Understanding Pocket Door
Pocket doors were immensely popular in Victorian-era homes during the late 1800s, where large double pocket doors separated parlors from dining rooms. They fell out of favor in the mid-20th century due to unreliable hardware and the difficulty of repairing mechanisms hidden inside walls. Modern pocket door systems have been re-engineered with soft-close mechanisms, ball-bearing rollers, and aluminum tracks that are far more reliable than their predecessors. The door panel slides on an overhead track into a hollow wall cavity that is framed specifically for the pocket — the cavity requires a wall at least twice the width of the door opening. Pocket doors can be single (one door panel) or double (two panels that slide into opposite walls). They are available in standard wood panel, glass panel, frosted glass, and even mirror configurations.
Pocket Door in Interior Design
Pocket doors are a space-planning solution that designers use wherever traditional swinging doors would waste space or disrupt traffic flow. They are ideal for small bathrooms, closets, pantries, laundry rooms, and between rooms where the door is often left open anyway. In modern interiors, glass pocket doors create flexible room divisions — separating a home office from a living room when privacy is needed while opening completely to maintain an open floor plan when not. In small apartments and condos, pocket doors between bedrooms and bathrooms save the 9-10 square feet of floor space that a swinging door's arc would consume. The design challenge is that pocket door walls cannot contain electrical outlets, switches, or plumbing where the pocket cavity exists, requiring careful planning during the design phase.
