I have 2 BILLY bookcases for some years now. And I wanted to close them up but not with the classical doors (heavy, not nice and expensive) and more in line with my living room style. So I decided to hack fabric sliding doors for my BILLYs.
I tried to find some hanging system that could be fixed by the side of the rails but they were more or less all to be fixed at the top.
Materials used:
- BILLY bookcases
- YRLA curtain
- Wood sticks
- Wooden dowels
- Screws
- Wood glue
Tools:
How I made fabric sliding doors for my BILLY bookcases
Firstly, I decided to use wood to create the rails and fixing system. Flat pieces of wood for the rails and round dowels for hanging the YRLA curtain. The fabric sliding doors looks a bit more stylish and less invasive in my space than other system. Better yet, it costs in total probably something around 5-6 eur for the wood.
Next, at the top of the YRLA curtains sew a hem on to insert a dowel. This part slides above the wood rails allowing the curtain to be opened or closed. The tricky thing was that the top part needs to slide above and not fall between the rails.
Related: How to add PAX sliding doors on your own wood work. See tutorial.
To be able to sustain the weight of the curtain, I chose a harder wood for the rails and measured about 2 cm in height. In the end, the height didn’t really impact the results but the rigidity of the wood did. So just be careful that the wood is not too thin that warps under the weight of the curtains.
I’m super happy with my fabric sliding doors. It slides well, I can access my books and it looks definitely more stylish.
Related: Change your existing closet doors to PAX sliding doors. See how.
The only downside is that, if I move from my flat, I’ll either have to un-glue and redo some parts. Alternatively, I’ll just need to move the BILLY bookcases super slowly. 
This is also one of the reasons why I chose to do the central fixing in two parts corresponding to the 2 ends of the BILLY instead of using a longer wood rail.
Some things to consider
Tip 1: The parts to glue and screw are small parts. You need to pre-drill slowly and screw carefully to not split the wood.
Tip 2: I also made a hem at the bottom and inserted what was left of the dowels so that the curtain falls and slides perfectly.
Tip 3: If you want your curtains to join nicely between one piece and another in the middle, you will need 3 pieces if I remember well. Probably if you get organised and think through/ try this before starting you can manage with 2. I thought about this when a part was already cut, hence the need for 3.
~ by Jerry, Belgium
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