Shallow wide pantry -Lots of doors

Currently I have a 10' wide by 18" deep pantry. It is broken into 2 separate sides, each with 28" doors which leaves TONS of dead space on each side. I hate bi-fold doors. Barn doors will end up with the same dead space situation. My idea is to make it one very wide pantry and put 4 doors side by side. One set of french doors in the middle flanked by single doors on either side of it. Because there are so many doors all in a row I need to have interesting doors. After exhaustive search for antique doors that hubby would have to frame I found they were quite expensive and required a lot of work. I stumbled on a place to get all 4 doors prehung but unfinished for under $1000. Gorgeous mahogany doors with glass inserts and fluted trim with rosettes.

So here is my question.. The doors will be painted white (I know, it's a sacrilege). What are your thoughts on having 4 doors side by side? Any other solutions to eliminating all the dead space?

 

That is a lot of door swings to deal with.

You state dead space, when a bi-fold door is open it's only 4" wide each side, how this that excessive?

 

The dead space is that I have 10' of width with only 2 28" doors to access it. things constantly get shoved to the side and forgotten. I'd like to have everything visible.

 

I would be thinking more cabinetry doors and less "entrance door". The only way you are going to get rid of dead space is to remove the walls causing the dead space and make the whole front, or as much as possible accessible by doors. Think a wall of cabinetry or built-ins.

 

You could get triple track sliding hardware kit from Johnson hardware and hang three 36" doors on the track if you don't mind sliding them back and forth, and having a opening. < 9'. They can be hooked together so that when you slide the end one, the middle one moves in series. And that is the only caveat... to open the middle one you would need to slide one end or the other all the way over.

You could do something similar with two 5 ft double track kits, using 30" doors, for 2 openings that are < 5' each. You would need a continuous header over the entire opening.

 

Got it, I read it as two sets of dual 28" doors.

So, that could be a solution, divide the 10' into two 5' openings with double sets of bi-folds.

I agree bifold are a love hate but they are cost effective and there are other choices other than builders grade!

 

I would go with 4 doors on sliding tracks.

An option (possibly too extreme) would be a roll-up door with the ugly mechanism box inside the pantry.

 

If I were to do cabinetry doors, would I have a problem with such large doors warping?

I like the triple door idea, but how far would it stick out. It's in a high traffic path.

 

Yes, large cabinet doors (rail & stile raised panel) tend to warp. The photo in post #5 shows a side view and the jamb width, 5 1/4". It doesn't protrude out any more than you current doors do. Your existing door jamb is likely 4 9/16", so this would protrude about 3/4" farther than your jamb does now... but on the inside of the pantry. You deal with that by shimming the back side of the trim that is inside the closet (outside edge of the trim) 3/4".

If you need to stick with 4 9/16" wall thickness, and want a full 10' opening then do double track and four 32" sliding doors. 120/4 = 30 but you need the doors to overlap a little, which is why you'd use 32" doors. Four 30" doors would result in an opening < 120" by the amount of overlap at each door. Plus door actual widths are about 1/4" less than their nominal width... a 30" door is typically 29 3/4".

 

Three doors on a double track could also work, but only one opening would be available at any time. (i.e. if center door slides either way past the end doors the center will be open. Each end door would slide past the center door to open one end or the other but would be stopped from going further by the second door in the same track and would block the center opening too.

Four doors on a double track could be arranged for a double opening at either end or the middle or single openings at each end if door stops are not used and the doors on separate tracks are allowed to pass each other.