Thrifty Thursday

Drumroll please…..

I am feeling awfully happy with myself for this Thrifty Thursday.  A free pallet helped me to manage a pretty darn sexy front door for just $12 total!  With some basic (and I mean basic) woodworking skills, you can manage a custom screen door that will give your home some crazy fabulous curb appeal while bringing in the fresh summer night air!

DIY Screen Door Supplies

1 roll of screening

door handle

two standard door hinges

T Square or L shaped ruler

torch

staple gun

gold tacks

drill

screws

measuring tape

pallet wood measuring:

two sides are 80″ long 1X4’s

top is a 36 1/4″ 1X4

mid section is a 30″ 1X4

four horizontal slats are .5X4 cut at 36 1/4″

the bottom is 30″ 1X8

 Make sure to measure your door inset once, twice, thrice!  My door had specific measurements, but every entry has slightly unique measurements (so take my measurements as a loose suggestion).

Once you disassemble a pallet, you should play around with the pieces to see what design you heart.  I messed around with vertical piece, horizontal pieces, and a big old barn-style X.  Ultimately, I wound up settling on horizontal lines and that is what the above measurements reflect.

Make your measurements on the pallet wood carefully, and make your cuts.

As you get ready to assemble the pieces, use a T Square or an L shaped ruler to make sure that your joints are a perfect 90* angle….you do not want a door that looks all slanty and belongs in a Tim Burton film, ya know?

I may have done this a little in reverse, but I chose to assemble my horizontal bars before I assembled the actual structure of the frame.  I just felt like once I had those measured, evenly space and at right angles, then assembling the top and bottom parts of the door would be easy…and it was!

For assembling the frame, I pre-drilled holes and used these crazy long screws.  That allowed me to screw in the screws below the surface of the wood…so that I wouldn’t have any screws making things tricky for fitting the door jam.

Ta-dah!

Yay!  All right angles!!

Finding the halfway point, I made my measurements for attaching the handle.

I picked up this adorable handle at Restore, the Habitat for Humanity thrift store, for just $2!

Last bit of design before I install…shou sugi ban!  The Japanese art of burning wood for a weather resistant and pest resistant surface.  All a bonus, but I just adore how it looks!  Plus, I get to play with a torch 😉

With the wood burned to a beautiful crisp, and the handle in place, all that was left was attaching the screening.  I simply stapled it in place and then hid the staples with gold tacks.  I love the pop of bright against the charr!

DIY complete!  Not too shabby, huh?  Gotta love that the whole project cost about $12!

To hang the door, I used two door hinges and a carved a section out of the frame to make them flush with the frame…I just didn’t want in large spaces for creepers to crawl in!

What are you going to DIY this weekend?

xoxo

Chanda