Why do you want a center stile?

Ours are a bit different than yours because we have frameless cabinets and only one door, but you can see the hardware - similar to bifold closet doors - the door slides on the rail. You need some sort of hardware that keeps the doors more “attached” to the cabinets (or a different style of door, like the pocket slide). We were a little concerned about the inside edge of the bowing out (and we were definitely pushing the height limit on this), but we didn’t plan on anything heavy in the cabinet above (dishes are in a drawer) and were prepared to add interior bracing if needed. So far, so good.

My appliance garage doors are the pocket style shown above. While they are solid and go inside nicely...I rarely use that function. You have to be careful that they are pulled all the way out, there is a little "bump" before they go in. I thought that I would really love them...turns out that it drives me crazy to leave them open, and I worry that my husband will not be careful enough when pulling them back out...so now my coffee maker sits on the counter ;) It's still a very useful space for other stuff, but I could have just had regular doors made. Hope you find a solution! I'm only mentioning this to help someone else, not to criticize.

@abclatham - who is your cabinet manufacturer? I'm looking into different frameless options as that is all I want in my new houses kitchen. They are very hard to find around here.

For the doors I don't know how to make them harder to open. I would look into putting clear bumpers (the kind they stick on the inside of the doors) on the wall to at least protect the door and the wall when hitting it. The kind of hinges you have are meant to be easy to open/close. Maybe if you can solve the hitting the wall part - having some distance to the wall would be better as in having a filler between the wall and cabinet then you might learn to handle the doors with time. Ie you will get used to how they operate and learn to deal with that part.

Who builds a door that tall and wide with only 2 hinges? The issue here is the overall design. And the adjacency of the wall. It will never work well as placed or designed. You’d do better to turn it into multiple flip up doors.

I appreciate the feedback so far. We are meeting with the builder on site today to discuss how we will resolve this. @User we are past the point of moving a wall. What would you advise we ask from our builder as to remedy this? I have already told them we are not happy with the design and lack of providing us a cabinet sketch for us to review.

@abcdlatham I was considering this type of track added to the top and thought it might be the easiest solution. Do you like how it functions?

The issue is the overall width here. It’s too wide to work well with that type of hardware. I highly recommend either the Hafele coplanar sliding door hardware, where you open half at a time, or their lift and stay hardware, and split the opening horizontally. I don’t recommend bifold doors at all . They are always in the way. Pocket doors are good, but they mostly stay open in most people’s kitchens. Which is opposite of Lucky’s experience with them!

https://www.hafele.com/us/en/product/coplanar-sliding-door-hardware-slider-m-50-set/0000001100026dc600070023/

https://www.hafele.com/us/en/product/lid-stay-flap-stay-haefele-duo-standard-complete-set/000000010001c65c00010023/

https://www.hafele.com/us/en/product/lift-up-fitting-haefele-strato/0000005f000294fa00060023/

I don’t find the bifold doors in the way at all, but I suspect that is because we only have one “set” on each side, so they just go up against the wall. Also, because they aren’t as wide they don’t come out much past the countertop. I like the mechanism and it has worked well for us, but every situation is different.

I have the pocket doors on my pantry similar to the ones above. They function well. I agree with others, the bifold doors are the problem.

We got our cabinets from Metropolitan Cabinets.

@abcdlatham I'd love to know how you like your cabinets overall, and how long you've had them. I'm considering Metropolitan for an upcoming renovation. TIA!

We’ve had the cabinets for almost year. We love them and had a good experience with Metropolitan. Fell free to pm me if you would like more info.

Whitney, I’d love to see a photo and hear an update on what you ended up doing? We are building something similar and looking for ideas.