How to make a door.. for livestock.

One “little” project we’ve been working on over the last few weeks has been the office/second bedroom door. I say “little” project because – for quite a while – that’s how I felt about it. Meh, it’s just a door…we’ll crank that out in no time.

Not true.

The planning aspect of it took quite a bit longer than I had anticipated. Truthfully, I had no idea what I wanted to do with it, so how do you plan for that? After thinking about it and doing some research online over the course of several months, I came to the conclusion that I’d like to build a barn door. Not only because I liked the look, but because it was going to be quite a bit easier and a whole lot cheaper than custom building an arched door to hang on a jamb inside the opening.

This is the opening we were dealing with - leading from the office/second bedroom to the living room.

The story of this door actually goes back to tearing down the old garage. Throughout the process of that demolition, we either found or salvaged quite a bit of old wood with lots of character. Some of it went into building my dining room table, some was used for smaller projects, and much of the remainder went into building this door.

Remember this old girl?

Some of the 2" x 6" boards went into my table

I think it's pretty safe to say I wouldn't be able to afford to buy wood with this much character, nor would I feel comfortable working with it ("What if I screw up!?). Not only that, but this was also headed to the landfill - I saved all kinds of money (buying a new table or wood to build a new table, dumping fees, etc.) and we recycled something beautiful.  

The process of building the table was almost exactly the same as building the door; first, we had to prepare the lumber by getting rid of all the old nails, screws, etc. and planing it down using a portable planer borrowed from a friend. We planed all the wood down until it was all approximately the same thickness, and then arranged it to make it look good. From there, we clamped the loose boards together so we could make a mark horizontally across the body of the door every six inches – this mark indicated where we would later cut and glue our biscuits.

See our lines?

This was my first experience actually using a biscuit joiner…super easy. Very straightforward, and the joint you’re left with is incredibly strong without any outward signs of joinery like you’d have with pocket screws or something like that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jl-PjJY14U - video explaining how to use a biscuit joiner.

After cutting all the slots to receive the biscuits, we started gluing all the boards together and clamping them in place using a series of pipe clamps and hand clamps to keep everything tight together, square, and true. This process lasted a handful of days because we felt it was better for the structure of the door to be added to once one segment had set up and was sturdy and stable in its own right.

Lined up, clamped together, glue squirting out everywhere.

Once that was complete, I skil-sawed off the top and bottom edges to clean those up, biscuited the boards across the top and bottom, and pipe clamped everything together length-wise.

Clamped every which way. I used the smaller hand clamps to keep the top and bottom rails in line with the body of the door by sandwiching them between a pair of 2x4's and clamping them into submission.

Sand, sand, sand, sand, sand. Cleanup.

After scraping off the excess glue, we took turns sanding. Start with a coarse grit paper and work your way finer.

Then, we got to attach the hardware I bought at West End Architectural Salvage in Des Moines. This hardware is really nothing special or specific – it’s actually the hardware from an old pocket door, we just used it for a slightly different application. I will say one thing for this old hardware…you’re not going to break it. It’s as solid as the day it was made, and it still works great. There is a screw on each wheel housing that lets you level the door once it’s on the track and they both worked extremely well.

http://www.westendsalvage.com/ - coolest place ever.

The track was mounted on another piece of the old wood that I elected not to plane or sand. I cut the piece down to fit the rail, and then I ripped it down to ¾” thick so the door wouldn’t stand out too far from the wall. We lag-bolted the door to the studs in the wall (which we used my old pictures to find!) and screwed the rail to the board.

Looking good!

Check for level. Pray for sturdiness. Hang your door. Check for level some more. Roll it back and forth. Party.

I fall down enough without help.

A few weeks ago, when we were really getting into building walls and prepping everything for electrical and plumbing work, we decided to level up the floor in my bedroom.

The floor in the bedroom itself was not out of level, but there was a pretty good drop off between the kitchen and the bedroom and the floor in the original closet sloped quite a bit.

The drop off between bedroom and kitchen. This is where I fall on my face.

As we tore out the old walls and removed the old ceiling, we found the area that was used as a closet was originally part of the laundry room, which, again, was originally a porch. In an effort to help the porch floor shed water it was sloped toward the backyard. When the porch was later enclosed and that space annexed for the master closet, the floor was left as is.

All of this wouldn’t have been a problem, had we not moved the closet.

We moved the closet for a few reasons. First, and most importantly: the door to the bedroom was small in height and width. We wouldn’t be able to do anything about the width because of the adjacent pocket door to the bathroom and a sewer vent pipe running up through the wall on the other side of the bedroom door opening.

Small bedroom door to the left. New opening is just to the right of the old opening.

Because of these challenges, we elected to move the door to the “fridge wall” in the kitchen – this will afford me a larger door while allowing the vent to remain in place, but you would then enter into what used to be the closet. So, we moved the closet over to where the bedroom door was originally and provided an additional buffer between the bathroom and the bedroom. Now, I won’t hear guests singing in the shower while I’m trying to sleep AND I’ll be able to move furniture in and out of my bedroom (without tripping!) much easier than before.

Leveling the floor:

We could only do this in good conscience because the floor was in solid shape. If there were settling or rot issues, the right thing to do would have been to remove the floor entirely and deal with those issues appropriately.

Notice how thick the strip is here..

..and here. In roughly 8', the floor dropped almost two inches in the old closet.

Using a level, find the highest and lowest points in the room. Starting from the high point, establish a level point using shims, furring strips, or two-by-fours depending on how out of level you are. As you progress across the floor toward your low point, the strips will get thicker, so take that into account when establishing your high point/first row. Secure those pieces to the floor using construction adhesive and screws to minimize future squeaking. From there, it’s as simple as ensuring that each strip is level in its own right, but also level with the surrounding strips.

I feel bad about covering these floors..

It probably sounds complicated because I’m horrible at explaining things like this without talking with my hands. I promise, it’s simple. Once you’ve got your mind wrapped around it, it goes pretty quickly.

From there, we used ¾” tongue and groove plywood to provide more rigidity to the floor while also helping bring the bedroom floor into level with the kitchen floor at the new threshold we had created. The plywood was glued and screwed into the strips – again for rigidity and to eliminate future squeaking.

Vent pipe (center) with the new doorway to the right.

Good to go!

Once this is done, lay your level down, watch the bubble, and drink a beer to celebrate your accomplishment! Once your beer is finished, you’re ready for dancing on your new floor J