How To: Make 5 Paneled Doors the Easy Way

So before we dig in, I feel like I need to give you a little backstory on the door situation in our 1930 bungie. As I've mentioned before our house has had two owners. A sweet little family back when it was originally built and then it was sold and used as a rental for 40 years. So yes it's only had two owners, but having four decades of renters means this sucker is full of cheap (lazy) bandaids and weird quirks. When we moved in all of the closets and two of the rooms had original single panel solid wood doors. 

One to the bathroom:

And one to the guest room:

There were two flimsy builder hollow core doors that looked like they were straight out of an apartment. 

One to the kitchen from the master (I know. Midnight snack anyone?):

And one from the master to what is now Olivia's nursery (ooo shiny 90s gold hardware):

There were also two accordion doors. Yep. 

A super gross fabric/vinyl one from the nursery to the laundry room (think those accordion partitions from the 70s that divided classrooms in elementary school. Oh and it was covered in paint): 

And a shiny plastic one from the hallway to the master bedroom:

When we first moved in we immediately removed all of the accordion doors because 1. they were filthy, and 2. we were not about to try and move furniture through 18" openings. Removing the door to the now nursery (then office) wasn't a big deal at all because it wasn't a true bedroom yet. However, removing the door to the master bedroom meant that we ended up not having a bedroom door for almost 5 years (!!)

Why did it take so long? Well first of all we rarely have guests so this project was not at the top of our todo list. Second of all, we had such a hodgepodge collection of doors and we eventually wanted to replace them all with 5 panel shaker doors that matched which was pretty pricey. After looking around at Lowe's and Home Depot a couple years ago, if you wanted a solid core 5 panel door it was a custom order and started at around $300 a door. Woof. We started looking at architectural salvage stores to find some we could refinish but even those started at $100 and still needed to be completed stripped and refinished from decades of abuse. Double woof. Also, having an old house means that your door openings are all different widths, that tend to be on the smaller side. Ours range from 31" - 34", which are not common door widths so it was like finding a needle in a haystack. 

So Derek had planned on building all of the doors in our house instead. He made the barn door from the laundry room to the office/nursery, and it turned out just gorgeous. However, Derek is a busy guy with lots of fabrication products on his plate and it was going to take some time to squeeze four more doors into his schedule, so I was getting a little desperate. 

A few weeks later after going to our neighbors' house we saw that they had new beautiful 5-panel doors and we were all "where did you find these?" and they were all "we cheated". So after picking their brains a bit, they explained that they just bought single panel solid core doors from Habitat Restore and added in the horizontal slats to make their own 5 panel doors. Duh. So we headed over to Habitat Restore and picked up our own single panel doors in all of the sizes we needed. Luckily they already had two original 5 panel doors in our sizes, so those were ready to be painted. Phew! We somehow crammed them all into my very small SUV #innercityliving. 

We grabbed some sheets of MDF from Home Depot and we were in business. I measured out each stile to be the same width as the stiles on the premade 5 panel doors so that they would all be consistant throughout the house, which ended up being 4". I had Derek cut the 4" stiles using the table saw, and then I used a Fine Finish blade and a chop saw to do the shorter cuts which would fit each door recess. I was sure to measure the widths of each recessed panel on every door front and back, as some varied from 1/8" - 1/4" on each side (go figure), and I wanted each stile to fit snug within the recess. 

Then came the tricky part. I had to figure out the spacing of each of my stiles so that they were perfectly even and created 5 recessed panels. Rather than frogging around with the math, I used this website where I input the total length of the recess (67"), the length of each style (4"), how many stiles I had (4), and that there were no stiles at the top or bottom of my recess. 

This gave me the exact distance for each stile's centerline which I marked on both verticle sides of the door front and back.

I then measured the center line on both ends of each of my stiles and lined them up with the marks I made on my door.

I double checked the spacing for good measure before gluing them down. Once everything looked good I used liquid nails and a mallet to hammer everything into place. 

Then I used our collection of paint cans to keep everything in place and prevent the MDF from lifting or bowing while the liquid nails cured.

Once all of my stiles were glued down on both sides of all of my doors, I filled in any blemishes with wood filler and then sanded the doors to prep them for paint. We love the look of black doors against our crisp white trim and light grey walls, so I went with my all time favorite black, Sherwin Williams Iron Ore. 

Derek sprayed all of the doors for me because let's face it, I was pregnant at the time. In between each coat of paint I wet sanded the doors to create a nice smooth finish. 

While the doors were drying with their final coat of paint, we went ahead and prepped all of the door hardware. All of the original solid core doors in our house (bathroom, guest bedroom) had the original 1930 butterfly hinges, but were caked in decades of paint. We brought these back to their original patina (I'll do a whole blog post on this method). For the doors that either didn't have hinges (accordion) or had boring builder hinges, we replaced them with matching half mortise hinges that we picked up from our local architectural salvage store for about $20 a hinge. This way everything would look cohesive and true to the original character of our home. For the door handles, we originally thought about finding historic knobs true to the era of our home but in the end decided against it. First of all, they are about $100 a knob and its hard to find enough that match. Second of all, we want certain elements of our home to remain in the craftsman style, while other elements are more modern. I just love riding that line of balance. We picked up several of these Kwikset Halifax Square Door Levers in polished chrome, which bring these classic doors into the 21st century. 

And where is the door to the kitchen for our midnight snacks? That's another post for another time. 

So funny story. After completing this project, now Home Depot sells pre-made 5 panel doors for about $99 a pop that are right off the shelf, no more custom orders. Whatever Home Depot we were tired of waiting on you to get in the shaker door game. We still saved a ton of money though going this route because our Habitat doors were only about $30 a piece. And what a difference they make!  Let's look at a little before and after just to really sell it. 

Yes that is Derek's Architecture Lego collection. He is very proud.

What's Better Than an Accordion Door? Anything.

Considering we've made several updates on the exterior of our little Bungalow (read more about them here, here, here, and here), I thought it was about high time I shared some of the updates we've been making inside. Just to jog your memory a bit, let's take a look at how you all remember the laundry room looking. Are you sitting down? And not eating? You probably should have an empty stomach for this one.

Look at everything this room has to offer! We have blood (?) stained chevron carpet. It has a bit of a Missoni feel, don't you think? We also have burglar bars and a cat tapestry on our back door. I so wish that I had a photo of the front of the cat tapestry. Let's just say that it's needlepoint and has two ginger cats on it. One of a kind. We also have an even more unique textured vinyl accordion door from the laundry room to our office.

Why? Because clearly with a 30" wide door opening, a 1970s vinyl accordion door was the only answer. On the other side of the room was a random hollow-core builder door (complete with gold hardware) that led to the master bedroom. On the other side of that room was ANOTHER accordion door. Needless to say we knew we'd be replacing 90% of the doors in our house so that they would all match the look and style of our home (and each other for that matter). 

 We immediately took both accordion doors down, and went doorless for a while. It was just that bad. We went to Home Depot and Lowes to price out what an traditional 5-panel craftsman style door would cost and it was a whopping $200 per door. Ouch. With 10 doors to replace in our house, that was out of the question.

We thought about refurbishing an old door from our local architectural salvage, but those were about the same price and needed a LOT of love. So Derek decided that he would rebuild all of our interior doors one by one. 

The two accordion doors were first on the list (since we were currently doorless). They are also they same size so that made things a little easier.

Note: This is not a traditional door making method, this is just what we did with what we had, and it still resulted in a strong solid core door that fit what we needed for this house.

Derek started with a sheet of 1/2" plywood to make up the middle layer of the door, that was cut down to size. This particular door was 80" x 31". He then used 1x4's for the overall frame of the door. Each piece was milled down to 1/2" so that with the trim, plywood, and other side of trim the total thickness came out to 1-1/2" (the standard thickness of interior doors). 

He then used wood glue and finishing nails to attach the trim to one side of the door. He used clamping cauls to keep everything tight so that it could dry overnight. He then repeated this process for the other side. 

He then repeated this same process for the rails which created the look of a traditional 5-panel door. Once the rail pieces dried, he repeated this for the opposite side as well.

Once all of the trim had cured, he went around all of the edges and filled in any gaps with wood filler, and sanded down any imperfections to create a nice smooth edge around the entire door.

After the door was complete, it was time for paint. Derek primed and painted the door, sanding in between each coat in order to get a nice smooth finish. He ended up doing three finish coats when all was said and done.

With the office already having 3 door swings into the space, we didn't want to add another one, and we also didn't want to block one of the closets when this door was open. We thought about installing a pocket door, but our pantries and other office closet (that room has three closets) made a pocket door impossible. So we decided that a barn door would be the perfect solution. It would be able to perfectly slide against the laundry room and fit nicely behind the backdoor when it was open. Barn door hardware can be pretty pricey so we were pretty excited when we found this set from Home Depot, and the installation was pretty straight forward. We also picked up a nice linear satin nickel pull to match the barn door hardware.

And now for a little before and after-ness. 

I am kicking myself for not taking a photo of the beautiful accordion door from the laundry room side when we did our final walkthrough, but you can pretty much use your imagination on how awful it was.

And no, our tile isn't dirty, read more about that fiasco here. 

Having a door there really makes the laundry room / breakfast nook feel like an actual room. Now we just have 9 more doors to make and hang! ;)

gray + navy = gravy

Now that we have the front yard landscaping, privacy fence, and hog panel gate out of the way there is only one thing left to do. Repaint the exterior of out little bungalow. Now don't get us wrong, we actually really liked the mint color, but the rust colored screens and railing weren't really working. And honestly, the mint had seen better days and was peeling up in several areas.

We knew that we wanted to go a lot darker, something really moody and modern that would be a nice contrast against our cedar fence. So after zillions of paint swatches, and taking our fan decks around town to color match some local shops that we really liked, we finally settled on the following colors. 

We both use Sherwin Williams on most of our projects at work (and with our trusty designer discount) using it at home was a no brainer. For all of the paint bases we used SW Duration Exterior paint in a semi-gloss finish, since it is known to hold up over the years against the weather and also fights off mold and mildew (and semi-gloss is great against rain and general cleaning). For the overall paint color we chose SW Sea Serpent which is sort of a dark grey / navy or GRAVY as I like to call it. For the trim we wanted a nice bright contrast so we we chose SW Extra White. For the porch ceiling we wanted to keep with the traditional style of our 1930 home and used SW Porch Ceiling Blue. Legend has it that this color keeps wasps from nesting. Derek had this porch ceiling color at his old King William house when we were dating and there were never any wasps, so here's hoping! For the door we wanted something fun and punchy and went with SW Funky Yellow.  

We had every intention of repainting the house ourselves, but the intense amount of prep work is what held us back for so long. There were a lot of areas on our clapboard siding that had rotted through and needed to be replaced. Several boards were warping due to water damage and the house shifting over the years. Old house probs.

With everything going on with my family and with us both working full time jobs, we knew we had to call in the professionals for this project. I know. it went against every bone in our bodies to not do this ourselves. But if we did attempt this on our own, we were doomed to face the next 12 weekends scraping and painting. And let's face it. It's over 100F out.  So after meeting with several different painters, we ended up going with FraVa Services. They were able to start within the same week and their team immediately got to work with the prep portion of the project. Lots of scraping, power washing, and caulking. We requested that they caulk in between each board because let's be honest, we have no idea when (if) that has ever happened. And we are slowly trying to seal up this house.

Disregard my poor sat on cactus. I bet he only did that once!

So. Much. Scraping.

Things like this were replaced. Lot's of bandaids on this house, let me tell ya!

Since FraVa was more of a general contractor than a painter, we also had them repair this big fat bandaid of a roof in our backyard. What in the world. Oh and more scraping.

We also had them replace the posts holding up our Leaning Tower of Pisa porch roof. 

We had them use a tinted primer since the color was going to be so dark, which was SW Exterior Latex Wood Primer. We requested that two coats of primer be used since there had been so much exposed wood after all of the scraping. 

After everything was primed twice, they started with the actual color. Oo la la!

Meanwhile, as the painters were doing their final touch ups, Derek was busy painting the front door SW Funky Yellow. He removed the hardware and carefully taped off the windows in the door, and used a foam roller, which only took two coats. 

Okay and now for the very best part. The before and afters!

Why yes, that IS our front porch separating from the house. More on that later. Back to the pretty afters.

We still need to repaint the back door, but we can't decide if it should also be SW Funky Yellow or stay white. 

Okay let's get one last look at the front. Ahhhhh SO much better right?

We plan to eventually replace the railing and columns because curly-q's just aren't us, but that will be much later on when it gets a little cooler out.

Hog Panel Isn't Just for Pigs

Earlier this week we shared our new horizontal privacy fence for the main portion of our backyard. However, having a detached garage made the design of the fence a little challenging on the driveway side. This side had a shared chain link fence with our other (much nicer) neighbor and a super questionable gate.

Why yes, those ARE ethernet cables holding everything together. What.

We knew that we wanted to have a shorter fence with a gate to divide the main yard from the driveway so that we could keep Geoffrey from roaming too far. 

Derek designed the dividing fence and gate with his dad who was in town for the weekend. Together they had the posts set and the panels constructed in no time.

What. A. Hunk.

First they spaced the cedar posts so that there were two equal sides with a 3 foot gate in the middle. They left the posts at full height so that they didn't have to worry about making them all level until the very end.

They whipped up a quick batch of concrete and used "kickers" to brace each post while the concrete set overnight.

We wanted the hog panel to be framed out nicely, rather than just attached on one side since this would be seen from both sides very regularly. So Derek "sandwiched" the hog panel between two sets of cedar 1x2 frames. This created a nice finished look.

After framing out each hog panel, they added an additional larger frame using cedar 1x4 framing which added a little depth to the overall look. It also provided additional blocking which helped when attaching each panel to their posts.

To finish of each panel, they added a cedar 1x6 cap to protect the end grain of each post and finish off the overall look. Plus I can set my tiny cactus menagerie on it. So there's that.

Geoffrey approved of the missing gate.  

The gate was fabricated using the same process as each side panel. They added metal L-brackets to each corner which are covered by the 1x2's. This added extra stability since the gate wouldn't be mounted directly to any posts, and needed to remain square. 

Once the gate was complete, they added a turnbuckle that ran diagonally across the gate to prevent the gate from sagging over time. Then they added hinges and a puppy proof latch. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the driveway we had Alamo Deck & Fence finish off the other side of the horizontal fence. We had them start at the edge of the garage and continue around to  go across the driveway where the gate would be.

We really wanted the gate to look like a seamless horizontal fence from the street, while having minimal exposed latches, hinges, etc. This took several designs before we landed on the look and function that we wanted. We divided the gate so that it would have a 4 foot opening on one side and 6 foot on the other. 

We chose the most minimalist hardware possible in order to keep everything as seamless as possible.

With the permission of our neighbor we finished off the look by taking the fence all the way to the edge of their house. Everyone agreed that this looked much cleaner, while also giving them a bit more privacy in the end.

After both the big fence and dividing fence were complete, we stained them to match the main yard fence so that everything tied together nicely.

And now for some lovely before and afters. 

On the Fence About Our Neighbors

After sharing our front yard landscaping progress (and boost of curb appeal) last week, I felt it was high time to share with you, my favorite spot: the backyard. In all of it's glory. 

It literally does take your breath away doesn't it? Personally it makes me want to vomit just a little. After moving in we we immediately shored up as much as we could so that Geoffrey would be able to use the yard safely without getting tetanus, stabbed with heroine needles, joining wild animal gang, I don't know.

It was looking halfway decent considering this photo was taken around January or February. There was still a huge problem though (besides our lack of grass). Our neighbors are hoarders. And by hoarders I mean they are slobs. And if you want to see more of their hoarding/slob tendencies this post has plenty. So needless to say a privacy fence was in order.

Oh and these old school clotheslines had to go.

There is also this super stabby area behind our detached garage that we definitely didn't want Geoffrey getting into. I didn't even want to go back there. Yikes. And what is with all of the random bricks lying around?

A privacy fence sounded easy enough except for one tiny (okay rather tall) detail. This pecan tree that is just on the inside of our chain link fence. 

We called the county in order to get the original site drawings for our house and saw that the pecan tree was literally smack dab in the middle of our property line. Super. So we couldn't build the new fence behind the tree because that isn't our property, and if we built the fence on our side of the tree then we would lose about a foot of yard space, and our yard is already pretty tiny already. So we had to get a little crafty.

We knew that we wanted a horizontal fence. We really loved the idea of combining a modern element with our classic 1930 craftsman bungalow. Juxtaposition and all of that. We also had every intention of building the fence ourselves, but have you ever dug post holes? It's not fun. So we thought we could just get the professionals to dig and set the posts and we would do the rest. So we did our research and received several quotes from reputable companies around town for just the posts. Oddly enough, for some reason it was only about $100 more just to have them do the whole shebang (go figure) so obviously we just let them do it all. No sweat! One thing we found pretty interesting during this process was that several companies either refused to do a horizontal fence for whatever reason, or would charge more for horizontal than a standard dog-ear picket fence. Which is weird because it's less labor and requires less material. Some even said "you do realize this is San Antonio". What does that even mean? We were pretty annoyed by it all. 

We ended up using Alamo Deck and Fence and they were able to get started right away. This was also really nice because it would have taken us several weeks to get the job done, considering we could only work on it after work and on the weekends. The next morning we had a pile of cedar lumber in our yard and a crew of guys at our house ready to go!

We setup a little camera through the blinds so that we could watch the progress from work during the day because we're creepy like that.

I feel like they're flipping a coin to see who gets to dig holes and who gets to nail boards. I think the guy in blue lost.

Or not! They had the posts up in no time, and it all went rather quickly.

A lot of the trees had to be trimmed in the back corner which is why we have a small shrub in the middle of the yard. 

But what about the pecan tree? We ended up deciding to have the fence die into each side of the middle of the tree. It wasn't an ideal situation, but given our options it seemed like the best way go to, and we are really pleased with how it turned out. As long as we couldn't see the neighbors, I was happy as a clam.

It ended up only taking them about two days to get the whole job done. Once they had buttoned everything up Derek and I stained the cedar. We used a sprayer and brush to make sure that the stain was nice and saturated into the wood. We used this stain, and knew that the sun was going to fade the stain rather quickly (yay Texas summers!) so we did two nice thick coats which really helped bring out that nice orangey cedar color we were looking for. 

Just to jog your memory on how awful it looked before, here's a little reminder incase you had already mentally blocked it out.

A few weeks later, we ended up tilling up the yard and leveling it since it was super uneven and lumpy, and added some bermuda grass seed, and here is how it looks today. Clearly this is a yard Geoffrey can be proud of. Wait let's do one more before, just for suspense.