Abstract It is known that if a rearrangement invariant (r.i.) space E on [0, 1] has an unconditional basis then every linear bounded operator on E is a sum of two narrow operators. On the other hand, for the classical space E = L 1[0, 1] having no unconditional basis the sum of two narrow operators is a narrow operator. We show that a Köthe space on [0, 1] having “lots” of nonnarrow operators that are sum of two narrow operators need not have an unconditional basis. However, we do not know if such an r.i. space exists. Another result establishes sufficient conditions on an r.i. space E under which the orthogonal projection onto the closed linear span of the Rademacher system is a hereditarily narrow operator. This, in particular, answers a question of the first named author and Randrianantoanina (Problem 11.9 in [Popov M., Randrianantoanina B., Narrow Operators on Function Spaces and Vector Lattices, de Gruyter Stud. Math., 45, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2013]).