What are Pocket Doors?

As the saying goes, everything old is new again. Pocket doors have been around for more than one hundred years - and they have recently resurfaced as interesting architectural elements. Simply put, a pocket door is a door that is not set on hinges to swing open, but that slides in and out of a space hidden within the wall. Pocket doors come either as singles, which slide open and shut from either the left or the right, or double pocket doors, which slide together and meet in the middle from both the right and left sides. The primary reason for installing sliding pocket doors is to save space; a hinged door can take up to 10 square feet (one square meter) of floor space, but there are a number of other reasons to choose a pocket door. Pocket doors were extremely popular during the late-1800s and early 1900s. Many historic homes still hold fine examples of these antique doors. No one is quite sure why the pocket door went out of fashion, but the interest in installing pocket doors has ...  more