The Door: Part 1

I've always believed that part of being a good hostess means ensuring that guests are as comfortable as possible.  That may seem like a really easy thing to do; air con on, check; food for everyone, check; plates and silverware for everyone, check.  How hard can it be?  Well, when it comes to my Halloween decorations it's a lot more involved than you would think. On top of dealing with allergies (both environmental and food) and dietary requirements (vegetarian, gluten free, etc) there are a number of physical and medical issues that I have to keep in mind.  For instance, I have a few very tall friends, one of whom is well over 6 feet tall, and that can be an issue when you're hanging things like spiderwebs.  I know I don't like getting a face full of spiderwebbing, so for things like that I have to make sure that my decs hang head and shoulders above my head.  Another friend has a seizure condition that can be triggered by blinking lights so I have to be careful there, and I also usually have at least one over night guest because I have awesome friends who come from out of town for my Halloween party.  This year, though, that means I get to make a door.

I had been contemplating doing that anyway because there is a section of hallway I want to block off for effect purposes.  It would either be a door or continuing the plastic sheeting at that particular point which would be a bit easier, if not nearly as neat.  Of course, it was around this point that I realized anyone staying in my guest rooms would have to interact with the blocking agent any time they wanted to enter or leave their room.  Even thinking about doing that sounds annoying.  The logical thing to do was to ask a usual guest which of my options would be the less annoying to have to deal with and go with whatever was chosen.  The door was picked and after I thought about it more the door is almost certainly the best choice.  You see, I don't take down my decs right after a party (Halloween doesn't come down until the first weekend in November) and a door at least would be moveable and not get in the way like the plastic sheeting would.  Plus it will give the plastic sheeting for the hallway something to connect to instead of just hanging.

I'd never tried to make something like a door before so I had something new to figure out.  It wouldn't do me any good to design an awesome door that I couldn't build so that was something I had to think about.  Also, my hallway is tiny.  It's 34 inches wide and that doesn't leave a lot of room for an awesome door.  The space for where I want the door is actually less than that because I have a built-in linen cabinet in that wall which will have to be taken into consideration too.  But first, I needed a plan.

Sitting down with Google image search I found a number of interesting sci fi doors so I pinned a number of them to my Pinterest Halloween board, it keeps the neat ones all in one place, and got to sketching.  I did 8 door sketches before I figured out what I really wanted.  If you're wanting to make something like this it's a good call to play with sketches first. You can see how many different ideas I played with before I decided on  something.

And this is the door that I want to make.  Don't mind the notes, that's my project sketch book.  I put as much as I can into it so I don't forget what I'm doing.  It isn't exactly like any of my preliminary sketches, but I really like it.  

Not a bad piece of work, really.  I even have an idea for how to build the thing.  Now all I have to do is get the parts and start construction.  Well, it isn't quite that easy.  There a surprising amount of work to do before I can actually build it.  More on that as it develops.