away with this. I'm certain fire egress codes wouldn't allow it.
If it's a house, a whole lot of space is being taken up by halway.
All in all, I think it sounds like a really bad idea.
Sounds kind of like an old house my Uncle had...in the upstairs hall, one wall was mostly cupboards for linen etc. Think about making the bottom 3 ft drawers, wide, deep, etc, and the upper half cupboards, use cupboard doors,
See BossHog's caveats. I agree with his points.
Three feet is a deep closet. A two foot deep closet is useful, and lessens the tunnel effect BossHog mentions. A two foot deep closet would take about 28" of space leaving 4'8" of hall.
I don't think it is a big deal that the closet door would block the hall. Closet doors are normally only open for a few moments.
Any chance you could put some of the closet doors on the back of the closet and access them from another room.
Is this for a residential home?? Or a commercial building?
Rich Beckman
Another day, another tool.
Johnson Hardware does make hinges for bifold doors that allow then to lay flat agains the wall when open.
Don't know if that will help or not.
I have used bypass doors on closets where space is a concern when the doors are open. I just bought two 3' blanks and finshed them (paint or stain) to match the decor. This may be an option for you in your hallway.
I think the best look for this would be the 'cabinet' style, like some old houses had. Built in drawers on the bottom and hanging space on top. But don't do the old style of hanging where the face of the garment is out, unless you want to reduce the depth to 18" or so.
Does someone make a pocket or flipper door (like on entertainment centers) that rotate to 90 and then slide in the closet?
Hafel makes such a creature, but be prepared to pay, I think they run about $1000 per pair!
I cant imagine putting these kind of doors on a closet though. We used them on some pretty big entertainment centers and wet bars.
Why would you want a door on a closet to flip out of the way? Your only going to be putting something in or taking something out, not really a need to have the door flip out of the way for any length of time.
Doug
The idea was to use these closets for storage and maybe a "hidden" desk area for shipping packages--I work from home...Also to have an area to store a plotter and printer. The plotter is 30" deep so I gave an extra 6" for clearance of the plotter.Also, I am aware that a 6' opening doesn't require 6' of doors. I was using round numbers to simplify the discussion.I looked at Johnson and they have bi-fold hardware that supports up to 75lb doors for industrial applications so bi-fold is probably the way I am going to go.They have a "wall of closets" in their actual office which is shown in some pictures on their site and I think that will work out fine.If anyone is truly interested in this layout, e-mail me at [email protected] and I will forward a .pdf of the layout for comments as I don't see how to post here...I am open to any and all suggestions.Thanks!Ed
Edited 6/20/2006 10:58 am ET by emana
Ed
If you e-mail me the file I'll post it for you.
I'll send you an e-mail through taunton and that will give you my e-mail address.
I've seen what your talking about, done something similar. When I asked about pocket doors for just closets I wasn't aware of all the other options that you had considered.
The Hefele hardware is top of the line but so is there prices.
I've installed 5 or 6 sets of the pocket style doors (like you see in entertainment centers) with the Hafele hardware using very heavy doors. There precision is unequaled and they can handle a very heavy door.
We installed a wet bar and entertainment center in a great room using the Hafele pocket door hardware, these doors weighed in at about 150 lbs. each. These aren't the type of pocket door that slides laterally into the wall, they pivot 90°and then slide into the pocket, side by side to the desk/wet bar area.
If you don't need to go with the heavy duty hardware that Hafele has I think you can do something with typical pocket door hardware from another manufacturer.
You could break up the hall way with columns, or pseudo columns if you chose, maybe those columns could be hinged and have storage in them. All sorts of ideas come to mind with the amount of area that you have to work with.
Doug
Edited 6/20/2006 11:28 am ET by DougU
Doug,I have e-mailed you the file.As you view the .pdf from left to right, there are three rooms: the workshop, the office, a billiard room. below the billiard room is a wet bar. At the bottom of the drawing there are the closets. I wanted to do closets in the hall for a few reasons:1. If I just enlogate the rooms, they become too long (top to bottom on the drawing).
2. If the closets are in the hallway they are central to the area; since they aren't in a particular room they can be used for a variety of storage.A little background here: Originally, below this level was a full basement in the renovation plans. However, a PERC test revealed a high water table and when presented with the options, I don't want thousands in tools and any items in storage in a wet basement waiting to happen (a sump pump running 24/7 ain't a good thing). So, I am trying to scramble to come up with a new floorplan for the level above the basement that allows for a wetbar, a billiard room, my home office, and a workshop.
I'm going to try to post this;
This is a drawing that goes with the original posters question.
Edited 6/20/2006 5:29 pm ET by DougU
Looking at your floorplan, I would definitely lean towards doing it as cabinetry/casework...I think it would look much, much better. Make some of the lower halves drawers, maybe some of the upper halves with glass doors...
Ed
Didn't realize that you were so new, welcome.
I would still break up the sections with some sort of column break or sections depending on your style of architecture in your house. I think it would make it more pleasing esthetically as well as not shrinking the hall way down to much.
Doug
Edited 6/20/2006 5:37 pm ET by DougU
Is that an exterior wall the closets are on? If so, I would consider moving the closets to the other side of the hall so I could put some windows in the hallway.Just a thought.Rich BeckmanAnother day, another tool.
Rather than build "hard" walls for a "closet," why not use about the same area, and use casework instead? A couple of full-height, 30" deep cabinets actually yeild a lot more storage (the "walls" are only 3/4" thick, not 4-1/2"). The cabinets also give you smaller doors that are less-intrusive into the hall. Depending on the materials cosen, you can also "lighten" the tunnel effect a bit.
Now, a "desk" tucked in there is an intriguing idea. Could be made a feature, too (and "disappearing" cabinet doors would seem apt for it).
I know they make some heavy-duty disappearing door hardware (which is what I expect Doug has linked to you)--however, the larger the doors get, the more "sensitive"they seem to get, too. Largest set I ever worked with were for 22 x 62 multi-panel, all HW cabinet doors. Even using two sets of the heavy-duty Haefelle's per door, they were persnickity no end (would not stay properly aligned & adjust for anything, either). In that case, it really, really, would have been nicer to have had more than 23" of case depth to close those doors into, too.
Consider making one ofthe hallway walls a "display" wall with appropriate lighting, etc. This can help "use" the width, and make it a "feature" and not an anomaly of sorts. Drop your storage/shipping center case work to 27" or 24" deep, and that might be a slick installation.
I can't take full credit for this idea--FLW used built-ins to line soem of the long connector halls in his Usonian plans. This "blurred" the use of the hallways from just transit, to also storage, or library, or art display, etc.
I always ask my wife to close closet doors when not in use. It is a good practice, looks nicer than an open door, and never blocks teh hallway.
You might want to consider bypass doors also. You'd probally need to remove the doors to install your plotter (which is easy to do, especially if you leave them a little "out of adjustment" so that they can be removed by just lifting them off the track), and they wouldn't work for the desk, but you are able to leave them open without interfering with the floor area/walkway.
Oh, and welcome to Breaktime. The great time waster.
Edited 6/20/2006 6:18 pm ET by chile_head