Pocketless Door Experiment (2 of 3) :: Hardware

. . . How I roll and . . . swivel

Now that I have you up to speed on me, my wife, my house, and how I think most of the time, I’d like to tell you a little bit about what I did in my powder room last weekend.

As mentioned in the last post, my plan for the powder room door had me installing a mini-French door set-up. (You might have noticed my note about this internal debate in my weekly notes found in the right side bar.) This plan got derailed, however, after I saw the fine cinematic production, Baby Mama.

Try to slip into this opening?

There are a few shorter scenes towards the front end of this movie that show the bathroom in main character’s apartment. While some were comedic, I instead focused on the door. In her bath there, and only in one brief scene, was a wall-hung or pocketless door.

. . . What is a pocketless door?

Now it’s not like I haven’t seen them. Essentially, a pocketless door is a pocket door without a pocket. While a pocket door in tucked back and hidden in the wall framing, a pocketless door, on the other hand, is hung on a track from the ceiling or mounted to a wall. In this configuration, they are also sometimes known as barn doors.

The hardware you find at the home center for this installation is not that different from what you find for sliding closet doors. Most closet doors are paired, hence, two tracks and two sets of rollers. With the product that I bought, a Pocket Sliding Door Assembly, it allows for an along the wall installation.

. . . Instructions and my half bath

As always, I read over the instructions. There was a good bit of general layout information. They were fairly thorough.

Step #4 read like this, Along the wall door application: Door panel needs to measure the finished opening width plus 1 (25mm). Sure, fine, I can handle this. But not surprisingly, there was no detail on what I would encounter in my installation.

As mentioned in my last post , I had installed a cap on top of a salvaged 7/8” thick wainscot (a form of paneling usually adorning only the lower portions of a wall). When I say cap, what I mean in this case, is that I molded the long edge of 1x stock and laid it flat at the top of the wainscot paneling. Doing this allowed me to transition neatly around the window in the bath.

While adding little extra depth and interest to the wall treatment, it did cause the wall surface to finish roughly 1 beyond my flat door trim.

. . . The first hurdle

The cap -- I may still add an apron underneath it

At this point, I was squarely fixated on the idea of trying to do a pocketless. I carried this around with me; I knew I had this hurdle to deal with. If I installed the door along the wall, when it passed in front of the door opening it still would come to rest a good 1 from being sealed tight. This, I figured, was not desirable in an oft used powder room.

So I carried it around some more. Would there be a way for me to pivot or swivel a pocketless door as it glides? In usual fashion, I began seeking out possible solutions. A couple quick Google searches revealed no hardware specifically designed for this application (though I still felt that some point somewhere it gets done). Had anyone been blogging about this, or could I find it on a home improvement site somewhere? I don’t know. At this point however, I had given over and was dedicated to making this thing work.

I discussed it briefly with a fellow at work. He too has a house he’s fixing up and we sometimes discuss doors. Now, not that my mind wasn’t already wandering here, he says to me, You know what would be cool . . . if you could make the door glide, swivel and then suck down into the opening. I mean, bam, if it hadn’t been on the table already, it certainly was then.

. . . Where there is a will, there is a way

Again, how could I make a swivel work? So I set aside some time, as I sometimes do, for a visit to the home center. On these trips, I just go and spend some quality time.

What would the options be? I checked near the hinges first, and then I combed the area around the mending plates. Then, I passed the casters toward the top of the aisle. You know, casters, those little wheels you mount to boxes or other things that you want to make a little more movable.

Some were fixed to allow only for rolling in one direction, others, however, pivoted a full 360 degrees. Those that rotate are set on a series of ball bearings that allow them to swivel. My instinct, of course, was to shoot for the smaller the better. When I took a closer look at these, I noticed that their wheels were pinned in place and not removable. No Good.

So I move a few bins up the aisle. And there they were, shining like the sun, two-inch casters with racing wheels. Sure I liked the way they looked. They were pretty sporty, but this wasn’t the only reason that they caught my eye. You see, they were sturdy, and they had removable wheels. Only a tiny nut held the axle in place.

casters

As I stand there for a few minutes, it comes to me: why couldn’t I take two sets of these things, oppose them, and attach them together. This way I could hang them, and they could be mounted on flat surfaces. They would pivot at least 180 degrees, which is what I knew I needed.

. . . Building bridges

Ok, with that figured out, I was going to need a way to attach my pivoting assemblies to the hangers (the hardware with the rollers). I figured I could do this with a wooden block. In this case, as I always have scrap on hand, I picked a piece of five quarter (5/4) board (actual thickness 1 1/8th inches). The 3/4 screws provided, and I always use the screws provided, would have surely poked through your typical 1x. So this was the way to go.

Now that I look at it; it was kinda ugly

I would attach the hangers to the top of the wooden block and the rigged-up assembly to the bottom. The entire assembly measured a good five inches in height when completed. It pivots in its full range of motion for the top caster’s center points– approximately 1 ½.

. . . Hanging the track

This assembly would allow my sliding door to hang unobstructed beyond the one-inch projection of my cap molding. Check. But now that I finally held the contraption I visualized in my hand, I realized I would need a good bit of clearance.

As I revisit the instructions for the hardware here, I notice the track must be mounted at minimum of an inch and three quarters above the door panel. My instincts tell me here that I could probably give myself just a little bit more wiggle room.

Time for some math; I need the distance from the bottom edge of my rig (I knew that I should allow the panel to overlap the opening a little) to the top of my mounting block, plus a little more than 1 and ¾ inches. Right now, I can’t remember what that dimension ended up being, but I knew because of the hanger’s adjustability that I would probably have a little bit of room to play with.

. . . Building a header and the point of no return approaches

As the pictures will hopefully illustrate, I used a unique trim layout throughout this area. Without going into too much detail here, I routered a cove in the inside edge of 1x stock. I then used this molding set on thicker plinth blocks to make up the legs of my door trim.

At the header, however, I took a discreetly ripped 1×4, and ran it all the way around the room at header height. (I ripped the 1×4 down to help keep a sense of scale with the wainscot.) The header trim had a top edge of about 78.

Installed -- Plans later to skirt the track with a facing

With the top edge of my head trim finishing here, only appropriately 3 ¼ inches above the door opening, I knew I would have to build it up some (as the instructions did suggest). I was going to need a header board placed above my head trim. And it might need to be just a tad thicker as to assist with the clearing of my cap molding.

For this, I choose again a piece of 5/4 board. I took this, and ripped it down into two pieces one 2 ¼ wide and the other 1 1/8 wide. (I lost an eighth of inch off the total thickness to the kerf of my saw blade.) I then glued and nailed the resulting pieces in a step fashion. This stepped header would give me a place to conceal the track, the height and overhang that I would need, as well as enough meat to screw through into the wall.

I slapped it on top my casing, check it; it looked good. So I screwed to the framing. I dropped my roller assemblies into place and then stopped to think.

Time for some tests.

Please see last and maybe not so final installment of this piece coming next week.