Sliding doors for dressing rooms, characteristics of different models

Many owners dream of a comfortable and spacious dressing room in their home. But in order to properly arrange such a “pantry”, you need not only to allocate space for installing the filling: cabinets and chests of drawers. You also need to carefully choose good sliding doors for your dressing room. Depending on the design and features of its operation, different types of door systems are distinguished. They can include several doors or be equipped with just one door leaf. Products are made from a variety of raw materials, which should also be taken into account. Depending on the door materials and their characteristics, both the maintenance conditions and the service life of the model may change. Below we have examined in detail all the options for doors for dressing rooms, indicating their features and operating principles. Also in our tips you will find tips on choosing the optimal material and design of sliding doors.

Advantages and disadvantages

The choice of sliding doors for a dressing room is determined both by the layout and design of the room, and by functionality. This option has several advantages:

Sliding doors to the dressing room will be a good choice when there is a shortage of free usable space. They do not take up space when open, like casement options and are perfect for narrow corridors or small compact rooms;
variations of facade designs presented by manufacturers of this furniture segment will amaze even the most sophisticated designers;
such doors do not slam shut in strong drafts - they will be safer for small children. It is more difficult for small children to open the sliding door for the dressing room, so this is another plus in terms of safety.

The main disadvantages of coupe models are their complex design, as well as the need for careful use. We can highlight the main disadvantages, knowledge of which will help to avoid mistakes when choosing them:

The sliding sliding door for the dressing room allows air to easily pass through, and therefore odors. When installing a dressing room near the kitchen, take care of high-quality insulation;
The short service life of working mechanisms can cause frequent repairs. You can avoid such problems by carefully choosing all the equipment of your wardrobe elements;
the fragility of the structure can fail at the wrong moment. A guest who mistook the sliding façade for a hinged one will easily disable it with a strong pull towards himself.
the inability to be open to everyone at once prevents the full width of the doorway from being used.

Despite the type of panels chosen to close the interior space of the dressing room from the main room, you should carefully select their components and handle them with care, even if they are declared to be the most durable.

Wardrobe room - making a project

As you can see, there are a lot of ideas for warehouse equipment and systems. But so that it doesn’t turn out that the great thing you bought simply doesn’t end up in your wardrobe, you need to draw a plane on which you indicate all the sizes and dimensions. It is drawn to scale, so mark on it the details you need to request. They are drawn to the same scale.

If everything “goes well”, armed with the dimensions (you have them, or you can measure according to the figure and calculate the real values on a scale), you can go to the store to select systems.

There is another approach. Find out the dimensions of the devices and systems you like (installation dimensions), cut them out to scale from cardboard or thick paper and try to combine everything. If you can, you can buy. No, look for other options. As a result of your efforts, you should end up with approximately the same layout as in the photo.

An example of organizing space in a dressing room (indicating the minimum sizes for different types of clothing)

To make it convenient to use equipment and get things out, you need to maintain the following distances:

minimum distance from shelf to shelf: when storing things - 30 cm; when storing shoes (without stilettos) - 20 cm;
shirts, jackets, jackets - 120 cm;
trousers: folded in half - 100 cm; length - 140 cm;
compartment for outerwear - 120 cm; coat - 160-180 cm;
for dresses - 150-180 cm.

On top we reserve space for clothes from another season or rarely used items. There is often space for a vacuum cleaner downstairs, and one of the cabinets has a built-in ironing board.

Kinds

The range of wardrobe facades offered by manufacturers is large enough to be applied to any wardrobe rooms and any room layouts. There is a basic range of design solutions based on supporting sliding mechanisms or suspended sliding mechanisms:

bottom support structures include several main types of sliding structures. This includes the most popular sliding wardrobe doors. The main feature of this type is the load on the lower support rail or support rollers. The upper part of the entire mechanism serves as a guide. Typically the lower part is made of steel or aluminum. Aluminum is stronger and more durable than steel, but costs more. Bottom rails are either mortise or overhead. The first ones are technically more difficult to make, but they look better, and they also allow the door to go down close to the floor. The lower guide rail often becomes clogged and creates noise during operation;
suspended structures are more modern and more reliable. The top profile is wide and massive, which helps it withstand heavy loads. A special stabilization system prevents the doors from swinging too much and prevents them from falling. Hanging structures require a strong frame, so they are often installed on partially built-in wardrobes.

Bottom support system Suspension system
In addition to the structural diversity, sliding doors are divided into the following types:

wardrobe compartment - a conventional bottom-support sliding system;
a pencil case is a structure that hides in the walls when opened. It is not suitable for installing a dressing room in a niche;
book - similar in appearance to a swing door, but opens by folding in half;
accordion - a solid door similar to a screen. It looks like a book door, but has more doors;
There are frameless sliding systems - these are glass modules that do not have a clear frame, and the working mechanisms are attached directly to the panel.

Frameless Pencil Case Accordion Coupe

Manufacturing materials

Today, the main materials used for the manufacture of sliding wardrobe doors are wood, MDF boards, metal, glass, plastic, and combined materials. Natural wood is used when installing accordion doors, pencil cases and books. This material goes well with a classic interior, emphasizing the high status of the owner of the house. This is an environmentally friendly, reliable material, but it is quite expensive. Most often oak is used for these purposes.

MDF is the most common and has established itself as an inexpensive and versatile material. MDF boards are amenable to shaped processing of any complexity, which allows you to create doors of any shape and style.

Glass and mirror doors are designed to visually increase the space of the room. They are suitable for modern and high-tech styles. The peculiarity of such doors of dressing rooms is that, without entering the dressing room, you can see its contents. The doors are also supplied with frosted glass, decorated glass, patterned glass, glossy glass and structured glass.

Combining materials allows you to adjust the final result to the specific needs of the customer. Combinations can be varied: plastic with metal, glass with MDF or wood, glass and plastic, mirror panels with frosted glass.

The working mechanisms are made of steel and aluminum. Steel systems are cheaper than aluminum ones, but they are fragile and quickly fail. The reason for this is often the small thickness of the canvas. Thin rails of lower support systems quickly deform. Aluminum systems will last longer, although they are much more expensive than steel ones. What is certain is that any system, regardless of its cost, will last a long time if handled with care.

Working door systems are equipped with rollers or bearing mechanisms. Often the standard equipment is equipped with roller elements that do not have bearings, but they can be replaced with higher-quality parts for compartment doors to the dressing room with your own hands.

MDF

Mirror chipboards

Wooden

Glass

Types of mirrors

Usually an ordinary mirror is installed on the door and used for its intended purpose. People look into it to evaluate their appearance. But you can create a real masterpiece from a simple design if you decorate the surface with various patterns. There are several types of such mirror planes.

Grooved

As a rule, it is made according to individual sketches, but there are quite a lot of ready-made copies on sale. The volumetric pattern looks very impressive and will be quite an original decoration.

Stained glass

To create such a surface, you will need high-quality painted parts. With their help, unusual pictures are created on the mirror that can attract attention.

Patinated

Artificial aging is widely used when using various styles of room decoration. For example, in the direction of shabby chic or eclectic. A mirror that looks like it has been used for many years is very popular in the now fashionable loft.

Tinted

Folding mirror doors for a dressing room can be made from colored glass using amalgam. Such products are luxurious and perfectly used in the art deco style.

Patterned

The surface is decorated with a pattern or inscription, which is applied by etching. For this purpose, the surface is sandblasted. Such decorations look equally good in any design.

With beveled edges

The edge of a mirror, processed at a certain angle, can also reflect objects. As a rule, to create the effect, several mirrors are required, which will create an unusual three-dimensional image. Such designs are suitable for any style of room.

Decoration

Decorating sliding wardrobe doors is a creative and time-consuming process. Before you learn how to make it yourself, you should familiarize yourself with all the possible options, because a wardrobe with sliding doors can be decorated in various ways. Decorating glass doors or doors with glass inserts is considered common. Also popular is photo printing on plastic or chipboard panels. We invite you to find out how to make your dressing room even more attractive:

Designs are applied to glass and mirror sliding wardrobe doors in a variety of ways. Sandblasting remains the most popular method in glass decoration. Using an air-sand jet, you can make the glass matte, apply a pattern or design on it;
beveled glass elements are applied to glass wardrobe doors and are designed to enhance the furniture with their elaborate shapes. They are made mainly to order, so they have exclusive shapes and unique designs;
photo printing is gradually replacing glass processing. If you want to replace one pattern with another, or change the color of the door, it does not require replacing the entire panel. This applies to photographs printed on film. Photo printing conveys colors better, and it can be used to decorate glass, plastic, leather and other materials. You just have to select an image, and a large-format printer will recreate it on film and you can decorate any compartment door for a dressing room. Photos can be seen in the selection;
Contour stained glass is the most popular type of stained glass. Filled stained glass windows, as they are also called, are made by hand, so each one is unique and exclusive. This also affects the quality of the result, as can be seen from the high clarity and richness of the drawings;
artistic painting is another type of stained glass painting. This is a labor-intensive process that requires a highly qualified artist. The uniqueness of hand-painting technology lies in the fact that the design is applied from the inside in layers. The first layer serves as the outside foreground, and all subsequent layers are the background of the image;
Film stained glass is a quick way to create stained glass on a cabinet door. The method of making such stained glass consists of gluing layers of film that imitates glass. After this, lead tape is glued to the joints. This method is gaining popularity due to its simplicity and speed of implementation;
Ion plasma sputtering is a high-tech, sophisticated and beautiful method of decorating a glass or mirror surface. Ion plasma stained glass is a fairly expensive method of painting on glass, but the result of this method exceeds all expectations;
the sliding facade of the dressing room can be airbrushed; the door can also be made in such a way that it will be decorated with a mirror;
The combination method will allow you to create a glass mosaic on the doors. Often large pattern elements are created in the form of simple geometric shapes.

Despite the complexity of decorating, you can do an upgrade for your dressing room with your own hands, you just need to show a little creativity in this matter.

Care and operation

Of course, every furniture, regardless of its cost and class, needs proper care and compliance with operating rules. Sliding doors for the dressing room are equipped with working mechanisms that are constantly subject to loads. We will tell you how to avoid the serious consequences of improper use of such furniture.

Wooden wardrobe doors and doors made of chipboard are afraid of too humid air and at the same time drying out. It is optimal to use such doors at temperatures no higher than 45 degrees Celsius. Air humidity should be between 55-75 percent. Otherwise, cabinet doors made of such material may become deformed. You should not place heaters near the doors of the dressing room. Wipe off dust on a wooden surface only with a well-wrung out microfiber cloth. In addition, you need to control the level of overload on the shelves and hangers of the closet to avoid breakdowns.

Guide profiles and roller systems of door support elements are responsible for their normal movement within a given trajectory. Profiles of lower support systems mounted into the floor require special care. Such profiles become clogged and require regular cleaning. Otherwise, rollers of any quality will quickly break. If necessary, all moving mechanisms of sliding facades must be lubricated.

A careless attitude towards such mechanisms will sooner or later lead to their breakdown, which can affect the family budget, since replacing such parts is not cheap.

You need to take care of the surface of the doors with care; if stains have formed on the furniture, they need to be removed with a weak soap solution, which is wiped dry with a clean rag. Mirrored sliding doors for a dressing room should only be washed with mirror products, not glass products. Otherwise, surface clouding may occur. It is worth remembering that no matter how expensive your furniture or its equipment is, with sliding structures or others, it requires absolutely the same care.

General style

For an open wardrobe there is not much choice - it must match the room: either exactly match the style of the room, or at least fit harmoniously into it.

A closed closet offers more choice, especially when the closet occupies a separate room. In this case, the style of the dressing room is not tied to the rest of the house.

This is your space, and you decide what it will be like: chic or not, fashionable or not. But remember that the dressing room does not “receive” guests, so practicality comes before luxury. Let order, cleanliness, coziness and comfort reign here. These qualities can easily be embodied in a classic or casual style. If you want to add some elegance to your wardrobe, no one has the right to stop you.