I am back to share another quick project we are working on in our house. There’s just something about a short, weekend improvement project that is so satisfying! My husband and I recently started a makeover project on the interior doors in our house. We live in a Mid Century, California Ranch in the middle of the midwest - Des Moines, IA. The whole neighborhood is full of California Ranch style homes. It feels almost like a movie set, in a great way. It’s kind of funny, and I wish we had a pool, but I really love our house and neighborhood!

Some parts of our house make so much sense, but others seem strange to me. For example, I think one of the strange choices is the original interior doors that were used. The style of doors chosen are a louvered/slatted style door. The look of the door makes sense for the casual, Cali-style, but they do not look very MCM and the function is lacking. These doors are all on either a bedroom or bathroom and do not block any sound or offer much privacy. And, personally, I have not liked the look of the doors since we bought the house.

When we moved in, our house had a bad case of the 80’s. (I love so much of the style, color and design from the 80’s, but our house had the worse parts.) My husband could not see my vision, but he trusted me. As we have been working toward my vision, we have tried to restore a lot of the Mid Century aesthetic back into the house while also making it feel like us. Since moving into our home, we have been working on so many different projects that this door upgrade got pushed down. Over three years later, we finally got around to starting on one of the doors and I love the end result so much! It was also a really easy project to tackle. I feel like the result is so exceptional for the small amount of work required.

When the house was built, the doors were a dark, walnut wood color. Over the years, they had been painted several times and were a dingy off-white color when we moved in. I gave the doors a fresh coat of clean white paint to improve what I could until we replaced them. I was not interested in trying to strip and restore them since I did not like the style. There were a lot of old drips and thick paint layers from previous paint jobs and the louvers were hard to make look better.. Last year we upgraded all of the door handles to simple back ones. At that time, we talked about purchasing new doors and spent some time looking into that.

Same door from inside of the bathroom.

I have tried to install new doors in the past, and found it really difficult, so we would need to hire a professional. Also, purchasing new doors that we liked was going to be very expensive. Instead, I came up with an idea to makeover the doors we already had. I drew up a plan for panels that would fit over the top and bottom sections of the doors and asked my husband if he could make them. The design I came up with is very simple and clean.

I wanted it to have a Mid Century feel, but simplified. All of the wood cuts are straight and easy. I wanted the design to feel purposeful and to look like they were made this way. Also, since I liked the painted white doors, everything would get painted the same white that I had already been using, so no sanding or stripping.

We decided to start with the bathroom door. Once we figured out the dimensions, my husband made and installed the panels out of 1/4 inch, sanded plywood. The louvers were set slightly inside of the door sections, so there was enough room for the new panels. Then he installed the rectangle accent pieces over the new panels and caulked around them so that it looks like one piece.

Finished door from the inside.

It’s crazy how much of a difference this small change made. Not only do I love how it looks, but it also does block a lot of sound and give more privacy. Best part is how much money we saved!

Here is the before and after side by side.

Thank you for following along! I hope you enjoyed this quick project. Now that we were successful with this door, we have five more doors to get done. I hope this is a helpful inspiration to someone else who has a similar dilemma. Take care!