I love the look of barn doors; they can look industrial, country cottage, and modern where glass is used instead of wooden doors. Plus they're practical where space might be limited within a room. We're about to put an 8ft one into our redesigned kitchen/dining area, but we're struggling to find long enough and substantial enough hardware. There are lots of US sites but they don't always deliver to the UK, so any advice from Houzzers on where to find heavy duty hardware from companies that deliver to the UK would be appreciated.

Should work fine with a barn door as the sliding mechanism is only at the top of the door not the bottom. You just need to make sure the door has enough of a gap at the bottom to clear the carpet comfortably. Barn doors are a lot less sound proof than normal doors though, in case that is an issue for you.

Hi RP, We’ve got our sliders from https://www.expressbifolds.co.uk. Service was great and they do bespoke (and windows) not sure about French doors though. We got supply only and haven’t fitted them yet so can’t 100% recommend on quality. Hopefully you have some luck with them, I think they have show rooms in London.

Hi! A belated thank you to everyone who helped me finally make a decision! I went with a 3 pane sliding door (on a 3.7m opening) allowing me to open over half the width. I figured that with bifolds you would still have the frames stacked to one side which takes up a chunk of the opening as well. I chose the XP Glide from Express Bi-folds. Have found them professional and easy to deal with, we are just awaiting delivery now! The only bug I had is that their choice of handles were pretty basic, either a chunky (in my view an eye sore!) steel bar or a regular lever handle. They only come in black, grey or white! I was initially going with a very sleek 2 pane sliding door from Ultraline that had an integrated handle within the frame but the cost was too high for me to change it to a 3 pane. If I had the budget though I would have gone with them instead. Express Bi-folds do a slimmer framed option than XP Glide, I think it is called XP Panoramic. The 3 pane was more than Ultraline I think though. The consultant at Express-Bi-folds also advised against slimmer framed bonded glass options as if for any reason you damage the glass you have to replace the whole frame as well which is a major structural headache. Most slim framed options use this method though (as opposed to beaded - correct me if I am wrong!) so I would have chosen to ignore his advice if my budget allowed :-)