I looked into the nana wall and several other options as well --- They are really cool, but in the end, we determined that our house location and set up didn't warrant the expense of these. Now, if we had an awesome view, we might have done this. My recollection of this in terms of pricing for Nana Wall and some of the other brands: I believe it was about $800 a foot for this --- so for a 12' opening, it worked out to about $9600 --- I looked at several manufacturers and the pricing was all in that ballpark. Will your doors open to a patio, a screened porch? This was a concern for us in this decision. We ended up putting a screened porch, so the Nana concept would have been great, because opening the doors wide would still be within the screen.... thus no bugs, etc invading the house. If not, you might want to consider with lights on in the house and the doors wide open, you might get every moth in town visiting! Another consideration is how to stack the panels. In our plan it was working out to be awkward --- and the "stack" would have been in the way. Just make sure that if you go with these, you have that planned carefully... some of them can stack inside a wall, which is pretty neat. Another consideration to think about..... look back at your pictures linked.... the transition from inside to outside.... if you are trying to make a very open space, be careful of that little half step transition.... it looks like a tripping hazard to me. I would want either a full step down, or preferably a level transition there to open up the space. The top picture has a small step, which can be an ankle breaker! Finally, if you are trying to maximize your view through the house straight out the back, maybe consider an odd number of doors so the exact center is glass, not the door frames meeting in the middle (your bottom picture does this glass in the middle way). If you think about your set of 4 doors concept, the dead center part will be about 8" of door frame, vs. glass. If you use 3 or 5 panels, the center view would be glass. This is why in the first few pictures they show the doors open, because it looks way better open than closed. But in the last picture, the view is great regardless. And.... while I think the standard is to have the center 2 panels open on french doors, it makes furniture placement more difficult, so just make sure you've thought about it! Good luck would love to see pics of the view, etc! Rachel

To all reading this post: First of all, the quoted post should be attributed to Brickeyee. My sincerest apologies for my error. Here's a copy-and-paste version with the relevant section. Posted by brickeyee (My Page) on Thu, Jan 31, 08 at 19:46 .... The track should also NEVER be attached to a header in a weight bearing wall. A secondary header should be installed with about a 1/2 inch clearance below the structural header. If the header bows (and they all do to some extent) it can cause problems with the track. If the wall is NOT weight bearing the header will not be loaded and you CAN omit the second header. Decker, You asked what I meant by a secondary header. The real answer is I don't know; I'm just parrotting what I've read. But the term was used when describing 2x4(?)as something to which the pocket door track would be attached. BTW, this door installation is not a DIY project. I'm just trying to second-guess potential problems in construction. Again, I apologize if I've opened a can of worms.

Pennsylvania building and energy codes do not permit an uninsulated door in this location between conditioned and unconditioned space. You are required to install an insulated door with a U-factor of at least .35 or less unless you live in the extreme southeast of the state where you can get away with a minimum of U .40. No pocket door will achieve this minimum U-factor even if using an insulated slab. Bottom line: You will need to consider other types of insulated, non-pocket type doors between your conditioned living space and this unheated mudroom.

"I went to work in an office that had a pocket door that never worked right because someone had driven nails into it at some point and it was never the same after" (palimpsest) Yes. This happened to us when DH nailed the baseboard on the wall between the laundry and kitchen. The door came off track. When we renovate I will replace or remove. However, this was builder grade. On our extension I added three pocket doors. The one I had put in for the powder room is a solid core door, not thinner than most doors, as I wanted as much sound-dampening as possible with such a device. We used Johnson Hardware - not the home depot variety which runs $ 40 or so, but commercial grade. Look at the Johnson site under 1500 Commercial Grade and you will also find non-standard size frames (door max thickness 1 3/4"). Use a good carpenter.