As you know by now, I’m planning to build a new closet in the master bedroom in the nook where our bed used to be:
We’ll be using bi-fold doors so that they don’t stick out into the room further than necessary when they’re open. Even though bi-folds aren’t always the prettiest thing, I came across enough pinspiration to know that I could make something look good in our space.
One option I considered was buying flat doors and then adding trim in whatever pattern I wanted, ala a lot of the examples online that I found myself liking. My first choice was to buy something in a style I liked if possible, though, since there’s no point in doing more work than needed, amiright?
I didn’t like a lot of what I could find and what I did like was mostly out of my price range (I need four of them, so that adds up quickly), but then I came across this option from Lowes that I thought fit the simple, clean look I was going for:
Even though it has slightly raised panels and isn’t just purely a shaker style, the vertical and horizontal lines are what really pop out and I think with the right hardware it will look nice. With a gift card my stepfather got me for my birthday to help offset some of the cost, I pulled the trigger and brought four of these home with me one Sunday afternoon.
Before painting, I knew I would need to sand and prime well — raw wood will soak up paint very quickly and lead to a rough finish, so both these steps are crucial. I also knew that painting around the hinges would be more trouble than it was worth (and I might want to change the finish on the hinges too depending on what kind of knobs/pulls I pick out), so first I removed all the hinges and set them aside.
Then I laid out the four doors (now eight doors since each bi-fold has two parts), using my large work table and open floor space. I propped the ones on the table up on small dixie cups like I did when painting my kitchen cabinet doors to make it easier to paint the edges, and for the ones on the floor I used paint cans to elevate them just a bit more and spare my back.
The doors were actually pretty smooth to begin with but I knew that they’d get rougher once I primed, so I decided to prime first and then sand everything smooth. I used two coats of Kilz low odor/Zero-VOC primer to ensure maximum coverage:
And then went over the fronts of all the panels with 220 sand paper on my orbital sander (I also used a sanding block to do the portions of each door around the raised panels that the orbital sander couldn’t get to).
This is a new palm sander that my dad got me for Solstice. My old one drove me crazy because the dust collector would always shoot off and spray sawdust everywhere unless I held it on with one hand while sanding. The new one is awesome — the dust collectors works great, and it’s trigger activated which means that when moving between multiple pieces it’s easy to put it down for a minute without having to mess with an on/off button (because I just let go of the trigger).
And that’s where the project stands now! I bet you hoped/assumed I’d be sharing a complete project with you…. But I’m a little stuck because I haven’t actually picked out a paint color yet. Here are some options I’m considering:
Black
Domino Magazine, March 2009
I’ve painted doors black before (not in this house, though) and I love the simple, clean look. I think with white walls, this could look neutral and classic but also interesting.
Navy Blue
A navy tone would also pop against light walls and obviously be a little more colorful than black. BUT, I already have a lot of navy in my house (like my kitchen and back door) — would this be a tie in, or verge on too much?
White
White is another classic option, especially if I decide I want to go with something other than white on the walls.
Something bright
Since no matter what we’ll be keeping the walls fairly light, a totally opposite direction is to do something bright and colorful. Something like mint would tie into the colors in our quilt and in our leaning mirror.
So now maybe you can see why I’ve gotten stuck at this step in the process — there are just so many great options to choose from. What should I do?!?
OK, “so many choices” sparked the crazy idea: 8 panels = rainbow + 1?
Hahaha, can’t say I didn’t briefly think of that too! I think it’s a little much for our small space, but I do love the idea 🙂
I would go with the blue .
Thanks Lynn!
I would choose a neutral color (either black or white). For me, a 4 door closet takes up too much wall space to go very bright..
Yeah, it’s basically an entire wall so that’s my worry too about something too bright. I feel like Naomi could pull it off in her house but maybe not me 🙂
I personally would probably go with white because I like a classic look, but I think a bright color like that mint could be really fun and fit nicely into your house!
Can I ask something only tangentially related because you mentioned Solstice? I recently had a baby and have been thinking of starting to celebrate Winter Solstice instead of Christmas (because we aren’t Christian and also I don’t like how materialistic the secular version of Christmas generally is). Did you ever mind as a kid, or get teased for being different? Do you have any traditions you could recommend? (Or if you have a post about this, could you point me to it?) Thanks for any info you’d care to share!
I’d love to share my thoughts on this! Strangely, Naomi and I both grew up celebrating Solstice, which is super random since I’ve never met anyone else who did that and our families didn’t know each other even remotely. We did do a post on it (http://www.plasteranddisaster.com/happy-solstice-2015/), but we didn’t get into some of the questions you raised. I never got teased about it (at least not seriously — my college friends always joked about me being a pagan, but that wasn’t exactly childhood bullying). I really liked growing up with something that felt special and unique. The big thing we always did was that we didn’t use electricity on Solstice, which helped us truly appreciate what it meant for it to be the darkest day of the year. We’d use candlelight and light a fire, and it was a lot of fun. The other thing was that we’d open immediate family presents on Solstice and then still open any presents from extended family on Christmas — my parents liked being able to spread out the celebration, which definitely cut down on the materialistic frenzy of opening a ton of gifts in one sitting.
It was also nice because over time as our family changed (like divorce, remarriage, now my own marriage) it makes it so much easier to have a non-traditional holiday in the mix too — not everyone is trying to celebrate on the same day.
Anyway, those are just a few thoughts, but I’m always happy to chat further! Congratulations on the new addition to your family, and it’s awesome that you’re starting to build new traditions!
Thanks for the info! I’m not sure I could pry my husband away from his computer/electronics all day, but I think dinner w/ candlelight instead of electric lights could be really fun 🙂
How about painting the doors to match the walls and painting the window trim a complementary colour? It seems like such a small room to go with a different, bolder colour on the doors.
I think all of those options would work well. The fact that you have so many doors is important to consider because you will have a lot of whatever color you choose. I do think that if you want navy it would be a nice way to tie things together vs being too much navy. All of the rooms in my house are different colors,and I often wish I had more of some sort of co!or theme running through. But if you want to do something like the mint, I think that would be really fun too!