Installing Closet Doors in an Older Home

Installation Guide for Bifold Closet Doors

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 well 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.

On the new door frame, I separated the header from the jamb and cut a new one using a 1×6. I secured the new 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 with screws.

I hung the bifold doors according to the manufacturer’s instructions which was extremely quick and easy!

Installing closet doors is a great way to spruce up any home. It’s a relatively simple yet effective job that can be done over the course of two days with five or more openings – I know because I recently did it and had a blast! Have questions? Leave a comment below!

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