Internal folding doors - recommendations please

[WaveRider18]

I'm about to knock through from the kitchen to the dining room. The dining room is (however) part of a large L shaped lounge/diner. I'd like to install internal folding doors between the new kitchen diner and the lounge otherwise we won't be able to shut off the kitchen (smells, etc.) from the lounge. The 'door' space will be about 2.8m long, I'd like to be able to open up into the lounge so we can extend a table when needed for (big) family gatherings (the diner bit isn't that big).

Has anyone got experience of installing folding doors? Do you get the use out of the doors or do they stay permanently open?

Did you go for ones with top and bottom track or just top (I'd like to avoid a bottom track if possible for aesthetics).

I like the look of these: www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Belgrave-Internal-Folding-Door-Oak-Veneer-1-Lite-2074x2390mm/p/106922 but any recommendations (or ones to avoid) would be helpful.

TIA!

Wow they look lovely but are pricey for a veneer door. Did you think of pricing with a joiner instead? You might be pleasantly surprised at the cost and you can have them built to your own spec.
I imagine they'd be more robust with a bottom track also, you could price countersinking the track so there'd be no trip hazard, depends on the existing flooring.
I'm pricing pocket doors at the mo but the wall they will be on has plenty of space either side for them to slide in, may not be an option for your layout.

I just moved to a house that seems very similar to yours. Kitchen part has already been knocked down, so I have L shape kitchen/dining/living room, which I am planning to divide by a partial stud wall and a sliding door. The width of the dining/living room is abt 2.8m in total. I am planning to have abt 1.8m partition wall and the rest as sliding wall at one side.

I found a sample of a sliding door which I love (my house is 1960s which suits the style) and I am planning to order a bespoke door following this sample.
Link: here

I thought long and hard about having doors in the middle (plus have an intrusive warm air vent that gets in the way for full wall), but I massively lack of wall space and have nowhere to put my bookcases otherwise.

We are having a 3 panel bifold door custom made by a joiner for our refurb and it's costing about £1200. It's only expensive because we couldn't get an off the shelf one - there are many more options readily available outside of the big DIY sheds. Do you have a friendly builder who could share some catalogues?

My PIL have lovely wooden top track doors which they do close in the evenings. I like top tracks as it's doesn't spoil the floor and looks better.

We had a through living /dining room with panel doors to divide them. Rather than having tracks which I think look clunky, a carpenter made us several narrow panel doors. Three per side connected by Parliament hinges. This allowed the doors to concertina fold back on themselves and stack in the narrow returns either side of the opening. Painted the same colour as the walls they were unobtrusive when open and closed. They were also simple and relatively cheap. Essentially the parliament hinges are what the Victorians used on dividing doors and you can still get them easily from architectural ironmongery.

Facepaint, this sounds interesting. Can you post a sample picture from google as hard to visualize?

meadowquark that door looks great.....my preference would be for internal pocket doors or similar like the one posted however one side of my opening is an external wall and the other is a supporting post

Facepaint I've just googled parliament hinges......so basically you had three folding doors on each side, that just hung off the wall hinge for support (no tracks)? How wide was the opening and were the doors light weight ? I like the idea but ideally want glass inserts (at least in the top half) so I can keep an eye on the kids when the doors are shut......I'm a bit concerned that the hinges wouldn't be man enough to take the weight without scratching the wooden floor.

Good idea about talking to a carpenter to see whether they could build bespoke for the same cost, I'm not wedded to the wickes ones if there are better options

Marking place as will be looking for same in near future. I have seen plenty of options on Pinterest of the style I would like, but not sure if they are bespoke or off the shelf.

I'm trying to post a link to a page found on google which shows quite heavy doors hung this way,

www.b-s-building.co.uk/gallery/conservatories

Hope it works. Our doors were quite lightweight but the hinges come in lots of different sizes to support whatever doors you want. It's a fairly traditional solution which a good carpenter would be happy to put in as they're familiar with it. It's a lot less complicated than some track systems too. It would work best in a door type opening.

Sorry, forgot to add, our opening was about 12 ft, three 2 ft wide panels each side.

I have been looking for similar recently and haven't chosen any yet but came across these
www.kaybeedoors.co.uk/internal-doors/bifold-doors-internal/freefold-oak-internal-folding-doors.html

And

www.vufold.co.uk/internal-bifold-doors/edge-folding-doors

I have a feeling that a builder or carpenter might be cheaper or more customisable but don't know the first thing about how to find one.

Hello everyone, I need a suggestion. I am looking for a bifold doors for my house extension. I found vufold and lunar bifold doors in London. Although they have good reviews I am still bit sceptical about them. Cna some one advise. I am looking for 3m x 2.1m Anthracite Grey. They offering good price compare to other companies i have searched in the market. www.lunarbifolddoors.co.uk. Has anyone use them before. thank you for the help

It will be great, if anyone can suggest someone better in London for bifold doors or if someone have used lunar bifold doors in london ? thank you