Transforming Bifold Closet Doors into a Corner Cabinet

Is this the “perfect” recycle? Almost! I transformed an old pair of bifold doors into a pair of corner cabinets using no additional wood.

I recently replaced some bifold closet doors in my house and I didn’t want to throw out the originals. So I upcycled them into a corner cabinet that works well for books, decorative knick-knacks, or other items.

I wasn’t sure what the doors were made of, but I was able to cut them in half along the rails without taking the hinges off.

The rails were solid wood, so they didn’t fall apart as they might have had they been hollow. Next I power washed the slatted part of the doors, which I’ll use for the walls of the corner cabinet. The bottom parts of the doors were solid, not slatted, and I used those for the shelves and shelf braces.

I removed the hinges from the solid door panels, and I carefully took off the edging with a hammer. Then I separated the edges from each other. I ended up with four separate edge pieces for each of the four bottom halves of the doors.

I made the shelves at a 90-degree angle so they’d fit nicely into the corner of a room. I set one of the solid boards on top of the hinged bifold slatted piece and measured out the corner cuts I would have to make.

I then got to work cutting out all of the corner braces and shelves I would need.

I cut the corners off so they would lie flush when added in as shelves. I did three shelves and two end pieces for each of the two corner cabinets I made. For the end pieces, I did not cut off the pointy corners.

I sanded the corner pieces so they’d have a nice smooth finish.

For the braces that hold up the shelves, I cut the edges from the bottom half of the doors to the proper lengths—the width of one of the slatted doors.

Rather than screw each of the individual pieces onto the slatted doors, I glued and clamped them together to make the corner I needed.

After the glue dried, I screwed the corners together. Then I measured and marked the slatted walls and installed the shelves with screws.

After I screwed in all of the shelf bases, I painted the doors white. I painted my shelves purple. I like purple.

The final step was to screw the shelves in. I also added one on the top and and one on the bottom for stabilization and aesthetics.

Here’s the final product! A corner cabinet that looks so great your friends will think you bought it at a chic, upscale furniture store. It’ll be your secret that it came from your laundry closet.