We built our house with the intent to age in place. We put in all 36 inch pocket doors and our hall is almost 48 inches wide. Our sliding glass doors are 8 feet. We really like it a lot. The doors allow us to move furniture in and out of rooms freely, and the hall is not claustrophobic. I wouldn't change a thing about it. We bought really nice solid wood doors and used the highest grade pocket door hardware. We also installed a layer of Masonite in the walls to avoid the flimsy wall feeling one can sometimes get with pocket doors. Pocket doors are very wheelchair and walker friendly. I decided on 4 panel doors rather than 6 panel since the 4 panel looks better proportioned with the width of the doors, but that is my opinion only. It doesn't cost much more to buy a wider door and make roomy allowances in your home.

I weighed the same options over and over. I have rollout drawers like in the 3rd photo. However, I do not have a full height pantry to the floor. My freezer drawer is at the bottom and the the rollouts and shelves above. I get the issues about things getting lost in the middle of pullouts, like the 1st 2 pics. However the same thing can happen with rollout shelves, especially those that are at the higher up. A pro of the pullouts are that it is one motion like discussed. Pullout and everything comes out. If they are not that wide, I can't see most things getting lost. Biggest issue is cans and that is the same issue even with rollouts. Although I did a shallow rollout where the shelf above is a little higher then a 28oz can on its side. I have the cans on there sides so you can read the labels when you pull it out If you are the one putting groceries away, you tend to know where everything is located. That is the plus. When my wife asks where the x is located, I instinctively know and tell her exactly where it is located. Now my cabinet is 31" wide and I have double doors like the 3rd pic. In retrospect, its kind of a pain. Have to open both doors to get something out. Same issue people complain about with french door fridges. Also, the wide rollouts aren't efficient either. Maybe its more my senario since I only have 3 of them but I have a shelf where there are tall things like bags of chips and much shorter items. In retrospect, it would have been better to have a divider and narrower rollouts. This would have allowed me to use all of the space more efficiently. But then again I would loose all the space with the divider and the extra drawer/rollout material. Hmmm.

Thanks everyone for all your responses. I WAS looking at frameless, but don't have my heart set on it, especially if I have to pay extra. I think, unfortunately, that Crown Point is beyond my means. Schuler doesn't make frameless. eandhl - All the cabinets have full-extension drawers included in the price, but not soft-close, which I don't want (I don't like the way they open). The only company that included any bells and whistles or up-charges was Schuler(!). Who knows how much the other bids would be if they included those bells and whistles? This is what I'm paying extra for: Taller and/or double upper cabinets (they go all the way to the 10-feet ceiling) 6 mullions (requiring finished interiors) 2 trash pull-outs cupboard ends finished columns on the island spice cupboard panels on refrigerator and dishwasher blind-corner with swing-out and roll-out trays Fori: I hadn't thought about the quality of the wood, thanks for pointing that out. I wonder if I should get a sample door from a few of these places and compare them. sw1347 - I read that thread avidly. $80,000 for cabinets. Wow. venkat, chan 123, and brittu - The kitchen is 25'x14' and has quite a few cabinets. There are about 48 linear feet of base cabinets and 38 linear feet of uppers. Maybe I should get a few more custom bids as the one I got was more like $440 per linear foot. cleo 227 - I would LOVE to see some pictures! ellene613 and tinker 2006 - I have found a shop nearby that carries Medallion. I'll check them out. I didn't do it before because I knew that Schuler and Medallion were the same. I assumed they would be the same price, but I guess not neccessarily. Bob - I have never seen a real live Scherr cabinet and it appears from the web site that they aren't sold by retailers. Were you able to see a door before you ordered? Thanks again. This forum is the greatest.

I am not trying to be argumentative, but the problem is that the cheap silver drive in grommet is what a lot of people consider standard. You can walk into almost any new construction here that is on the market for $500K and the cheap silver drive in grommet is what you get. The owner of my practice lives in a house that is worth more than $2M and it has this on "secondary" doors like bathrooms and closets and $12 pocket door hardware. You have a higher level of expectation of what "standard" is. Frequenting Houzz and other sites has developed this. That's fine, and I am in complete agreement with you about what sorts of details are important. But what you desire is no longer "standard", its above the standard, at least in my experience, and I look at a lot of real estate and look at details such as this. Sometimes I wish sites like Houzz didn't exist, because it takes my already high expectations and makes them higher: we are seeing photos of work that people are particularly proud of, not photos of work that is standard or average-particularly if they show details such as this.