catsittingstill (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
catsittingstill) wrote2009-09-13 09:25 pm
catsittingstill) wrote2009-09-13 09:25 pm
"I'm going to make a door." "You can do that?" "Yes. I can." (sound of chainsaw starting)
Minus the chainsaw.
Okay, I realize things have been kind of quiet over here lately. So here's a brief update.
You may recall we bought our first house in February. And it had a one car carport, and, on the other side of the "rumpus room" a one car garage. Kip generously offered me the garage to do with as I pleased, and I jumped on it. At the time I used it to store my canoe, and the remains of the canoe making gear, and all my tools.
After a while I decided my tools (and especially the sandpaper and varnish) were tired of living on the floor, and I made some shelves (rapsody on the strength and simplicity of the humble carriage bolt to be written later.) Then the Jefferson Rural Clinic, where I've been volunteering, needed a cabinet fixed, and I fixed it. Then they needed some sturdy shelves, so I made some.
Then a friend asked me to build her a canoe. She offered to pay me to do it. I think I mentioned that I have boat fever after the August canoe camping trip, so this tied in with my druthers quite neatly.
So I'm in the process of turning the garage into a workshop. A one car garage, is, to my mind, quite a large workshop--but if you put a canoe in it, it gets smaller very quickly. I would like to take advantage of my height to store lumber and wood strips (canoe-building requires wood strips 1/4 inch wide and at least a foot longer than the canoe) overhead and out of the way, but the damn garage door and garage door opener basically make a whole stretch of the ceiling off limits. Not to mention I keep walking into the safety disengage handle (it dangles on a string--walking into it is not painful, except that I tend to wrench my neck when I see something coming at my face unexpectedly)
So I decided to remove the garage door and replace it with two doors that swing outward, like french doors.
Now you would think that I could not possibly be the only person in the world who would want to do a thing like this. You would think that there would be people out there, who want that overhead space, or who like old-fashioned buildings, who would want doors seven feet high and four and a half feet wide, and that therefor the glorious free market would have arranged for some company to fill that need.
You would be mistaken.
You can search for "garage double doors" and "carriage house doors" and "garage french doors" untill you are blue in the face, and you'll get dozens of hits but they are all cheats. They aren't real double doors or french doors or carriage house doors--they're just standard overhead garage doors faked up to look like those other things when they're down.
I hate fakes.
So, I decided to make them myself. The standard interior door is just a torsion box--a lightweight frame that holds two "skins" of veneer about an inch apart. Since for the door to bend, one of the veneer skins would have to stretch, and veneer doesn't stretch much, the door is rigid, but light. I figured I could do something similar with 1 x 1 1/2 inch (true--not lumber measure) boards and 1/4 inch plywood.
I bought 2 x 4s from the local lumberyard and paid extra to have them sawed into 1 inch boards. (it was a lot of ripping; it was quite reasonable to charge extra and I have no complaints) I measured the space, cut the outside boards, screwed them together (exterior screws--two per junction) and put them in the space to make sure they fit. They were just a *smidge* big (they fit but there was no gap, and how will we get the hinges in, and be able to open and close them, if they're jammed in tight?) but I fixed that with a sander. I also cut the interior braces a *smidge* short, which drew the sides in a little. I put the skin on with shorter screws, one ever four inches along every brace and edge.
I have been at it for two long days and I have the plywood skin on one side of one door. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to finish skinning the doors. Tomorrow the contractor comes who is going to do all the other things to make the garage into a shop: more lights--many more lights!, vertical 2 x 4s bolted into the masonry so I can put shelves and cabinets wherever I care to drill holes, 2 x 4 along ceiling (bolted into joist above ceiling) so I can hang brackets from it to hold strips, some extra plug-ins (not many; can't afford a new / heavier circuit--just have to live with not having very many things plugged in at once, but I could sure use an extra plug-in or two for task lighting) and mostly hanging those new doors.
And the doors aren't ready! Argh!.
Okay, I realize things have been kind of quiet over here lately. So here's a brief update.
You may recall we bought our first house in February. And it had a one car carport, and, on the other side of the "rumpus room" a one car garage. Kip generously offered me the garage to do with as I pleased, and I jumped on it. At the time I used it to store my canoe, and the remains of the canoe making gear, and all my tools.
After a while I decided my tools (and especially the sandpaper and varnish) were tired of living on the floor, and I made some shelves (rapsody on the strength and simplicity of the humble carriage bolt to be written later.) Then the Jefferson Rural Clinic, where I've been volunteering, needed a cabinet fixed, and I fixed it. Then they needed some sturdy shelves, so I made some.
Then a friend asked me to build her a canoe. She offered to pay me to do it. I think I mentioned that I have boat fever after the August canoe camping trip, so this tied in with my druthers quite neatly.
So I'm in the process of turning the garage into a workshop. A one car garage, is, to my mind, quite a large workshop--but if you put a canoe in it, it gets smaller very quickly. I would like to take advantage of my height to store lumber and wood strips (canoe-building requires wood strips 1/4 inch wide and at least a foot longer than the canoe) overhead and out of the way, but the damn garage door and garage door opener basically make a whole stretch of the ceiling off limits. Not to mention I keep walking into the safety disengage handle (it dangles on a string--walking into it is not painful, except that I tend to wrench my neck when I see something coming at my face unexpectedly)
So I decided to remove the garage door and replace it with two doors that swing outward, like french doors.
Now you would think that I could not possibly be the only person in the world who would want to do a thing like this. You would think that there would be people out there, who want that overhead space, or who like old-fashioned buildings, who would want doors seven feet high and four and a half feet wide, and that therefor the glorious free market would have arranged for some company to fill that need.
You would be mistaken.
You can search for "garage double doors" and "carriage house doors" and "garage french doors" untill you are blue in the face, and you'll get dozens of hits but they are all cheats. They aren't real double doors or french doors or carriage house doors--they're just standard overhead garage doors faked up to look like those other things when they're down.
I hate fakes.
So, I decided to make them myself. The standard interior door is just a torsion box--a lightweight frame that holds two "skins" of veneer about an inch apart. Since for the door to bend, one of the veneer skins would have to stretch, and veneer doesn't stretch much, the door is rigid, but light. I figured I could do something similar with 1 x 1 1/2 inch (true--not lumber measure) boards and 1/4 inch plywood.
I bought 2 x 4s from the local lumberyard and paid extra to have them sawed into 1 inch boards. (it was a lot of ripping; it was quite reasonable to charge extra and I have no complaints) I measured the space, cut the outside boards, screwed them together (exterior screws--two per junction) and put them in the space to make sure they fit. They were just a *smidge* big (they fit but there was no gap, and how will we get the hinges in, and be able to open and close them, if they're jammed in tight?) but I fixed that with a sander. I also cut the interior braces a *smidge* short, which drew the sides in a little. I put the skin on with shorter screws, one ever four inches along every brace and edge.
I have been at it for two long days and I have the plywood skin on one side of one door. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to finish skinning the doors. Tomorrow the contractor comes who is going to do all the other things to make the garage into a shop: more lights--many more lights!, vertical 2 x 4s bolted into the masonry so I can put shelves and cabinets wherever I care to drill holes, 2 x 4 along ceiling (bolted into joist above ceiling) so I can hang brackets from it to hold strips, some extra plug-ins (not many; can't afford a new / heavier circuit--just have to live with not having very many things plugged in at once, but I could sure use an extra plug-in or two for task lighting) and mostly hanging those new doors.
And the doors aren't ready! Argh!.
Would barn door's work for what you need?
Re: Would barn door's work for what you need?
But thanks, I appreciate the link.