The formats and their honest tradeoffs
The standard inswing is default for a reason: cheap, familiar, acoustically decent, and privacy-positive. Its cost is the arc, in small rooms a large share of the floor, plus the safety caveat that it can be blocked from within. It earns its place where the room has arc to spare and loses it where every inch is programmed.
The pocket door is the small room's classic rescue: zero swept floor, clean sightlines, and a fully open resting state. Its taxes are real: the cavity wall must be free of plumbing and wiring or be rebuilt to be, hardware quality decides whether it glides or grinds for decades, and its acoustic and privacy seal is only as good as its edges. Specify robust hardware and soft-close; the cheap version is the format's bad reputation.
Outswing doors trade the room's arc for the hall's: safer for assisted exit, generous inside, and demanding outside, where the swing must not ambush corridor traffic. Barn-style sliders free both arcs but hang their tax on the wall face they travel across and on acoustic leakage at every edge; bifolds split small arcs into smaller ones at the cost of a folding seam. Each format is correct somewhere; the plan chooses, not the trend.
