DesignSolutions: Internal doors often aren't the most attractive architectural features, particularly those leading to ancillary rooms such as bathrooms and kitchens.

Short of construction work or re-fitting the whole door and surround, there doesn't seem to be much that can be done with a plain or badly placed doorway.

Such a problem faced Arthur Duff, who with business partner Greg Tisdall operates Duff Tisdall, an architecture and furniture design practice with showrooms in Dublin. "We had a hallway with two doors opening off it to a kitchen and bathroom and wanted to make them less obvious," he says.

Sometimes making a feature of the problem provides the solution.

The entire wall with the two doors is now panelled in MDF veneered with oak but it's not immediately obvious that there are doors there at all. It's not a revolutionary idea - panelling has long been used to disguise doors - but that's no bad thing: it works.

The pieces of MDF have been placed in a symmetrical fashion and, says Arthur "what was an eyesore is now very attractive. The panels were cut out and simply fitted to the walls. Something similar could be done in other situations, if you figure out the details: for example, we had to take off the architrave on the doors to make them flush to the wall."

As you walk down the wide hall, perhaps the only give away that the doors exist are small leather pull handles that, as Arthur points out, "aren't immediately identifiable as a standard door knob might be". And it's all something that isn't terribly expensive to do - MDF is a relatively cheap material - and a reasonably skilled carpenter should be able to put it together.