no pocket door...the more wall space the better
we put a pocket door as the entrance to our den/study but that was from the foyer our living room and den are similar to yours and the extra wall space in our living room and den gives us more options for decor..my guess is when you entertain people will congregate in your dinnete at the bar and at the tv.

You need to lay the furniture out to scale and determine if that Great Room wall needs to be unbroken. People watching TV usually like to sit in front of it rather than to one side especially with certain kinds of flat screens.

In general, I very much like the idea of a house layout that allows people to make a full loop through all of the major spaces. It's great for entertaining and for kids to romp. If you open a doorway between the spaces I can think of no advantage for it to be a pocket door since a swinging door can easily swing into the smaller room.

I agree with MacV - I don't like dead end rooms. I think a door would solve that problem. However, I also don't like lining furniture up against walls.

What about floating the sofa in the middle of the room (need to plan for this for floor plugs) - you could put a sofa table behind the sofa so you would not see that as you walked in, and I have seen this done with small side tables as well. Then 4 club chairs would fit - or two sofas on either side of the fireplace and club chairs at the end. Check out the link below for ideas or www.jamesmichaelhoward.com. Phoebe Howard also has a blog which you can look at on her website which has a lot of wonderful before and afters

Here is a link that might be useful: Mrs. Howard

I like the idea of pocket doors into the 2nd living area - if for no other reason than it would STOP DH from lining up your furniture along that unbroken expanse of wall. LOL!

Seriously, if your TV is where the fireplace is shown, then your best furniture arrangement probably will be to float your sofa in front of the TV and place other chairs in the corners of the room facing the sofa at an angle. This would give you a very nice arrangement for conversation AND allow the TV to be watched "head on" from the sofa than if you put the sofa against the long wall.

Since your porch is covered tho, I'd make that door out to the porch open outward instead of inward. Then, even if your sofa is 7.5 ft long, you would have 3 ft of walking space on either side of it. Then, I'd position the pocket doors where the desk and right hand closet in the "study" are shown - leaving the other closet in place just in case you ever want to use that room as an extra bedroom.

I definitely think you're right that pocket doors into the second living area will make it a more used and useful space. I'm not usually a fan of pocket doors but for situations like this where they would only be opened occasionally, I think they're appropriate. You could also use a pair of swinging doors but, when open, they would tend to take up a lot of the space in the smaller room. I probably wouldn't go with a single swinging door because a narrow opening would not give you that "all one big room" feel you want to have when you're having a party.

But, you and your DH are the only ones who know what furniture you have or plan on getting to go into the great room. Cut squares of construction paper to the same scale as your floorplan to stand for each piece of furniture you want to put in the room. Move the construction paper around (making sure to leave room for pathways around the furniture) - and that will help you decide whether to put in pocket doors or leave the wall unbroken.

If you place a nice size "love" seat in front of the TV, a coffee table in between TV and love seat and a 3 persons sofa under the window, you will have 4' for circulation and also enough room for the porch door to open (almost against the sofa). The love seat will be directly in front of the porch door. You will also have space to center a 2-36" sliding door at the wall between great room and office if you want openess.

If you want to place a 3 person sofa in front of the TV you will only have 2' for circulation so, you do not have a choice but to place a love seat in front of the TV; the only difference is that if you do not have the doors you can place another sofa or the sofa at that wall between family and office.

If you go with the door/doors, I kind of prefer it centered in the wall (sliding)- it is not a good idea to place it on the left. If you place it on the right you can not place a big piece of furniture at the wall between the 2 doors (adjacent to stairs) also, a sliding door looks better when is kept open IMHO - and symmetrical at that space.

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I agree, macv, it just seems most natural to me to have a floorplan that people can move around. One thing I did not mention, is that we will have the back door going out at the dinette. Forgot to mention that earlier. So we won't be dealing with the outside door coming into the family room. Right now we have a 3 seat sofa and 2 leather recliners. Currently, we always have some seating that is to the side of the TV. We usually don't mind when it's the couch, b/c we laying on it facing the TV. However, this furniture could go in the living room as we'd be purching a new living room set for the second area.

Can any of you tell me the disadvantage of pocket doors to swinging? We currently have a pocket door in our master bath but have never had one in a main living area. I know swinging doors will take up space in an already smaller space.

I'm all for pocket doors--and love them and think they would be great where you plan them. My parents have 6 in their 47 year old home--some of which are used multiple times daily. Still work perfectly. (Just a note: I remember reading a post from someone who wished they'd used 6" studs for those walls though--so they could have a light switch.)

My builder mentioned potential issues with pocket doors....esp with binding.

Definitely open up the second living room. Both for flow and also to more conveniently deal with naughty little ones.

You may not have room, but double pocket doors would really open up the wall for entertaining and look very elegant. You can always place a desk or something in front of the doors when closed and move it out of the way for a party. In fact a library table in front of the doors could be moved more out into the middle of the room during a party and serve as a drinks table.

Here in Atlanta, many of the elegant old homes in Druid Hills and other old neighborhoods have double pocket doors from the foyer into the study and/or living room. I love the look! I vote for pocket doors!

Swinging doors always take up more room than pocket.

You could compromise and have one slightly larger pocket door or two smaller ones. I mean have the opening about 1 1/2 times the size of a regular door.

Swinging doors don't actually take up room since the area they swing across must be left open in order to pass through the doorway. However, sometimes a swinging door can be in conflict with another design element when it is open and that is the reason to use a pocket door. Until you actually draw the location of the door, it is too soon to worry about pocket vs swinging.

When there is a choice, a swinging door is best unless the door is rarely closed and sound separation is not an issue.

i don't have any thoughts about the pocket door ...just trying to wrap my head around the idea of NOT having a mudroom. at least i don't see one...

OK, so majority votes for at least some type of opening between the rooms. We'll leave the swinging door/pocket door debate for later, after I've convinced him of the opening. Thank you!
Kateskouros, I will have the walls dedicated outside the laundry room/powder room decidated to a locker system or some type of area for coats and shoes. It's just not in our budget to have both a nice size laundry room AND mudroom, so this is the compromise. I currently have a laundry room/mudroom entry from our garage and cannot stand the dirty shoes and boots in the same place as my laundry. I actually like the idea of them staying outside, although it will be cold in the winter. I had a post about this earlier about how to rearrange that entry. There didn't seem to be a way to do it within our budget.

Great rooms often don't have enough wall space for furniture. It's their single biggest drawback. We also have a long great room, which we modeled with furniture in it using architectural software before we committed to the design. Ours also has a hearth at one end. Even with space at the hearth end for an entertainment center we won't have any surplus space on the single interior wall.

While I have no idea what kind or how much furniture you have, nor how much of it needs to sit against a wall, I still firmly believe that losing any of that wall to a door will be a mistake.

The door won't just take up precious wall space, it will hinder arranging your furniture. A long unbroken wall is much more flexible than two walls, especially when the two walls have less total space than the unbroken wall. Because you are short on space, you will almost certainly end up with pieces of furniture right up to the door opening. It may make it seem like threading the needle to circulating guests.

Perhaps this door/wall issue is an indicator that you should reconsider your commitment to this particular plan.

Just to throw a monkey wrench into your plans - what furniture do you plan o n having in that smaller room and where will you place it? I vote for pocket doors too (meeting in the middle) so you don't have to watch how close you place the furniture to the wall. Don't line up furniture right against the wall, but for a decent-sized swinging door you're going to need at least a couple feet and believe me 13ft gets narrow once you put furniture in (esp. a sofa placed the long way) and want to walk around it. You *will* want to walk to either side of the sofa, or put a table b/t it and the center wall, and probably a chair or two.

How about putting the TV in the smaller room and keeping the larger FR off the kitchen as a play/entertainment room? How much do you watch TV? Would using that smaller room as a "media room" (in which case I would leave it closed off) work for you?

i don't have any thoughts about the pocket door ...just trying to wrap my head around the idea of NOT having a mudroom. at least i don't see one...

Isn't that garage and the hall between laundry and powder enough of a "mud-room". And maybe they are in the city where there isn't a lot of mud?

The doors work either way!!!
I prefer pocket since they will look nicer and the space will open up.
I suggest you to decide about the door and then work on the window size and placement so the do not look odd, in both rooms, great room and office/family.
I'd get rid of the left window at the office/family so there is not reflection on TV as shown on the second drawing.
The sliding double door shown is 5' wide. You could go 6'.
I used standard size furniture and the sketch is to scale.

Our general layout is similar to yours, although the rooms are larger, informal DR & kitchen are flipped, fireplace is at the other end between the GR & informal DR, and stairs are between the mudroom/laundry/powder room area with a hall to the door out to the back yard, not in the entry. Take out the width of the stairs from the foyer all the way across the great room, get rid of the nook, and you have much of our plan.

Our corner room is the DR/study, is 13' x 13'4", and has 2 sets of double pocket doors, one set from the entry. Each pair is 54" wide, because I needed wall space for furniture, and the set going into the GR is offset as marthaelena has them in her drawing to also accommodate furniture. Like many others, I really dislike dead end rooms, and the traffic flow of this setup is great. We love the double pockets!

Anne

I have pocket doors in two places, cutting off my mudroom/laundry and one to close the hallway to the kids rooms. I have no issues with them. I also had them in my old house that was built in the 70's and never had an issue with those either and they were on two of the bathrooms and saw a lot of use.

Now that said I think marthaelenas first sketch gives you the best arrangments in both rooms for most people to sit comfortable and watch TV.

You might want to consider an outswing door to the porch from your nook to not have it interfer with the table placement there since you'll need to seat 6 on a regular basis.

If you don't want to close off the small room as a media room per my earlier suggestion, how about keeping the bottom of the stairs open and getting rid of that door? It'll open up that room to the foyer more, and make it easier to move furniture (I was really glad to have no wall or banister at that time when we moved our DR table in).

Opens up views from the other direction too (just after laying floor and all the DR furniture is in the LR across the way)

Oh, and the DR seems a bit small - have you sized your furniture? I'd want to bump it out onto the porch even if you can't make it wider (might as well make the whole front wall the same so you'll gain a little space in the other front room too, and eliminate the short "jog" wall in the entryway at the bottom of the stairs).

Marthaelena, you are great! That was my next step. Thank you so much.

The space we have our furniture in now is only 11 ft wide and that doesn't count the fireplace that jets out one side of it. I do think we could swing the floating furniture along that space considering what we are used to.

ajsmama, I hadn't really thought of that. It is a good idea to open the space however it does take away wall space. I'll have to bring that up with DH. We did measure our current table that seats 6 with a leaf to seat 8. It's actually 12x12'7". It fits fine with the 6 chairs and it a bit tight with 8, but we can deal with that. DH wasn't convinced we needed a dining room, so convincing him to make it bigger would be tough.

Thanks all for your thoughts. You've been very helpful and given me a lot to think about.

If you're in the planning stages think about eliminating the jogs in the front wall - it'll be easier to frame and give you more interior floor space. Check with builder - if it costs less to frame the front wall as one continuous wall broken only by the front door, then it shouldn't be too hard to convince your DH. My DR is 13'1" x 14'3", and even though I have a large hutch on one side and small buffet on the end, I only seat 6. I bought 2 more chairs (unfinished) on CL, we'll have to move the buffet away from the stair wall in order to seat 8 people and still have room to push the 2 chairs at the ends out for people (arm chairs) to get in and out and also be able to walk past one end to get to kitchen.

As far as opening up the stairs, I can't tell how far the wall comes out in front of your bottom tread (or how much room you have from the front of the tread to the front wall), but pretty much you'll just be getting rid of the door and then losing maybe 3ft of wall space from the door to the corner (depending on run of stairs). Unless you're planning on putting a big screen TV or large hutch on that wall, I don't think it will affect furniture placement much. And if the door isn't 36" or more, having it open will as I said help with moving furniture like sofa in, even if you have a newel post there before moving in. I only have 36" from edge of bottom tread and opposite wall, there was no way we could have moved the DR furniture in with a newel post in front of, or even on, the bottom tread. And forget about a wall and door there (which I originally wanted, but glad the builder talked me out of)! My DR table is 42" wide - a lot of sofas are close to 40" front to back.

Met with builder tonight. We did think about elminating that jog in the front, but we all agreed that it does add a lot to the look of the house.

He did bring up some good points about pocket doors that I hadn't considered. They just don't hold up as well as french doors, if you choose to use them often. And you don't have as good of quality of a wall between the two rooms. And I don't know that I'd be able to hang anything on the walls on either side of the doors.

I still haven't convinced DH of the opening. He is convinced we'll want the privacy with the two rooms separated. Hmmm.

Furniture against windows? Is this something people normally are OK with? I can't imagine doing it myself.

Don't forget the light switch placement issues that come with double pocket doors?

Pocket doors are ok, but I only put them in where I had to. We have 2. I think regular doors are better.

"My builder mentioned potential issues with pocket doors....esp with binding."

Not if you use the correct hardware.
Johnson Hardware is very high quality, and there is no way for doors to come Âoff the track.Â
Binding is from poor installation.

"Swinging doors don't actually take up room since the area they swing across must be left open in order to pass through the doorway."

Swinging doors take up space in the room to swing from fully open against the wall to closed, or if they are propped open perpendicular to the wall there is a large obstruction in the room beside the door.

i vote pocket doors.. good luck :-)

If you make the wall 'wet wall' thickness you can put 4x4 electrical boxes with plaster rings in the walls that form the pocket.

The large size is required for box fill rules, while the 1.25 inch depth allows them to not protrude into the pocket space to far.

Another option is to use low voltage switching that eliminates a lot of regular wiring rules, but requires a transformer (small power limited like a thermostat tranformer) and relays to be mounted.

Thanks for the info brickeyee. I will file this away for when discussion comes up again. I'm not getting DH to come around on this one though. He is pretty firm in his thoughts that he wants more privacy between the two rooms. I haven't given up yet though.

I do like pocket doors---but only lightweight ones. My brother's new home has solid wood doors, and they are a bit heavy...not pleasant to close. I think they would be a strain for an elderly person or someone with arthritis, etc. So I personally wouldn't use glass, I'd only use the lighter weight doors....and also with good hardware (my builder said that is the key, too).

You could do just one pocket door there instead of a swinging door. I like the swinging door I have on my current craft room....which is small, 10 x 10. I'd certainly prefer a pocket door, though, 'cause it would be out of the way (I only close it occasionally).