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Thursday, May 14, 2015

How to Add a Barn Track Sliding Screen Door

Updating a Standard Sliding Screen 



Anyone in the Greater Philadelphia Region wondering why we had a heat wave last week?  

It's my fault.  I finally have a screen door that works and keeps out critters, so immediately we were unable to use it and had to turn on the AC! (Sorry about that).

Here's the deal, we have a dog.  (Need I say more?) Our sliding screen door was bent and busted, so I threw it out.  I  went to the home improvement store for a replacement, only to discover our door was not "Universal" in size.  The replacement we ended up buying never fit properly and someone continued to plow through the bottom of it, and we ended up with what I call the "Redneck Doggie Door".


Nice right?
But we love him, so I had to solve the problem.


Then I found this image on Pinterest (of course). 



I was so excited to try this!   
I bought the track, let it sit in the box for a year, then used it on the laundry room door, and still had the Redneck Doggie Door this Spring.  :(

So...one new track, one unfinished wood screen door, and a door molding kit later...


I've got this...



I originally intended to add the wood pieces to create the barn door look, but I needed to be reminded that this is a colonial style house and sometimes I just have to accept that.  (sigh).







It blends nicely from out here.



Skill Level

This was a one woman job.  I would say it took minimal skills for this.
The only power tool I used was a drill to attach the track to the house and some elbow grease.

Cost

The door was around 70 bucks  at Lowe's,  and I painted mine white

I ordered the track from Amazon, it's now less than $50 and ships free with Prime.

TCBunny 6.6 Feet Sliding Door Hardware Closet Set Antique Style (Black)

 The molding/weather stripping that I tacked around the frame of the door was less than $20.  So it cost about as much as a custom replacement screen, but this is way more interesting! 



...and I taught this guy to speak to come in and out!
Thanks for looking!

Click here for an update on this post!

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

$20.00 Vintage Sliding Door - part 2




I wanted to share the finished laundry room door, because it's a looker and I smile every time I go near it, which is fifty times a day.  Okay, so maybe it's not really vintage, but it looks like it is.  
Don't have an old door?  Make one.


As a recap, I wrapped the old louvered door with pine boards and popped out the upper section of louvers to make room to install the fake glass, you can check that out here.  I finally stained the door and it looks just like the one I made up in my head.  I used a stain/poly combo in Mahogany and didn't focus on sanding and smoothing because I wanted this to look old.   
I have to say it is very heavy, and if I had proper wood working tools, I wouldn't have attached the wood to the old door.  Since I don't own anything more powerful than a miter box and saw, I did it my way.  Mistakes... I've made a few.  (Sorry, Sinatra fans, I had too).  So until the door falls apart or the track falls off the wall (whichever comes first)  it's staying like this!
This project inspired me to solve a screen door problem, I'll post that tomorrow.

Thanks for looking!