I don't know that you can get a real looking Shaker hollow door because the flat recessed panel area would have to be very thin in cross section. In my experience the raised panel portion of a hollow door is much thicker than the raised panel on a solid wood door, almost as thick as the stiles and rails themselves in cross section. Stylistically I don't think a 6 raised panel will work well on closets with the Shaker on the room doors. In a hierarchical sense, the Room door is the Primary door and should be fancier or more detailed than closet doors if they are not all going to match. I see nothing wrong, if you are not matching doors, with using a Shaker door on the room door and using plain slab doors in a paint grade with a good paint job on them for the closets, so that the closets take a stylistic back seat to the room doors. As for hollow vs. solid. I am strongly biased toward solid even for pocket doors. It is the hanging hardware and the workmanship of the hang that dictates their proper function, not the weight of the doors. The houses in my neighborhood have pocket doors that are 10 feet tall and four feet wide that are Very heavy. But you have to get good hardware, have a good carpenter do the install, and *make *sure * the *finish *carpenters *don't *nail *the *baseboards* and *door *casings *through the *drywall *and *into *the *pocket *doors *themselves*. It Happens. A Lot.

The only reason you should get cracking like that is if someone drove those screws in without pilot holes. The cracking of the filler strip means that the hardware attachment was severely compromised from the beginning, and repeated movement of the door weakened the already tenuous hold that the screws had on the door until they worked loose. There is enough damage there that I am not sure it can be repaired and be good for the long term. I've got a lot of woodworking experience and I don't think I would bother to tackle that repair based on the damage I see. You probably don't want to hear this, but, if you want a lasting solution, the best thing to do is to get new doors. I don't think you need to add hardware, just make sure the hardware is installed properly next time.

Another Ikea kitchens advocate here. Installed ours in 2003. Spent 11.5K on the entire 180 sq f kitchen - all cabinets doors and fronts were solid wood (pine, discontinued), tons of drawers, sitting area, stainless appliances, granite, etc. If you want to keep your kitchen for the next 50-60 years, spend $150K and buy solid wood cabinets. If you are like many other people will get bored with your kitchen and/or want more modern details in 10-15 years, Ikea is the best option. Thicker than other medium range kitchen MDF (0.75" instead of 0.5") frames, high end Blum hardware with doors and fully extended drawers that have soft closure option. Both solid wood and melamine doors are very durable. As for the designer look, it actually all depends on your design abilities. I've seen $70K kitchen and $115K kitchen that looked much worse than many Ikea kitchens. Pick a good counter, knobs, curtains; think about trim and light. I've heard this 'Ikea-kitchen-is-for-losers' song from many contractors, but never from the actual owners. I will use Ikea kitchen cabinets (hacked) for our master bath remodeling. I was interviewing several contractors - two of them tried to convince me to not use Ikea cabinets for this. When I asked them about the alternative, they offered their cabinets instead. After comparing their cabinets to the Ikea ones that I chose, it turned out that their cabinets are: 1. About 2 times more expensive without all drawers I want and about 2.5 more expensive with the drawers; 2. Have mediocre hardware without soft closure, etc. 'What are you talking about??' said one of the contractors. 'All hardware is the same!' Yeah, right... The new Sektion line promises to be even better - more drawer options, more glass cabinets, etc. It will also be more expensive than Akurum probably. So, if the budget is important to you, use Ikea fall sale. The spring sale is already over in US. I got 20% off this time and I am very happy.

It probably doesn't matter much, but the core of your existing doors appears to be particle board, not MDF. MDF is very fine-grained, and looks like the cardboard a cereal box is made from. Particle board is made from coarse sawdust. As to the Ikea doors... I haven't examined one up close, but I'm wondering whether you have the machinery to properly resize the parts. Google helped me find a page about disassembly of these doors, and it looks like the frames have doweled tounge-and-groove joints. This means that making the door narrower will require cutting a new tounge on the end of the shortened rails, and boring new dowel holes too. This is not all that easy to do with typical homeowner equipment. I also don't see why you'd want to buy premade doors, completely disassemble them, re-machine all of the parts, reassemble them and then paint over the original finish, and buy new hinges to boot. If you're willing and able to do all of that, why not start from scratch? If I had to make a glass door from one of your existing doors, I'd be inclined to cut the rectangular glass opening all the way through the particleboard, then attach the faux frame strips such that the overhang the particleboard and create a rabbet; the glass would sit directly against the false frame, and the retaining strips behind the glass would conceal the edge of the particleboard. This IS a kludge; the door will not stand up to much abuse, as no particleboard frame is going to have the integrity of a solid wood frame. But if you're not abusive, it would probably last a couple of years. Having said all of this, it seems like you could easily find yourself spending more time on the project than it's worth. I realize you're trying to avoid spending cash, but isn't your time worth something? If this is really a short-term stopgap, might it make sense to just paint the existing doors and then focus on saving the money for properly built doors?