Could you possibly post a photo of the area you are writing about?

Does this help? Excuse the messes...the room was in progress.

{{!gwi}}

I personally think you have 2 options - 1) to hang a long curtain and 2) to build out the drywall and put in double french doors.

I don't think you'd want your living room to have all that glass showing, it's different when it goes to the outside, I think, which is usually where you see double sets of french doors.

Making your inside doors slide to the outside doors sounds expensive and I think the drywall option is cheaper. You can definitely re-use the room as a DR with the french doors, I think.

We had patio doors like that in a former home -- Marvin sliding French doors. They were beautiful, very elegant. But they have a bottom track that you probably wouldn't want in an interior passageway. Why would you prefer sliders? Do swinging French doors impede on your space too much? Swinging French doors wouldn't have that bothersome bottom track.

Here is a link that might be useful: Marvin sliding French doors

Let's see if I can embed the picture for you:

{{!gwi}}

Those doors are what I've been thinking of, more or less. I wasn't thinking I would need a track in the floor. I suppose that makes sense, although with pocket doors there is no bottom track that I am aware of. I was kind of thinking of these as pocket doors without the pocket. Couldn't I just put a guide at the floor near the outer edge of the stationary doors, but on the outside of the slider doors, to keep them on track?

That's probably doable using interior doors & framing. You could ask at your local home supply store, if it sells windows & interior doors. They probably have someone there who would know how to configure this. Or maybe ask in the Remodeling forum.

check out http://www.johnsonhardware.com/ and http://www.barndoorhardware.com/

They are the ones with the interior sliding doors. They may have some pics for inspiration

Laura