The role of interior doors goes beyond confining spaces, providing privacy, and separating activity rooms. They also define the character of the home interior. Even in minimalistic spaces and open-plan homes, where interior doors are nearly absent, the looks of the few make a huge impact on the home’s looks.
Interior doors should serve – as needed, but also decorate. They should be convenient and also easy to use. This means that everything about them – from their size and hardware to their color and overall style, is important.
Why do all these things matter when you just want to consider interior door designs? Because French doors are superb, but if they cannot open all the way due to the limited space, they will not serve in a convenient way and will make the room look crowded. Consequently, their beauty will be canceled. As for the hardware – or their absence, it also defines the door’s character – thus, the room’s mood and elegance.
One more thing. The style of interior doors often follows the style of the interior. More often than not, this recipe is guaranteed; otherwise, the door style will feel out of place. But sometimes, a door style that totally contradicts the home style will make a difference – that’s when the interior doors stand out and become the focal point. Example. Imagine a minimalistic home – hence, a clutter-free interior with white French-style, wooden tall doors decorated with dentil molding casing. If you want to think out of the box when you choose interior doors, that’s how to do it.
Let’s think about interior doors (out of the box)
- Glass doors feature in many interiors. No doubt. But they usually are one-leaf swing doors – often with a frosted glass panel. The difference would be to get sliding glass doors or black aluminum glass doors – with or without a grid. Glass doors may serve in walking-in closets. They will look fantastic at home offices, gyms, and playrooms. If you have an en-suite bathroom and live alone or have no privacy issues with your better half, glass sliding or French doors would also look stunning and bring extra light to the bathroom.
- Barn doors are considered a tad rustic – and they often are. But they gain an industrial look when they are made of recycled wood or glass. They will make a great touch in a completely different environment, like in a minimalistic home.
- French doors are two-leaf doors and so, they need room space. But if you have sufficient space, they would add an element of drama and charm – French charm, to the room. Prefer wood French doors painted white, grey, or black. The heavier the door panel decoration, the better, especially if you place them in an open space or minimal home. The taller they are, also the better.
- Sliding doors are often used indoors to save space – or due to lack of space. Help them do more than serve such purposes; help them impress with big sizes, glass panels, or tall and narrow flat slabs.
- Let’s have the door casing talk
Most interior doors have a casing. Don’t overdo it with embellishments. Choose if you want the door frame or the door panel decorated. An alternative solution would be to focus on the door panel decoration and just outline the frame. For a more French look, the door casing may be connected with the wall wainscoting. Decide if you want the interior door design to stand out. In this case, the wainscoting panel should stop where the door casing begins. Assuming the wall panel and the door decoration are similar, the whole look will be more dramatic if the wainscoting was united with the door casing – meaning that the door casing stops where the wall panel begins.
Tall door headers will also look good in tall rooms. If there’s crown molding, it’s best that the two styles match. In some cases, it’d be lovely to have the door headers meet the crown.
How about frameless doors?
Frameless doors simply have no frame. To be exact, they have no apparent frame. It’s concealed and so is hidden from plain view. The door panel gets all the attraction or it goes entirely unnoticed. This is a great solution for minimalistic interiors and interiors, where there’s a wish or need to dress both the wall and the door with the same wallpaper or color to make them one – hence, the door invisible.
Let’s talk about door sizes – How high can you go?
Go high, even if the room is not particularly tall. A tall door will make the room look taller. A tall door can be the room’s focal point. Frameless doors that reach the ceiling are breathless.
Think out of the box when it comes to door colors too
The door color depends primarily on how you like your home interior. If you love all-white homes, stick with white doors and walls. If you like to make a statement using the doors, prefer bold colors, like black.
The secret of a stunning interior is uniformity. Although the door style cannot be the same in all parts of the house – in some parts, you may need sliding doors and in some other parts, you may need swing doors, stick to the same style and color. If, for example, you decide to get frameless high doors, get them for all parts of the house.
