Closet doors - where to buy?

[dragoncar]

One of the few not-move-in-ready aspects of my new house was the old sliding closet doors -- they were falling apart and/or off tracks.  We removed them ourselves and to me it looks kinda nice, but my wife wants to reinstall doors.

Now, we could get the absolute cheapest crap available at the big box stores, but I have a feeling we could do it up nice ourselves for not much more money.  I'm thinking getting the roller hardware online and combine with nicer (but not solid) doors. 

Problem is, however, that they need to be about 96 in high.  Home depot has plenty of 80 in interior doors for cheap, but I'm not sure where to get the 96 in.  Is there a door store or closet supply store where I should be looking?  I find that this kind of thing is one of those secrets all the contractors would know, but is completely opaque to the homeowner (like when I discovered that topsoil supply place where I could get mulch for 1/3 the price of home depot).

[m8547]

Try a Habitat Restore or the local equivalent building material thrift store. The place near here has hundreds of doors, and you can get any of them for like $8-10

[Rezdent]

Years ago I had a local carpenter install a new slide door in our closet. The size was custom.  We went with a smaller local company.  I discovered they could order them in any size and had a book with styles. FWIW,  I think this is true for the big chains too.
It cost a bit more than the big box store, and we had to wait for delivery.   But it supported local business and the doors are in great shape 15 years later.

[monarda]

I got some nice closet doors from seconduse.com
they have all their inventory online -  here's a link to 96" doors

http://www.seconduse.com/catalog/results?category=96&dim1=height&dim1min=88.&dim1max=100

Even though I don't live in seattle, I got them delivered through Uship.com.  It was quite a bit less than buying new.

Hopefully you can find what you need,

[dragoncar]

Cool, I'll check out those options.  I browsed our local Restore, but they didn't have doors tall enough :(

[Spork]

If all else fails, you probably have a local store that specializes in doors.  They won't be the cheapest option... but they're likely to have a zillion styles and for big bucks, they'll make them from scratch.  It sounds like you're buying pocket doors... but if you weren't, they'll generally prehang them for you and put the trim on one side.  This makes it a relatively simple job to hang them.

edit to add:
I went back through the quotes from when I built my house... local door store doors (for the style we picked out) were from $40-100 -- depending on size/height/etc.  These are hollow core interior doors -- but not the standard 6 panel door you see at the box stores.

[BooksAreNerdy]

Find a local building supply store. We have McCray Lumber and ProBuild in the Midwest. They can get custom doors built for about $50-100 a door.

[Left]

+1 for habitat restore, i've had good luck asking my neighbor as well (he is in construction so he gets good discounts through company), so if you know anyone working in construction.

[dragoncar]

If all else fails, you probably have a local store that specializes in doors.  They won't be the cheapest option... but they're likely to have a zillion styles and for big bucks, they'll make them from scratch.  It sounds like you're buying pocket doors... but if you weren't, they'll generally prehang them for you and put the trim on one side.  This makes it a relatively simple job to hang them.

edit to add:
I went back through the quotes from when I built my house... local door store doors (for the style we picked out) were from $40-100 -- depending on size/height/etc.  These are hollow core interior doors -- but not the standard 6 panel door you see at the box stores.

Find a local building supply store. We have McCray Lumber and ProBuild in the Midwest. They can get custom doors built for about $50-100 a door.

Shit... there are door stores?  I knew I was missing something!  Too bad google maps doesn't know much about those.  I'm not looking forward to calling 30 building supply places nearby. 

Was hoping for more like $30/door, but we'll see.  I still think the rooms look much more open without closet doors ;-) 

+1 for habitat restore, i've had good luck asking my neighbor as well (he is in construction so he gets good discounts through company), so if you know anyone working in construction.

Definitely agree I should probably talk to a tradesperson

[Spork]

Shit... there are door stores?  I knew I was missing something!  Too bad google maps doesn't know much about those.  I'm not looking forward to calling 30 building supply places nearby. 

Don't think of it as a fancy store.  The one I used was more of a millwork shop with a small office.  They had 10-20 fancy doors on display and a big pile of catalogs.... located in a super industrial area.  This is more of a place where tradespeople go.

Our Restore sort of sucks.  In larger cities I've seen much better stocked ones.  It can't hurt to try.

[dragoncar]

I ended up getting them from home depot.  They are a Masonite supplier, so they special ordered them.  The price was about on par with the local door places, but I was able to buy gift cards (actually store credits) at a discount, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.

I got the wheels at a local hardware store that is going out of business (80% off their slightly high original prices is a good deal).  I'll reuse the rails for the old (basically cardboard) doors (can'r reuse the wheels).