Elphaba, I'm in Houston. We have completely gutted our "new" house and are in the process of rebuilding. Throughout the house, we have installed pockets for 4 pocket doors. One of those is in the master bath. I am really excited to be getting those doors out of the way. I can share my experience. We have 3 pocket doors in our office here, and we have not had any problems. The office is on a slab, and the thermostat is only kept at a comfortable level 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. This means that it gets fairly humid in there on the weekends. The office pocket doors are rarely used, but when I do use them, they work just fine. They were installed about 3 years ago without any problems. It's true that it is humid outside, but I wouldn't think with central air that it would be any more humid than anyplace else on the inside of your house. Of course a bathroom is more humid than other rooms, but if your cabinet hardware isn't sticking or rusting, I would think that the pocket door would behave in the same way. At least that's what I'm hoping since we just installed 4!!! My vote is for the pocket door. Best of luck with your project! Enduring, that's great info on the pocket doors. Thank you for sharing. This post was edited by TXBluebonnet11 on Fri, Jun 21, 13 at 3:13

Thanks Wonbyherwits, I do have drapes on the 3 windows (wall to the right) - with warm golds, a bronze brown, and yellows & whites. I *was* going to use the same on the patio doors, but decided against it because I thought we wouldn't need them and I worry about my boys messing with them. I don't have any current pics, sorry. The wall color in that room is the same yellow. The panels on the other French doors (leading to mb) are a warm gold. I thought about using those, but I need to be able to see out the doors 95% of the time (kids playing) - I need to be able to lift or open whatever I end up using. Furniture in the room is warm brown leather & dark woods. Accent colors are a bit of black & browns, and autumn orange... I'm unsure about any other colors yet as I'm still working on the adjoining rooms. Here's another pic, closer look at the doors. I would still love to see more pictures, if anyone has some, especially of roman shades on the doors.

The closed doors tell the world it is a place that is never used. That would inspire me to re-purpose that room. Great place for a home office. My sister did this and also removed the doors. It was amazing how open and updated just doing that made the entry feel. I would never actually eat in there with the doors closed, and the vision of running children while adults eat..well I see a head or arm going right through that glass. How big is that room? Imagine it full of eating guests...can the doors open easily w/o chairs being sucked in? Pocket doors and actually using the room seem to give you more space, or find a way for the doors to open out into the hall.

@jackowskib - thanks for the quick comment and kind words! I am considering shifting the fridge over. I'm waiting to hear just how much space we can stick in between the fridge and the wall to be sure I can open the fridge doors past 90°. The last thing I want is to limit access to the drawers inside. I have the same opinion about the bottom freezers actually. There are 2 models that I've seen that do a better job of capturing most of the space and they include a separate (can be opened w/o opening french doors) refrigeration/custom temp drawer. Those are the reasons I've added them to my consideration list. Also, we're going to have a small freezer in the house so I've got a little additional freezer storage available. That section of cabinet to the right on the counter will either be open or have a bifold door that opens to the right. Apparently those stay-open hinges are quite expensive!