Closet Doors: Advantages and Drawbacks

Door or No Door?

The first thing about closet doors is to decide to have one or not. The absence/presence of a door is just as important a feature as the kind of door you choose. Most people do not close the door to their walk in closet. So, many just remove them. Often they are not designed in at all.

If you have a master suite, you possibly do not have a door:

• between the bedroom and the bathroom
• the bedroom and the walk in closet
• between the walk in and the bathroom

One reason to have a door between the bathroom and the walk in closet is humidity. In areas with higher air humidity, such as Southern California or Florida, it is a good idea to have a door to keep the humidity from penetrating the closet. It is not necessary in dryer climates such as Colorado.

Kitchens nowadays are built without doors. You just walk into them. The same may happen with a walk in closet.

Overall modern architecture designs less corridors, less walls, and less doors. But there are plenty of situations in our homes where we still need doors and here are the main types of doors that are used for closets. Which door you choose depends mostly on the required width for the opening.

Types of Closet Doors

• Doors that simply swing in or out are the most common types of doors. They are used for reach in closets that are not much wider than an average door (like most hallway closets), and they are used for walk in closets. They are usually between 24" and 36" wide.
  If a reach in is wider, the following doors are used:
• Sliding closet doors (also known as bypass or mirrored closet doors)
• Bifold doors
• Pocket doors sometimes replace a swing in or out door. Very rarely are they used for reach ins, although two pocket doors could be used if there is wall available on both side of the closet. These doors, like swing in or out doors, are also used for entering a room, in which case they often function as a separation between two adjacent rooms.
  This relatively rare kind of door is easy for wheel chair access, and it works well when there is no room for a door to either swing in or out of a room.
  Sometimes they are the only solution for a bathroom door.
• Louvered closet doors

Contemporary Closet Design and the Use of Doors

The emergence of contemporary closet design with its own closet systems has created an alternative to all these different kinds of doors. The cabinet with its own door (the door is attached to the panel with invisible hinges, not to a door frame) can replace the traditional closet in some situations.

The reason to have such a cabinet is when you have a large walk in closet and you want certain sections behind doors.

Or you have cabinets on all the walls of a room because you want to have closet space and also keep the room for a certain use without having to see all your clothes.

I just recently designed this way, and it saved my clients loosing a "room with a view". The original plan was to break down the beautiful room with multiple windows and mountain view and create a small walk in. Instead, we lined some walls with cabinets, some deep enough for hanging, others with shelves and some drawers. The view was saved and the room can be used to hang out in and enjoy the view as well as being a walk in. The sun shines in and the clothes do not fade.