Removing your living room door: from €30 in materials to €1,000 in labor
Removing a living room door costs from €30 in materials to €1,000 with professional work. The cased opening beats the arch, while a sliding door keeps it closable for around €150.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Removing the living room door: from €30 in materials to €1,000 in labor
An interior door that is always open and always in the way, a hallway that eats into the living room, and a piece of advice from a decade ago that finally makes sense. The idea is simple: get rid of the living room door to gain space and stop dodging a panel nobody ever closes. The doubt comes later, when it is time to decide what to do with the opening and how much it costs to get it wrong. Because the range of solutions runs from €30 in materials to a €1,000 professional budget.
Removing the living room door: trend or design mistake?
The consensus on the plaster arch is nearly unanimous: no. It is seen as a dated solution that also leaves a small opening and a feeling that something is missing. The alternative that wins out is the cased opening: remove the door panel, the swing leaves and the hinges, and finish the opening with strips of the same material as the partition. An industry professional puts the cost at €30 in materials if you do it yourself; with an installer, the range rises to €400-1,000 depending on finishes.
The middle option is a sliding door on a top rail, from around €150, which keeps the ability to close it without blocking the passage. For those who want real construction work, drywall allows you to leave the wall flush and remove the frame, though it requires plastering and finishing.
What you lose when you remove the door: noise, cold and drafts
The strongest argument against is not aesthetic, it is thermal and acoustic. An interior door, even a poor one, divides the space: it keeps street or stairwell noise out of the bedrooms, cuts the draft created by the fireplace and keeps rooms warmer when the heating does not reach the whole house. Some people notice it daily: coming home with all the doors closed, the apartment is warmer.
The other issue is living together. With a child studying and football on at full volume in the living room, the door is welcome. Also for watching a movie without waking the rest of the family. Whoever lives alone, on the other hand, has free rein to do as they please.
How to know if you will miss it
The most common and cheapest test: take the door off its hinges and leave the opening open for a few days, living as normal. If after a week you do not miss it, go ahead. If discomfort appears, hang it back up. Zero investment and an informed decision.
Other people's experience warns otherwise: those who removed the door during a renovation and threw it away regretted it a year later. And those who renovated afterwards refused to repeat the mistake.
In the end, the question is not whether the door is in or out. It is how many times a year you actually close it. If the answer tends to zero, the opening is yours. If it tends to more than you think, that panel in the way is doing invisible work.
An interior door that is always open and always in the way, a hallway that eats into the living room, and a piece of advice from a decade ago that finally makes sense. The idea is simple: get rid of the living room door to gain space and stop dodging a panel nobody ever closes. The doubt comes later, when it is time to decide what to do with the opening and how much it costs to get it wrong. Because the range of solutions runs from €30 in materials to a €1,000 professional budget.
Removing the living room door: trend or design mistake?
The consensus on the plaster arch is nearly unanimous: no. It is seen as a dated solution that also leaves a small opening and a feeling that something is missing. The alternative that wins out is the cased opening: remove the door panel, the swing leaves and the hinges, and finish the opening with strips of the same material as the partition. An industry professional puts the cost at €30 in materials if you do it yourself; with an installer, the range rises to €400-1,000 depending on finishes.
The middle option is a sliding door on a top rail, from around €150, which keeps the ability to close it without blocking the passage. For those who want real construction work, drywall allows you to leave the wall flush and remove the frame, though it requires plastering and finishing.
What you lose when you remove the door: noise, cold and drafts
The strongest argument against is not aesthetic, it is thermal and acoustic. An interior door, even a poor one, divides the space: it keeps street or stairwell noise out of the bedrooms, cuts the draft created by the fireplace and keeps rooms warmer when the heating does not reach the whole house. Some people notice it daily: coming home with all the doors closed, the apartment is warmer.
The other issue is living together. With a child studying and football on at full volume in the living room, the door is welcome. Also for watching a movie without waking the rest of the family. Whoever lives alone, on the other hand, has free rein to do as they please.
How to know if you will miss it
The most common and cheapest test: take the door off its hinges and leave the opening open for a few days, living as normal. If after a week you do not miss it, go ahead. If discomfort appears, hang it back up. Zero investment and an informed decision.
Other people's experience warns otherwise: those who removed the door during a renovation and threw it away regretted it a year later. And those who renovated afterwards refused to repeat the mistake.
In the end, the question is not whether the door is in or out. It is how many times a year you actually close it. If the answer tends to zero, the opening is yours. If it tends to more than you think, that panel in the way is doing invisible work.
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (25 replies).
More summaries
-
From bedroom to home office: what a sliding door really costs
Turning a room into a home office costs between €115 and €1,000. A guide to the options, prices and the drawbacks of sliding doors.
-
Reinforced door security: wall anchoring or just deterrence
A technical analysis of whether armoring a door is enough or whether the frame must be anchored to the wall to prevent forced entry.
-
The Bill Puertas and Gugel garage: myth or elite story
The founding garage myth of Bill Puertas and Gugel is under scrutiny: some argue there were connections, contracts and structural advantages behind it.
-
Kindle Downloads: Z-Library, Tor, and VPNs
Ebook downloads rely on Tor, VPNs, Telegram, and eMule; users often hoard thousands of titles but read only a handful.
-
Longevity signals vs early mortality: what your body reveals
Grip strength, rising from a chair without using your hands, and balancing on one leg are linked to longer life. Prolonged loneliness and a sedentary lifestyle work against it.
-
Specialty coffee: a waste of money
A double espresso concentrates enough caffeine to disrupt sleep, and café coffee with sugar and milk delivers the same habit for far less money. Come in and see the numbers.