Framing A Bathroom Archway to Add A Door

View from outside bathroom (door inside is toilet)

[Update: Part Two of Adding a Door to a Bathroom Archway is posted.  All drywall and texture completed.]

Dad Fix Tip #7: How to Frame in an Archway

Part One

As I was working on my living room niche last week, a buddy from church stopped by to borrow a razor knife. He was a carpenter by trade and was working on adding a walk-in pantry inside a neighbor's house across the street (neighbor's solution to MORE food storage space.) Somehow in the conversation between him and Wifey, they discussed how he added a door to his master bathroom which was originally only designed as an archway (read: shower without privacy door + 6 daughters = no privacy for Dad.)

Next thing I know, he's offering to add a doorway for us for around $150. Seriously? How can I turn THAT down! He came over a few days later and framed in the archway. I'll show the pictures of the framework and update the progress of this structure as it happens (see Part Two.)

No pun intended but this project opens up a ton of doors for us! Not only will we be able to LOCK our bathroom now (think six daughters!) but we could also potentially turn this room into a safe room. I've blogged about using Armor Concepts and their amazing door jamb armor (police battering ram video) and could use it to create a safe room.



View from inside the bathroom.



The drywall should be done this coming Saturday and the door will be hung after the drywall is finished. We might have a hard time finding a matching door since our house was built back in 2001. Nevertheless, we are excited about our soon-to-be bathroom privacy and security. A large part of Wifey cleaning and re-cleaning our bedroom is due to the toddlers pulling out all the scrunchies, hair clips, bobby pins, etc from the bathroom and littering them everywhere else.

I'd like to replace the over-sized bathtub in this bathroom with something more practical since we mostly use the stand-alone shower. The toddlers get to use our tub on occasion as their play pool. But until we find some pictures/ideas of something to actually replace the tub with, we'll just leave it.