Do you have a dehumdifier in your basement? If so, the doors should be fine. I have one in my basement and it's drier than my main floor.

I don't have a suggestion, except I don't like the idea of a curtain or drape. The thought of having barn doors sounds smashing, it does. Boy, you have a lot of toys, huh? Since you are storing toys the chalk board paint may do just fine. You shouldn't of mentioned those barn doors, that is an idea that doesn't go away. Of course if it won't work, it won't work.

Wish I could be of some help, sorry.

.....Jane

I just saw this idea for closet doors in House Beautiful. (From this article: http://www.housebeautiful.com/decorating/hollywood-regency-rental-apartment-0510)

Here is a link that might be useful:

Do you like the shoji screen look? They could hang like the barn doors, but wouldn't be as heavy.

Of course, I do think the barn doors would look wonderful and with a dehumidifier, I am not sure they would warp.

I don't see the problem of using the wood in the basement. Isn't the area temp controlled?

Ask him about using a mix of materials to make the doors lighter and more stable....maybe veneer plywood with t&g trim or plywood with a t&g finish. I would continue trying to find a way to use the 3 doors and nix his idea of 6.

I do know that making a door out of solid wood is going to give you a very heavy door, which also means you may need extra support in the wall to hold the necessary hardware. DS has a barn and they have a gate made of t&g mahogany & alder........thing weighs a ton!

Will two of the doors overlap or will you have all three overlapping when they're open?

If you find you're stuck with them, I'd do some with chalkboard paint, some with self-adhesive stickers (the Blik type have ones that are oversize and removable when you get tired of them) and some where you can make frame "stickers" so you can (eventually) tape some of your kids' art there. And I'd paint them in different, coordinating colors just to make it fun for the kids.

And you definitely want everything behind closed doors? Maybe you could break it up by having some shelving and a console for a TV in the center, having your guy make them as if everything were original built-ins (you know that eventually the kids will want to play videogames down there!).

I like pammyfay's idea of breaking it up. I also like the idea of wide 6' foor doors. Yes the issue would be in the building of them. Custom built would cost a fortune.

As a kind of handy person myself, I would have thought about building a frame with 1x2s, playing a bit with the framing to give the "barn - exposed support" impression, then back them with 1/4 beadboard. To avoid the issue with uneven floor to ceiling height that a lot of basements have, they would have to proabably installed as hanging doors, allowing a small amount of space on the bottom. That would get a bit tricky, depending on the senario, because they would then be able to swing about a bit. Although the weight may be enough to stop most of that issue.

I have a basement full of hollow-core mahogany luan plywood doors from 1966. (When the house was built.)They are fine. I have no idea how expensive they are...but the sliding barn doors I see advertised in Dwell are wicked cool...

I know you said no drapes, but that reminded me of someone else's room with two separate toy storage areas. It's a good look for her playroom.

I know it might be more costly, but you might come up with an idea from it. Roll up garage doors like on commercial buildings also think those safety bar things too.

Maybe large roller shades.

The disadvantage I see with your 6' door idea is that, unless they stack together, you will only ever be able to get to one third of what's behind them at a time. I'd also want to know how old your children are, and whether or not they can manage big heavy doors like that without damage to their little fingers.

Your existing doors, by the way, are often called "single flat panel." You see that style in a lot of the old New York apartments. I'd give some consideration to using that style. (You can get a modern version by adding a simple frame of 3/8 " plywood, with the same proportions of the doors that are already there, to a plain hollow core door blank. You could make a subtle reference to the barn door by butt-jointing the frame pieces and attaching them with countersunk screws covered with button pegs.)
Then, to break up the space visually and make it useful, you could install one pair of 3' doors at each end, build narrow (18 inch) open bookcases next to each, and then use a fixed panel in the middle, same style, but with a mirror in the center insert to open the wall visually. You can install such a thing with a pivot hinge that runs from the top edge on the left or right into the ceiling (or soffit) above, and the floor below, and allows you to have an operable door without a frame. Your carpenter can advise you about the feasibility of that idea.

And then you could paint two of the side panels with chalkboard paint, put a thin piece of sheet metal on the other two for magnets...or cork, for pinning things up...or whatever strikes your fancy.

Wow - thanks for all the feedback! Still digesting it all but here's some random late-night thoughts.

I do see his point about the doors. On our main floor (which is obviously heated and air conditioned) we have a few doors made from tongue and groove pine in the barn door style and they have warped and flexed -- in the summer, they swell and stick, in the winter, they warp. I consider it part of the charm of the house but I could definitely see how that much movement might cause problems on a sliding track.

hoosiergirl - those look like the doors I found that are a thousand bucks a door! They are cool though!

natal - those drapes look cool, but those openings are small. I can't picture 18 feet of drapes....that seems overwhelming to me.

All the suggestions for built-ins and such would be wonderful, but we're pretty far along so I think it would be costly to change now. Besides, the things that are getting stored here aren't pretty (rubbermaid tubs full of thomas tracks and other random toys) so I definitely like the idea of closed doors. My kids are 6 and 9 so I'm thinking they shoudl be able to manage the doors without hurting themselves. And once we outgrow the need for this much toy storage, I plan to fill the closet up with christmas decorations and sporting equipment and other bulky ugly stuff anyhow.

So anyhow, right now, my current thinking is to use 5 completely flat doors and one paneled one (I didn't want to confuse you in the original post, but one of the doors needs to have a grille in it because the dehumidifier will live in this closet as well. So I was thinking of cutting the middle panel out of the single flat panel door (thanks for the correct term bronwynsmom!) and replacing it with metal grille to allow for air circulation to the dehumidifier section of the closet.

I was even thinking I could bolt two doors together into a 6 foot door (maybe even use wood putty to hide the "seam" down the middle - think that would work?). Then I'd have 3 6ft doors that I'd just paint with chalkboard paint for now. The plain flat door blanks are dirt cheap so I could try this approach for now and, if I wasn't happy with it, I guess I could try building my own barn doors later. There are two things that concern me about this plan though -- one is that the end door would actualy have one flat door and one paneled door bolted together (to allow for the air grille) - that might look dumb. Plus with the 6 foot doors, there will be alot of the area covered at any point in time -- one of the tracks is always going to have 12ft of door on it. Versus if I just hung the 3 ft doors alternating -- then I'd have each track with 9 ft, exposing an additional 3 ft with the doors all the way open. I suppose I could get around this by having 3 separate tracks instead of 2, but I'm not sure the door opening has the extra depth for that and we're hemmed in by ductwork so I don't know if we could make the space if we wanted to.

I'm terrible with visualizing stuff like this in my head, so I think I need to draw it out on paper.

Bronwynsmom -- the idea you describe about jointing two paneled door blanks together - can you explain it again? I've read your paragraph over and over and it sounds intriguing, but I'm not quite getting exactly what you're describing.

Anyhow, thanks again for the feedback. I've got a few days to figure it out, so keep any ideas coming!

Lkplatow, just FYI, the closet doors I linked to were plain old regular sliding closet doors that the designer wallpapered (they only LOOKED like a thousand bucks)! I thought it was a cool idea! Below is the link to the article, and this is what she said about the closet doors:

"In your office, the boldest color and pattern is on the closet doors.

I have a two-bedroom apartment because I need an office. But there were sliding mirrored doors on the closet, so the office still felt too much like a bedroom. A quick fix was to turn the doors around and slip them back in their tracks. Then I covered them with that overscale poppy print wallpaper. It just brings the room alive. When I move out, I can strip off the wallpaper, turn the doors back around, and it'll be like it never happened."

Here is a link that might be useful: House Beautiful Article

Yes...if someone can explain to me how to scan in a sketch and post it here, I will make one to explain what I mean.

I'm such a dinosaur....

(I saw that House Beautiful story as well...great idea!)

I wish I had a photo of the large sliding doors at a hairdresser's I saw, because it sounds like just the style for your basement closer doors. They looked like a "modern industrial shoji screen" if that makes sense. Google shoji screens and you will see the basic idea....the framework was made of simple metal angle material (probably aluminum or steel) in a grid design that looked sort of modern/oriental/industrial warehouse (does that make ANY sense?) LOL The panel material was some kind of thick (at least 1/4" or maybe 3/8") soft but sturdy opaque white plastic...maybe polypropylene or opaque acrylic??? I don't know what to call it...but I have some dog doors out of a similar material and I think it might be "polyacrylic." Anyway the basic idea is that the material is opaque, feels sturdy but also doesn't feel brittle. Gee, I hope that makes sense. There is a kind of track that makes that kind of big wide doorway with several sliding panels work, here is one site I found to give you the idea:

http://www.blindalley.com/portfolios/paneltrack.html

I just realized the link I sent is for sliding panel window treatments and not sliding doors. The one I was trying to describe did have tracks on the floor to help hold the door but I have no idea where to get them, sorry!