Once I got into universal design (see the last few Wednesday posts), I never got out of it. I began to view housing, inside and out, big and small, as a new puzzle instead of a previously-solved issue.

The closet door question engaged me for some weeks, for example, and I’m sure the subject isn’t closed yet.

I was living in the old creekside cottage then. We were having persistent door problems. The front door tended to drag on the entry tile during the wet months, and my father had already jammed more toothpicks than I would have thought possible into its old screw holes, to reduce their aperture. The back door deadbolt worked every day, provided you jimmied the door up or down to engage it, but the knob almost never latched.

I was in my bed and about to start drifting to dream when I aimed my tired eyes at my closet door and was momentarily grateful that it didn’t have a hinge problem

And stopped cold. Stopped drifting to sleep and started wondering: why do we make closet doors so solid? That closet entrance was just like a door to any room in the house, paneled and able to collect dust on its trim, hinged and vulnerable.

I asked myself what sort of closet door is needed? What is the question?

The answer is: not much. A closet door only has to be a visual and dust barrier.

I got to thinking: when it comes to disability, the issue isn’t “if.” The real questions are “When? How bad? How long? How visible?” If I were in a wheelchair, what sort of closet door would be best for me? Certainly not the variety I was seeing. I’d have to back my chair up as I opened it. What about sliding doors? Better, but they require space to slide into. Bifolds? They’re iffy – too easy to get off track. A curtain? Tacky-looking.

The best idea I came up with then is still my front-runner: light wooden bifold (or multi-fold) frames, with fabric stretched over them. The lightness of the frame gets around the off-balance or off-track problem and puts low stress on hinges. The fabric is a design element that can easily be cleaned or changed.

As I said above, the closet door question is still an open one. Like most.