My and my GF are doing some light renovations to her mid-60s house. The previous owners installed some horrible sliding closet doors. We want to replace the doors with bifold closet doors but I can only find doors exactly 24" wide. The closet opening is exactly 47" wide. I know you can trim a bit off of some bifold doors but not enough to have them fit the opening.
Is there a reasonably priced solution?
Since it's just a closet with no need for much privacy, bifold barn doors will allow you to use off the shelf door slabs mounted just outside of the opening. The extra width of 24" doors might even be a good thing.
In reply to STM317 :
Ohhhh, I like that! The bifold doors I was looking at are 24x80 and are $89 a piece. I wonder if I can find some a bit longer.
Some of the nicer ones were $400+ which is way too much. We just need "good enough" since we are selling this place as soon as I get another job.
We've already replaced the kitchen cabinets, counter tops and sink, installed a new a/c unit and painted every interior room. I gotta replace some fencing, do some trim painting on the exterior and get the yard in better shape. After that it should be ready to sell.
One inch trim is an eighth inch off each side of the 4 bifold doors.
47 inch opening is standard for sliding closet doors, so don't blame the PO, the house was built that way. You can usually plane off enough to make the 48 doors work, if you look at the bottom of them, you can usually see the thickness of the sides.
I think the "barn door" ones posted above look horrible and would wonder what else you cheaped out on if I was a buyer.
My "24 inch" bifold door on my linen closet measures about 23.75 inches. I'd just get 2x 24" doors and plane off whatever small amount you need to make it fit.
I'm laying in bed and the tape measure is in the garage. I'd like to know what my doors measure as I hung them. There is a gap on the sides too - if you make them equal you don't notice the gap.
The old lumber yard I worked for could order the doors to any size ( the mill would trim) or they could send to their mill to trim.
All bi-pass (sliding) door openings are 47" because they overlap in the middle. Bi-fold or pair of swinging doors are 48".
Note also that bi-fold door heights are usually a little bit shorter so the track can fit above them, and the slabs are less than 12" wide each so the gaps and mechanism can work properly.
Trimming a hollow core door can be tricky. Modern hollow core doors have edges that are shockingly thin.
Me? I'd pull the frame and widen the rough opening. That sounds like more work, but it's really not that hard.
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