When designing a log home for maximum space efficiency, interior doors are big space hogs. A conventional hinged swing door can take up 14 square feet in space required to operate and clear obstacles. That’s a lot of unusable space: a dozen doors requires about 120 square feet of wasted space! In a tight budget that represents thousands of dollars in dead area.
A great solution is substituting pocket doors in place of swing doors. Pocket doors are made simple with the right hardware. Johnson’s Hardware offer pocket door kits for four configurations: single, converging, bypass and corner. Their hardware can handle doors as large as 5 feet wide and 9 feet tall.
Since many interior walls in a log home are framed out traditionally, a pocket door can be incorporated into tight space areas, including kitchens, pantries, living rooms, jack-and-jill shared bathrooms and many other locations.
An additional advantage is to be able to use pocket doors as partitions for larger areas. They make it simple to divide and close off areas when not in use. This option can save on energy to air condition or heat those areas and make floor plans more flexible.
Take a look at your plans to see where a pocket door or two might free up space in your Katahdin Log Home!