A Closet Door Update For Under $20

Last week, I dove back into sharing, after an {unintentional} month long hiatus.

Summer has been very busy around here.

While we did take a lovely vacation, June wasn't all fun and games, I spent a lot of time on a variety of projects in the house.

Ok, well, I actually do consider DIY and crafting fun and games, but you get what I mean.

Anyway, I have so many things to share, that when I sat down at the computer this morning, I honestly didn't know where to begin.

So I decided to start small and move on from there.

Besides, sometimes small changes can have a huge impact and since I'm all about quick, easy and inexpensive DIYs, I thought that sharing this one first would be appropriate.

Let's head to the bedroom, shall we?

You may remember that earlier this year I found a free headboard on Facebook Marketplace for my room.

It was such a tiny change, but it prompted another, the addition of a upcycled chandelier we created from two others.

Those two elements completely transformed the entire space. It was suddenly the elegant, cottage style retreat of my dreams.

Except.

You see, our bedroom was not originally part of our 1929 beach charmer. It was added by the original owners in 1961...along with a set of very basic, sliding closet doors.

Over the years the subject of changing them has come up and gone nowhere.

We talked about adding moulding strips, painting them, adding mirrors and distressing them or making them look aged with mercury glass paint. The idea of completely replacing them with a different style like bifold doors was also discussed.

Or glass paneled French doors, like the ones we added in the living room. 

The one thing I knew I didn't want was barn style sliders...too much exposed hardware. I'm a simple girl.

However, when we replaced the bathroom door (I'll be sharing that soon), suddenly adding more details, or another door style to the room didn't feel right.

Those plain white doors and their sweet scalloped topper looked perfect.

It was a clean space for the eye to rest, among so many other attention grabbing elements.

And while sitting in bed night after night, staring at them, I realized what bugged me wasn't the doors, but the outdated, small, uninspired gold finger pulls.

Boring, bland, dirty and dingy. They had to go.

And that was a super easy fix.

Once I studied the pulls a little bit closer, I knew what I needed would have to be:

• thin enough so the doors would still open and close without interruption
• large enough to cover the existing finger cup pulls or the holes left behind if we removed them
• cottage style
• easy to install (since I didn't want to have to remove the doors)

With all that in mind, I immediately thought about the vintage drop ring pulls I used when I updated my hallway bathroom vanity.

I had found that set at a local antique shop.

Of course, since then, I've seen those sweet drop ring pulls all over Etsy, so that's where I went.

I just measured for the proper size and placed my order.

When they showed up I realized they were a little more gold and cream than I thought they'd be. No worries, I could always paint them if they didn't look right on the doors.


But first, I wanted to see them there.

The installation was easy enough. Since the cup pulls were glued in place, we decided not to remove them.


Instead, the circular ring pulls fit nicely right over the original metal pulls, so we simply drilled through the center of the old one to make holes for the new hardwares' screws.


Keep in mind, we did have to purchase longer screws.

The ones that came with the pulls were just too short to make it all the way through our thick, wood closet doors. 

That was another reason we didn't want to ditch those old sliding closet doors, wooden doors are hard to come by and very expensive. 

They just don't make things like the used to...but I digress.


With a hole drilled in the center of each cup pull, and all the way through to the back of the door, we popped the screw into the hole.


Placed the new pull over the old one and tightened the screw in place.


Much better...but not perfect.


Just as I'd suspected, the gold was out of place.

So I grabbed my white mineral paint and gave each new pull one coat to cover it up. When they were dry I went back and brushed on some Dixie Belle Satin Sealer for good measure.

And a little shine. 

Mineral and chalk paint tend to be flat and a little dull in my opinion. I like sparkle.


When the project was complete, a mere hour and about $15 later, my old bedroom closet doors looked lovely.

A simple swap, but one with style.

And they functioned well too, since the drop pulls fit nicely inside the space between the doors, they opened and closed fully.

Just as planned.

No more old, gold, uninspired finger pulls to distract me from the elegant details in the rest of the room.

Only clean lines.

And tons of authentic cottage charm.

Perfect.

😌

What do your closet door look like?

Happy DIYing, Friends!