Building a door that blends in

June 26, 2004 12:41 PM

I'd like to build a door into a storage area that blends into the wall as much as possible. No visible hinges, no handle, painted to match the wall, etc. Has anyone tried this before?

The storage area is the space underneath our stairwell. The door would be alongside the stairwell in the hallway,, and would have to be half-height, and I'd prefer if it blended in to the rest of the wall.

I took a look at a hardware catalogue for hidden hinges, but they seem to be geared more towards kitchen cabinets (max door thickness 1" thick). For the latch, I was thinking of the push to open magnetic style popular on home entertainment units.

I'm reasonably handy with tools, but I don't have any plans for how to best build this beast. Plywood? 1x4 frame with some kind of veneer? Any guidance much appreciated...

posted by kaefer to home & garden (4 comments total)

Not much to offer... but I have one of the old Time Life series, "Walls and Doors," and there's information and drawings in there about how to make hidden cabinets and doors. Check the library (or local St. Vinny's).
posted by mimi at 1:02 PM on June 26, 2004

I've have two examples of this. Once as if I was making a "doorway" without trim, the other as if I was making a cabinet flush with the wall. (A third variation on this was a flat panel flush with the wall but without hinges. It needed to be opened rarely, so a simply slot and a little tap on the top -- where there was no slot -- would pop the top of the panel for removal. No slots on the side as well, just a frame backing it up.)

The "doorway" variation did not come off as very convincing. The cabinet door works quite well. I have an image (on the other side of the table) of the result and, while it is flush, the gap between door and wall is purposefully large. You can reduce this to a gap which suits your application. It does allow a finger slot at the top of the door which can not be seen.

The hinges are european style cabinet hinges, which go into a 32mm (IIRC) hole on the back of the door and are then screwed to the frame. The door itself is MDF, painted to match the wall. The wall around this particular installation is also MDF; I'm imagining in Canada that your wall might be sheathed in 1/2" GWB so you will need a piece of 1/2" MDF to make this work. If it is thicker plaster you can use thicker MDF.

Build your frame to provide a stop around the opening (about 1/2" around the opening should be adequate). Trim and spackle your new opening in the GWB with a "j" mold or "L" mold (shaped like their letters), mount the hinges and then the door. With the 1/2" MDF you might need to add some battens to the back of the door to keep the MDF flat. MDF is very stable but depending on the size of your door and humidity changes (and its quality) the battens might prove necessary. If you need to buy the bit to drill the 32 mm hole, buy a forstner bit.

(I actually own a tool which can be set to drill the holes for this hinge type, with a hex bit chucked into the drill. I won't recommend it here as it is quite expensive but if you do a lot of them, it is quite a timesaver. It can be set with templates to match any hinge made and the bits are built into the jig. Very cool.)

Coincindentally, I am putting a similar door in the project I am working on right now. It is no where near time to install it but I will be paneling around it with veneered plywood with joints that mimic the gap required for the door. It will then, I hope, blend completely with that portion of the wall.
posted by Dick Paris at 1:30 PM on June 26, 2004

Excellent, thanks Dick -- that image shows the look i'm going for here. Sweet westy too, btw!

The walls in our house are actually lathe and plaster, as the house is nearly 100 years old. I'm guessing that this will likely make fitting the door flush a bit more challenging...
posted by kaefer at 1:47 PM on June 26, 2004

When I've seen this sort of thing, which used to be fairly common, it was typically a light doorway fit into the side wall under a stairway, and most of the disguise was accomplished by means of a baroque wallpaper. The door, which isn't full size usually, can be a light plywood (engineered wood would be better today, and I concur that reinforcement in back would be a good idea). When it's this light, I can see cabinet hinges working well enough. The types that look appropriate (based not on personal experience, but on reference books I have) are "pivot hinges" and "European box-mount hinges", which allow the door to be flush when closed yet open as much as 90°.

Since you'll be cutting into lath-and-plaster walls, you'll probably want to reinforce the door frame with vertical and horizontal elements that connect to the interior studs. Otherwise, you'll eventually lose square and perhaps even have the door frame ripped out by a careless kid at some point. (And mark my words, if you have kids, or relatives with kids, they'll love the hell out of this door.)
posted by dhartung at 1:09 AM on June 27, 2004