Solution for a door frame with no room for a door?

[BirdsRoundandRound]

I suspect from my fruitless google searches the answer for this is no, but I wondered if anyone had any innovative solutions for a doorless doorway with no room for a door to open.

It's between the kitchen and hall and has just been an open doorway since we bought the house (I suspect because when the previous owners did up the kitchen they couldn't work out how to fit a door that wouldn't get in the way). The ideal solution would have been to fit a pocket door at the time, but now that would be a lot of work to retrofit one causing a lot of remedial work.

Essentially layout is this:

Hallway side: Left of doorway is a coat closet that opens outwards into hall, right hand side are build in understairs cupboards that open in the hall.
Kitchen side: left hand side is main walkway past the island (with the light switches on that wall), right hand side is the fridge with the door opening directly into the doorway space.

We'd like to close it off for a few reasons:
Cooking smells go all the way up the stairs
Heat retention as it can be drafty from the front door
We have a dog and I'd like to be able to shut her in (we have a babygate in the doorway at the moment but I hate it visually and it's a pain as opens onto the fridge door)

The only solution I can see that doesn't involve ripping out the fridge and cupboards is a concertina door, but these seem very cheap, not very attractive and i'm not sure would contain our dog!

Any other suggestions I'm missing? Or do we have to accept that we'll have to either put up with it or undertake a much larger job that we'd like?

A door that opens onto either the coat cupboard or the under stairs storage? I mean, if you have a need to close the room off then surely having to close the door so you can occasionally open one of those is the simplest solution?

Yes that's a good point, I suppose I was trying to find a solution that wouldn't be a constant annoyance (as I would imagine the door would usually be open) but that is definitely an option!

Can't truly visualise but what about a sliding door - kind of like a pocket door but there's no pocket? I have a concertina door on a cupboard (boiler bigger than expected), it looks OK but wouldn't hold a dog back that's determined to get out. Would two louvred doors work maybe - you could put a catch on the hall side to hold together to keep dog in?

Does changing which way your fridge opens help at all? That’s easy to do.

Look at barn doors that slide from the top

https://www.leaderdoors.co.uk/doors-c14/internal-doors-c111/internal-sliding-doors-c1200

A bifold door, not a concertina door, one that hinges in the middle.

Hello OP.
I'm no 100% clear on what you are seeking but IMO, you'd benefit from a:

Cowboy door, ie door slip in half therefore takes half the room to open

Or a door, called a 'slave door I think as I saw a client with it. This is a soor of any size where you split it in two and it does not have to be 50/50. EG, 30% of the door kept closed by bolt and 70% or whatever percentages to want
and you could easily open the whole door by unbolting the smaller portion

We are having a pocket door constructed as we have a similar situation and we’re in fact the ones who took the original door out because it was so blooming annoying. We have a cupboard where you have your fridge I think and the pocket is being constructed behind this. It does make the cupboard sit slightly further out but it was the nearest option we could find, concertina doors just don’t look nice to me and I worry about fingers getting caught in the fold.

This is a big door in pic but but carpenter could make bespoke

https://www.safehingeprimera.com/products/mental-health/locksets-handles/slave-leaf-locking

Sliding door or door curtain

Thanks for all the ideas - I like the cowboy door idea as could open inwards to the kitchen, then just close the half when we need to open the fridge door. We have to do similar with the dog gate at the moment, so I can't see it being any more annoying than that, and would be half the width.

We can't move the fridge to install a pocket without having to take all the cupboards out (it's at 90 degrees to the door flush against the wall next to the door).

Although I'm assuming cowboy doors are just french type doors but half the width to fit into a normal door frame? I've just googled and it's showing me saloon doors which wouldn't keep the dog contained 😂

Btw, if you like my 'cowboy door idea' - you may want to consider an overlapping lip of the doors this will create a better barrier to stop smells. The downside is you will have to open on door first before the other because of the overlap - consider safety glass if you want extra light or half glass
Good luck

My kitchen fitter suggested a folding door for my kitchen. It works really well.

We have a doorless doorway. We had a concertina door until recently. Now, it just has a heavy door curtain over it, which is amazing at keeping the heat in.