I took on a fun little challenge: giving my (new) plain doors a complete makeover so they looked more like wood. The goal was to keep this DIY door project budget-friendly by spending less than $50.
It ended up being such a simple home improvement project, I literally did it with one functional hand! But it made a huge difference in the space. Honestly, this might be one of the easiest DIY projects I’ve ever tackled! Let’s get started friends!
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Tools + Materials
Tools
- Painting Supplies
- Large Brush (Optional)
- Painter’s Tape (Optional)
Materials
- Paint
- Dark Walnut Gel Stain (Small Can Not Available Online)
- Golden Oak Gel Stain (Small Can Not Available Online)
Other Projects
If you want to see how I DIY’ed my closets you can watch the video here or visit it on the blog!
I absolutely hated these doors and they had to go. But, I did not have it in the budget to replace them because they were brand new. So with the goal of spending under $50 here’s how I made them look like wooden doors instead. Aero seems super confident in me right?
Prep + Paint
First we started by lining the glass panels with painter’s tape.
And the first line item in our budget was the paint, coming in at a whopping $15.
I painted the doors in this tan color as a base to help give the effect of the doors being wood.
Stain
Luckily, these doors actually had a bit of wood grain so I was pretty confident that the stain would go right into the grain and make it look more natural.
I used a mixture of golden oak and dark walnut gel stain and brushed that onto the door. I didn’t really care too much about how it looked at first because I knew I was going to be wiping it off in a little bit, it was already starting to look like wood grain. If you’re invested in the pricing of this project, the stain only cost $17.
I did try to load up the door with the gel stain, and I really wasn’t very conservative about it. But once the brush was almost empty and just had a little bit left, I went back over anything I wiped off to give it more of a natural, streaky wood grain look. It really made a huge impact on the door.
It was really subtle but I was so happy with how it turned out. This is the swatch from the accent wall, what do you think? Pretty darn close right?
From there it was just, lather, rinse, repeat, or stain, wipe and gently brush.
Once all of the painting and staining was done it was time to remove the tape. It’s always so satisfying.
Finishing Touches
Jordan was on trim duty, this was only his third time cutting and installing trim and he did great!
He secured the trim with the brad nailer.
Hey, if Jordan can do it, anyone can.
Installing the door pulls was a group effort, we used this cabinet hardware jig, me with my left hand and Jordan was my right hand man, literally.
Not too shabby right? For those keeping track of the budget, the pulls were only $15.
The Newly Improved Closet Doors
On the real though, how good do these doors look? They really do look like wood grain. Not too bad for a weekend project that cost under $50 and was done with basically one hand.
Because of my injury I was forced to take it a lot slower and kind of get back to my roots of budget-friendly, easy DIYs. And yes, I know this isn’t technically woodworking, (it’s faux woodworking). But it was really nice to slow down and remind myself that not everything has to be a giant project.
So let’s experiment with this together. Maybe we don’t need to do giant projects all the time. Maybe we can do some little steps in between instead of smooshing everything into one giant project and skimming over the smaller stuff?
I don’t know. Let me know in the comments what you think. Do you want to see these spaces broken down into smaller projects again? More bite-sized, weekend-warrior type projects like we used to do back in the good old days?
Either way, there are more projects coming, even with the setbacks I have to work with. So until the next one friends, Happy DIYing.
Save This For Later
I hope you enjoyed this project! If so, make sure to Pin It for later!
