Cabinet door idea

[andyvh1959]

Another post here showed a cabinet with sliding doors, saves the need for swing out space. Got me to thinking about how i mounted the mirrors on the vanity cabinets in our main bath. Years ago I removed the hanging pendant lights (ugly ones too) and hinged mirror doors in my main bath. I built a soffit above with recessed lights, and mounted much larger oval mirrors on drawer slides so the mirrors slide sideways instead of swinging out. That was done 18 years ago and the slides are still operating fine. What I like about them is the mirrors can be moved, the cabinet accessed, and the mirrors can still be used.

If you use a full extension style slide like these:
https://www.homedepot.com/b/Hardwar...xtension/N-5yc1vZc2bqZ1z0x7ki?storeSelection=

You could have a 24" wide cabinet door slide sideways for full access to the cabinet. Sure you have to consider where the door slides to allow clearance in that direction. But you don't have to move around a swung out door.

 

[CraigStu]

Yep that can work in a lot of situations. And the modern slides have some very nice features.

 

[e36jon]

I agree that you can do exactly what you are suggesting and it will work great. I second the suggestion for fancier slides with the soft-close + end-stop features.

If you want something fancier, or just some inspiration check these guys out: https://www.hafele.com/us/en/info/residential/cabinet-and-furniture-sliding/7124/

I worked as a design engineer in the contract furniture world (high end office furniture) and sliding doors are fairly common due to space constraints. Hafele is one of the big players and their hardware is top-notch. They have one system that allows a pair of sliding doors to sit flush and only pop out when it's time to slide past one another. Crazy...

 

[andyvh1959]

Would be cool too, if the cabinet door sliders would allow for the door to parallelogram out and then slide alongside the adjoining cabinets.

 

[firebirdparts]

Wow, that is a great idea. I've never seen that in a building.

minivan doors on the vanity would not really be worth it for me. There's a wall on one side, and I guess that is very often the case with vanity. A door that 4-bar-mechanismed around the corner of the vanity on the other end would work nicely on that end. I don't need the space that bad, though.