This Sneaky Door Upgrade Gave This Couple So Much Extra Space
In homes with limited square feet, every inch (literally!) counts. So, if you think about areas with wasted space, the spot behind your bedroom door might come quickly to mind. Inward swinging doors, when open, take up a lot of usable floor space.
But some homeowners like Oyin Antwi, the cofounder of interior design firm Via Asha Design and Digital Park, a Brooklyn-based creative design studio, and husband, Jeffrey Antwi, have found clever ways to get that space back in their West African-inspired Brooklyn condo.
How Pocket Doors Gave Them Much More Space
The couple’s condo is 640 square feet, so the pair needed to find ways to make it functional for two people. So they decided to give Jeffrey the built-in closet space and create a custom wardrobe for Oyin in their bedroom. However, it wouldn’t fit with their existing inward-swinging door.
“The reason being, with inward swinging doors, you lose the square footage behind the door, rendering it useless in small spaces,” Oyin shared at the time of the home tour.
But Jeffrey had an idea. He cleverly suggested they replace their existing bedroom door with a sliding pocket option to give them more square footage for the custom armoire.
“This was one part of the renovation that was actually enjoyable to experience,” Oyin reflected at the time of the tour. “Our contractors removed our bedroom door and added about 30 inches width of drywall to where the original door opening was – this created 30 inches of depth space inside of our bedroom now for me to build out a closet there.”
The new addition, as clever as it is, wasn’t without sacrifice. Some of the wall space was lost in the living room to make room for the pocket door. However, it was “so worth it,” according to Oyin, because the pair each got their own closet space.
A sliding pocket door isn’t the only unique part of this home. See more of Oyin and Jeffrey’s gorgeous Brooklyn condo in the full home tour.