# Convert sliding doors to hinged doors?



## jimmc (Oct 4, 2010)

Hi guys, great forum!

I'm very new to this but I've been reading a lot.

I was wondering if anyone could tell me the best way to convert two sliding doors on tracks to two hinged doors that open from the middle? Maybe using those hidden hinges that are used on kitchen cabinets?

I'm wondering if after the top and bottom tracks are removed the door panels will be too short for hinge mounting without leaving a big gap either top or bottom.

These aren't full size doors, they're on a Wardrobe. I'll try to add pictures to show what it looks like.

Any advice would be really appreciated.


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## budro (Oct 5, 2010)

i can't tell you much about the way to fix the doors. look at the trim at the top and bottom in front of the doors. it seems like when you hinge the doors this will have to be behind the doors. is there enough room to position the doors in front of the trim or not? measure the space from the opening to the trim. then measure the thickness of the door. are they about the same? if the door is thicker then you might have to take this trim off and move it back. that might be tough. the one thing i do know to talk about is hidden hinges. most hidden hinges require about a 1 1/2" round hole cut into the doors at the hinge to work. i was faced with a problem where i had to use hiddden hinges but didn't have time to cut holes in the doors. we thought we had solved the problem when we found hidden hinges at lowe's that didn't require cutting a hole. once installed, the doors with the no cut hidden hinges will only open 90 degrees. the other recessed  ones allowed the doors to open well past 90 degrees. that's about all i can help with. budro


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## shecandoit22 (Oct 20, 2010)

Hello jimmc,
    I am a Home Depot associate, trained and authorized to help people on the internet. I think it is very possible to convert the doors from sliding to hinged. It looks like you can just remove the bottom tracks and add in a solid piece of wood so that it would fill the entire track area. this would give you a stop for the doors on the top and bottom. Then as budro said there are many different types of hinges out there. if you want to go with the style that you have to drill the holes in the back of the doors I would suggest that you invest in the jig that gives you the correct placement every time. If not there are many other surface mount hinges that go well beyond the 90 deg. Here is a pictures of the one that I have used a few times.. The one picture shows you all of the ways that you can hang the doors with these hinges. I hope this helps you out. Please post some follow up pictures. I would love to see how it turns out. 
                                                                                  Thanks,
                                                                                       shecandoit22


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