Pocket Door Installed
We have friends in construction who don’t like pocket doors. They say no matter what the door will eventually move off track and out of alignment and they are a pain to fix. But I had planned for a pocket door for the utility room. And I didn’t want the door to swing either into the kitchen or into the small utility room but I wanted a 36″ door to more easily move a washer and dryer through the door. So I purchased the best quality pocket door frame I could find. It is the Johnson Products 2400 and I purchased it from Hartford Building Products through Amazon.
I have learned it is not a good idea to keep new products unopened and uninstalled. Sometimes when it comes to the installation, something is missing from the package or there is some damage that was not noticed. So I wanted to install the door frame as soon as the wall was up.
I found the installation instructions a little confusing. Maybe I was just tired, but I had read them when I ordered the door frame and again when I was putting it up. I was concerned that the screws sent were longer than those called for in the instructions. For most of the install I used them anyway. I used my own 1″ cap screws to fasten into the header as the ones sent seemed too long. There was only one header bracket and it didn’t mention that the other was already installed in the header so I spent some time looking for a second one. I didn’t notice that the screw holes had to be at the top of the metal studs for screwing them into place so had to take apart the stud and redo it.
Since I was feeling confused I looked up a youtube video for this frame and found two excellent ones but the position of the wood strip is different in my door frame. Still it helped to see an actual install. I am glad I didn’t have to do the demolition and rebuild that most have to do to install in existing construction.
Lower Pocket Door Frame
Upper Pocket Door Frame
So between the confusion and my slowness it took me a couple of hours to install the door frame and the door. Getting the door out of the way and hung safely was a good accomplishment too. I bought this door from Craigslist for $50. Quite a bargain.
The door has a clear glass full pane and I watched an etching of clear glass on a home improvement show that looked really cool. But after reading about what can go wrong while etching, I decided to opt for window film and vinyl stencils to help screen out the utility stuff in this room. But the full light door will let in plenty of daylight which will help illuminate this small dark room.