The swing arc a door almost never uses now
A door plan with its swing arc fully drawn and barely used — the door held instead at a narrow gap by a small wedge on the floor.
One door, seen from directly above, in plan. Its full swing traces a fine dotted quarter circle — everything the door is capable of. The door itself sits stopped a short way along that arc, at a narrow gap, held there by a small wedge on the floor. A bracket marks the width of the opening. The rest of the arc goes on being drawn, and goes on being unused.
The door still swings that far. It just doesn't, any more.
What does this door plan actually show?
Two facts on the same drawing: what the door is built to do, and what it's currently being used for, and the gap between them.
A plan view is the only angle that can hold both at once. From the side, a door either looks open or shut. From above, its whole possible range is a shape you can draw once and never redraw — and a door propped at a narrow gap sits inside that shape as a small, specific portion of something much larger. The arc isn't decoration. It's the only way to show how much of the door's normal range has been given up.
Why does the drawn arc matter more than the door itself?
Because a closed door and a wedged-open door look almost identical from the side, and only the plan makes the difference legible. A small plug-in light left low along a dark hallway does the same job for a different sense — a fitting sized to what one animal actually needs, rather than to the room's original design.
Seen face-on, a door held at a narrow gap could be a door blown ajar by a draught, or a door somebody forgot to shut properly. From above, with the full arc drawn and the wedge visible, it reads as neither — a door kept deliberately at one specific width, smaller than fully open and larger than fully shut, for a reason that has nothing to do with a draught or forgetting.
What makes a good drawing of a plan like this?
Making the unused portion of the arc as clearly drawn as the part that's in use.
If the arc fades out or simplifies once it passes the wedge, the design loses its whole argument, which is that the door could still go the rest of the way and doesn't. The wedge itself should read as small and specific, an object placed there on purpose rather than a smudge. The bracket marking the gap's width should stay plain and unlabelled: what matters is that a measurement was taken, not what the figure is.
Do I need permission to print a door plan like this?
No — a generic door, wedge and swing arc, drawn without a specific building's actual dimensions or any architect's stamped drawing, isn't anyone's design. It's the plain geometry any door makes when it opens, rendered as a diagram rather than copied from a real plan.
Does a door held at a narrow gap only ever mean a litter tray on the other side?
No — the same small wedge shows up wherever a door needs to sit at one specific width rather than fully open or fully shut: airflow for an animal that runs hot, a sightline into a room somebody wants to check without a full open door, or simply a gap sized to one animal and nobody else. A hook-and-eye catch fitted to a window in a mismatched finish is the same narrowing applied to a different kind of opening.
Isn't a wedge just a temporary fix?
Not once it's been there long enough that the door's own swing has stopped mattering.
A wedge is, by design, the least permanent fitting available — no screws, no adjustment, nothing that couldn't be kicked aside in a second. That's exactly what makes it worth noticing when it stays: a household that wanted the old arrangement back could restore it at any moment and simply hasn't. A pressure-fitted stair gate closed across the bottom of a staircase makes the same point with a fitting that isn't removable in one movement, which makes the door's version, if anything, the more deliberate one.
Does it print well?
Yes — a dotted arc against a solid door shape is a clean line-weight contrast that holds up at any size.
Keep the arc fine and dotted against a solid, confidently drawn door and wedge — the contrast between drawn-but-unused and solid-and-in-use is the whole design. Charcoal, graphite or a deep slate all sit well behind it, since the piece is entirely line work against a plain field.
How do I get one made?
Describe the door at JustOG — how wide the gap should read against the full arc, and where the wedge sits. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped.
Designs other people have published are in the shop.
A quarter circle, mostly unused, and a door that hasn't swung that far in a while.