Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Feb 07, 2011 12:03 am Hi, I am building a new two storey house and I am unsure if I should include two double doors which can swing back an open to divide the meals and family room from the stairwell. The advantage of adding them - aids cooling and heating (e.g. I can close the doors and stops a draft for colling/heating efficiency) - if someone comes to the front down they don't immediate looking into kitchen area Disadvantage - It encroaches on the meals area, could make meals/family feel smaller - if we have the whole family over (birthday, christmas) the meals area might feel cramp It is a 50/50 whether I keep the doors and wall or remove. I highlight area in green box. Sorry about quality as taken from camera phone. Ignore the red pen. Family is 5x4.4 and meals is 4.3x3.74 Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Opinions from two storey owners welcome. Re: plan advice - doors to close off stair well 2Feb 07, 2011 2:12 pm I would keep them, they are a nice feature in my opinion. If you are having a lot of people over you could just leave them open and I don't think it would feel cramped at all. Re: plan advice - doors to close off stair well 3Feb 07, 2011 10:10 pm selina2106 I would keep them, they are a nice feature in my opinion. If you are having a lot of people over you could just leave them open and I don't think it would feel cramped at all. I was leaning to removing them but maybe you are right and they could be a good feature ... Re: plan advice - doors to close off stair well 5Feb 07, 2011 11:56 pm I'm sure I will be of no help to you at all, but our entry posed a similar dilemma. In actual fact we don't have stairs, that's not really the issue. It's whether to have a door near our entry thereby making the living/dining beyond it private, or leave it open with no door (or doorway) just a passage. As it turns out we left it open. I have to say that if I did this home again I would def have put a door in (a slider) and then generally it would have discretely stayed open, and only closed off when we wanted to. For instance when our dog goes ballistic cause someone rang the bell, we can't put him back behind the door! I don't think we would have done a door like yours that swings open (because of the space issue) and we have a large home. Doors aren't very attractive in passage ways (imo). But overall we are happy with the result (aesthetically), it does make the house flow better. We can always put a door in now, but we wouldn't bother. (the old hindsight thingy!!) At the end of the day it is personal taste, as I said, I don't think I'll help you much, but you can see how it turned out for us. Good luck! A thankful person is a happy person. [/color]My hobby design blog: http://aviewondesign.blogspot.com/ Re: plan advice - doors to close off stair well 6Feb 08, 2011 6:02 am I would put 2 cavity sliders...in frosted glass, the sort that are mega $$$ but when closed, look YUM. Take up no space when open and I would have them floor to ceiling, so when open it is like nothing is there...no frame closing in the space etc
2 2923 I'm curious, did they provide any reason why they did not like the idea? 1 11854 It's possible but a soak well is usually much larger. Your 'soak well' only holds 424 litres when full. What is your soil type? Soak wells need sandy soils. 10 8977 |