New closet doors

This post is coming about a week late. Last weekend, pre-Thanksgiving, was a busy weekend. What did we do?

• Installed new closet bifold doors
• Attempted to hoist the boat
• Dropped boat on pavement
• Put boat in the back patio
• Tidied and prepped garage for winter
• Winterized patio
• Finished painting half bath threshold (forgot about that months ago)
• Hemmed pants and made an infinity scarf prototype
• Cleaned the house, then made a mess during projects
• Graded papers

We don’t have any pictures of the boat hoist fiasco, because we needed all of our hands involved. Essentially, we need to adjust our pulley spacing and find a way to keep the boat from sliding forward in its cradle as it’s raised. So, after some failed attempts, we rolled Woody around the back and set her deck down on some bunks. I’m sure the neighbors love seeing her back out there.

At least installing the bifolds went fairly smoothly. We set the doors on saw horses and some plastic tubs in the dining room for painting. After much debate, we used Olympic’s Steel City in satin and “upgraded” from Icon to the One line, figuring it’d be okay using the stinkier, higher VOC paint for the doors (and not an entire room) and we’d be getting better coverage/finish.

Swatches. Steel City top and right blotches.

Verdict? This stuff stinks! Although I like the color, I’d hesitate to use this paint in a full room (maybe in the summer with the windows open and fan running). I wore a mask while painting and kept the bucket lid closed, but even after it dried, I’d catch strong whiffs while walking by the dining room. Is it worth it for the coverage? Um … it’s hard to say. It’s definitely thicker paint than the Icon (more like pudding) and it looked almost like a one-coat paint while wet. But after the first coat dried, it screamed for a second coat. And there are a couple of spots that need another swipe. So, I’d rather stick with Olympic Icon or Valspar Ultra, which are cheaper, less stinky, and cover same or better. On the bright side? The Lowes mixer did a gallon instead of a quart like I ordered, so I got the gallon for the quart price ($12), so we have plenty of paint to use elsewhere (in well-ventilated conditions).

Anyway, back to the technical stuff.

First, paint the back of the doors. That way if you scratch the new paint when you flip them over, it’s not a big deal. We put towels under the doors to protect them, but better safe than sorry.

I used one of my cutting brushes for this project. Since the doors had a faux wood grain, I thought this would work better than rollers and I would need to get into the panel grooves, anyway. Paint the panel grooves first along the grain. I liked to start a couple of inches from the corners and work the paint in. Then I’d smooth out along the groove’s length. Try to do long, smooth strokes to help spread any pooling paint. Then paint the flat center panel.

Because we had two doors, I did the panels and grooves first for each door. Then I painted the outer edges. At this point, the painted panels were dry enough for me to paint the flat planes and not worry about gumming up half-dry edges. I found loading up my brush more than usual and spreading the paint (along the grain) worked really well. When grains collided, I would focus on, say, the horizontal grain and spill over into the vertical. Once I’d covered the horizontal, I’d brush the vertical until it was smooth, so you’d never know I brushed the wrong way.

Painting the back side

Once the backs and external sides were done (we let them sit a couple of days), we partially folded the doors so I could get the internal/hinged sides. Since you’ll see these when the doors open, they need painted. If we’d gone white, maybe we could have skipped this step.

Painting the front is just like painting the back. Just don’t forget to provide a soft surface for your fresh back doors to rest on!

This next part is a lesson on measure before you start. You might think your current bifolds are standard size, so buying the standard size at the store means you just paint and pop them in the track. You might get lucky, or you might be us. Sure enough, we jiggled and wiggled and could not get the bloody door to stand up straight in the track. The scuffed up trim tells the tale of our struggles. Our 5 minute evening project just got a little longer.

Mike got out the measuring tape and, sure enough, we had almost an inch of too much door.

“Gotta love a custom house,” Mike grumbled. Of course, 80s standards and 2010s standards could be different.

So, off we went to the garage and saw. I pretended to be a sawhorse, in a 30-degree garage, while Mike eased the door into place and chopped halfway through the bottom. Then we had to flip it over to get the other side. Then we hauled it back into the house, maneuvered its pins into the hinge and track … and sighed. We needed to shave a little more. Mike was making conservative cuts to avoid too much gap between threshold or floor. So, the door came back down, we did the song and dance again, and this time … oh no, really? Another cut?!

“Hang on, let’s adjust the pin,” said Mike. The bottom, external corner of the door has a hinge pin that can adjust height to make sure the door clears the floor. Since the door didn’t seem to be clearing the top trim but had room at the bottom, we screwed it in a little tighter, and now the door could stand upright in the track.

To get the door to hang straight, Mike used a level and then tightened the spring on the track. One door accomplished, we hi-fived and called it until the weekend.

This time we only had to chop once, but the second door was still going to put up a fight. We got it hinged and tracked and hanging straight, but then the doors would not fully shut. A little bit of swearing happened. We had measured the width (not the height) of our previous doors, so what was going on? Did we have to uninstall and shave the sides?

Out popped the doors. Again. The bottom hinge pins have a short track, so you can shift the doors closer or farther away from the trim. They were already as “wide” as possible. Mike got out the drill and made the track a little longer -- and that did the trick!

Next came the easiest part (and what started the whole thing): the pulls. A couple weekends ago, we were simultaneously irked by the old bifold’s’ knobs, one of which was missing its backing plate. So, what initially was a trip to find new knobs became a doors and pulls buying trip. We wound up with some dummy door handles in oil-rubbed bronze, because the pulls in the cabinet section seemed too small for closet doors. A little more cha-ching, but since it’s only a pair, we were okay with that.

To install the pulls, we centered each on the line between two planes and measured the center of the horizontal plane. 



Then we screwed them in and called the project complete. More or less. I’ve got to touch-up some scuffs and knicks on the doors from all the wiggling and jiggling.

What do you think? They’re a definitely an update from our previous bifolds, though we wish we’d gone a little bit darker in color now that they’re up. But since we’re still in limbo on the dining room scheme (wainscotting will be coming), I’m totally content for now. And they do look darker at night, just not as dark as we expected. Eventually, I’d like to paint the interior and shelves, since it’s all dingy and scuffed.

We’re also going to recycle the louvered doors into a headboard for the guest room. That’ll be one of our winter projects, along with installing wainscotting in the dining room and tile in the master bathroom.

Before

After