Give Your Closet Door A Chic DIY Upgrade For Both Style And Organization

Builder-grade closet doors are as bland as plain rice. Most of us have them, and the idea of trading them out for something better has probably been on your mind. If you're lucky, your doors have flat faces that are easy to customize. Unfortunately, you may be stuck with paneled or molded doors that harken back to the '90s, and not in the cool way. Follow the lead of the creatives from the YouTube channel "Our Home in Making" by refacing your doors. They morphed their double molded closet doors into a design fit for the Brady Bunch's '70s abode. Go one better by upgrading the other side of the door with extra storage.

This party-in-the-front, business-in-the-back plan merges form and function for a closet hack you didn't know you needed. Mimic the design by Our Home in the Making, or customize it to make it your own. Clamp on racks, baskets, or something more imaginative to the other face for results that solve several problems.

To pull this project off, purchase paint, ¾ to 1-inch square wood strips, and two modern door handles to use for the decorative accents. If your doors have panels or molding to cover, purchase sheets of ¼-inch plywood cut to match each door's dimensions and edge banding with heat-activated glue you can activate with an iron. Also, grab a nail gun, tape measure, sander or sandpaper, and painting supplies. Finally, score some hanging storage that will fit on the back of the door. In a few hours, you'll have a new-and-improved closet door.

Before starting the decorative trim, you may have trouble finding equal-sided wood strips or dowels with the same measurements used in the tutorial. You can use strips up to 2 inches wide for a similar look if you can't find thinner strips, and they can be rectangular or square. If you have 8-foot-high doors, you'll need eight 8-foot wood pieces to replicate the door in the video. It may difficult to find square wood strips this long, so you may need to piece a few shorter ones together. Hide the seams between the pieces with some wood filler that you can sand before painting. (cite my idea) When choosing your door handles, you'll need to use screws long enough to reach through both the door and the panel if you're refacing your door. Consider these $25 handles from Amazon that include a set of long screws that you can cut to size with a wire cutter.

To get the staggered effect in the video, cut about 6 inches from two wood strips and 12 inches from two more. This way, you'll have two 8-foot pieces, one 7½-foot piece, and one 7-foot piece per door. Remove the closet doors and lay them on a protective surface. Prime and paint the side of the plywood with the fewest flaws. If you're not using plywood, prime and paint your doors. Also, prime and paint the square wood strips on all sides except the ones touching the plywood or door.

With the nail gun, attach each wood strip vertically to the door, about 2 inches apart, starting 5 inches from the handle-edge of the doors. For the look in the video, nail the wood pieces to the door in order of shortest to tallest as you work away from the handle edge. Repeat the pattern on the other door, inverting the two shorter pieces. Nail the panels to the door, and sand-finish the edges. Try this woodworking hack that leaves even sanding on any project. Finish the raw edges with the edge banding, and paint it to match the door. Rehang the doors and affix the door handles.

Make this the ultimate upgrade by maximizing storage space vertically. Adding hooks to the back of a closet door is nothing revolutionary, but combining a collection of hooks, racks, and other inventive ideas helps you make the most of storage. Create jewelry storage that works for other long wearables with a metal cooling rack meant for baking. Hang it horizontally on hooks, then loop necklaces, ties, and scarves over the individual wires in each section.

Shoe racks make great additions to closet door backs. If you don't want the rack to bang against the door every time you open and close it, use Velcro to attach the bottom two corners of the rack to the door. They are not limited to shoes. If you have a drawer full of scarves, free up space by designating a hanging shoe rack just for rolled scarves. Borrow this trick for socks, underwear, or any other small clothing items you have.