Pocket doors for open-concept living - creating flexible spaces

The idea of open concept living has been with us for many years now, and is no longer a new Millennium design trend and is accepted as a modern way of living. Indeed, people have generally moved on from open concept living as a singular solution and added variations which introduce flexibility and allow spaces to be used for multiple purposes. In different areas of our lives we are now gripped by the idea of smart technology, and one ‘thing’ having several uses, like a phone that is also a camera, video recorder, music player, voice recorder, games console and notes maker, and a smart speaker that plays the radio, plays music, plays videos, shows us recipes and even shows us who is at the front door. The same applies to our living space, and in this situation the ‘smart’ solution is the pocket door.

What is open concept living?

Open concept living in a physical sense is the idea of having an open floor plan on the ground floor of the home. So this home has removed all the physical barriers, such as walls and doors, but also it has removed all the metaphorical barriers, ie. what we traditionally see as a conventional home, and so we can now open our minds to a new way of living.

In a more traditional home, an entrance hallway typically leads to individual rooms which are used for individual purposes. In terms of utilisation, this may lead to some rooms barely being used all week and only being used at weekends, while some rooms are used during the day and never in the evenings. With open concept living, the entire ground floor space is used all day and every day. Another benefit is that homes with a relatively small footprint can feel large, and natural light from one window can spread across a larger space.  

The phrase ‘open concept’ effectively means you can do anything you want with a space, but while we like the idea of throwing away tradition, most open concept floor plans still retain conventional areas for cooking, eating and relaxing. However, because these areas are open and flexible, we can use the space for other purposes too. Open concept living typically has fewer private spaces and the various common areas tend to blend together to form one large space, but because we like flexibility and various solutions from one ‘thing’ we also need to find a way to create temporary spaces, and the pocket door is the way we can do this.

How the pocket door works with open concept living

Where open concept living has stripped away walls and doors it usually leaves upright steel beams, because obviously the upstairs floors still need supporting. Introducing pocket doors to an open floor plan does mean creating some wall space, which is easily done using a standard stud wall format, but because the doors disappear into the wall ‘pocket’ when opened you can still retain the feeling of an open floor plan.

Using this solution, a dining area can be private and intimate, or opened up for big family occasions. A desk space can be a home office during the day and become part of the family TV area during the evenings. Kids can have quiet reading spaces when they need it and these become part of the communal family areas later in the day. The idea of cooking the evening meal while the rest of the household come and go and arrive home from their day, is a really important concept for some families, and this is where open concept living comes into its own, but introducing pocket doors also enables you to close these spaces off if someone wants time alone, or when the family separates off later on to do their own thing. These are equally important to general family life and pocket doors enable this idea of connecting with each other, and connecting spaces together, but also disconnecting when we want to. In that sense, pocket doors are the smart solution which help to bring harmony and cohesion by delivering temporary spaces we can use as we need to, and in that respect, pocket doors are still aligning with the general idea of open concept living, because there are no rules and no conventions, and you can open and close off space as and when you want to.

Our range of pocket door systems at Pocket Door Shop

At Pocket Door Shop we have a range of contemporary pocket door systems which can work in any open concept living space. Our single and double doors can be supplied as flush systems with no architrave, to ensure your open concept living space remains clean, minimalist and unfussy. So check out our range and order online today and make pocket doors the flexible, smart solution for your multi-purpose home.