Japanese sliding doors

The sliding doors with japanese shoji paper make a great visual impact! Elegant and sophisticated, they are generally used as doors to divide a room in two parts or to create walk-in wardrobe. Japanese sliding doors are generally used for:

• dividing a living room and kitchen
• dividing day and night areas in the house
• splitting one room into two
• creating an entrance

Estimation or information requests

Sloping roofs and japanese doors

In houses with sloping roofs, the japanese sliding doors can still be installed easily. Depending on the type of roof, it's possible to create:

• runners attached on the roof with wooden beams with a diagonal cut to compensate the slope 
  
  
• floor-roof closures using Shoji walls with a diagonal cut that can be fixed or openable with hinges. The sliding doors can then be placed underneath this closure.

Roofs with wooden beams and japanese doors

If your roof has wooden beams, we recommend installing plasterboard closures above the doors. The use of different materials will highlight the design of your ceiling.

Sliding system for japanese doors

The most common sliding system for the doors uses metal runners placed on top of the closure and covered with wooden panels. This solution allows to leave the floor free of runners.

The frame of the division can be completed with wooden pillars along the walls where the sliding doors come to a halt. Such elements allow for the doors to be completely closed at the sides because they even out the possible imperfections of the walls.

Special dowels screwed into the floor under the doors (not visible) avoid any swinging movements of the modules. But the division consists of 3 doors that can be closed all on one side (with a triple metal runner), instead of the dowels, it will be necessary to use a wooden runner on the floor that goes from one end of the door system all the way to the other so that the doors will not swing at all during their whole movement from left to right.

A wood on wood sliding system is, as a matter of fact, the most typical type sliding system you will find in japanese homes, but this system is best indicated only for lightweight doors with simple paper or fabric covering.

The runners can be applied on top of the floor as in fig. 1, or they can be built into the floor as in fig. 2.

It's also possible to request the double or triple runners with sloping sides. This feature can reduce the risk of stumbling on the floor runners.
The slope can be applied on only one side as in fig. 3, or on both sides as in fig. 4.

Runners fixed to the wall or ceiling: two solutions for japanese doors

If the runners are fixed to vertical walls, the sliding doors must slide sideways externally along the wall. If the runners are fixed to the ceiling, the doors can slide within the opening. These are called ceiling sliding doors:

fixed to the wall                                                           fixed to the ceiling

Door width: double or single sided grids

The doors can be made with several widths. Sliding doors for room divisions should generally have a wooden grid on both sides as they are both always visible. Depending on the width, the grid can be made in different ways:

• 19 mm thick doors; in this case a 12 mm thick wooden grid is applied on one side, and a 4 mm multilayer wooden finishing on the other.
• 26 mm thick doors; for thin coatings like fabric, or Washi rice paper. Solid 12 mm thick wooden grids are applied on both sides.
• 32 mm thick doors; ideal for any type of coating. The double-sided grids are 12 mm thick.

Sliding and swinging doors

We can also create 42 mm thick sliding doors that slide inside walls. We work well with frames made by Scrigno or Eclisse but we can also evaluate different constructors.

Moreover we create 42 mm thick swinging doors on hinges in japanese style.
For the sliding and swinging doors we create all the necessary profiles and provide an anti-dust kit.
For all these types of doors we can add lock systems.

Door coverings for japanese doors

If you wish to allow light to pass through the door, we can offer the following coatings:

• simple fabrics
• rice papers with double-sided PVC coating
• Rice paper on rigid polycarbonate layer
• Rice paper on plexiglass

If you prefer an opaque covering that does not allow light to pass, we offer the following:

• wood panels covered with fabric on one or both sides
• natural wood panels, oiled or finished

You can use our Shoji doors to partially close an opening of the house and create a sense of order.