Why Your IKEA Wardrobe Doors Won't Close Properly

The IKEA Pax wardrobe (and most of its cousins — Hemnes, Songesand, Brimnes) is brilliant design at a great price. But the doors? Within a year they sag, scrape, refuse to close flush, or rub against each other. The good news: it's almost always a 10-minute adjustment, not a broken wardrobe.

Why IKEA doors drift over time

The hinges (called Utrusta on Pax, or generic Euro hinges on other models) have three-way adjustment screws. As you open and close the doors, the screws gradually loosen with vibration. Combined with carpets that compress, floors that aren't level, and walls that lean, the door alignment drifts.

The three adjustment screws on every Euro hinge

Each hinge has three small screws — usually Pozidriv #2 (PZ2):

• Screw 1: depth (in/out) — controls how far the door sits from the cabinet frame. Adjust if the door is rubbing against the next door or sticking out too far.
• Screw 2: side (left/right) — controls horizontal position. Adjust if there's a wedge-shaped gap on one side.
• Screw 3: height — controls vertical position. Adjust if the door is hanging too low or scraping the floor.

Step-by-step: realign a sagging door

1. Open the door fully so all hinges are visible.
2. Identify the problem: tilting? rubbing top? rubbing bottom? gap at the wrong side?
3. Adjust the relevant screw on both top and bottom hinges in equal turns. Start with quarter-turns.
4. Close the door, check, repeat.
5. Iterate — this is usually 5-10 minutes of tweaking.

Common adjustment scenarios

• Door scraping the floor: turn the height screw on both hinges clockwise (a quarter turn at a time) until the door lifts.
• Doors rubbing each other in the middle: turn the side screw on the offending door to pull it slightly back toward its own hinge side.
• Door sticking out at the top: turn the depth screw on the top hinge inward.
• Door won't close flush at the latch side: turn the depth screw on the top hinge slightly outward and the bottom hinge slightly inward (or vice-versa).

If adjusting doesn't fix it

If you've adjusted in every direction and the door's still off, something else is wrong:

• Wardrobe carcass isn't square. Check with a tape measure diagonally corner to corner — both diagonals should match within 3mm.
• Wardrobe isn't level on the floor. If the floor slopes, the carcass leans. Shim the feet.
• Wardrobe not fixed to the wall. Pax wardrobes must be anchored to the wall — the supplied bracket goes through the back of the top panel. Without this, the carcass twists under door weight.
• Hinge plate loose in the wood. If the small screws holding the hinge plate to the cabinet are stripped, the door slowly drops as the screws lose grip. Fix: longer screws, or matchstick-and-glue trick to give old holes new grip.

The "matchstick fix" for stripped hinge screws

Strip a couple of matchsticks, push them into the stripped screw hole with a drop of wood glue, snap them flush, let dry 15 minutes, then drive the original screw back in. The screw cuts new threads in the wood + matchstick combination. Works every time.

Sliding doors (Pax + Komplement)

Sliding doors run on top and bottom tracks. If they're jamming:

• Check the top track is screwed into the carcass top tight against the underside.
• Vacuum out the bottom track — carpet fibres are the #1 cause of sticking sliding doors.
• Each door has a height adjustment wheel at the bottom — turn it to raise/lower the door so the top of the door just clears the top track.

When to call a handyman

If the wardrobe isn't level, isn't anchored to the wall, or the hinge plates have stripped out completely, that's where it gets fiddly. Typical wardrobe realignment + secure-to-wall takes 45-60 minutes. Worth doing once properly so you stop adjusting it every six months.