upgrading bathroom cabinet

[sarahknapie]

 

I’ve got an old original bathroom cabinet with sliding doors in our place. It’s so dysfunctional. The sliding doors get stuck and things are always falling out. Has anyone given one of these a facelift or any ideas how to weak it so that it’s more user friendly?

[MitchellMc]

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @sarahknapie. It's fantastic to have you join us and many thanks for your question.

You could remove the sliding door and have it as an open unit. As you've mentioned things are already falling out so this might not be a great solution. Changing the doors might be an option, you could create a timber door which lifts up on hinges. Gas struts could be used to keep the door open whilst in use.

Is there any particular reason that you can see as to why the doors are getting stuck? Perhaps if we could get the doors moving properly it would be more user friendly.

Let me mention @prettyliving to see if she might have some ideas on making the cabinet more functional.

Mitchell

[sarahknapie]

Thanks Mitchell. No I think it’s just old - yeah I could take the doors off. I guess their only remaining benefit is they hide the clutter. I don’t think I could look at an open shelf...also then we would have no mirror. I’m not sure I have the skill to make a door. I’ll be interested to see if anyone else has an idea. I suppose a cabinet maker is my other option

[prettyliving]

Hi @sarahknapie Have you tried using a lubricant on the rails to see if that makes a difference in opening the doors easier? 
Years ago when I was renting I had a similar bathroom cabinet and I remember spraying WD40 on it cos the doors would always get jammed and that fixed the problem.

To stop things falling out you could always store everything into baskets or containers that would fit it there, keeps everything a little more organised too 👍🏻

[sarahknapie]

Thanks for the suggestions. The main problem is that the shelves are too short and it’s not a deep cupboard. I’ve tried baskets but they take up room so even less can be stored in there and it’s awkward. I’d love to rip the whole thing out but I was thinking someone might have done a bit of an upgrade on theirs to make

it

functional.