Screen Door

Have you ever been to that restaurant in Portland called Screen Door?  That is what this post title reminds me of.  You can get so much fried chicken there, it is nothing short of amazing!  That's not the kind of screen door I'm talking about right now though.  The one I'm talking about just made my apartment feel more like home.  I made a screen door!  Now my cat can't escape when I want to leave the door open!  I've been waiting for my screen door for months, and I finally had time to do it :)

Here is a quick picture tutorial on how to make one yourself.  You will definitely need at least two people to do it.

Here is what you need:

5 pieces of wood
A drill and drill bits
Measuring tape
Clamps
A Ruler
A razor blade
Long screws, depending on how thick your wood is (I think our screws were around 3")
Other regular screws
A hand saw
Screen material
at least 2 hinges
an eyelet latch
a handle
a friend

The very first thing you need to do is measure your door frame where your screen will go.  Ours measured something like 80.5" x 36"

Then you will need to measure the wood pieces

We measured two long pieces and two short pieces.  All together your frame will have 4 pieces of wood.  Later you will add 1 more piece somewhere in the middle as a support.  We'll get to that in a minute!

Then we clamped our wood down to our coffee table (limited work space here!!)

We used the razor blade to make a measuring mark on where we wanted to cut the wood.

Annnnd SAW!!  When sawing it is best to "let the saw do the work." Just  rock the saw back and forth gently and it will cut through the wood super easy.  Be sure to have a vacuum handy because there will be sawdust!

Fix your beard and continue...

Drill two holes (for extra support) where you want your screws to go.  This depends on the width of your wood.  Our width was pretty thick so we had to drill through the wood as much as possible so that the screw would actually attach to the smaller piece.  Make sure the drill bit that you use to drill holes in the wood is slightly larger than the head of the screw that you are using.

Clamp the two pieces together and get ready to screw them together!

We got super cute blue screws at the hardware store.  They aren't meant for wood but they still work and they were super long!

We got pretty excited about making the skeleton of the screen door and we decided to test it out in the door frame...

It fits!

After all the excitement we added the support piece in the middle.  Make sure to place the support piece  lower or higher than the door knob to your main door!

We then added screen material to what we considered to be "the back of the door"  and we used a staple gun to fix it to the wood.  I stood on the wood while Brian pulled it SUPER taut.  The long side took about 10 staples, while the short side took about 5.  We didn't staple gun the support piece.

When we were done staple gunning the screen material, we used a ruler and the razor blade to cut off the excess material.  Ow on your knees if you have a hard wood floor!  Oh well.  It took about 8 minutes to do this.

Finally you add the hinges, about 10-12 inches down from the top and bottom of the door.  The short side of the hinge is affixed to the wood, while the long side is affixed to the door frame outside.  Make sure you know which way you want your door to open!!

This is the hinge after we fastened it to the door.

We also wanted the screen to lock from the inside, so we bought this eyelet hook piece.  The hook screws into the door frame, and the eyelet screws into the screen.  We put the lock at the same length as our support beam.  I guess you could put the lock wherever you want, though...

Lastly we added the door handle.  I think the handle is meant for drawers and stuff.  I liked the flower pattern and it was on clearance.  Perfect!

Here is our little country screen door all finished...

****NOTE:  Be sure to subtract the space that the hinge will take up in the door frame when you are measuring the short side of your wood.  I'd say it takes up about 3/16".



P.S. Screen Door Portland.  I want it!