Pocket doors between kitchen and living room

[LaMigraine]

We're in the planning stages of a side return kitchen extension and I'm very keen to have a pocket door between the kitchen and the living room (where there is currently a door leading from the living room outside into the side return). From what I've read, it's near impossible to hollow out an existing plaster wall (our house is an old Victorian terrace), so we'd need to build a stud wall onto the old wall in order to create the pocket, i.e. the cavity that the door slides into. Is this correct? Is it possible?! Is it mega-expansive...?

TIA!

expensive, not expansive

I don't really know whether its possible to hollow out a Victorian wall, but to answer your other question, no it's not expensive to build a stud wall. It's just timber and plasterboard.

We have a pocket door between the kitchen and little utility. It is brilliant and fab use of space.

If you’ve got the layout I think you have (standard Victorian double reception with kitchen behind the hall and side return behind the back reception) then the problem you’ll have is that the wall between the back reception and kitchen is a (very) load bearing wall. It is holding up the rear bedroom wall above it.

You currently have two holes in that wall, a window to the side return and a door to the kitchen. In order to have a pocket door where the window currently is, you will need to widen the window hole to at least double its current size (one half to be the pocket and the other half the doorway). This will probably require a steel inserted to hold up the bedroom wall above. It’s all do able but will cost a fair bit more than just building a stud wall.

If you do need to widen an existing window then a concrete lintel could be sufficient. You'd need a structural engineer to take a look and calculate what's needed. Alternatively, you could have a barn door that runs on a track above the door frame and doesn't require a pocket. You wouldn't lose any space because there'd be no need to create a pocket.

What is a pocket door?

It's a sliding door which disappears into the wall when it's open - it means you don't have to have the space to open it in the traditional way or space to manoeuvre around it.

The wall your looking to alter is potentially a load bearing wall. This could be supporting the floor joints, roof structure, and first floor wall loadings. You will need a Structural Enginner to clarify this.

You can’t really hollow out the existing wall, as if this is load bearing you would loose / reduce the compressive strength of the wall.

You will need to create a large opening, with a concrete lintel / beam to support the remaining wall. Then timber stud partition to create the pocket.

Budget for a structural engineer and the building work. Bare in mind you may be required to ‘make good’ the floor where the wall is removed, the plastering of the ceiling and walls around where the opening has been made. Also get the builder to include this with the building regulations application, so you can get the lintel / support checked by the Building Control Inspector.

Ah, all very informative, thank you!

So minipie, the window to the side return is actually a door, so there is an doorframe there already - don't know if that makes a difference?

Also, following on from your and Pokerface's responses, so do you mean we'd basically have to knock down the existing wall - at least the size of the pocket space - and replace it? I was thinking we could build a stud wall almost on top of the existing wall (with a small space between for the pocket, obviously) but then of course it wouldn't align with the existing doorway (which I've just realised). Hmm.

Maybe we should get a barn door instead... It's just that I was hoping to keep the bit of wall free to put things against, rather than having a door sliding across it. Food for thought I guess.

Yes, if you are willing to lose some room space (about 20cm) you could build a false wall in front of the existing rear reception wall. Then you could have the pocket door without making any extra holes in the load bearing wall. You’d have to go the whole way across to make everything line up.

If you don’t want to lose the 20cm then yes you would need to knock down the existing wall, at least to the size of the pocket space, and replace with a hollow stud wall. And this would require a steel/lintel and some decent structural advice.

Out of interest why do you want a pocket door rather than a normal door? Or just no door?

Another option is very narrow double doors so they fit within a single (maybe slightly widened) door space - if you are worried about the space needed for the door in the kitchen

If you are lining the existing wall with a stud partition the fact it is load baring will not matter as you will not be changing the existing wall just adding to it. I would avoid changing the size of the opening in the existing wall unless you are looking for another benefit.

What you will need to consider is whether you have space for the pocket door when open, ie do you have a space wide enough next to the door opening for the door to slide into.

Pocket doors are great but do not scrimp if you do go for one, cheap pocket doors will come off of their runners a bit like a cheap wardrobe is. Try to go for one that is too hung rather than bottom rails, they are more reliable and do not have a place where dirt collects at floor level.

If you leave the existing wall alone it's pretty easy job to do. Only other question is do you need the door at all? Are you likely to close it? We wouldn't so I would be tempted to just leave it open.

Yes, like PP have said you would need to knock a large opening in the existing wall, to accommodate the door and pocket. This would require a structural engineer etc.

The other option of building a stud wall on the face of the existing would be more cost effective. But you would be increasing the depth of the wall, and potentially would loose more space.

Pocket doors are great for walls which are designed for that purpose, and are space saving. The way your thinking of retrofitting might not get you the benefit your looking to achieve.

Another alternative is "old fashioned" bi-folds:

www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Chester-Knotty-Pine-4-Panel-Internal-Bi-fold-Door/p/9000189465

I can't follow the floorplan here but we've fitted a couple on kitchen doorways with limited space. They're not as on trend as pocket doors but they take up less space and are much cheaper to fit.

Our pocket door is a solid oak door (the same style of 1930s panelled internal doors that we have throughout the house) hung from above - so there are no rails on the floor etc. When the door is open (I.e. in the pocket) the only indication that theres a door fitted there is the sliver of the door that you can see (as theres about 5-10cm of it that doesn't slide into the pocket) and if you looked up, the mechanism which sits on the door frame above your head.

Thank you, this is all brilliant and clear info and advice. minipie I'd like a pocket door as I feel like a normal door will just get in the way. It definitely can't open back into the living room as there is a sofa in the way, and if it opened into the kitchen it would open onto a cabinet I'm planning to put on the wall adjacent to the doorway. We could just have no door, but I'd really like the option of separating the two rooms sometimes (kitchen and living room) otherwise the whole ground floor will be semi-open plan and it's not a huge house. Especially once the kids are a bit older and might be wanting to do one thing, e.g. hang out with friends in the living room while DH and I want to be in the kitchen (or vice versa), or entertaining our own friends etc. I know it won't make a great difference in terms of noise or anything, but I do think it would be valuable to us to have the possibility of separate spaces.

Pokerface81 sorry, I don't quite get what you mean by "the way your thinking of retrofitting might not get you the benefit your looking to achieve"? The benefit I'm looking for is to have a door that doesn't open out into a room in any way, so there is wall space available for other things. If we build a stud wall to insert the pocket then we would lost 20cm in the length of the kitchen - thus losing space (in one way, while gaining it in another). Is that what you mean? If so, that's okay because the kitchen is quite long and I don't mind losing 20cm of the room's length, it's the width space which is at a premium.

@LaMigraine I just thought you might be restricted on space, hence a space saving pocket door.

Creating a large opening in the existing solid wall and fitting a stud wall to create the pocket, won’t nessarily loose you any space. As the stud will be in replacement of the existing wall, and flush. The kitchen can still then run along this wall.

If you was to build a stud frame to create the pocket on the face of the external wall (face fix), reducing the costs and eliminating any structural alterations. You would increase the depth of the existing wall by the pocket depth and stud size. You may want to run this the full length of the wall, so there isn’t a small return when the pocket finishes, which would reduce the width of your room.

Alternatively a face fixed sliding door, would be an option, if you have the space either side of the door for this to open.

Hope this makes sense.

Yes I agree about having the option to close the rooms off from each other, good idea.

If you think you won’t miss the 20cm then do that. Otherwise, I’d suggest the really narrow double doors (each door only 45cm wide so they add up to just over a normal door’s width). These will only project half as far into the room. You wouldn’t want a cabinet within 45 cm of the doorway anyway.

Sorry when I say “do that” I mean build the false wall onto the existing wall.

Why not look at a barn doors -lots on Pinterest. I wanted a pocket door between our kitchen and sitting room but it was not possible due to the construction of the wall so opted for a barn door. Cheaper than building a stud wall but still a lot more than a conventional door.

Just be sure that it's not meant to be a fire door for any reason. ( as pocket doors aren't usually fire rated )

we did it. its a large 1.2m wide fire door. we had to build a false wall to accomodate but only c 10cm deep so fine. it makes a huge (positive) difference to the room.