Why doesn't one door open? - linen cabinet design

Sunset, Nov, 1984

You half expect these tall double doors to swing wide open to the adjacent room. But only one opens; the other is fixed and serves as a side wall for linen cabinets in a small hallway.

Mary Louise and Karrick Collins conceived this elegant artifice for their Napa, California, house. The 10-foot-high living room seemed to invite the scale and formality of 5-foot-wide double doors, while practical concerns prompted masking the 21-inch-deep cabinets behind them.