All The Details on Our (Faux) Arched Pocket Door
The day is here! I’m sharing all the details I can about our faux arched pocket door that connects our mudroom to our kitchen. This is by far the most requested blog post I have received and I finally managed to gather enough information to be able to share it with you!
The reason we call it our “faux” arched pocket door is because the door is actually just a normal rectangular pocket door! Getting this custom look required some creative thinking but it was actually super easy to do and saved us a ton of money.
We had to carve out a mudroom space on the main floor to house all the muddy boots and wet coats that come with a midwestern fall and winter — old houses are not known for their plethora of storage options after-all! This meant that we would have a little room right off the kitchen so I knew the door had to be functional and pretty.
At first, I spent weeks searching the internet for a vintage arched pocket door but it was impossible to find something that wasn’t hugely expensive, the correct size and not a total beast to install. Time was running out!
That’s when we thought of the genius idea to try and make a semi-custom regular pocket door look arched by casing it out that way. It was like a lightbulb moment!
We worked with Simpson Door Co. on this project because they have semi-customizable door options that fit all your renovation needs. We decided on door 37682 but changed the glass to a half-round shape in order to achieve the arched look once installed.
The door arrived unfinished so we chose an espresso gel stain to achieve that “old-world” look and then sealed the stain with a flat top coat to compliment the flat finish of our kitchen island.
Installation:
The doorway was framed out as a rectangle (as shown above) and our door was installed on a sliding track like a normal pocket door. Once the door was installed, our subcontractors added more drywall in a semi- arched shape and then cased out the opening to make the door look arched.
The finishing touch was installing this beautiful antique french brass pocket door hardware from Emtek. The aged patina on the hardware is gorgeous and compliments the all brass in our kitchen.
I love how we can easily slide this door closed if the mudroom is looking messy (as mudrooms often do) or if we have to keep the dog in there after a muddy romp in the yard.
The glass on the top half allows all the natural light from the mudroom to shine into the kitchen — and vice versa . Plus, the semi-arched shape compliments the other archways on the main floor and feels like it’s been here for a hundred years!
