Crafting a Hidden Bi-Folding DVD Rack

In our house, the entertainment center that has been sitting in our living room for years now is completely chocked full of DVDs. Seeing as we needed to clear some extra space for the oncoming influx of superhero movies (because let's face it, those are the only ones they seem to be making these days) dad and I decided that the best solution to this problem would be to turn our old bi-folding closet door, into a bookcase/DVD rack. As usual, we wanted to conceal the closet behind the door. So this project had a couple of extra details put into it to make sure that it stays hidden. Well........ hidden from everyone but you guys I guess......

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• Several 3/4" 1x6s
• A Bi-Folding Door
• 3 2x4s

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Just like every other project, you always start by building your framework and then working your way inward towards the more complicated components. For almost all of this DVD rack, we ended up planing down all of our 1x6s to a thickness of a 1/2". We did this mainly because our bi-fold was extremely cheap and we wanted to make sure that there wasn't too much weight being placed on it.

We then cut all of the pieces for our frames and shelves. Each side of the bi-fold was made with its own individual frame so that when you pull the doors apart, each bookcase will move to its appropriate side.

One thing to note is that we left some space on the outside of our shelves so that when the door is folded, the shelves wouldn't hit our walls.

Depending on the layout of your house and your door you might have to create some corner shelves to hide the edges of your door. We kept ours extremely simple by gluing and screwing two side boards together that were the same length as our bookcase. For the mini shelves themselves, we simply used some of our scrap 1x6s and cut 14 triangular pieces with a saw angle of 43 degrees (degree angle may vary based on the squareness of your corner pieces).

Because our closet folds to the left, we came up with two different mechanisms for keeping our side pieces in place. We could have used this mechanism twice but we didn't like the aspect of having to pull off each side every time we wanted to get into the closet.

Essentially the way our side piece was suspended in the air was by a small metal hook that dad fabricated and then cut out a crevice for so that it could hang on the very top of our shelf. To then keep it steady, we also attached some super strong rare earth magnets to the bottom of the shelf and bookcase so that it wouldn't jiggle around when it was in use.

For our right corner, all we did was router out some reliefs for our hinges and then attached them to the backside of the corner piece. After that we went home and screwed it to our wall so that when we needed to move it out of the way, we would just rotate it to the side.

Another reason for us attaching our corner in this manner was because if the piece was connected to our bookcase, there would have been very little room for us to get into the closet.

Like any wood project, it just isn't complete without some classic trimming around the edges. One really important thing to note is that whenever you are making something with a hidden compartment, you pay close attention to where you're nailing your trim. Depending on which individual pieces are moving, you will have to attach your trim to one side or the other. For example, the trim piece in the center of our bookcase was only nailed to the left side of our door so that it could open without scraping the wood.

If your door doesn't come with a wheel on the end of it, we would suggest installing one as the end of the door will be receiving a ton of weight over the years. After that, all that's left to do is finagle it into the door-jam, fill it full of DVDs, admire it, and then eat some potato chips!