Open Sesame

by

When we bought our house, I knew there were several things that would need to change: the blue flowered linoleum, the avocado green bathtub and the ugly brown bifold closet doors.

You can find a pair of bifold closet doors in most homes built since the 1950s. Although our house was built in 1921, we still ended up with a set. There is nothing technically wrong with the doors; I just wanted them to be more interesting.

I wanted to change the color and cover up the louvered slats. The giant rectangles just looked like frames that were begging to showcase something else. So I decided to paint the doors, cover the slats with charming fabric panels and hide the fabric edge with wood trim, creating a little wood frame around each fabric panel.

  1. Start out by priming and painting the doors. Save yourself some time and don't paint the sections that will be covered in fabric.
  2. The saying, "Measure twice, cut once" should be the motto for this project. Take your time and think things through. First, measure and cut the trim to make the wood frames around your fabric panels. You will need to use a miter box and saw. This will allow you to cut perfect 45-degree angles for the corners of your frames.
  3. Next, you will need to prime and paint the trim. While that dries, you can start cutting your batting and fabric, making sure to keep the pieces together so that the pattern lines up when you mount them.
  4. Attach the fabric to your doors with a couple of heavy-duty staples using a staple gun. You just need a couple on the top and bottom, and a few on each side. Your trim will also hold down the fabric, so you don't need to go crazy.
  5. Next, nail down the trim. It helps to put it all in place first. That way, you can make sure the trim lines up across all the doors. It doesn't have to be perfect; the overall effect will be so impressive that no one will notice if one frame is a tiny bit lower than the next. Add a little dot of paint on the top of each nail head when you're done and they will almost disappear.
  6. The last step is to switch out those plain wooden handles with some fancy, new drawer pulls and you're done!