As soon as we bought this house we knew the front hall closet needed a makeover. The single bifold door felt awkward and there was no storage inside- we could definitely improve that!
We spent a long time deciding whether a built in “mudroom” or normal closet would be best for our family. Ultimately we decided on keeping this a normal closet as it’s right in the middle of our house. We want mess to be hidden, not on display.
To start the closet remodel (see how fancy that sounds?) we ripped out the old floor and put down the new. We also painted the entire closet and surrounding area. Once the paint had dried (and weeks had gone by…) we built a custom organizer for our cleaning supplies. We used standard 3/4 mdf painted white for this.
This closet has to hold a lot of stuff as it’s the only true storage closet on our main level. We opted to use hooks instead of a standard closet rod so that we could also hang out vacuum. We have 6 hooks in half of this closet spread out at different heights.
To build the doors we first built a door frame using leftover pieces of trim. We also trimmed out the opening at this point too. Then we started building our custom closet French doors!
We based the size of the door off the bathroom door we had already bought. Since the doors will be next to each other we wanted to make sure they’d match. We ended up making the side stiles/pieces narrower since we were putting 2 doors in a single door space. We just drew these out and picked the one that looked best.
Dan cut all our frame pieces and used a dado blade to notch them all out so they connect like a puzzle. We opted to use clear pine for the doors because it was close enough to the thickness we needed and is fairly inexpensive.
We did a dry run once the doors were together (before glue & panels) to make sure the door fit nicely in the frame.
Once we knew the doors fit (and matched the bathroom door) we cut our plywood panels. These should slot right in like a puzzle too. We made sure everything fit together nicely then took everything apart and glued it back together again.
We then sanded everything down really well and mounted on hinges. Dan did end up cutting 3/4” off the bottom to match the gap between the bathroom door and the floor.
Once everything was installed we painted the doors, frame, and surrounding trim white! We used Behr Frost for everything. Then we installed the handles (we just used an extra pair of the cabinet handles we’d bought for the kitchen remodel).
And that’s all there is to it! We ended up spending $150 on supplies for these custom doors. We would have spent roughly $250 on a door to match the bathroom or $500+ on custom French doors so I’m considering this project a win!
What do you think? Did we improve the view?
Everyday Modern Life 
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