Keep in mind that pocket doors have a tendency to get stuck inside the wall. I’ve run across a couple of them that hadn’t emerged from the wall in many years. It’s not difficult to fix if you don’t mind tearing the wall out, but certainly inconvenient. I think it’s safe to assume the two stuck doors I saw were due to shoddy construction, so if you put them in, just make sure it’s done right.
What was the violation? Width or accessibility or something?
I too have seen doors that were stuck in the wall intentionally or unintentionally, and had been just painted over 
So sad.
You’re not wrong about it being expensive to convert heavy old doors into pocket doors. You’ll need more than a renovator you’ll likely need a craftsman. Walls may need to be reinforced, this usually involves ceilings too! Hardware to hang such heavy doors may prove a challenge as well. And will probably take up more than 4" too! Also the structural reinforcing could require a building permit, which usually slows things down and costs yet more money.
I know this because I had an old set of solid oak doors that I initially intended to simply have installed. ‘Simply’ does not come into it, I’m afraid. It proved entirely cost and time prohibitive.
But the solid panel doors, in the pocket, unfinished, hanging hardware pre installed, that any contractor could easily and quickly properly install, were actually a much better solution for us. We’ve had them almost 15yrs and they still work perfectly, and they saw a lot of use in the first 6yrs!
Please come back and tell us what you decide and how happy you are with them, once they’re installed! I’m kinda excited for you!
Will do. My usual timeline for projects is “think about it for 3 years then suddenly do it” so I’ll be back in 2017 to give an update. 
Haha nice! Me too! 
I don’t have anything to add here other than to gloat a little bit to the OP. We purchased a “new” home this June, a very large (4800sq ft) historic home. On the first floor, I have 4 sets of pocket doors all made of tiger oak. Two sets are traditional 6 panel doors with two doors that open/close to the center and operate with the traditional overhead rail/wheels set-up. The other two are single doors and instead of being supported from above by the rail/wheel set-up, these have a single scissor type hinge in the wall on one side that supports the entire door horizontally. They are especially amazing considering one of the single doors supported by a single scissor hinge is probably 48 inches wide.
Yes, I do in fact love our house. 
I just measured, the largest of the two single door pocket doors is 59 inches wide. Solid tiger oak. Held by a single scissor hinge that bears all of that weight horizontally. It still boggles my mind…
:mad:
Is there any chance of you posting a pic of that?
Tiger oak…oh, baby. Be sure to not step in my puddle of drool.
I’ve installed a few new ones and worked around some of the heavy heavy old ones in thick walls found in many an elegant old New England home. I would recommend a new door over a salvage door (unless you find something with a wicked cool detail. And even then it should be pre-stripped of paint. I ingested a lot of lead dust belt-sanding salvage doors in the olden days).
For the pocket door I recently installed in my own house, a sturdy, not-elegant colonial, I used a new two-panel vertical-grain fir. Here’s the Brosco page of some lovely fir doors that are available at every lumber yard in our area.
If you use the Johnson hardware, get the heavy duty set.
Also a good quality mortised pull.
The curse of the pocket door.
Never hang a picture on wall with a pocket door in it. You have no idea how many people have inadvertently nailed, screwed or otherwise made the pocket door permanently open or closed until they figured out what happened. (the nail, screw went into the pocket door or its track and interfered with the door travel)
Bwa hahhahahahahhaaa!!!
If I pursue this, we will not be DIYing this. Neither of us is handy or patient enough to tackle a project like this. So… is this what you do for a living? If so, how are you with maintaining, replacing or restoring original woodwork that might need to be altered/moved for work like this? I am very fond of our woodwork.
I used to be a full-time carpenter/project manager, then I switched careers. I still do a lot of work on my own hell-hole (and it’s slowly progressing to the point that I probably can’t call it that any more). I still have my builder’s license, and as a sideline, I occasionally cherry-pick interesting or fun paid jobs for people I know well.
If there’s really nice old woodwork in the house, you can remove casings and baseboards carefully with pry bars, pull the nails out through the back, then reapply the trim after changes are made. If there’s lead paint involved, it’s much more expensive because of all the precautions and special cleaning that have to be done. If you do it yourself as the homeowner, those lead laws won’t apply.
Also, it’s more forgiving if it’s painted trim versus a natural finish. It can be very hard to stitch in new wood to match stuff with an aged clear finish. Here’s another good local resource for paintable poplar and specialty wood trim. If you drop by their Cambridge yard, they will give you samples of trim profiles you are trying to match.
The house of my childhood had one, Victorian era. Heavy, solid, smooth, never gave any trouble. I am not sure what the original use of the ground floor room off the kitchen was, but it was first my parents’ bedroom and later my mom’s sewing room. It was off the dining area part of the kitchen- it was a farmhouse for a dairy farm in Upstate NY. There was a lot of stained oak woodwork, too, which of course my parents 50’s-ized with paint and general remuddling. I still have a cast iron grate for heat flow between the floors- Dad took it out when he installed central heating.
Out of curiosity, do pocket doors handle noise abatement well?
I like things quiet in my house; real quiet
My wife wants some pocket doors put in a few places in the house. I’m pretty handy and would never do this as a DIY. It looks like a very involved, easy to fuck up, job. I imagine the labor is expensive.
She found some fancy looking doors that are on tracks outside the door. We didn’t buy them but she found them.
Uh… I don’t mind sharing a photo, I’m just not sure I belong to any photo sharing sites that I could post a link for. Let me work on it. Haha
Okay, figured out how to share photos via Flickr so hopefully you’ll be able to see these. Two photos of the same door, one from each side. This door separates our formal dining room from our family room.
I found all the pocket door pulls in a box in the basement after we moved in so I just installed them. Unfortunately, only one mortice lockset was in the basement so I’ll be hitting up the architectural salvage shop in town at some point to finish them off.