Queston: I have two problems at my cottage. First, I have to insert closet doors in a 4-foot-wide opening in my master bedroom and in my son's bedroom. The rooms are small, so I have decided to use mirrored doors. Should I go with mirrored sliders/bypass doors or bifold mirrored doors? Do you think the bifolds will look more modern than the bypass ones?

Second, my hallway walls are a salmon peachy pink and yellow mixture. I also have a 12-foot-long burgundy and black Turkmenistan carpet runner. Would painting the bedroom and bathroom doors in burgundy look good? I would really like a pattern or something to make the doors look interesting or three dimensional.

Jo-Anne Morrison
Calgary, Alberta

Answer: Small rooms are a decorating challenge when we expect them to be bigger. So when you have a space that you want to make appear bigger than it actually is, a large mirror is a wonderful way to expand the room visually.

Mirrored closet doors in a small bedroom usually go from one wall to the other and will make the entire room appear much bigger and lighter.

The technology for both sliders and bifolds has been around for a long time and has improved. I would choose sliders because they need less floor space to open, are more reliable than bifold doors and, since one set is going into a child's bedroom, they leave less chance for little fingers to get in the way of their closing. Make sure you purchase good-quality doors and accompanying hardware; you'll be more satisfied with the results.

As to your concern about sliders looking less modern than bifolds; since you said your home is a cottage, I wouldn't worry about this; cottages beg for "charming."

And remember, since these wall-to-wall mirrors will reflect everything in the room, make sure that your furniture layout is well balanced.

Now for your second design dilemma, the color of the doors in your long hallway.

Long hallways often feel like tunnels that just serve as a way to get from one part of the house to another. I find that making them interesting is part of the fun of decorating a home.

Your Turkmenistan carpet sounds like the beginning of a story about a magical carpet ride to somewhere interesting. Why not tell this story in your hallway?

Instead of making the three doors a dark color in the midst of your peachy-pink walls, let's do something really interesting with this entire space.

Because wonderful stories are in books, wallpaper the hallway, including the doors, in a paper that looks like shelves of books.

There are many wallpapers that are such good reproductions that it's difficult to tell that they're not real books.

Choose one of the long walls and the end wall to be your "library" walls. Paper them and the doors in that wall to look like bookshelves. The doors would be like those secret-passageway entrances that you see in old mystery movies. The end wall will also be papered the same way, so when you look at the wall from the open end of the hallway, you'll have the feeling of entering a library. To ensure a more realistic effect, depending on their style, you might want to remove the door casings so the doors appear flush on the wall of books.

Paint the wall opposite the bookcase-papered wall a color that's in the wallpaper and that complements the colors of your rug. This could be where you'd use the burgundy color you want -- paint the entire wall and those doors that color.

Now this wall is a perfect place for a gallery of family photographs, or photographs you've taken on your travels, whether in the world or in life.

The photographs could be the same shape and size, framed the same and placed symmetrically down the hall, or they could be of different sizes and shapes, spaced closely and seemingly randomly. If you choose this option, plan the layout of the wall in advance, so while it may appear random, it's really well designed and balanced.

If you would rather not have a gallery of photographs, you can hang a collection of antique-style plates. They could all be the same pattern, or they could be found treasures from flea markets, garage sales and collectible stores. Brackets made for hanging plates are readily available at most hardware stores.

A third option is to find a calendar of antique-style flower prints, a different flower for each month. Frame each image the same way and hang all 12 (or as few as you like) down the length of the hallway.

This design for your hallway will help highlight your beautiful rug and make going from one end of the house to the other like taking a small trip.

 

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