Flush door versus hidden door

The flush door

A flush door is any door with a flat face and no panels, grooves or mouldings. It is the default door of a contemporary interior: a veneered or painted leaf in a timber frame with an architrave covering the joint between the frame and the wall. The leaf is hung on butt hinges or concealed hinges, and the door can be any size up to full height. A flush door is quick to install in a finished room, because the frame is fixed into the existing opening and the architrave hides the plaster edge.

The hidden door

A hidden door is a flush door taken one step further. The frame is a concealed aluminium or timber section that is built into the wall and plastered flush with it, so there is no architrave and no visible frame. The leaf finishes level with the wall face, the hinges are concealed inside the edge of the leaf, and the only line you see is a shadow gap a few millimetres wide around the door. Painted the same colour as the wall, or panelled or clad with the wall, the door disappears. The handle is the only clue, and on a push to open door even that goes.

	Flush door	Hidden door
Frame	Timber frame with architrave	Concealed frame plastered into the wall
Face	Flat, level with the frame	Flat, level with the wall
Hinges	Butt or concealed	Concealed, adjustable
Installation	Into a finished opening, quick	Before plastering, coordinated with the contractor
Finishing	Door finished in the factory	Door and wall finished together on site, or door in primer
Cost	Interior doors from AED 3,800, door and frame	Higher, for the frame and the site work
Suits	Any interior, renovations	Minimal interiors, corridors, new builds and full renovations

What the wall needs for a hidden door

The concealed frame is fixed into the opening and then plastered or boarded over on both sides, so the wall must be open or being refinished. In a new build or a full renovation this is planned in. In a finished house it means cutting back the plaster around the opening and making good, which is why hidden doors are usually chosen when the walls are being done anyway. The frame also needs a true, plumb opening, and the leaf needs the full wall thickness, so very thin partitions are checked at the site measure.

Finishing the two together

A hidden door only disappears if the door and the wall match. Our doors are sprayed with PU paint, which is harder and smoother than the emulsion on a wall, so there can be a slight difference in sheen where the two meet. The honest answers are to supply the door in primer so your painter finishes the door and the wall together in the same wall paint, which gives a perfect match, or to paint the door in a regular wall paint to your colour code. The wall finishing around the frame is done by your painter and is not part of the door price.

Which to choose

Choose a hidden door when you want the walls to read as clean planes: along a corridor, in a minimal living room, for a dressing room or a plant room off a hall, or for a door inside a run of wall panelling. Choose a flush door in a frame when you want a simpler installation, are replacing doors in finished walls, or want the door to read as a door, with a contrasting veneer or colour.

Cost and time

A flush door is the most economical door we make: interior doors start from AED 3,800 for the door and frame, with installation, hardware and architrave itemised. A hidden door costs more because of the concealed frame and the site coordination, and it takes longer because the frame goes in before the plaster and the leaf goes in after the paint. The result is worth it where the architecture asks for it.

See our hidden and flush doors and interior doors, or draw one in the designer.