Sid's Closet

Pocket doors are a period thing - a lot of my friends' houses in L.A. have them, and they are sort of a holdover from Victorian times that spilled over into the teens and 20s. They allow you to close off rooms easily while not forcing you to deal with where to put wider-than-normal hinged doors when you want everything open. We use them at formal dinner parties when we want to show off an elaborate table (and not spoil the surprise until it's time to seat people). They also let you close off less-used areas of a house if you just want to heat part of it and not the whole thing...