Saturday, October 19, 2013

DIY: Bifold Door Transformation for More Storage


I so desperately need more storage in my 1-bedroom condo!  I feel lucky to have 4 closets in such a small space, but seriously... why on earth do they all have BIFOLD DOORS?!  There's no way to utilize the backside of the door!  Okay, rant over.  Time to do something about it.  :)

Using DIYShowOff's tutorial as a start, I set off to transform my bifold doors into a regular one, so I could add some much-needed storage and organization to the back-side of the door.

Here's my starting point, a simple bifold door:



First, I took out the top wheel so the door was no longer connected to the track (my door doesn't have a bottom track, but if yours does, you'll have to take out the matching bottom connector).  


With this piece removed, the door flops around freely, held in place at only one end.


Next, you'll need a full inset cabinet door magnet and some mending plates (which can be found in a variety of sizes at your home improvement store; I went to Home Depot).


Then I traced the holes of the mending plate onto the backside of the door, so that the plate spanned over the crack.  The mending plates are what will keep the door straight, instead of folding in on itself.


I pre-drilled the holes I drew, and then screwed the plates in place.


I was so excited with my progress at this point, and went to shut the door... Of course, it was now too big for the space, so I had to make an adjustment by taking off the hinges and re-attaching the mending plates (new holes were needed), making sure to squeeze the doors together as much as possible, so there was no gap between them.  When I do this to one of my other closet doors, I'll be sure to take off the hinges before adding the mending plates.

I installed the cabinet magnet by pre-drilling into the metal track from the inside of the closet.  Screwed that in place, and then wiped it with a good glob of blue toothpaste.  You might not normally think of using toothpaste in home improvement projects, but I promise, this step makes lining up the other half of the magnet SUPER EASY!


I closed the door on against the blue toothpaste and was left with a beautiful glob on my door, exactly where I needed to attach the other magnet part.  I used a Sharpie to outline the toothpaste glob, wiped the paste clean, and then screwed magnet #2 in place on the door.


I found a $35 door organizer door organizer at Target and followed the instructions on how to mount it directly to the door.  Now it serves as an excellent spot for all those loose (and annoying) tupperware lids!  I took one of the single wires and bent it straight so I could slide a paper towel roll on it, then bent it back to install on my door.  The single wire might break over time, but I figured I'd try it out since the system came with 4 and I wasn't going to use any of them.  Why not give it a shot?!

Love that I still have space on my new shelves too.  I'm sure they'll be overflowing with odds and ends soon.  But for now, I'm happy in being just a little bit more organized!


Last step: I found a beautiful new knob at Anthropologie and popped it on my new bifold door!



3 comments:

  1. you did a very good job, and got reward by getting more storage ,perfect

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  2. That is a pretty neat idea to put a bifold door on the pantry closet area. My parents had that sort of system in our home growing up. How hard is it to put the bifold door framing in place?
    http://www.amjbifolds.com.au/bi-fold-doors

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Bryan! The bifold door was pre-existing when I bought the condo, so I did not have to install it. That said, I imagine it'd be fairly simple to install a bifold door, as it glides on a rail at the top, so that's just screwed in, and then the bifold door hardware does the rest. I'll bet you can find some good tutorials on Pinterest!

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