Eight-year-old Emily peeks out from a sliding panel door with matte marine hardware that will age gracefully in the salty air.

The kitchen opens to the elements thanks to sliding doors from C.R. Laurence. The anigre in the kitchen is the same employed in the master bedroom.

At a seaside New Zealand house, the simple kitchen has strandboard cabinetry and an MDF island that conceals a fireplace at one end. The bright green cabinetry of the island are a happy pop of color that references the native greenery outside.

Sliding doors cast shadows across the concrete floor.

Canary yellow doors keep the house from feeling austere. The sliding function also saves space.

To further connect the indoor spaces with the New England landscape outside, glass walls in the living and dining areas slide open to eliminate the barriers between indoors and outdoors. Green slate tiles compose the flooring inside.

Even in cold weather, they open the sliding doors to let the fresh air in.

“Before, the house turned its back on the landscape,” said Parish. “This renovation and addition really animates the garden.” Sliding glass doors match those of the living room beyond the deck, and both can be completely open to the yard.

The sliding doors to the deck are made by Dynamic Architectural Windows & Doors and the sofa, on which Chapoton and Buser sit is from Dellarobbia.

Open enclosures and connections to adjacent living spaces keep the home inviting and airy rather than densely packed—a key feature for an owner of two dogs: Ben, a whippet, and Flynn, an Irish gypsy dog.

Mobile sustainability: The sliding doors were made in Syracuse by CabFab with a formaldehyde-free plant-and-soy-based composite board manufactured by e2e of Ithaca, New York. The mobile partitions were fashioned from TimberStrand, an engineered lumber made from younger trees rather than old-growth timber. cabfab.com e2ematerials.com ilevel.com An unconventional exterior: The solar screen is made from medium-density overlay plywood, a widely available and relatively affordable material whose traditional use for highway signs testifies to its durability.

Douglas and Derek’s shared taste is on display in the dining area, with its mix of timber, steel, and slate. “Everything was selected to exude warmth and tactility and to offer splashes of color,” Douglas says. The solid oak table is also by Mudge, and the chairs are from South African furniture company Houtlander.

The subdued palette blends warm timber tones with white interiors and stone accents.

Opening to the home's main entrance on the upper level, a large red sliding door—one of three—is painted Gypsy Red by Sherwin-Williams. To the left is the kitchen and dining space, and to the right is the living room and studio.

Lift-and-slide doors open the ground-floor living space up to the outdoor courtyard. The exposed concrete floor of the interior is echoed in the courtyard by linear concrete pavers to emphasize indoor/outdoor living.

Sliding fritted glass doors provide privacy and sectioned-off spaces when needed.

Play area

David Baird designed the custom sliding doors with materials and hardware from Home Depot. The doors also act as a makeshift critique wall for Bo and Sky’s artwork.

Glazed sliding doors blur the lines between indoor and outdoor living and help bring in cooling cross breezes from the coast.

Villa H | sliding doors blend in- and outdoor space

The custom sliding laundry room door by Dotzler Designs was made from glass and steel to allow natural light into the laundry room, and doubles as a ladder to access storage space above.

To evoke the structure’s past as a horse stable, and provide options for the use of the space, Schaer and his team employed Sing Core sliding barn doors mounted on Krownlab’s Axel hardware. The sliding track runs the full width of the building, allowing residents to open or conceal a bedroom, kitchenette, and entrance to an adjacent 530 square-foot garage, all depending on how the spaces are being used. The kitchenette, seen left, features a Kraus sink and a chrome Grohe Concetto faucet.

The sliding doors to a deck are by the Canadian company Dynamic Architectural Windows & Doors.

With his son, William, watching, architect Noah Walker tries out the floor-to-ceiling Schüco glass doors he integrated into a guesthouse he designed off an existing barn for Nathan Frankel, an amateur violinist, in Beverly Hills, California. The new portion features an open living-dining area. See more glass houses we love!

Architect Bruce Bolander made the most of a limited footprint in a house he designed in a Malibu canyon. With the small bedroom unable to accommodate any "normal" size desk, the architect designed a very thin custom steel desk where resident Heidi Wright works. The floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors from Metal Window Corporation open the entire corner of the room up to the outdoors. “The mountains across the way are almost like another wall—they contain the space to the point that you feel like you’re in a much bigger space, that you’re part of the overall landscape,” says Bolander. Photo by J Bennett Fitts.

In the living and dining area of Jean Risom's Block Island family retreat, mostly vintage Risom furnishings share space with a few new additions, the view facing north is framed by the wall of glass. Photo by: Floto + Warner

Milgard sliding doors were added with the future in mind. “We really wanted it to feel big since we planned to live in it full-time,” Brian says.

In Yuen Long, Hong Kong, a 452-square foot residence is designed to accommodate a young couple, one of their mothers, and their pets: a cat and a parrot. The home features transforming furniture and nooks and crannies that are perfect for the pets. A bench by the door doubles as a litter box.

The two bedrooms are located down the hallway from the common areas. Each room has its own fully equipped bathroom.

An enormous boulder blocks views of the street, enhancing the sense of tranquility.

Cubic bookshelves do double duty as a dividing wall and as a sliding door opening up to a hidden bath.

Pascal poses on the threshold of the living room, which can be closed off with a translucent pocket door, yet still take advantage of the light that pours in from all sides.