Sliding Closet Door Makeover (and What I Would Do Differently)

So when I looked at our outdated gold mirrored closet doors in our office I thought I’d combine these two ideas:

• Paint the gold frame black
• Create faux windowpane lines with electrical tape

Step 1. Clean & prep mirrored closet doors.

I started by cleaning the mirrors with Windex & using rubbing alcohol on the metal closet door frames with round cotton pads.

Then I finished by taping off the wall and mirrors so I didn’t get paint on them.

What I’d do differently here – I’d start with lightly sanding the metal frame with ultra grit sandpaper first. Clean well after sanding.

Step 2. Paint metal frame on closet doors.

Next you can paint your metal frame on the closet doors. To do this, I used a nice paint brush and this paint in a flat paint sheen. I added in this paint additive to help avoid brush marks.

To get into the smaller spaces, I used a small artist paint brush.

I didn’t bother painting the track on the bottom floor because it would just get scuffed up anyway and you can barely tell.

What I’d do differently on the paint – If I were to do this makeover again, I’d use an oil based (or even acrylic based coating) instead of a water based paint. I’d also opt for spraying rather than brushing (either with a can of spray paint or using my paint sprayer).

Step 3. Make faux windowpane grid lines with electrical tape.

I measured out equal parts on window, marked it with a level and dry erase marker and simply added black electrical tape to make the grid lines so the mirrors looked like a window.

I also added the electrical tape on the border of the mirror so it’s a nice crisp line there.

It was easiest to have the electrical tape of over the edge and then cut off the excess in a nice straight line with an Xacto knife.

Despite having a few regrets and some paint that’s already chipping here and there! The closet doors look pretty dang good in pictures, right?!

If you love this, check out   all of my painting tutorials in the archive  here!