DIY Closet Doors

One of the reasons we moved into a house was to have a bit more space to make stuff. Conversely, with a house comes many reasons to make things and fix various things. Thus, one of the first things we needed to do was to make doors for Carina's closet in the bedroom. Below are before and after pictures:

Before

After

The closet is not more than a rustic shelf space and a bit of space to hang clothes and the previous owners had a curtain rail extending into this area which enabled them to "close" the closet. We felt that a curtain from the ceiling this large made the room feel smaller. This left us with an open closet which is not very nice to have. My first major thing to build thus became the doors to the bedroom closet.

I thus set out to make something simple, lightweight and as quick as possible. The rest of the post will be several pictures relating the construction process.

After measuring the closet we set out to buy some wood and cloth. The wood is simple 2x4cm pine that were over 2 meters long that we bought at Bauhaus. We ordered some cheap white cloth online (with some felt to use for building a puzzle on - more about this in the future).

Wood to construct door frames

The door frames were constructed by screwing in the wood to a l-shaped metal corner joiner. Wooden beams for support and some aesthetics where added a bit lower.

Door frames after construction and sanding

I painted all the doors white with some paint left by the previous owners (I think our ceiling is painted with this).

Painted door hanging to dry

All doors painted

Spot the ferret carved into the wood.

When the cloth arrived I set out to wash, dry, measure and cut it for each frame. 

Fitting the cloth

To help with getting the cloth fitted straight and creating a hidden seam I needed something to role the edges into. Below is a simple jig to quickly cut cardboard strips of exactly the same width.

Strip cutting jig

I rolled the cloth edge twice in around the cardboard strip and stapled it into the frame. Carina was a great help here.

Fitting the cloth on a more permanent basis

Front of completed door

I decided before starting this project that I should use the lights within the closet to make the doors a bit less boring. The idea was thus to paint something on the cloth and have the back-light on to create a shadow picture. I found a picture on the interwebs that I liked adapted it for this project.

Sketch of the picture I wanted to use

Scaled up and printed

The cloth is quite transparent. I stuck the picture sections to the table and with the doors on top it was still easy to see the outline of the picture.

Sticking the picture to the table and covering with clingfilm

Gathering paint on a specialized paint holder and set to work panting each door.

Paint scooping

Palette...?

Painting on the backside of the door

First door done

Touching up some details

Painting done

The only thing left to do was to add doorknobs, hinges and magnetic latches.

Last additions

We hung the doors and reasonably happy with the result. The pine is not 100% straight but neither is the closet. The I had to make some adjustments to get everything to fit. The right side of the closet also lack a beam and this leaves a slight gap. I will add the beam to the closet in the future to make it a bit neater.

Doors with light from front

Doors with light from back

Overall the doors function as they should.

R&C