Design focus on doors
Home builder and designer Marnie Oursler opens creative doors for her clients.
“I’ve been using doors to add character in houses for a long time,” says Delaware-based Oursler, who hosts Big Beach Builds on the U.S. DIY Network. “Mixing up doors throughout the house is really important,” she says, “and it’s easy.”
Oursler offers her how-to advice, along with two other interior design experts: architect Tamara Gorodetzky, an associate with GTM Architects in the Washington, D.C., area, and Caleb Anderson, co-founder of the New York-based Drake/ Anderson. Design features: “If you look at the magazines now,” Gorodetzky says, “people are doing really creative things like using a lot of steel in their doors instead of wood to give it an industrial look.” Another option is refinishing doors with paint, upholstery or other coverings. Anderson updated traditional wooden doors in a client’s entryway using a metallic faux finish that turned “this pair of double doors that were very traditional and stuffy” into something eye-catching.
For another client, he had a set of pivoting doors made and upholstered in leather, with nickel nail-head detailing. “You don’t have to be afraid to do something bold or different,” Anderson says. Optional walls: By adding a sliding barn door or a set of pivoting doors, you can break up an open space.
“For so long we’ve been in this world of ‘open, open, knock down this wall’,” Anderson says. “I’ve seen a lot of people gravitating back toward the ability to close a dining room off … it adds this level of formality.”
For one client, Gorodetzky’s firm commissioned an artist to create a huge, dramatic piece of artwork made of steel and plaster, and then hung it as a sliding door.