Closet? You'll Love It!

While upgrading the girls' bedroom with paint and a few furniture swaps, we fixed up their walk-in closets, too.

How? We changed the bifold doors to French doors! 

Why? The bifold mechanism kept falling off the track and it was incredibly frustrating. In fact, I pulled off Alice's doors after several failed attempts to get it back on the track. And not too gently, if you know what I mean. 😡

No Mortise Hinge
To change them into French doors, I read a few DIYs on Pinterest and tried two different hinge solutions. Spoiler: The no-mortise hinge worked the best.

The Bifold to French Door How-To: Before taking the doors down, I made pencil marks on the door frame and the door at the same height. This was so when the door went back on, it would be at the right spot.

I detached the door from the frame and track then removed all the hardware, including separating the doors. (Bye-bye bifold!) I did a quick paint job and added a second hole for the other door pull. While they dried, I predrilled holes in the door frame and door, using the hinges as a template. Last, I used the screws from the hinge sets to hang the doors -- because I already pre-drilled the holes, it was pretty easy. Prep is everything.

I got magnets/plates so I can create door stops, too. But I only put it up on Leah's door. I have to finish up Alice's when I get a minute. Overall, it was a pretty simple project, once I got the right solution in place. And we spent a whooping $8 on the hinges; the paint and door pull I already had squirreled away in the basement.

Move all clothing INSIDE the closet. They're so lucky to have walk-in closets but they were often black holes of lost things. And they barely contained clothes or anything useful. So, we talked about it and decided to move all the clothes, including a dresser or two, into the closet -- making it the "room for clothes."
Alice's Closet. She Has a LOT of Clothes
This meant we had to pull out, sort and discard (in most cases) many of the toys and stuffed animals that were already languishing in these closets. It also means I have a few dressers I don't know what to do with.

But once we had everything in place, it looked pretty cool. And the girls are finding it much easier to get dressed in the morning and put away their laundry. Everything has a place. And they can SEE everything.

We did this in our master closet, as well. The dressers in our bedroom are now for long-term storage, not everyday apparel. Before, we walked from the closet, through the bathroom and into the bedroom for a t-shirt from our dresser. Or socks. Now, we moved everything, including a spare dresser, into the closet for quick access.

It's made a big difference. Now, bedrooms are for toys, stuffed animals, books, papers, etc. And clothes have their own space. Done.

And I never have to pull off a closet door in frustration. (Though, there are a few other bifold doors in this house that should be nervous.)

And, yes, the blog post is a reference to a Modern Family episode I've seen too many times. Give yourself 50 points if you figured it out.



Related links:
This was the most helpful DIY instructions I found for the door conversion
The first post about the girls' closets from 2013!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The $80 Kitchen Pantry Update

Image
It took two days and about $80 in supplies, and now our kitchen pantry is REBORN! Here's a quick review of the project in pictures, starting with the BEFORE pictures: My main issue with the wire shelves were bottles or anything "thin" would tip over. And with my commitment to bulk, I wanted to store glass containers in here but knew they wouldn't be "safe." I foresaw broken glass at some point. Plus, it's a great space, so I knew I could add more storage space if I was strategic. Last, wire shelves are ugly. So then I demo'd the pantry and painted the walls (which was just primer) with leftover paint from the rest of the house. It's called Polar Bear. I paid an electrician to install an outlet at "counter height" in the pantry, so I could move the dumb microwave off the counter. (The electrician did a slew of other small jobs around the house, not just this outlet, including a motion-activated light in this pantry. Tres Fancy
Keep reading »

Family Calendar Improvement

Image
 Made a quick improvement at the start of the school year that I'm pretty excited about.  And yes, I'm probably the only one excited about it, but here goes ...  Here's our "command central" in our kitchen. This is a good landing spot, and a central place to all look at the family calendar ... it's that huge wipe board in the middle of the photo. All our activities are supposed to be written on here and our electronic family calendar on Google.  (Brief aside: my family is the WORST at writing their plans down in either calendar and Dave still doesn't share his events on our Google Shared Family Calendar consistently, which makes me nuts. And they all ask me "what are we doing today?" instead of looking at the calendar, usually directly behind me. But, that's another post.) I went to so much trouble putting this little area together and that huge calendar with wobbly writing was really killing the sophisticated look of that space. PLUS, we don
Keep reading »

Basement Shiplap Project

Image
The guys left me all the unused shiplap from the bathroom and I've been trying to think about where to use it. I had so many ideas but not a lot of shiplap, so I eventually settled on this corner of our basement. It's where the exercise mats and treadmill live, right behind the sofa. And also where the Marvel-themed bathroom with shiplap is located. So it made sense. It took much of a rainy Sunday to cut and nail up the new boards ...    I even had enough to do on the "backsplash" of our little kitchenette in the basement I've been slowly building out.  Next up will be to patch all the nail holes and calk around the edges for a clean look. And then the best part ... picking out paint color. Since this is a "free" project, I'm hoping I can find a color in my paint cabinet.  I'll keep you posted. 
Keep reading »