Pocket doors are the transformational home improvement feature you never knew you needed. In terms of visual appeal and functional practicality they open up a huge range of possibilities in the home and the workplace, and here we will study the various benefits they can provide.
Appearance
The pocket door first came to prominence in Victorian times, but has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, mostly for practical reasons, but also for visual reasons. All retro features seem to enjoy a comeback at some point as fashion tends to work in cycles. So many people see pocket doors as a quirky design feature for period homes, but because they are sleek, elegant and minimalist (particularly if you choose a design with no architrave) they also work in contemporary homes and modern office buildings, where everything is about clean lines and an unfussy lack of detail.
Space
If you open a traditional hinged door it moves in an arc into a room, but the pocket door opens sideways along an overhead rail, into a ‘pocket’ wall cavity in the adjacent wall. This means that the space immediately behind the door becomes usable because the door doesn’t encroach into the room and anything stored behind the door isn’t an obstacle. This means if you install a pocket door in a small room it can be used for new or multiple purposes. Small rooms can be used for storage, or you can use a room for a guest bedroom and a home office, or you can divide larger rooms into new smaller rooms and create an extra bedroom or an en-suite. Downstairs you could create a toilet or a utility room. Pocket doors are also useful in a commercial business for creating storage, or small rooms such as computer server rooms, kitchens or small offices.
Flexibility
In an open plan space, the pocket door can be used to provide flexibility, which allows you to open and close spaces as you see fit. So if you have an open plan layout, you can close off space in the evening to create intimate dining areas, study areas or for watching a movie, and open these spaces up during the day or when you have people over for entertaining, as the open space creates more flow and provides atmosphere. In the workplace, you can close-off open plan spaces to create temporary office or meeting rooms, or for demonstration and training purposes.
Accessibility
The final popular benefit of pocket doors is how they aid people with accessibility or mobility issues. Pocket doors are easy to open as they just require a sideways push, but for someone with mobility issues they don’t have to move backwards to enable the door to open, and then move forwards to pass through the door. They just stay where they are. Accessories can also be added to a pocket door to automatically close the door after you have passed through it, so there is no additional action required. The pocket door also provides slightly more space for a person to pass through, because the door is not attached to the side of the frame like a hinged door is, so someone with mobility issues has more space to manoeuvre.
Check out our range of pocket door systems at the Pocket Door Shop and you can start to enjoy the benefits of the pocket door in the home or the workplace.