#180- Part 1- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

It's been six months, and FINALLY, I'm ready to start telling you about #181 on The List, putting closet doors on the beastly wardrobes in our Master Bedroom/Bathroom.  For those of you just joining us here's the Cliff's Notes:

• The DIY Network's Bath Crashers came to our house and build a brand new Master Bathroom.
• We were super grateful and lucky to be chosen, but we're bummed that the huge wardrobes they installed & filled half the room didn't get any doors on them.
• We posted a bunch for the next few months praying we'd get doors on these guys.
• Finally, last week Bath Crashers agreed to give us the cash to make our own doors, and I came up with a plan.

Instead of using expensive, frosted tempered glass, I found these cupboard doors at Ikea in 80" tall lengths, and 24" and 15" widths.

 So I just had to build wood frames around the glass doors at the correct widths to fit my two 35.5" x 90.5", and two 25.5" x 90.5" wardrobes.

All in I needed just eight, 10' long 1x8s.  I usually don't buy such long wood boards, because they're really hard to transport and to work with in a small space.

But in this case with my 80" lengths needed, I didn't want to buy 8' lengths and waste 16" off every board.  So by buying 10' lengths, each board gave me one 80" side piece, and one top or bottom piece.

I wanted the fit around these glass doors to be really tight so that there was absolutely no gap once I put the glass in, so I took out one of the glass doors in each size and built the frame around it.  Good thing, because the 24” x 80” doors from Ikea were actually 23.75” x 79.25”.  Tricky Swedes…. very tricky.

 

Once I cut each of the vertical lengths, then I could just lay down the remaining piece from my 1x8x10 and use a L ruler to mark my cut line and get them the perfect length.

Once everything was cut, I used my Kreg Jig to drill pocket holes in the back of the doors.

And then used wood glue and Kreg Jig screws to attach my pieces and finish my frame for a nice, tight fit.

PS- All this building stuff was a lot more fun when it wasn't 19 degrees outside, now that I have to bundle up to work in the garage.  But I guess it's all worth it when these things are finally starting to come together after 6 months of finger crossing.

PPS- Here's the mess of old carpet and carpet pad in the garage from the Workout Room that I was standing on to get the picture.  Looks like we need to order dumpster #5 since we moved in...

 

This post might make it sound easy, but with 4 of these at some pretty huge lengths, and some pretty cold temperatures, it took a bit of time.  There's still a lot of work to do, sanding, wood filling, staining, polying, waxing, and the most tricky, rigging up a system to hang these bad boys. But for now, I'm celebrating, and thinking a glass of wine is in order.  Cheers!