Bi-fold doors or French/patio doors

[chazbomb]

We’re about to start a kitchen extension. Extending the kitchen by 3 metres.
Wanting peoples experiences of bi-fold doors. Are they worth the money? Do you open them completely very often. We have a very small garden so they won’t be looking into a big country estate! Part of plans attached so you can see what we will have. Dinning table may move. Kitchen will stay but with new work tops to extend out from the sink. Hope this makes sense! Thanks

I used to have a similar layout. One thing I will say is that it is a total pain to walk around the breakfast Bar all the time to get to the dining area! We changed our layout because of that. It didn’t work for us.

I think a huge advantage of bi fold doors is that you incorporate the garden and make it a living space. It feels more harmonious with bifold doors and I think they work well with smaller spaces.

As one with a huge garden - I have several sets of French doors. Mainly because they suit the age and style of the house. However, I have seen bifold used very successfully in properties with less space. I think it depends on how you envisage using the garden and whether you want a seamless connection with the garden.

We do - and we're in South Manchester (not famed for its climate!). We spend about 90% of our time in a kitchen diner like you have and have 4m of bifolds - 4 doors with 2 locks (so have the option of unlocking 1 lock and opening 2 doors or 2 locks and opening 4 doors). We had a family party here in mid April - had all of the doors completely open all day - think that was the first time for a while (had had them partially open before then) & would say 5 out of 7 days every week since we've had them fully open for at least some part of the day.

For me, they really make the extension whether they're open or closed, just a really lovely feature.

We absolutely love ours. We have two sets in our kitchen diner and we have both open most days at the moment (we're SE so have had lovely weather).
We've had our garden landscaped so it's a lovely view

Try getting something easy to open for those times you just want some fresh air in the room, looks like you don't have a window you could open ?

We have 6 bifold doors with a small back garden, they are fantastic for opening up the space. We open them whenever the sun is out. So basically go for it.

We have both.

In our kitchen/diner we have bifold doors and we use these every day. We also have trifold doors adjacent to the bifold which get opened fully on our rare halcyon summer days.

Then in our living room we have French doors which lead onto our patio. Use these in the summer and tbh I would have much preferred bifold there also as the French doors don't open in the same way and the doors when open kind of get in the way on the patio iyswim.

I'd say go for the bifold.

We have both.

In our kitchen we have bifold doors and we open the main door every day we currently have building work ongoing on the patio so we only fully open the bifolds at the weekend and it's lovely 😊 tbh even without them being open they are great they let in such a lot of light and give a great view of the garden.

In our Sitting Room we have French doors which lead onto our patio. This was due to the style of the house and whilst they suit the room from the inside I would have gone with bifolds again as the other poster has said French doors don't open in the same way and the doors when open kind of get in the way on the patio - I also think they don't allow for the best view into the garden due to the edging whereas the bifolds allow far more light and view.

If I was you I'd go for the bifolds.

Thanks all. I think it’s going to be bifolds. Now need to choose the colour. I like the grey ones but all our other windows are white. Do you think it will look odd? I just prefer the look of grey bifolds.

We went for white as we wanted to match. As long as you get aluminium they look great too.

This is ours . They're open at the moment so can't show closed (we have two sets)

We decided against them, because we didn't have anywhere to "stow" the opened doors without it taking up a lot of room (the room is fairly narrow). The patio is below the level of the house, so it wasn't as if we could have a seamless inside-outside room anyway.

We went with sliding patio doors in the end, and I'm glad we did - you get a larger expanse of frame-free glass to look out of when they are closed (which, let's face it, is most of the time), and they were a lot cheaper too.

I'm team french doors. Several friends and neighbours who have recently done extensions (we're just starting) are regretting their bifolds because cumbersome.

From the start we had wanted sliding doors, without question. Now, it seems we have gone toataly the other way and are set on having French patio doors fitted. Has anyone decided to do the same and regretted it or happy with their choice?

Bax dream, we have the same garden furniture set, so weird to see my things in another garden!

We had the same questions. I was advised by several designers that sliding doors are the way to go if you have a large space to open but if 3m or smaller, then bifolds are better. We went with 3m bifolds so 3 panels and are very happy with them. If we had gone with sliding doors, we would not have been able to open them fully which for us makes a big difference.

Also, we went with white in the end,
I was originally going with anthracite, then a bespoke pale grey to match my kitchen, but in the end we went with white to match the other windows and I’m really happy. It’s fresh and bright. I think in a really big extension, the darker ones look fab but in a smaller space, white keeps them looking not too heavy with all the sightlines.

I have been getting quotes for a 4m run of doors and have been finding that bifolds are cheaper than sliding doors - shame, as I think we are going to get sliding doors.