Doors, Doors, Doors

Written by Jaqui Lividini

As we prepare to move in to our beach cottage this summer (yes, it’s finally happening!), we’ve begun to focus our attention on the interior of the house—and this week, specifically on the interior doors. Have you ever stopped to think about just how many doors there are in your house? Well, I have now, and in this case, there are quite a few! 

During the course of the renovation, all of the original 1901 doors had to be removed from their frames to avoid damage and to provide easy access to the workspace. We also reconfigured some of the space so new doorframes were added along the way. This was all fine and good, but now we are faced with the great task of matching doors to doorframes while also determining left- vs. right-hand openings, locks vs. no locks, etc., etc. —as tedious and complicated as it sounds.

Additionally, since we’ve added doors, we’ve had to seek out new doors that match the aesthetic of the antique doors.

There have been a lot of difficult choices and discussions, and we are still working some of it out. We chose French doors for the bathrooms. We went with pocket doors in the downstairs powder room and office and the upstairs laundry; the pocket doors had to be custom made.

One controversial area that has yet to be resolved is the pantry doors—there are four in total. Our designer Charles wants the doors to be half glass and I think they should be all glass. He thinks all glass is too modern, and I think half glass makes it look like my Catholic elementary school’s classroom doors. We shall see who wins out! Until then, I’ll be the one with visions of every type of door dancing through my head—that is, until the next renovating dilemma presents itself.