Hey everybody,
I have a unique interior doorway on a job I am getting ready to start that I have never done before and was hoping some of you with vast door hanging experience could give me a hand. The interior door will be used as a bathroom door in one position and a laundry closet door in another position. I called my local door hardware supplier and they had not ever heard of any hardware that would work for this style of door. I envision using standard hinges, one or two pressure latches, a door knob with no latch, and a thumb lock. The jamb construction is where I am looking for hints. I am going to try to upload a copy of the plan showing the doorway for clarity. Any help anyone could give me would be appreciated. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
Replies
Which way do you want it to look good?
Well both ways of course! It will be a slab door and I would imagine it will be hiding the washerdryer most of the time so the interior bathroom side of the door.
I see what Dan is saying. A traditional hinge would be fully exposed in one position and concealed in another.
A door swinging on pivots would not have any hinges. I have not considered how this frame would be constructed, so I would suggest a mock up with small pieces of plywood or scrap.
Find a door, any door. Open the door to 90 degrees. Now imagine a door frame that would accept the door in that position. It could be fairly "normal" on the latch side, and the head would be normal until it dead-ended into the head trim of the other opening. No hinge-side jamb.To have a full jamb in both positions you need to play with the hinge somehow. Simplest would be a sort of strap hinge extending out from the door several inches. The "strap" would presumably be centered in the edge of the door, vs being on one face or the other, and there would be matching slots in the hinge-side jambs to pass the strap. Would be tricky to get the pivot centered relative to both door openings -- exactly the same distance from both.Another idea would be to do away with the hinge-side jambs, and the hinges as well. Mount the hinge edge of the door to a cylinder that pivots, and have the cylinder fill the role of the hinge jamb. (Imagine that you built the two normal door frames tightly adjacent to each other and then used a giant hole hawg to bore down from the top and eat away both hinge jambs. Then drop a cylinder into the hole that's left and attach the door to it.)
A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It's a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity. --Jimmy Carter
I don't know of any hardware (not that there isn't some) that would do what I think you really would like. Can't even explain that clearly..............
But, if you can ofset the jambs somehow it might work. The hinge side is what could end up looking goofy (or not if you plan this properly.
Because the outside of the door in the laundry becomes the inside of the door in the bath. The pivot point will show the hinge edge of the door in one position or the other. From here, that wouldn't look good.
How about getting a slab of wood, set the hinge to it and play around to see what happens.
Then perhaps think about making a bifold pivot work. This essentially centers the swing and might be easier to make the pivot edge look good.
It doesn't have to really be a bifold door-consider it one slab with the pivot- and no track. Might not even use bifold hardware-just a pivot like a double acting door-minus the spring.
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What does the designer of this situation recommend?
The architect is on vacation, back next week. When we talked about during the initial meeting, his thought was "there must be something available to make it work."
I plan on mocking something up this weekend to try it out. Thanks for all your responses so far.
Find out what the archy was smoking. - lolHe might find what he's looking for at http://www.pipedreams.com
That's a tough one, I sometimes work this kind of thing out in Sketchup. Don't see how you could do it without some sort of double pivot hinge, like a fold down boat seat, if you've ever seen one.
Crude sketch attached, circle is hinge barrel.
Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.
Yeah, if you made the door look like it was intended to be an "overlay" type door in one position, that might work with minimal futzing.
A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It's a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity. --Jimmy Carter
The only way you can get the door to "lay" over into each jam is to have the two jams close together.
On the side of the jam that sits next to the other one you could bevel both of the outside corners of the jams.
The hinge placement would have to be somewhere between the two jams.
Maybe you could do a mock up with a few inches of the jams, a door, and a hinge.
Lay it out full scale with an off cut of each.
Will Rogers
Is there any way to use a pocket door one of those rooms? It seems to me that with only one door, even of you got it to work, it won't be a particularly attractive corner because either the laundry closet or the bathroom will always be exposed.
In order to get it to work, I'm thinking that the entire hinge side jamb has to pivot.
I, too, was thinking pocket door. From the drawing you posted, there appears to be room to put the frame in the wall next to the vanity and use a pocket door on the bathroom. Then put a conventional outward swinging door on the laundry closet. Voila.
McKinney makes a hinge they call a pocket hinge, their number PH-4, which looks like it could be adapted for your use. Difficult for me to tell from their drawing. The drawing shows two doors, but you could use it for one.
John
http://www.mckinneyhinge.com/pdfs/products/PH-4_INST.PDF
EC,
I was just playing around but this is one idea I had, giving the door a central pivot, so it hits both door stops, would definitely take some creative trimming, but anything is possible!!!
The bathroom wall could be furred out so it lines up, my first time using Sketchup (free from google) I hope you get the idea.
Edited 11/25/2009 9:04 pm ET by clinkard
This site specializes in commercial door pivot hinges and hardware:
http://www.epivots.com/
I know it's not your job, but no chance of talking the architect out of his rather boneheaded design? Not only is it needlessly complicated to build, but it achieves nothing practical. I curious as to what rational he used to sell the idea to his clients.
I have exactly your setup in my hallway with a closet. The hallway is 36" wide, the closet door used to be 32"... I opened it up and mounted a 36" door there.
Now when I open the closet door fully, it closes off the hallway from the living room - blocking sound from traveling to the bedrooms.
Basicly, you need the regular jamb setup on the door, with a regular outswing door. This will go on your laundry room.
Around your bathroom doorway, you will put up another jamb... I think it might be easier to frame this up after the door is first mounted to the laundry. Put the door into the bathroom closed position and fit your jamb around it.
The door will be hiding the laundry 99% of the time, so make sure the bath has something nice to look at, like a pretty tile job.
Tu stultus es
Rebuilding my home in Cypress, CA
Also a CRX fanatic!
Look, just send me to my drawer. This whole talking-to-you thing is like double punishment.
I don't get it. We usually put doors on rooms we want to be able to close off. Just because two rooms happen to be in close proximity, why do they have to share one?
Because sometimes the space is so tight AND the door usage is so minimal that using 2 doors doesn't make as much sense as using just one.Really, during 24 hours - how long is a bathroom door shut (presuming it's not the main dressing bathroom). My guess is about 10 to 30 minutes a day. So a laundry area (or in my case, coat closet) is opened up for 10 to 30 minutes - not continuously - a day... big deal.In my situation, I'm closing the door to the side that has people on it. They don't see the inside of the closet when the hallway door is closed. With that and the bedroom door is closed, you can sleep easily while young kids are being kids in the living room.
Tu stultus esRebuilding my home in Cypress, CAAlso a CRX fanatic!
Look, just send me to my drawer. This whole talking-to-you thing is like double punishment.
I've done this before, but only for an *unusual* situation.
Used heavy-duty Soss hinges - http://www.soss.com/
Flame if you like - but it worked!
View Image
Jeff
Edited 11/26/2009 1:27 am ET by Jeff_Clarke
Soss hinges don't really solve anything, though. And not really prettier than regular hinges when open -- there only advantage is being invisible when closed.
A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It's a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity. --Jimmy Carter
Why does one door have to cover one or the other opening?
A bifold door would work well for the laundry; cheap and easy.
A normally hinged door could work for the bathroom, but if it were mine, I'd put in a pocket slider in the laundry/bathroom wall. If you are careful when demoing the wall from the laundry side, you can leave the bathroom side of the drywall undisturbed except for a few screw heads when you screw the drywall to the pocket door frame.
That way the bathroom door would not interfere with the hallway or laundry when open.
Bruce
Here's the hinges:
http://www.leevalley.com/hardware/page.aspx?c=1&p=40237&cat=3,41241,41265
I'd suggest adding a half round trim piece to the hinge side of the door, setting these pivot hinges into the centre of the half-circle and then trimming the back of the hinge side of the jamb with a cove.
Installing hinges like this on a full size door doesn't need to be hard. You can set the floor pivot in place and have the top pivot restrained between the head jambs. They would meet on a mitre, so you could have one piece in place to hold the door while you adjusted the other.
Piece of cake. It's good to get to do something out of the ordinary.
Ron
You might want to re-post this to the OP, just in case he doesn't read posts addressed to others.
BruceT
i used a set of hinges on a restaurant job that allowed a door to a kitchen to swing both ways
the hinges are spring loaded and look like a double set of hinges
If you are interested i can look in my stuff as i think i have a pair there & i could see if the mfg name is on them !
You're going to want more of a 'pivot' than a 'hinge', and you'll have to stop the wall between the laundry and the bathroom short by a couple of inches, because you're going to need to put the center of the pivot in the center of that intersection...
I can visualize how to do it, if I have time I'll sketch and scan something.
Stanley makes pivots for cafe style doors, you'd have to make sure they can support the weight of the door and still swing freely.
While it's unusual, I can see it working, but you'll have to think about which way you want the knob and latch to work, as you'd have to turn the knob to latch the door in one position. as the bolt would only be bevelled on one side.
Harry,
Ball catch:
http://www.leevalley.com/hardware/page.aspx?c=1&p=43248&cat=3,41399,41405
Ron
There ya go.
I like the idea of doing things differently. I think this is a neat concept, because bathroom doors are typically only closed for short periods of time...no reason not to think outside the box. If everyone does everything the way they always do it, nothing ever changes.
In case I was't clear on the location of the pivot point, I did an old-style pen and chunk of paper sketch...you'd need to put the center of the pivot where the centerlines of the two doors would intersect.
Instead of trying to do the architects job I would tell him to figure it out. Spec the hardware and draw the thing out. I mean are you getting paid to spend all your brain power on this?
Done with rant.
My solution would be to put a pocket door in the wall to the right of the W/D for the bathroom. It would take a couple of inches from the bathroom foot print but would hardly be noticeable.
Bingo. It's his idea, it's his problem.
You see a lot of these type of solutions in first year architecture design studios. Weird doors, beds that pop out of the floor, gull wing roofs - and they are generally not encouraged by their instructors, not because they are particularly conservative people, but because these ideas are usually thought up to solve a problem in the basic design of the space that should have been corrected without using tricks.
The same thing happens when a talented young basketball player gets exposed to a good coach: out the window with the behind the back passes and concentrate on improving their basic game.
You don't see one door on two openings because it's a dumb idea, not because no one thought about it before.
OK, I'll stop now.
You DO see this application professionally with pocket pivot fire doors (typically on hold-opens in hotels across corridors) using the Dor-O-Matic/Ives pocket pivot hinge:
View Image
I can see several applications: If you had dogs or children that fought if they met, the door set up might be very useful. Or if you lived with a wife and a mistress... I just don't have much time for it as a design solution as it is being presented.
Edited 11/29/2009 12:10 am ET by fingersandtoes
*Agreed*
Most people are going to think your setup is strange.
Why not have the bathroom door open into the bath room.
Make the laundry door set up to be closed all the time when not loading the machines. Use a louvered door for venting if needed.
I understand your looking to hide the machines or bathroom but you could hide both.