Our original plans for finishing the basement included the removal of the basement door. During the process though, we decided it might be nice to be able to close that door some of the time – a perfect example was a few weeks ago when we hosted a baby shower for friends of ours and the guys watched football downstairs while the ladies did their showery things upstairs.

The only problem is that the current basement door opens out into a main floor walkway, blocking the walkway. Having the door open the opposite way into the stairwell would solve the blocked walkway issue, but would be pretty awkward when opening the door when coming up the stairs.

The solution our contractor came up with was to put in a split door that swings both ways, like you see leading to a kitchen in a restaurant. The doors can “stick” in an open position inside the stairwell when we want to have it opened up, and can swing into the main floor walkway if they were closed and someone needs to open them from the stairwell.

This should work quite well, there was only one problem: the light switch at the top of the stairway is inside the stairwell and will be covered by the door when the door is propped open.

I figured there had to be a remote light switch or something we could install, and there is. A little searching found this RF remote 3-way light switch, which is just what I needed.

The RF receiver will go in the current box, and the battery powered remote switch will be installed outside the stairwell. It should be that easy, right? 🙂