The popularity of sliding wardrobes with sliding doors is due not only to the fashion for minimalism, but also to the development of the production of furniture of this type using various design solutions and materials. Sliding doors can not only be disguised in a high-tech interior that does not allow everyday excesses, but also turned into an elegant piece of furniture, decorated in any of the design styles.
Various door designs allow you to build such cabinets into niches and corners and use almost any finishing materials.
The doors for sliding wardrobes made of chipboard shown in the photo show only part of the wide selection of colors and textures.
Hanging doors
The modern hanging mechanism installed at the top of the door expands the design possibilities. The doors are located in front of the cabinet without a frame, completely covering the frame, which significantly increases the usable space and facilitates decoration.
In addition, restrictions on the width of sliding doors are removed. The latest developments make it possible to use a suspended version for sheets weighed down with mirrors; they can also be equipped with an electric drive for automatic door movement and a remote control system.
The hanging option has a number of advantages, but its use is not always justified. There are a number of parameters for the weight and dimensions of the door that make it difficult to use only the hanging option.
In some cases, it is impossible to do without guides installed at the bottom. The seemingly simple design of sliding doors requires a professional approach to design, assembly and installation, as well as adequately selected service fittings for the doors.
Preparation
In order to make cabinet doors, you will need:
The first step is to decide on the door design, which depends on the existing interior.
What can it be made from?
The choice of material depends primarily on the availability of tools and the style of the room. Cabinet doors can be made from:
Dimensions
The size of the door depends on the existing frame (this is also true for built-in furniture).
If the height of the cabinet is about two meters, it is better to make two high doors and two small ones for the mezzanine.
A monolithic high door can be made only if the material is sufficiently dense and rigid . In this case, an additional hinge is attached to one door for reliable fastening and smooth opening and closing of the door.
Calculating the exact size of the door is quite simple. To do this, you need to take the external parameters of the base and add 1.3 cm to them.
Loops
The choice of fasteners depends entirely on the selected material.
Semi-concealed hinges are suitable for plywood sashes, which do not require special groove cutting. For denser materials, conventional hinges for swing structures are suitable:
The simplest in terms of fastening are overhead hinges using self-tapping screws, which are already included when sold. If you have the appropriate tools, you can install European cup hinges with closers, i.e. soft closing system.
Radius doors
The curved, concave or wavy surface of the wardrobe is not only a tribute to the original design. The absence of sharp corners and the unique ability to close niches and corners are practical benefits when choosing such doors. Placing them in children's rooms will protect the kids, while at the same time opening up new opportunities for thematic design of the room.
Radius doors are more expensive than regular doors, they are most often made to order, and it would be wise to turn to experienced and well-known manufacturers who can also provide replacement parts for a complex sliding mechanism.
Installation
The final stage of door manufacturing is connecting the leaves directly to the frame itself.
To do this, you need to screw the hinges onto the door using self-tapping screws. The loops should be evenly . So, if the height of the door is one meter, then the hinges are screwed at a distance of 5-7 cm from the bottom and top, and one - exactly in the middle.
The greater the height of the cabinet, the more hinges will be needed for the mechanism to function flawlessly.
At the next stage, you need to attach the door to the pre-applied markings and screw the second part of the hinge. You should not immediately tighten the hinges too much, because after installing the door or doors, you need to adjust the doors.
The structure is aligned along the bottom and sides. Using a screwdriver, you can tighten the hinges so that the door “sits” evenly, without distortion.
The final touch is to remove marker and marking residues using a solvent. The hinge mechanism will take some time to develop, so the opening and closing process may be a little tight.
If you have already mastered making doors and want new feats, we suggest looking at other options:
Folding doors
This is another design that allows you to expand the scope of the sliding wardrobe. Double-leaf doors with a book design and four-leaf doors with an accordion design, similar in design, operate using a hanging mechanism.
Their main advantage is the opening of the entire facade; they are widely used in the design of wardrobes.
Stay within your budget
If you have to arrange a really large dressing room with several closets, then it is important not to go beyond the amount that you initially planned. As an option, you can use ready-made solutions for dressing room furniture from Ikea.
This is a visually attractive and practical option for decorating the fronts of your cabinets, which will not ruin the family budget.
Mirror sliding doors
Traditionally, wardrobes with mirrored doors are used in bedrooms and hallways; they are also becoming part of modern sets for living rooms and offices. Modern technologies make it possible to ensure ease and safety of operation.
A special film is attached to the back of the mirrors to retain fragments in the event of mechanical damage to the doors. Additional parts of sliding mechanisms ensure smooth sliding and locking of doors in the desired position.
Depending on their purpose, mirror doors can convey a high-quality image or serve as a basis for the use of sandblasting, fusing and other technologies, with the use of which the overall design style of the interior is maintained and unique patterns and paintings are created.
It is these new surface treatment techniques that greatly facilitate the care of furniture and expand the scope of use of mirror doors.
Leave your mark
A great way to add contrast to a neutral closet palette is to use dark wood on the cabinet doors, creating a sort of crosshair pattern across multiple cells. For those who like the “X” pattern, such door decor will help, among other things, to ventilate items of clothing in closets - a thin fabric matching the color is simply attached to the wooden frames on the inside.
The cabinets pictured here use silk fabric in a neutral shade, but you can use brighter colors to lift the mood and give a more positive vibe to your closet.
Photo printing on wardrobes
The smooth surface of sliding doors makes it possible to use photo printing on them using large-format printers. Another new product on the market is direct printing on chipboard.
At the same time, you can use ready-made designs from designers, photo wallpapers, or make an individual order, selecting reproductions of world masterpieces, posters, professional photographs to suit your taste. Even photographs from your personal archive can become the basis for the design of furniture with sliding doors.
What beginners should remember
The most important principle of work in carpentry is care and accurate calculations. Therefore, if you doubt whether you will do the work correctly, just draw drawings for yourself and calculate all the dimensions several times. Don’t forget about such nuances as profile thickness, because when installing the frame it should be taken into account.
If you do not have a corner, or you are not sure of its correctness, the door corners can be checked in a simple but nevertheless reliable way. Firstly, you can simply measure the diagonals; if they are the same length, then the angles are even. Secondly, you can use the Pythagorean theorem, but do not be afraid that you will have to calculate distances and angles. It’s enough just to measure 30 centimeters from the corner on one side and 40 centimeters from the other, and put marks. The distance between these points should be exactly 50 centimeters if the angle is even.
Carefully consider how to make a cabinet on the balcony with your own hands, so as not to make mistakes during the process. And if you make a mistake, you may simply ruin the material, resulting in additional costs or other problems in your work. Therefore, the planning stage is very important, especially for beginners who are just starting to work in this direction.
The door leaf, regardless of whether you make it from lining or from sheet material, it is important that the material completely fills the frame and is cut exactly to size. Otherwise, it may simply begin to wobble over time. The frame itself, also as a result of mechanical loads, may simply warp, and this will entail such negative consequences as increased wear of mechanisms and jamming of doors. That is why the filler must completely and tightly fill the door frame. In addition, to avoid distortion, you can use middle crossbars; they will strengthen the frame and resist its deformation.
Closet doors with louvered type
Regardless of which mechanism you choose, bottom roller or hinged, try to follow the installation instructions in everything. If the instructions seem complicated to you, then try to understand them thoroughly, since both the quality and durability of your work directly depend on this.
Of course, making sliding doors yourself is quite difficult, but don’t be afraid. All masters started out at some point, and most of them learned everything along the way. After all, if you ask most craftsmen for documents on the education of a carpenter, they will not be able to show them to you, since they simply learned through practice. Therefore, you also have a chance to become a master if you try a little and be patient.
Source
Built-in wardrobes
It is not always convenient to equip the facade of cabinets built into niches and corners with compartment doors.
Moreover, traditional sliding doors still have one important advantage - this mechanism ensures the longest trouble-free operation and easy replacement of parts when repairing.
The possibility of using such doors is significantly expanded due to high-quality and inexpensive custom assembly. Perforated or slatted doors will provide adequate ventilation.
Doors made of wooden slats will create coziness in eco style. Transparent glass cabinet fronts combined with wood may suit vintage lovers.
Glass also allows you to apply painting and painting with stained glass and acrylic paints. Different types of stops, fasteners and handles can ensure practicality and long-term use.
Use contrasting combinations
An option to dilute standard sliding doors on an aluminum frame is to use contrasting inserts. If the main door leaf is white, then you can insert stripes in the color of walnut and the now popular wenge.
The play of contrasts will not only add style to your doors, but will also transform the entire room. Any catchy, bright decorative elements can change the character of the interior without any special financial costs. In addition, sliding doors are an excellent option for rooms where it is not possible to install swing doors.
Photos of doors for a sliding wardrobe
Methods of decorative finishing of furniture boards
To improve the performance characteristics of the above materials, special coatings can be applied to them. The most popular method of processing furniture boards is lamination. It consists of covering the material with special films made of paper and impregnated with melamine resins under high pressure and at high temperature.
Laminate is resistant to chemicals and scratches. In addition, it is aesthetically pleasing. Now there are a large number of colors and shades of this material on the market. Another way to process furniture boards is lamination. It involves covering the material with paper-resin or polymer film, followed by applying varnish or paint. The film is applied to the slab using glue.
Color scheme and facade decor
Like other pieces of furniture, the appearance of compartment doors, which are in plain sight, should attract attention. You need to understand in which room the product will be located. For a children's room and bedroom, you can provide something monochromatic or a combination of pastel colors that will not traumatize the psyche of a person and a child, but on the contrary will have a calming effect on them. It is advisable to avoid adding glass inserts. In a child's room they can serve as an unsafe element, but in a bedroom they do not bring any functional value.
Color combination options:
- plain coating;
- three shades of the same color;
- contrast.
With a single-color coating, designers most often recommend choosing light shades for the canvas and dark colors for the frame. When choosing three shades, choose one color, and the other two are the same color, but lighter or darker in shade.
When contrasting, the recommended combinations are: green - red, purple - yellow and blue - orange. With this option, the main thing is not to overdo it, otherwise these colors will quickly get boring and irritate. With this option, you will have to change the door panels soon. Designers very often choose between two colors, offering their clients several options. By combining them with a mirror you can achieve the ideal option.
The main thing is to choose colors or their combination with surrounding elements, such as wallpaper, flooring and the decoration of other furniture in the room. Coupe doors can be disguised in texture as wallpaper. In this case, the plane of the doors will dissolve in the general appearance of the walls. You can do exactly the opposite. Carrying out paintings as a dominant is a very difficult, but doable job. If the walls are light, the closet is made in dark colors and something of a medium shade is added to the room, such as curtains or a blanket for a sofa or bed.
When ordering a plain canvas, you can paint it yourself or make an applique. There are a lot of photos with different ideas of where and what will look good. Printed children's photos will look good on the doors. Two-door cabinets look especially beautiful.
You should try to select common details of all pieces of furniture. If there are ceramics on the cabinets and chests of drawers, you need to select the maximum possible material that is similar in texture and color.
In small rooms it is necessary to use mirrors; they allow you to visually expand the room and create the ideal atmosphere for choosing a wardrobe. A mirrored built-in wardrobe will help achieve this in full, as can be seen in the photo.
Nowadays, many people are abandoning conventional swing mechanisms and are more likely to order sliding structures, as they are stylish, reliable and functional. It is impossible to imagine modern apartments without roomy and comfortable pieces of furniture. Built-in furniture allows you to achieve this without losing free space.
