Making sliding wardrobe doors means building two or three flat panels within a light frame, then hanging them on a bought track and roller system. The panels are the part you make. The running gear is the part you buy, because roller quality decides whether the doors glide or grind, and no home made substitute performs as well over years of daily use.<\/p>\n
A workable build is eighteen millimetre MDF or plywood for the panel, edged and framed with softwood or aluminium, faced with paint, veneer or mirror, and fitted with a bottom roller assembly and a top guide. That combination is strong, reasonably light and straightforward with hand tools.<\/p>\n
Measure the opening height at three points and take the smallest. Deduct the track allowance stated by your roller supplier, typically forty to fifty millimetres in total for top and bottom hardware. That gives you panel height.<\/p>\n
For width, divide the opening by the number of doors, then add an overlap of around forty millimetres per door so there is no gap when the doors meet. Two doors in a one thousand eight hundred millimetre opening therefore work out at roughly nine hundred and forty millimetres each. Without overlap you will see straight through into the wardrobe at the join.<\/p>\n
Accuracy matters more than speed. Use a circular saw with a fine tooth blade running against a clamped straight edge, or have the boards cut to size by a timber merchant, which is often the better option for large panels. Score the cut line with a knife first to reduce chipping on veneered board.<\/p>\n
Check each panel for square by measuring both diagonals. They must match within a millimetre or two, otherwise the door will never sit parallel to the side wall no matter how you adjust the rollers.<\/p>\n
A bare board panel will bow over time, particularly if one face is painted and the other is not. Framing the perimeter solves this. Glue and pin softwood lipping to all four edges, then plane and sand it flush. Alternatively, aluminium door frame profiles sold with sliding kits clamp around the panel and give a crisp modern edge with no finishing at all.<\/p>\n
Seal both faces of the panel, even the hidden one. Sealing only the front is the classic cause of a door that develops a gentle curve within a year.<\/p>\n
Paint is the simplest. Prime the board, then use two thin coats applied with a foam roller for an even finish. Veneer or laminate sheet bonded with contact adhesive gives a timber or gloss face, and it is worth rolling the sheet down from the centre outwards to avoid trapped air.<\/p>\n
Mirror is the option most people want and the one that demands the most care. Have the mirror cut to size by a glazier, specify safety backed glass, and bond it with mirror adhesive plus double sided tape to hold it while the adhesive cures. Mirror adds significant weight, so check the load rating of your rollers before committing. If a mirrored front is the goal, comparing our modern sliding wardrobes UK sale<\/a> range against the cost of materials is worth doing first.<\/p>\n Buy a system rated above the weight of your finished door rather than at it. Weigh a completed panel on bathroom scales before ordering if you can. Bottom rolling systems are more forgiving of ceiling condition and are the sensible choice for a first build. Top hung systems look cleaner because the floor stays clear, but they need a substantial fixing overhead.<\/p>\n Look for adjustable rollers with a screw accessible from the door edge, plus anti jump blocks. Soft close is a genuine benefit on heavy mirrored doors, since it stops the panel slamming into the end stop.<\/p>\n Fit the roller brackets to the bottom edge of each panel, inset from the ends by the distance the manufacturer specifies. Fit the top guides to match. Then install the bottom track level, shimming any dips in the floor, and place the top track exactly above it using a plumb line rather than a measurement from the ceiling.<\/p>\n Hang the rear panel first, then the front. Adjust one corner at a time until the closing edge is parallel with the wall and the doors run with light pressure. A door that rolls open by itself means the bottom track is not level, and no roller adjustment will cure it.<\/p>\n Building your own doors makes sense in two situations: a non standard opening that no stock door fits, and a room where you want an unusual face material such as fluted timber or a specific paint colour. In both cases you are buying something you cannot otherwise get.<\/p>\n For a standard opening, a factory built door is usually flatter, lighter and better engineered for the weight it carries, so the argument for making your own is weaker. Our full modern wardrobes UK<\/a> range covers standard sizes with the interiors already planned, and matching pieces such as a modern chest of drawers UK sale<\/a> keep the room coherent. You can see the finishes together across the collections at Furniture in Fashion<\/a>.<\/p>\n Add a brush seal or felt strip to the leading edge of the front door so it closes softly against the side wall and blocks dust. Fit a recessed pull rather than a projecting handle, because a proud handle prevents the doors passing each other. Finally, run a bead of flexible caulk where the tracks meet the floor and ceiling to keep grit out of the channels.<\/p>\n Vacuum the bottom track every few weeks. Grit in the channel is the single most common reason sliding doors start to feel rough, and it wears rollers far faster than use does.<\/p>\n Price the whole build before starting. Board, lipping, primer, paint, adhesive, track and rollers add up faster than people expect, and mirror is the item that changes the total most. Cut to size glass from a glazier is not cheap, and safety backing adds to it again.<\/p>\n Set that figure against a finished unit of similar size. If the two are close, buying wins on flatness and warranty. If your opening is unusual, or you want a face material that simply is not sold, making your own is the only route and the cost is justified by getting exactly what you wanted.<\/p>\n Wide openings are often better served by three doors than two. Each panel is lighter, easier to handle alone and less likely to bow, and a three door arrangement gives you access to two thirds of the opening at once rather than half.<\/p>\n The complication is the track. Three doors need a three channel system, which is deeper than a two channel track and consumes more internal depth. Check that figure against your carcase before deciding, because on a shallow wardrobe the extra channel can push hangers uncomfortably close to the back panel.<\/p>\n Sealing only one face of a panel is the most frequent error and it produces a slow bow that appears months later. Cutting panels without checking the diagonals is the second, since a panel out of square can never be adjusted straight. Buying rollers rated at the door weight rather than above it is the third, and it shows up as stiffness within a year.<\/p>\n Fitting a projecting handle is a fourth mistake that is obvious in hindsight. Sliding doors pass within a few millimetres of each other, so anything proud of the face will stop them. Recessed pulls or a finger groove routed into the edge are the only workable options.<\/p>\n You can build these doors with a circular saw, a drill and a spirit level, but three additions repay themselves quickly. A clamped straight edge guide turns a rough cut into a clean one. A long level, ideally one metre eight hundred or more, is what makes the tracks parallel. A sanding block keeps edges flat rather than rounded, which matters far more on a large panel than on a small one.<\/p>\n Borrow or hire rather than buy if this is a one off project. The cost of hiring a track saw for a day is small against the value of four perfectly straight cuts, and it removes the part of the job most likely to go wrong.<\/p>\n Eighteen millimetre MDF or plywood, framed on all four edges, gives the best balance of flatness and weight. Seal both faces so the panel does not bow.<\/p>\n Around forty millimetres per door. Without an overlap the join shows a gap straight into the wardrobe when the doors are closed.<\/p>\n Yes, using safety backed glass and mirror adhesive, but check the roller weight rating first. Mirror can easily double the weight of a panel.<\/p>\n Either works, though bottom rolling is far easier at home because it does not depend on a strong, level ceiling fixing.<\/p>\n Usually grit in the bottom channel or rollers rated too low for the door weight. Clean the track first, then check the load rating of the hardware.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Building sliding wardrobe doors is a realistic weekend project provided you divide the job correctly: you make the panels and you buy the running gear, because roller quality decides whether the doors glide or grind for years. This guide sets out sensible material choices, how…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":57663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3334],"tags":[5668,5667,5190,5666],"class_list":["post-57662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-to-guide-for-your-home","tag-bedroom-projects","tag-door-making","tag-sliding-doors","tag-wardrobe-diy"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Choosing the Running Gear<\/h3>\n
Assembly and Hanging<\/h3>\n
Is Making Them Worthwhile?<\/h3>\n
Finishing Details<\/h3>\n
Working Out the True Cost<\/h3>\n
Building Three Doors Rather Than Two<\/h3>\n
Common Mistakes on a First Build<\/h3>\n
Tools That Make the Difference<\/h3>\n
Frequently Asked Questions<\/h3>\n
What material is best for home made sliding wardrobe doors?<\/h3>\n
How much overlap do two sliding doors need?<\/h3>\n
Can I use a mirror on a home made door?<\/h3>\n
Do I need a bottom track or can the doors hang from the top?<\/h3>\n
Why do my doors feel stiff to slide?<\/h3>\n