Bathroom Remodel - Pocket Door

Every comment I’ve ever seen on this board re: pocket doors has ranged from mild annoyance to total piss off.

As an occasional user of pocket doors at hotels, friends house, etc. - I hate them.

I grew up with one on our bathroom, it was fine. In the houses I've owned, I can think of at least 10 cases, 4 in my current house, where the doors are in the damn way and a pocket door makes more sense. Not doing it unless I'm already redoing an entire room though.

Love/hate relationship with pocket doors.

Great that they save space and functional..eventually they all seem to become unlevel..so either they want stay completely open or completely closed...and to relevel you need to take some of the trim moulding off and if you have intricate trim well then I'll just live with it being unlevel I guess.

I have 5 in my house. 3 for closets, 2 for bathrooms. One of them was on the plans, the framer omitted it, I had him add it back. It NEVER gets used. Wish I would have just rolled without it.

Do not recommend.

They don’t seal well at all. They are terrible for noise isolation (since this is for a bathroom). They are not “easy” to operate and do not lock all that well. They are noisy compared to a regular door. The area where they retract into the wall becomes useless on both sides. No electrical, no plumbing, no studs, no cabinets. Even hanging a picture can be troublesome and you have to be careful. The wall is noticeably flimsy by comparison. This is why I mentioned if it’s on a wet wall where a 2x6 framing is required, you can utilize the extra space for studs and really stiffen the wall and make it useful.

At the framing stage, installation is not too bad. Trimming them out sucks.

If they ever fail, you’re ripping into trim at a minimum, the wall otherwise.

They solve a problem that’s the result of poor design. They are great for the problem they solve. Legitimately 2 or 3 of my 5 are useful. The others I wish I would have modified to use a standard door.

Like I said before, do everything you can to avoid them.

My house I built in 93, I had 4 pocket doors. If it’s something that stays open 90% of the time, they are great.
If it’s something that you will be opening and closing all the time, nope, it’s a pain.

if you have the room you can make a double wall with a cavity for the pocket door leafs on both sides. That will give you usable wall space and still have the pocket doors

assuming a 2” cavity plus 4” wall on either side you’ll have a 10” wall. You could also use 2” studs to narrow it down further

would a sliding barn style door work instead?

I added 3 in my master bath/ closets and don't regret it. When walking into my bath, the double vanities are on the left and the closets are to the right and were out swing doors. My wife would always leave her side open so you'd have to close it to get to the entrance where toilet and shower are. I got tired of it so added them there. the entrance to the toilet and shower was an inswing door and would hit the toilet when fully opened. I got tired of that too and added a pocket door. Now whether they are opened or closed, there's no interference in the walkways to each area. I put one in my upstairs bathroom but only because we were able to add a closet. I didn't want those doors to tangle with each other so now they work as I wanted. I went with johnson hardware for all of mine and have been pleased. I used kwikset for all of the lock hardware and they've been working well.

quote:

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Don’t do it.

Do everything you can to avoid it.

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I would double down on this advice if there was any chance kids will be using the pocket doors. I lost count number of times I've had to rehang pocket doors to the kids' bathroom.