Make Your Closet More Visible And Watch It Declutter Itself
Are you constantly beating yourself up over the chaos dwelling behind your closet doors? Well, the doors may be part of the problem. By giving you a convenient way to conceal the mess from view, the doors serve as a bandaid solution to the clutter and cause you to postpone the cleanup. Worse, they do nothing to encourage organization, as you're always tempted to throw an item in and forget about it. On the other hand, an open concept closet may well be the solution to clutter. By keeping the clothes on display, an open closet may give you the drive to declutter and change your habits to keep clothes neat.
Apart from incentivizing you to be more tidy, an open concept closet can also be a space saver, especially if you live in a smaller home. Without a protruding bifolding door to worry about, it will be easier to organize a small closet. Of course, opening up your closet space is also an aesthetic choice — especially if you're not shy about hiding your style. But best of all, converting the closet area into a chic dressing room is probably the simplest DIY task you can undertake. All it takes is removing the closet doors and their associated hardware — tasks that require a single person. Below, we'll show you how to take off the two common closet door types and the accessories that keep them in place.
How to remove a bifolding closet door
Whether you have a single bifolding closet door, or dual doors that meet in the center, the procedure for their removal is the same. You can undertake this task by yourself unless you're worried that you won't be able to lift the door once it's off the tracks and hinges. Also, if you have delicate flooring you'd prefer not to scratch, consider covering the area next to the closet with a cloth or tarp for the duration of the project.
When ready, start at the inside portion of the door — the side opposite the hinge side. All you need to do here is retract the pin from the track. How you do this depends on the pin configuration. In many cases, you can push the pin downward on its spring, and it will come off. Then, lift the bottom on the hinge side until the bolt comes off the bottom track. Next, pull the door toward yourself to get the top pin out. In some cases, you may be able to just push the doors to the open position fully, then lift both leaves with your hands and pivot the bottom outward — this way, the bottom pins will come out first, and the top part will follow. Once the doors are off the tracks completely, unscrew the top and bottom tracks, and you're done. Store the tracks somewhere safely in case you ever want to quickly and easily install the bifolding doors again.
Steps for removing sliding closet doors
Removing sliding doors takes more work because you have less room to maneuver and the doors must come off in a specific order. That said, you can still do this task on your own — again, unless the doors are a bit heavy for you to lift. So, once you've covered the floors, begin by unscrewing the bottom guide. That's the plastic bit screwed in the middle of the opening, with two channels to hold each door in place.
Next, figure out what type of hinges you have. Do this by looking at the top, inside part of the door. If you find that the door has a dial at the top, that's the height adjuster, and the hinge is located at its top. In this case, pull the inside door upward, then snap it inward at the top. The hinge should pop off the track, and you can repeat the same procedure with the outside door. However, if there's no height dial, you may see a pin attached to a roller inside the track, with the door hanging from it on a bracket. You'll need to lift the door until the bracket can slide off the pin, and pull it inward into the closet. Again, get the inside door off before working on the outside leaf. At the end, don't forget to remove the top track, putty over the screw holes, and paint over the area to give your closet a fresh, new look.