Can pocket doors be used to divide a room or create a closet?

The headline benefit of the pocket door is its ability to create space in a room, which subsequently allows you to change the purpose of that room, or to make it a multi-purpose room. Because the pocket door doesn’t open into a room like a traditional hinged door, this opens up around 10 square feet of usable space. In many cases this is just enough to create an en-suite bathroom, a home office, a downstairs toilet, or to also use the home office as an occasional guest bedroom. But there are other benefits to the pocket door which are linked to this space-creating quality, and yes, pocket doors can be used to divide a room and create a closet.

How pocket doors create space

Pocket doors are able to create vital space because when they open they slide into a ‘pocket’ recess in the wall. This means they remain in the same orientation and don’t open into the room, therefore not encroaching into the space in a room. So ordinarily you would never think to store things directly behind a door, and you would never think to install or stand something within the opening arc that a traditional hinged door needs, such as a desk, a wardrobe or a wash basin.

With a pocket door you can do this. But this ability to create space also opens up other opportunities in the home or workplace which enables you to make a much more efficient use of space, and also implement practical solutions to help with general problems of storage or with accommodating people within the space you have available.

How to divide a room with a pocket door

At home we often see problems with finding space for a growing family, and it is not always possible to move house, build an extension or convert the loft to create an extra bedroom. The pocket door enables you to divide a large bedroom into two smaller bedrooms. Providing the initial space is large enough, you can build a stud wall to divide the room into two rooms, and then install a pocket door to maximise the available space. Pocket door systems use a frame which fits into the cavity in the stud wall. One child would have to walk through the first bedroom to get to the second, unless the layout of your home enables you to do this differently, but the ultimate benefit is that your growing children have sufficient privacy and the excitement of a space to call their own, rather than having to share a room. This work may also add value to your home.

In a work situation this same problem can occur, as a business takes on more staff and needs to create more office space. Not everybody wants to share an open-plan office, and it may not be appropriate for privacy or security reasons anyway, so adding a stud wall and a pocket door allows you to divide a space easily and create two offices from one. The pocket door creates the vital amount of space you need to fit office equipment in both smaller offices.

Other space-creating solutions provided by the pocket door

In addition to creating two separate rooms and dividing a large space into two smaller spaces, a pocket door also allows you to create vital storage space, such as a closet. How often do we bemoan the need for more storage in the home? And we regularly have to stack things up on the floor, or cram things in drawers because we don’t have enough storage space. And yet, we often have bedrooms that are larger than we need, and rather than dividing a room to create a second room, as in the example above, we can use the same principle to create a storage closet.

By installing a stud wall and a pocket door we can use superfluous space at the end of a room and create storage. We don’t need a closet for clothes, toys or books to be seen, or on view, so we can shut that space off and with a pocket door it is accessible, but shut away to make the house much neater and visually pleasing, and the space created by the pocket door enables us to erect shelves directly behind the door. The space may only be a few feet deep, but it is a valuable storage solution and with a traditional hinged door this wouldn’t be possible, but a pocket door unlocks this possibility. This same idea applies to a work environment where larger office space can be sectioned off with a stud wall and a pocket door, to create storage, or a computer server room, a toilet or even a small kitchen for employees.

In both cases – home and work – the pocket door provides valuable practical solutions which are simple and inexpensive compared to the much more complex structural work of adding additional space.