Opening doors & Beaney

[ARWadworth]

Can you find nothing better to do in a hotel than watch TV?

Adam

[The Medway Handyman]

The house originally had an open porch & a front door. The previous occupants had two small inward opening doors fitted, PITA.

No room for a normal size single door to open inwards.

[The Medway Handyman]

And certain quarters of her are well thought of....

[The Medway Handyman]

I did point that out to the lady before I did the job. She wasn't bothered as they only use table/floor lamps anyway, never use the main light.

[PeterMcC]

ARWadworth wrote in

We keep one there specifically to protect the skirting boards.

[Mary Fisher]

That's the best use I've heard since smokeless fuel was imposed.

Mary

[chris French]

In message , Mary Fisher writes

??

There must be loads of Victorian houses which had servants and single doors.

almost certainly the Victorian occupants of this house would have had at least one servant, I imagine 2 was more likely, we just have single doors - though sopme are in the middle of the wall not the corner.

[Lobster]

I don't know anyone with double doors like that (you must move in differemt circles to me!), but I can think of several very ordinary-sized homes including my own semi, with original bell-pushes in the front room for summoning the staff, and with original (single) doors.

David

[Mary Fisher]

If you summon the staff you wouldn't be surprised ...

Mary

[Bruce]

I recall a phrase from a building engineering course:

"Open the door to close the room".

It's all about making a discreet entry into a room. It dates from the days when people showed manners and respect, so it is probably not so relevant today.

Being old-fashioned, I am still uncomfortable with doors that show the whole room on opening. Thankfully, my house doesn't have any. ;-)

[Andy Hall]

In most hotels no, and I spend rather more nights per year in them than the next man.

Occasionally there is an interesting one, but generally they are underwhelming.

[Andy Hall]

"Certain quarters" as in those diagrams that are seen in traditional butcher's shops.

[nightjar]

I used to have to use a door that opened outwards and was fitted with a mortise code lock. I could never be bothered to keep up with what code was currently in use, it changed weekly, so I normally opened it by flipping the latch back with the blade of my Swiss Army knife inserted into the gap between door and frame.

Colin Bignell

[dennis]

"nightjar.me.uk>"

That was a really cr@p lock then, all the ones I have seen have an auto dead lock to stop that.

[John Rumm]

The idea was (for bedroom doors at least) that it maintained privacy of the person in the room - i.e. they get a chance to shout at the person barging in while they are changing and before they cop an eyeful.

[nightjar]

By the time open fires were no longer standard, it would have become established practice.

The potential is still there.

I do have one door that opens against the wall, in the smallest bedroom, which is used for storage. This morning I went in to get a new loo roll, only to discover that the economy pack I had bought had fallen behind the door and made it impossible to open the door, until I managed to get a hand through the gap and move the pack. I wouldn't want to have to deal with a collapsed adult in the same location.

That would imply a need to request permission to enter.

Colin Bignell

[Rod]

And wouldn't it be nice if you could change the way the door opens easily?

Given the sophistication of things like kitchen cabinet hinges, surely someone can come up with a mechanism with similar flexibility for doors? In many cabinets holes are present for both handings and are blocked off with fillers - why not similar?

Implicitly, it would be easy to remove as needed (as discussed recently).

Maybe it would be reasonable to build-in a nice soft close mechanism?

And make it easy to change the catch/lock? It is fairly common to change the usage of rooms, and wish to have/not have lock. (OK - some handle systems do allow this and you can just not use the lock. Less simple with most if you wish to put a lock where none has gone before.)

And I'd guess that it would have to have an adjustment mechanism which could also be useful.

OK - there would be problems such as doors which have been adjusted (with a plane or saw) to allow for non-true frame/floor, different decor on each side, light switch positioning, etc. But if the system existed, the problems might get addressed.

[Owain]

I usually take some library books with me.

When I was young quite a lot of even very modest hotels (the sort with one bar electric fires that needed a shilling to work) had a library (or some shelves of books under the stairs) for guests to read.

Owain

[Mary Fisher]

I don't know if the above was aimed at me but I'll explain.

We'd gone to Wales in February for a daughter's wedding, they'd booked us into the local country house hotel which was very nice. There was a tv in our large bedroom. There were shiny up-market magazines in the residents' 'lounge' (how I hate that word) but not of any interest to us.

TV is a novelty for us because we don't have one at home. The day before the wedding, after lunch, we were waiting for the other parents and had nothing to do. Well, I had my knitting but Spouse had idle hands, which he hates. It was raining outside so the lovely gardens weren't at their best and we didn't want to miss our friends anyway so he played with the remote control until he switched on the box. We watched most of the Beenie programme and understood why people tell us that we're not missing much by not having a tv, that it's all rubbish etc. I don't know if that's true or not but we haven't been tempted to get one for ourselves.

We were grateful for a knock on the door but I suspect we'd have switched off anyway.

Mary

>

[Mary Fisher]

But 'in those days' not all doors DID open to make a discreet entry so that can't be the reason.

Mary