Building Up the Opening for Closet Doors

Installing Closet Doors in an Older Home

Installing closet doors is an easy task. The only bad thing about installing closet doors in an older home is that the openings in are too large for standard doors that are manufactured today. One option is to special order doors that will fit but what do you do if a special order is not in the budget? In the Rebel house, the openings for the closet doors were 3″ larger than the bifold doors we wanted to install. Follow along as I show what I did to make these doors fit!

Looking at the header of the closet door, the original doors were bypass doors. There is nothing wrong with using bypass doors but they do not work in a small opening! The openings for the closet doors in the bedrooms measure 39″. The bifold doors we wanted to use were for a 36″ opening. How serendipitous it turned out to be that the door was exactly 3″ narrower! I had an easy fix…

I removed the jamb and the header. I then cut two 2x4s at the height of the opening, and screwed them to the closet framing.

I separated the header from the jamb and cut a new one using a 1×6. I secured the header to the jamb using 2-1/2″ screws, then reinstalled the jamb in the opening. I added a few shims at the top and secured them in place.

I hung the bifold doors according to the manufacturer’s instructions. So quick and easy!

I had such a great time installing the closet doors, I installed them in five openings over two days! How’s that for efficiency?

Originally posted 2013-11-07 08:00:19.