What are the Benefits and Drawbacks of Pocket and Barn Doors

While opening your traditional door, especially into a room, there will be some space unusable amidst the door and the wall. The door can interfere, either in a single or adjoining area. Sliding barn doors and pocket doors, on the counter side, don't occupy any additional floor space since they slide into the room. These two are the best solutions to the issues of traditional swinging doors that often block traffic flow and furniture placement into your home.

Advantages and Drawbacks of Pocket and Barn Doors

Sliding doors are among the most preferred elements that bring a modern flair to any residential and commercial property. However, there are arrays of models in the market; this makes it more challenging to choose the right suit for your home. The first and foremost thing to consider while remodeling your home doors is to learn the difference between the most installed sliding door types: the sliding barn doors and pocket doors.

Sliding Barn Doors

Sliding barn doors are the most approached for various spaces from a utility value by the barn to the designer feature of several walk-in closets. Owing to different up-to-date techniques of sliding glass door hardware, staining and advanced steel or casting tracks, the design statement of sliding barn doors are not only modern but also functional. Nevertheless, barn doors may not always be the right choice for specific places, like they may not offer the best privacy in the bathroom applications.

Pocket Doors

Pocket doors are the commonly used door options in homes since the past century. They are often used to part formal seating rooms and entryways. Today's modernized pocket doors are encountering a vast changeover. However, they are the best way you can opt to fill your space with architectural allure. Pocket doors can, moreover, free up a great deal of floor space in your house. When opened, they disappear into a specific gap inside the wall.

Some homeowners opt for pocket doors only because they like their style. Others find it difficult to decide whether they should choose pocket doors or barn doors in their home during the design process of their home remodeling project.

Let's begin with the comparison between the pocket door and the sliding barn door.

Also Read: Sliding Pocket Door Ideas You’re Going to Love

Appearance

A pocket door can get a modern feel to any space of a house owing to its mechanism. When you open the door, it simply slides into the wall. Notwithstanding, most pocket doors are plain in design and style.

You might think why to opt for beautifully designed doors when they are going to hide into the wall? Well, there are various options available with arrays of material. You can get a door manufactured with aluminum, wood, and even glass.

Sliding barn doors are, on the contrary, not as versatile as the pocket doors. Barn doors are available from wood, and they have a strong rustic style. A barn door is the best pick for spaces decorated in a rustic modern, cottage, farmhouse, etc. style. It won't give you the eye-pleasing feel if you plan to fit a sliding barn in your contemporary room style.

Practicality

Both pocket and barn doors save you a lot of space. The options are the best fit for significantly small rooms where swinging doors can cause unnecessary challenges like bathrooms and closets. The only difference between the two are - the pocket doors slide right into the gap created explicitly in the wall when open, whereas the sliding barn doors move on a barn door track fixed outside the wall.

Not like pocket doors, sliding barns block reach to light switches and vents. Also, they hide your shelves and artworks when open. However, if you want to install a barn door, make sure that you are fixing the track on a bare wall.

Installation

When it comes to fixing the doors, pocket doors are quite hard to install, having various elements that can go wrong while installing. Since the pocket doors slide in the actual wall, the first thing you need to do is to make an applicable gap in the wall. If the wall is too thin to hide the pocket door track, you will need to demolish it and rebuild a thicker one.

Barn sliding doors, on the contrary, are what most homeowners dream of installing. You can fit the barn door track on any wall you want, whether thick or thin. Indeed, the door and the track both are visible all the time.

Sliding barns are more challenging to maintain than the pocket doors.

Expense

The cost of both sliding barn and pocket doors are often the same; what doubles is the installation fees. Whether you are installing the barn door on a newly constructed house or replacing the existing one, there will be an affordable price range; also based on the material you choose.

Notwithstanding, a pocket door can make your pocket empty. The price of installing a pocket model in an already created wall will be much higher than on new construction since you might need to demolish your thin wall and recreate a new one with the right-sized gap.

Privacy

When it comes to privacy, silence, and natural light-blocking, both sliding doors and pocket doors may not be ideal. Most popular options are specifically designed to slide smoothly and fit the doorway. However, the firmly sealed model is not the thing the two models sliding barn and pocket door can get. You can indeed get a door with locking technology.

The drawback here is that the barn and pocket doors both leave their tracks. However, forget about the tight seal option since you will always have a gap visible to deal with.

Maintenance

Both models sliding barn and pocket doors need the same type of support and care - cleaning the tracks and oiling them regularly. There shouldn't be dirt on the track or the rollers.

Nevertheless, maintaining the barn door is far more manageable as both the rollers and the tracks are visible. At the same time, the pocket doors get inside the wall when open, making the cleaning process complicated and time-consuming.

Durability

Both pocket and sliding barn doors require tracks to move. Here the problem may arise. The cheaper the door tracks you use, the more issues you may have.

Both models can get squeaky, become harder to slide, come off the track, or even hang out. However, sliding barn doors have comparatively fewer issues than the pocket doors indeed because the barn tracks are visible and entirely noticeable.

Conclusion

Both models sliding barn doors and pocket doors have their benefits and drawbacks. Before you purchase any of the two models, make sure you consider the factors listed here and hire a well-experienced and skilled sliding barn door installer. It is a considerable investment, and you will not want to be sorry to see the result. Be very careful and make the right decision.