My son has allergies.

I just realized that the wood closet doors (the kind with little slats in between the wood - kind of like wood shutters) are probably not the best thing for them.

All closets in the house have the same wooden doors.

They are a PAIN to clean, as it takes forever because you have to take a butter knife and a rag to go in between each and every crevice in them. Just doing 1/4 of them takes 20 minutes, so that is almost 1.5 hours to do one set of closets (and there are 3 full size and 1 half size - you do the math!!)

Question :

What would be the best replacement for these, to update and modernize the house? But still look nice?

If I had my way, all of the closet doors would be taken off and set aside or something. I think the closet open would be too tacky.

Would a curtain-like opening be okay? Or too cheap looking?

Any ideas on what to do?

This is what they look like : (house was built in 1964 and these are the original openings)

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"Yesterday my life was duller, now everything's technicolor!"

Well, this is what I did. We have a house with similar closet doors without the slats though. They kept falling off the brackets and they would also sometime pinch the kids fingers. I took the doors off. I hung a shower rod up (yard sale find), put curtains up that matched her bedspread and then I mounted a valance also that matched her bed spread. I liked it, she liked it and what I was thrilled about was I had a bunch of people from my hubby's work at the house last night and everyone that walked in her room commented on "what a great idea" and how nice it looked. I would try that before you spend more money on closet doors that can be $$$$.

I have the same thing in bedrooms, except the slats are only on the top, the bottom half is a panel. I bought plexiglass, then cut it to size to fit in on the closet side with holders.

Then I made a template on cardboard of a design i wanted to do fake stained glass. You buy the "leads" that are actually self stick and put them on the plexiglass. Start in the middle and work outward so your design is centered and equal. The products are called Gallery Glass and I got mine at craft stores. You can buy booklets with patterns, however I preferred my own in a Mission style.

Paint/stipple them on a flat surface with the plexiglass taped to the template. Install on the closet side so the stained glass/painted side appears in the room.

No more nasty dirty, greasy slats to clean and these just take a few occasional wipes.

dl

Great ideas! If the doors work well otherwise, what about taking the slats off and using small curtin rods to hang some fabric in the openings.

Both of my boys have no closet doors and a fabric valance (I used the staple gun to staple the same fabric as on their window valance to the interior of the closet molding) at the top to hide the shelf that is at the top of their closets with games, Lego boxes and seasonal clothing...

Oldest son has a desk in his closet... here's a photo of the desk: Walmart.com: Sauder Beginnings Computer Desk, Mission Cherry: Furniture He calls it his 'office.

Youngest has shelves for his toys in his closet. I got the metal ones from Costco... they fit nicely and look good too.

Doing this has made their rooms bigger by a few feet. We store the doors for if/when we ever move and put the house up for sale or the boys want them back in their rooms.

Neither one of them has clothes hanging in the closets anyway so we decided to do this!

Oh, we also get a lot of comments about 'what a great idea'.

Did you ever think to try a can of compressed air like that is used to clean keyboards to dust the slats? I think they are very pretty.

Well, I took the doors off.

It took over 2 hours to take them off, as there was one pesky screw on the top of one of the doors that refused to budge. Not to mention the rest of them were a huge pain as well (only not so much of a pain as that pesky one).

It looks fine "naked" right now. I may or may not, later on down the road, get something to cover the closet. But for now, it is fine.

I told DH we need to do our room and the guest room next.

Compressed air would be a good idea, but there is a lot of grime in there too. I wish there was some sort of super pledge or something that cleaned really good and came in something that made it easier to get into the slats. A butter knife covered with a rag barely fit in between them.

I am confident that I got rid of the major dust issue in his room, and am happy with that.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

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"Yesterday my life was duller, now everything's technicolor!"

If you have enough energy to put the doors back on, here's what I did with the doors to give it a different look. I covered the louvered door area with fabric. Working with one door panel at a time, I took fabric that I liked, cut to a few inches larger than the length of the louvers of the door panel, then ironed the sides of the fabric so it looks finished. (The finished fabric should be able to just cover the louvers.) I inserted this fabric into the top louver and taped it to the back of the door panel, inserted the bottom of the fabric into the bottom of the louver area, taped it to the back of the door. You do this fabric application for all four panels (or 8 panels if you separate bottom and top halves of your door panels). And there, you've not lost your doors, but you have the louvers covered with fabric. I found this idea in a magazine years back.

Popcorny, that sounds like a great idea for the guest room.

I may have to go take a peek at the fabric next time I am at the store!

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"Yesterday my life was duller, now everything's technicolor!"

We took off those ugly slated doors as soon as we closed on our house! What we did in the younger 2's room was left it open and paint it with chalkboard paint and added dd's dollhouse in there; their clothes that is hanging is short enough at their ages that there was lots of wasted space. In our room we added drapes and added a cornice for a finished type look. Basically the cornice is like a valance, but made of 1 long straight piece of wood and straight approx six inch deep pieces on the side to give it a proper depth. My husband made the cornice and I covered it with fabric attached by using a staple gun.

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I dream to escape!

I believe that fabric can be harder on allergies then other surfaces as it tends to hold dust... not sure though. My aunt removed all of her carpeting too. I can't imagine dealing with allergies like that. I hope that you find a solution that you are happy with!