is it week 3 of social distancing, or week 4? I’ve lost count at this point, but like many people I’ve found this time useful for getting some projects (both big and small) knocked off of the to-do list. This one was a bi-fold closet door makeover, and it was a super easy single-day weekend project.
The bi-fold closet doors on our son’s closet had definitely seen their better days. Some of the slats were broken out, there were holes drilled in them where the previous owner’s son had hung his hats (we had left 3 on each side for our son’s hats), and they were just not really riding on the track very well. So we decided it was a good time for a quick closet door makeover.
This was actually a REALLY easy project – and it cost us less than $10! I had some old paneling out in the garage that I torn down and hung onto when we first moved in a few years ago. I realized that paneling was the perfect width, about 1/4″, to make into “shiplap” for this closet door makeover. So I took the paneling to the table saw and ripped it into strips that would fit inside the rails of the doors. The only other calculation I had to do was figure out what height to cut them so they fit uniformly over the slats – I didn’t want any partial pieces! Oddly enough, the dimensions worked out differently for both the top and the bottom slats. So if you taking this project on yourself, make certain you measure and calculate them separately.
Now that I had all of my shiplap ready, it was onto attaching the shiplap to the panels. This part was way easier than I expected. I simply used a hot glue gun to glue each piece in place; and I have to say the hot glue gun may be my new favorite tool. I started by trying to put the glue on the back of the shiplap, and then put the shiplap in place. I quickly figured out it was way more efficient (and effective) to put the hot glue on the inside lip of the stiles (just enough for one piece at a time) and then put the shiplap pieces onto the glue.
Once all of the pieces were in place, I decided this closet door makeover wasn’t complete without a fresh coat of semi-gloss white paint. That might have been influenced by the fact I had just bought a new Critter paint sprayer I wanted to try out. It took a bit to figure out how much pressure to use on my air compressor, and the proper height for the adjustable nozzle on the Critter. Though after a few minutes of trial and error I was making progress and the doors were started to look amazing.
All of that work took just a few hours, including the time for letting the paint dry. Then it was on to reattaching the doors and trying to get them working a little better. I had bought a bi-fold door repair kit to replace all of the nylon caps that had disappeared over the years. So after replacing those, and fiddling with the adjustments for another 20 minutes or so, I think I was able to adjust the doors to about the best of my ability.
Overall, we’re extremely happy with this closet door makeover. The best part was that it was super easy and super cheap. So we’re already planning on doing something similar to the closet doors in our daughter’s room and the hallway linen closet. I’m certain both of those projects will come out even better considering we have a little experience now!
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this project via the comments section below. If we happened to inspire you to take on your own closet door makeover, we’d love to see the results. Send us a few pics and let us know how it went using our submit your build page.
Tools I used for this closet door makeover
- Table saw – for ripping the old paneling to size
- Hot glue gun – for gluing the “shiplap” panels in place
- Paint sprayer – for a fresh coat of paint.
- Air compressor – to power the paint sprayer
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