Visions of Pocket Doors Dance in my Head

Our latest big decision has needed to be made regarding the doors leading from the kitchen/diner and into the 'playroom' or den.  I always envisioned having lovely french doors in this space because:

1. I LOVE french doors
2. It would bring light from the playroom into the dining room (which lacks windows as it is in the middle of the long space
3. I could keep an eye on the baba while she is happy self-entertaining and I am whipping up a domestic goddess feast (in my dream world)
4. I LOVE FRENCH DOORS

Come on, how can you not love THIS ....

But in addition to french doors, I've always loved the look and idea of pocket doors.  They just make sense.  No swinging arcs.  No wasted wall space.  So I got fixated.  I WANT POCKET DOORS.  I NEED POCKET DOORS.

But we have a problem.  The way the space is designed, the dining room table will be placed directly in front of those doors.  I think that's fine.  I think there's enough space to walk around it.

But then when Sinead, Stephen's cousin and an architect questions the practical flow of the space ...  And Steve, our contractor, also wants verifications that that's what we really want...  And Colin, our kitchen guy, also questions the central placement of the doors AND makes you think about whether the dining space may lack intimacy...  And Stephen, my dear hubby, reminds me that we'll need to keep the playroom tidy if visitors can always see directly into it via the french doors .... well, it makes me re-think this plan.

So it's been an evolution (much like all my decision making processes) that followed along like this:

POCKET FRENCH DOORS ... LOVE

POCKET SOLID TIMBER DOORS 

(OPEN to watch the baba, CLOSED to hide the mess)

Super size single sliding door, positioned laterally to avoid  having to walk around the table
(and btw, our finished product will not be gorgeously spacious or look as fabulous as
this drool worthy table and dining area!)

Then we re-measured the space and our dining room table.  The first and very clear decision was that the extra wall depth required to fit a pocket door would eat into the dining room area too much.  So we will just go with a sliding door fixed to the wall.

Next evolutionary step - Sliding door hung directly to wall or door frame
... and I love this barn door type railing system

And we also realized that the width of the dining room is the exact width of our current dining room!  But our table is positioned along the longside of the room instead of across it, which is the dilemma with these centrally placed doors.  As below:

So we turned the table the other way and positioned it in front of those central doors and have left it like that for the last few days to get a feel for moving around the table.  And you know what?!  It's just fine.  So that leaves us with our final decision.  Double doors, placed centrally and hung on the playroom side so that from the dining room, it will be framed by the door frame, but on the other side will hopefully be hung with these type of barn-style sliding tracks.

Kinda like this ... but I think we'll go for a painted wood finish instead!

Decision made! Woo hoo!  Completed pics will definitely not be ready until the very end so I will have to post that MUCH MUCH later.  But now just to try to find the right door ......