3 Awesome DIY Door Ideas That Start at Just $15

By Sarah Lyon

If you think that customizing your home's interior doors on a budget is for dreamers, think again. There are plenty of ways to revamp bedroom and closet doors with some basic tools, a handful of materials from the hardware store, and innovative DIY door ideas. You know what they say, when one door closes, another one opens, and here it's driven by design. Whether your style leans Parisian, midcentury, or farmhouse, we’ve rounded up three gorgeous and wallet-friendly hacks that will inspire you to transform your own doors ASAP.

Home decor blogger Madison Bess wanted to do something about the drab brown doors throughout her St. Petersburg, Florida, abode without shelling out Benjamins to replace them entirely. With a little paint and some molding, Bess transformed her doors in a major way for just $15.

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To transform a door with paint and molding, you’ll need:

Step 1: Remove the door knobs and spray paint them in the hue of your choosing. This step is optional, but will likely enhance the overall appearance of your door.

Home decor blogger Madison Bess gives a once-boring door a makeover with molding.

Step 2: Paint the door in a color that speaks to you. Bess notes that you may wish to add a protective finish as a top coat once your paint is dry.

Step 3: Determine the design you would like to make with the molding. Bess chose to form three boxes on her door. Using a level, she lined each piece evenly to guarantee exact placement.

Step 4: Measure the desired lengths to form each box. (Bess purchased three pieces of eight-foot-long molding.) Then, cut molding strips at a 45-degree angle using a miter saw.

Step 5: Use Gorilla hot glue to adhere molding to the door in the box positions.

Step 6: Apply wood filler to each box corner to ensure that each crevice is smooth and free of gaps.

Step 7: With an angle brush or a small roller, apply the same paint color that was used on the door to each molding box.

Michigan-based home decor blogger Erika Ehrhardt was eager to add some midcentury-modern style flair to her space. She figured a sunburst motif would be an excellent starting point. Ehrhardt opted to install bifold closet doors to feature the fun design, further emphasizing the DIY energy with a happy hue.

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To make your own bifold sunburst closet door, you’ll need:

Step 1: Set your bifold doors on two sawhorses so that you have a sturdy platform to work on. Use the embroidery hoop and place it on the door to mark the location of the handle.

Erika Ehrhardt uses wood dowel rods to lay out her starburst pattern.

Step 2: To design how you want your sunburst to look, lay out the wood dowels on the door. Once you have a design you love, use painter's tape to temporarily secure the dowels and embroidery hoop in position. Mark with a pencil so you know where to make the cuts with a miter saw.

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Step 3: Remove the dowels and embroidery hoop and make cuts with a miter saw. "For my design, I alternated the cuts on every other dowel to make a pattern," Ehrhardt says.

Step 4: Place dowels and embroidery hoop back into position and secure permanently using Gorilla wood glue. Ehrhardt recommends placing painter's tape over these pieces to ensure they remain secure while drying. Once the glue is dry, remove the painter's tape.

Step 5: Paint the surface of your doors. Ehrhardt recommends using an edging paint brush to get around the dowels and any other corners. Paint the rest of the doors by using a paint roller.

Step 6: Once the bifold doors are completely dry, install the doors and the handle hardware.

Hillary Quinn, a home decor blogger in Bloomington, Illinois, wanted to liven up the bifold doors in her main hallway and opted for a farmhouse-style solution with barn door-inspired handles that add major oomph to her space.

Hillary Quinn's take on shabby chic farmhouse doors.

To make farmhouse style bifold doors, you’ll need:

Step 1: Cut MDF into four inch planks and cut to the length of your bifold door. Use smaller pieces at the top and bottom to create a border.

Step 2: Nail each plank into bifold doors. Quinn recommends continuing to open and close doors during the process to ensure they are working efficiently. She also recommends leaving an eighth of an inch of space between the door sides and along the top, bottom, and middle to ensure the original doors can open and close easily.

Step 3: Fill nail holes with wood filler and paint MDF pieces.

Step 4: To make door handles, cut two dowel rods to size and use wood stain to create a rustic look. Spray paint the split ring hangers in matte black.

Step 5: Drill half of the ring tubing to the doors, slide the dowels in, and secure by screwing in the top piece of ring tubing.