Pocket or regular door for small laundry / darkroom?

kingbuzzie

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I'm designing a laundry room / half bath / hobby darkroom. Its primary purpose is still a laundry and half bath. I've never had a pocket door, but it's a verys small room and it would make sense. Which is easier to make light tight without looking awful? And for that matter, how do you make a regular door light tight (ish) without looking tacky? Everything is a compromise I know. This compromise falls squarely on the laundry / half bath over my darkroom.
 

mrosenlof

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in my experience, pocket doors are not very light tight. you would probably need some kind of blackout curtain hanging on one side or the other of the door. Regular doors are a little more light tight, but still not great on their own. Weatherstripping material all around the door jamb helps, but there is still a gap at the bottom. In my own darkroom of 25 yeatrs, I've done weatherstrip on the swinging door and still have an old towel blocking the bottom.
 

Doremus Scudder

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In the past, I've had temporary darkrooms in converted bathrooms with both styles of door. The pocket door was a bit harder to get light tight, but certainly not impossible. I hung a long, narrow strip of blackout material over the closing point and simply put a towel down to cover the crack by the floor. It helps if the adjoining room isn't brightly lit. I developed sheet film in trays and made prints up to 16x20 in that little bathroom... That was years ago.

My current darkroom has a regular door, lightproofed with weatherstripping and a threshold.

Best,

Doremus
 

Rick A

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I didn't worry about what ever door was on my darkroom, I use a blackout cloth over when needed.
 

MattKing

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For regular doors, door draft stoppers work great for the crack at the bottom:
Their advantage over a towel is they allow the door to open and close more easily. I put it on only when using the room as a darkroom.
A pocket door is great for the second door in a two door light trap setup - e.g. two doors 1.5 metres apart.
 

Sirius Glass

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Pocket doors can have problems:
  • The door warps and sliding in and out gets hard to do.
  • The door can develop problems with the slide mechanisms which are not easy to remedy because one does not have access to the components.
  • Pocket doors get to be obnoxious to slide in and out.
I had two pocket doors on a house I owned for 25 years and the door were novel at first and then grew to be obnoxious.
 
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kingbuzzie

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You are right sir! I ended up changing it to a regular swing door that swings out (I know, a faux pas for a bathroom, but it's a less used bathroom. One will be in the master bath as well, but I bought an upgraded track for that one.
 

grahamp

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I had a pocket door on my last darkroom. Since it was not a general purpose room, I built up a channel threshold and receiving edge for the door, and painted the channel and door edges flat black before installing it. I also made sure that the carriage bolts were accessible behind a panel over the door. It was functionally light tight - there was a fluorescent light right outside. One side benefit of the re-entrant light trap was that it allowed ventilation.

This was a small space, and I had to put in the partition wall anyway.

Swung doors are definitely easier to work with, though.
 

rcphoto

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I did this exact same thing. I bought foam insulation off amazon and put a layer along the edge of a standard door. Works perfectly for me and cost about $20.
 

Mal Paso

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I put a pocket door on my bathroom to save the space of the door swing and it's been problem free. The frame and pocket were factory built with the track installed. The door is a modern hollowcore, no warping.

Unless you are a finish carpenter prehung doors are the way to go. Swing doors are easier to make light tight but I would go with whatever makes the space better.

My darkroom has an inswing door.

It would be nice to find something like the old B&J Darkroom Cloth, Black with rubber coating on one side.
 

MTGseattle

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Will your door opening occur in an existing wall, or are you framing a new wall/opening? modern pocket door hardware (extruded aluminum tracks with triple wheel "trolleys") is pretty reliable. The old-school ones were kind of a "V" track formed from fairly light steel, and the wheels had to ride in the "V." The down and dirty generalization for a pocket door opening in the framing is door slab width x2 + 2" Look at your wall and try and determine if you have that space without having to move any plumbing and/or electrical. Another pocket door caveat is that the crate itself is usually pretty minimal which doesn't make it very nice to hang anything on that section of the wall. Also, be careful with your fastener length. I've seen guys nail a door into the opening by using silly long brads while installing millwork which renders the door inoperable.
 
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kingbuzzie

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It's new construction. Actually after talking with my significant other... the pocket door stays. Hahah. I guess I'll just deal with it the best I can. It might mean only working at night, which is fine I guess.
 

MattKing

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Velcro and a blackout curtain on the outside will solve many problems
 

Kino

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My pocket door works fine and is perfectly light tight. Get some good, thick black felt and line the door jamb and place it on the face of the slot where the door slides in and out. Be sure to allow for the insulation thickness when installing the door latch.
 

MattKing

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In my case, our decorating choices permit having a curtain rod attached in the opening near the door, and blackout curtains on that rod.
 

eli griggs

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Sirius Glass said:
I use that too.
Click to expand...

I use the same setup for a regular door into my darkroom, held by a long strip of Velcro that spans the door out to the walls on either side.

I also ran a couple of feet of Velcro vertically on either side the door frame, to help keep the opening at the frame.

I let the black off cloth drag about a foot on the floor with some small weights, long bolts, iirc, to keep the cloth in flat contact with the floor.

I got the blackout fabric from Joanne's and use it the window of the droom and as a darkcloth.

It's rubber backed and strong, but stich holes will show so be careful it does no allow light through.
 

Doremus Scudder

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As I mentioned, lightproofing a pocket door isn't that difficult. A small strip of light-proofing material along the side the door butts up against the frame and a towel on the floor did fine for me for years. If you want to upgrade, some foam weatherstripping and a track on the floor would work just fine. Maybe a temporary track you could simply tape to the floor if you want to keep the floor flat when the darkroom is not in use. The pocket door will certainly save you space.

Best,

Doremus
 

eli griggs

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Pocket doors are also a bellows that blows and sucks up debris from the wall, like a one touch zoom lens does, on or off a camera, and it is no a tight fit inside the wall.

Swinging doors can draw in or push out dust, but at a normal opening and closing speed, the effect in a wide opening is less likely to pressurize the air like the pocket door is likely to.

IMO.
 

GregY

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Eli, I don't think the build is so tight as to cause a bellows effect. You do however make a point about vacuuming out the space before you install.
I have a pocket door between my darkroom and the finishing/ mounting room (dry mount presses, rotatrim, Logan mat cutter). It works great. The entrance to the space is at the far end of the finishing room. During the day i just throw a towel along the base of either door... that keeps things dark when i'm processing film. With prints i don't worry as much (some corners the light doesn't pass around.
 

gone

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I made my bathroom light tight for loading film reels by putting 2 screws on either side of the door frame at the top. Then I simply hang a blanket on them when its time to load the reels. Push it against the bottom of the door w/ my foot, use masking tape on a few strategic places on the sides, it takes about a minute to put it up or take it down.

A darkroom for printing doesn't even have to be light tight. Just don't have light around the enlarger/tray areas.
 
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eli griggs

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"A darkroom for printing doesn't even have to be light tight. Just don't have light around the enlarger/tray areas."

Yes, back in the early mid 1980's, I had set up my darkroom up in my old house, in a kitchen that had two largish (per sq.ft.) push out window walls, starting in the late Autumn.

The back of the lot had two schools and one of them had a football field abouta hundred yards down to the back right.

I was shooting mostly Charlotte Ballet and Dance Charlotte dancers and doing lots of Cibachrome prints, with a 23C II with dicro head and a PM 2 analyzer.

Daylight flooded the room from the window walls and the high celling, but I had used some large, black background paper rolls to block out the main window lights, so at night I could print without a safe light.

Only when there was a Friday football game did any electric light make it through the upper windows and it did no bother my printing, as my body was between the illumination from the light and the enlarger set-up.

I made a number of very beautiful Ciba prints in that space and hundreds of fiber based b&w prints as well, and I do no remember ever losing a print because of extraneous light, only dialing in a final exposure, which was a very quick task with that analyzer and I kept my colour print roller tanks near by my enlarger for quick insertion and light proof processing, with room lights on.

It amazes me when I think back to some of the places and conditions I have made good prints in, including b&w contact prints in the very cramped laundry washer/dryer closet space in this house, many years ago, with no more than a bare bulb with a string, pane of window glass and a tray of paper developer plus rapid fix.

I'm very firm on having completely blacked out DRs now-a-days, but youth, eagerness and necessity will drive you into possibilities a more considered plan of action will never take you.

IMO.
 

guangong

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My solution: I use a very large photo tent for loading film into developing reels, reusable cassettes, etc. I don’t do any tray development of film, printing only.
I aim several darkroom safelights at the small cracks where light sneaks through when enlarging and printing, thereby coloring incoming light. Never had a problem. I only shoot Minox through 45 formats which can be tank processed, so my solution would probably not be practical for larger formats.
Since light bounces around, I wouldn’t try standing between white light source and enlarger.
 
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