I am looking to frame in a room in our unfinished basement. In the picture, I'm standing in the area that I want to finish, and I want to put a door in that approximate location to allow egress to the unfinished part. The stairs in the background go to outside.
Trouble is, the bottom of that beam is 79.5 inches above the floor. I really want to be able to put an 80" door in there, for code reasons and for convenience.
I am thinking that I may need to frame against the ceiling right beside that beam instead of under it. Are there any issues with this? I don't want to cut down a door myself, but are there any other options? 
Best Answer
Cutting a door isn't hard: clamp a straightedge to the door and go at it with a circular saw.
If you wanted to maximize height, you could use the beam as the head of the jamb. Maybe skin it with 1/4" luan to hide the rough lumber. That would leave you a 79-1/4" height, which is probably indistinguishable from a normal door.
That said, however, your adopted code might actually specify 80" height for egress, so you need to decide where you stand on that sort of thing.