Home design: How to bring more space into bathrooms

Today’s designers, architects and builders are creating modern bathrooms that are practical, luxurious, comfortable and accommodating. They know homeowners and homebuyers desire – even demand – these features regardless of the bathroom’s size or layout.

Therein lies the challenge: How to create a feeling of spaciousness and openness without sacrificing valuable floor space, obstructing traffic flow or forfeiting storage space. Despite these impediments, building professionals can meet these bath-design challenges and even exceed them with an option like Johnson Pocket Door Frame Kits.

Pocket doors can be installed in virtually any room but are particularly well suited for use in bathrooms, where space is often at a premium. The typical hinged door requires up to 14 square feet of floor space to swing open. A pocket door, conversely, slides into the wall, leaving the space in front of and on either side of the doorway open and available.

Pocket doors are commonly installed at the entrances to bathrooms and can also be used to conceal linen closets and washers and dryers when the bathroom serves double duty as a laundry room.

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There’s also a growing bathroom remodeling trend of enclosing the toilet alcove to create a toilet “room” within the bathroom. However, space restrictions seldom allow for the installation of a swinging door, so remodelers often install pocket doors.

Pocket door frames also allow for items to be mounted on the pocket wall. For instance, when used with Johnson’s 151558PL Pocket Wall Reinforcement Clip Set and 5/8-inch thick plywood, the 1500SC Pocket Door Frame with all-steel split studs can support wall-mounted fixtures such as towel bars, shelves, framed mirrors or artwork. The pocket door frame kit comes equipped with soft-close hardware that allows doors up to 200 pounds to be opened and closed by the touch of a fingertip for less risk of pinched fingers and slammed doors. The frame also comes with self-tapping screws that work for both drywall and finish trim, and the smooth-rolling pocket door hardware and track exceed ANSI standards, meaning they can successfully complete 100,000 opening and closing cycles.

Another potentially unexpected benefit of using pocket doors in bathrooms is the free space gained can be used to install larger vanity cabinets, freestanding shelving units, bigger bathtubs and other fixtures that may have been squeezed out in order to accommodate swinging doors.

To find more ways to bring more space to your bathrooms, visit johnsonhardware.com or call 800-837-5664.

– Family Features