How to Turn an Old Door into Shelves

Welcome Gail from My {re}Purposed Life. Gail is what I aspire to be like when I am older. The girl has no fear of power tools and actually knows how to build stuff…like with her two hands…like really well. I got to meet Gail at our Goodwill Shop and Hop event earlier in the year and she is awesome, down-to-earth, unassuming, helpful and smiles a lot. You have to skip on over and follow my {re}Purposed Life. Check out what she has for us today.

I am so happy to be guest posting for Beckie!  I have had the pleasure of meeting Beckie irl (in real life), which I think is pretty rare in this big land of blog.  She is such a sweetie!  When we met, she just grabbed me and gave me a big hug! That’s the way Beckie rolls, just down home sweet and kind!

The project I’m going to show you today is not an original idea, but it was a LOT of work!

I ripped this old door on my table saw with the help of a neighbor.  This was a solid and very heavy door, impossible to handle by myself.

After I ripped it I needed to do a little repair on it. Some of the dowels were cut in half.

I replaced the dowels, glued and taped them in place.

This door had many layers of paint. I decided to let mother nature help me “weather” the paint off. I actually cut the door at the end of April, and here it is October and this project is finally completed. FYI I do not recommend this method of stripping paint.

When it got to this point I used a paint stripper to remove the remnants of paint.

Then I sanded it. Because I had left it out in the weather for so long some of the joints needed to be fixed.

I glued the loose joints with Gorilla Wood Glue.

I was lucky enough to find some pink Kilz in the oops bin at Home Depot. ($5.00)

This is after one coat of primer,  I ended up  putting on two coats of primer.

I also found a really pretty red “oops” paint at Home Depot.

I laid the two pieces on the driveway and began designing the configuration of the shelves.

The first step was to attach a top and a bottom.  I always use wood glue and drywall screws.

The plywood I used for the top, bottom and shelves all came from the cull bin at Home Depot.  The cull bin is leftover cuts in the lumber department. Think of it as the “oops” area of lumber. My Home Depot’s prices range from .51 cents to $4.01.  I used two pieces of cull bin plywood that cost me .51 cents each. 

To attach the shelves I used a Kreg Jig Jr, you can see how easy it is to use in my post titled, DIY Corner Cupboard.

When you are building something like this you need to make sure your shelves are level. But more important you need to make sure the ground/floor you’re working on is level first!

It is shaping up, and it is very heavy.

I used two scrap pieces of cull bin luan (.51 each)  for the back. One piece runs from the top all the way to the last shelf. I joined the other piece of luan in the center of the bottom shelf. From the back you can see that it is pieced, but from the front it is not noticeable.  I told you I DIY on the cheap, that means I’m a “use what you have” kind of girl.

For the bottom trim I used some scrap molding I bought at one of our local Peddler’s Malls.

For the top molding I used crown molding.

I found that it was easiest to paint it on its side while up on saw horses.  I used primer on the new wood. (2 coats)

This is the top…

after 1 coat of red. You know those drop cloths everyone uses for curtains and upholstery?  They make great drop cloths too! (LOL…ha! — there is another use for those Gail…teehee)

I chose not to fill in the hinge mortises.

I haven’t measured the height of this piece, but it seems like it is taller than a standard door.

I put the last coat of paint on it while it was upright. I painted the top, bottom and the back of this piece.

I located two door knob plates in my stash. I’m pretty sure they were the original pieces off of this door. I stripped the paint off of them.

This is how they looked after I cleaned them up from the paint stripper.  Before attaching them to the door I sanded them with a sanding sponge which makes it easier to get into the crevices.

I never really put much thought into how TALL this piece was going to be. It really is big.

I love how the door knob plates turned out. Chippy is good, but sometimes I don’t want chippy.

This is the first piece of furniture I have ever painted RED, but something tells me it won’t be the last.

What do you think?  Do you repurpose found items like Beckie and I do?  It really is fun to think outside the box. It can be challenging at times, but I love it!

I want to thank Beckie for allowing me to crash at her place today!  I am one of Beckie’s biggest fans!  It was fun being here and making new friends.