Today I wanted to go over some of the considerations you should keep in mind before installing a pocket door. We’re firmly in the pocket door fan club (they make such a great element of surprise)! But I’ve heard from some of you that you’d like to know if pocket doors will work in your space. Since we’ve thrown in a few over the years, I thought I’d run through some questions you should ask yourself—or find out—before you take the plunge at home.
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How big is your wall?
Do you have enough wall space for your door to go all the way in and out of the way? If it’s a 30-inch door and you only have two feet of wall space, unfortunately, you’ll have to find a different solution.
Is the wall load-bearing?
Another thing to consider is whether or not it is a load-bearing wall. The pocket door frame is not load rated. If you’re going to install a pocket door in a load-bearing wall, you’ll need to frame a header into the entire portion of the door that’s large enough to support the weight above it. Since this is structural engineering, you should consult with a contractor or structural engineer so they can tell you what size header to install.
What’s inside the wall?
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Next, you’ll want to know what’s inside the wall you plan to use for the pocket door. Do you have a central vacuum system? What about the water lines from the floor up? If you’re going to turn that area into a pocket door, you’ll need to be able to redirect it. With plumbing, it’s not always an easy fix, so just know that costs can add up.
Is there a light switch there?
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A common consideration for pocket doors is whether there are light switches next to the current door or opening. But don’t be afraid! There are narrow light switch boxes that are only 1.5″ deep. As long as there aren’t a lot of wires going through the box, you can use the ones on the wall. Otherwise, the electrician can often reroute the wires and put them on another wall.
That’s actually what we decided to do. Instead of having the light switch inside the wall, we just moved it to the other side wall. Our electrical is very accessible from the crawl space so it was easy to do. In homes where this is not the case, using one of those thinner boxes can be a good option.
How do you want the door to work?
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The function of the door is another good thing to consider. Should it be locked? If it’s just a walk-through, you can save yourself a lot of headaches by not having to worry about locks. That way you can only have open and close handles. Be sure to look at the space required for the various pieces of hardware. If it sticks out too far from the door, it will catch as you close the door. You don’t want that to happen.
Do you care how loud the door will be?
There are wonderful soft open and soft close kits that you can get for a variety of doors that help keep the door from slamming. We loved ours. Soft open kits often have to be installed with the door frame. So you’ll want to have them in place before you add the sheet metal and seal the wall around it.
Many times softer close kits can be added later. Whether or not you can do both depends on the width of your door. Anything 24″ and under can only have a soft opening OR soft close. Doors 30″ and up can usually do both. But that will depend on the manufacturer of the pocket door kit you get – the actual frame – and the brand of the sliding track hardware kit.
How much effort do you want to put into it?
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The main factor to consider is how much work you want to put into installing the pocket door.
There are pocket door kits that come together – they have a frame, all you have to do is frame your 2×4 wide enough for the whole kit. Then it is placed in its place. And then you turn around the putty for the pocket door and that makes it really easy. They tend to be a bit flimsy and noisier. So if you tap or bang on the wall, it’s very shaky and it’s a bit weak. They are great, we used them most of the time. Most people don’t bang on their walls very often.
In other cases where we needed a thicker wall, we built a wall with two-by-fours. We even took two by fours and put them on the flat side to create a 1.5 inch wall where we needed more structure. That’s one way we got around the payload problem. Instead of having to build an additional header, we built a two-by-four wall. Then we turned them over and left a gap for the pocket door track system between them. This gives you a much more stable wall if you have the space for it. And it reduces noise.
Typically for most interior doors, you’re dealing with a 4-4.5 inch wall, and a full kit makes the most sense.
How do you want the door to open?
Most brands are the same. However, there is a luxury brand that we have built into our cabin. It’s called Sugatsune. They had a system called the unified double pocket door system. This is where both pocket doors would close and open at the same time. So you would pull one and the other would open. It was really great, BUT the downside is that all the components are behind the sheet metal. So if there’s ever a problem with the door and it needs fixing, you’ll open the stone to do it.
Actually, one of our daughters climbed up on one of those pocket doors and hung from it, and jumped him off the fence. That was probably a month after we installed it. So we had to open the sheet metal and put it back in place and then put the sheet rock back in place. But then the cabin burned down two weeks later and all was lost anyway. (I’m not over it.)
Anyway, back to the pocket door. I hope you’ve “pocketed” a lot of good information to help you consider whether pocket doors make sense for your space. They really have a lot of benefits, and we’ve loved all the ones we’ve installed over the years — from our old closet to our new study.
