Wednesday, November 28, 2007

The Doors.

I mentioned the other day that I was constructing doors for the basement. Yesterday Terry and I hung the 3-foot wide door the leads into the workshop. Hanging doors was one of the tasks I did not participate in while we were constructing the Aerie and I can think of only two doors that I hung in our previous home. I installed those doors when I finished the basement about 25 years ago. They were both “prehung” jobs that I picked up at Channel (remember them?) and were hollow core to boot. Here I had to create the jam, or frame, as well as the door. This sucker is made from inch and three quarter pine flooring material and weighs a ton. It does swing nicely on the three hinges.
Basement door 01
I’m pretty happy with how it turned out so far. All that’s left is to install the trim around the frame, add a door stop trim around the edge of the door and then sand and seal it.

Meanwhile, across basement is what I’ll call a double door that will lead into the utility room. It will be constructed of the same material but will consist of two 2-foot wide panels that will swing like French doors. One side will have a blot to keep it stationary unless it must be opened to get something in or out while the other will be the primary swinging door. Everything for that door as been cut and the hinges mortised in place on both doors and frame. Tomorrow I’ll find out if I left myself enough wiggle room to fit it in the rough opening. If not, it will either mean a trim to the joiner or the belt sander. (I think the sander is the better bet. The joiner is in the garage and even at 2-foot wide, those panels are heavy and don’t want to haul them up to the garage and back for an 1/8 of an inch or so.)

3 comments:

gregor said...

nice job! i recently made two four-panel doors when we remodeled our bathroom. they put my woodworking skills to the test, but turned out ok.

joated said...

I've never tried raised panel doors, but from what I've seen on New Yankee Workshop and in my magazines, I think I'd like to try a couple. But first I've got to finish the doors I've got and then clean up/set up the workshop.

gregor said...

well, in order to match the existing doors in this grim old pile of a house, they're actually flat panels. i cheated a bit by using birch ply for the panels, but the rest of the frames are poplar, to keep them light and it's easier to paint. the worst part was fitting them to the existing openings, which was a bit of a challenge, but worked out ok.
i love your log home, by the way, it's something the mrs. and i've talked about for along time. one of these days!