Below is the pocket door frame installed. The most critical part of installing the frame is making sure that the top track is level that way the door will slide properly. Next, measure your door frame and cut the pocket door kit to size. The pocket door frame kit comes with instructions, and Andy followed them exactly.Īndy had to cut off 2 inches off of the frame to make it fit into our hole. This will help the molding come off easier and you don’t risk peeling the wall paint off.īe sure and remove the wood shims while you are removing the molding. Pro tip for removing molding: Use a razor blade to cut the caulk. The molding will get re-used, so be as gentle as possible. The first step in installing a pocket door is to pry off the existing molding with a pry bar and hammer. We got a solid wood door at Habitat Re-Store for $25. It is fair to note that you will need to buy the door used in the pocket separately.

Like I said above, we installed this pocket door kit from Home Depot for less than $150. This is more precisely called, How to install a pocket door in a wide opening. We chose to do it with a pocket a door for the sake of easiness, and if we don’t like it one day, we’ll just knock it back out! ( Check out this post for details on our experience as Airbnb hosts.) Here are the tools you’ll need to build a pocket door We’re gonna give it a shot! To do this we need to officially divide the house so that both sides can be locked. We have friends who rent their homes or rooms on for big events in Austin. While most people want to open their house up, we stuck a pocket door smack dab in in the middle! Why build a pocket door? With one bedroom, one bathroom, and a living room on one side and 2 bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room, and kitchen on the other side. So, the house naturally divides itself in almost half. The past owners might have used the second living room as a dining room. It just so happens that our house has 2 front doors and what looks like 2 living rooms. It’s only 1,900 square feet, but this is by far the most space we’ve had in our adult life. Let me start at the beginning, our new house is much larger than anywhere else we’ve ever lived. I talked about the pocket door in this post about our living room finally looking like a living room 2 1/2 months after we moved in! It was the very first DIY project we did in the new house. If you follow me on instagram, you might remember a few posts about installing the pocket door.

Build pocket