I am making a set of Dutch Doors for my mother.
In this blog I will discuss my experience sanding and painting the Dutch Doors that I am making for my mother. I will also describe the installation process of the Dutch Doors at my mother’s house.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.
The Bessey Clutch Style Bar clamps, Minwax wood filler, and the Milescraft 1222 HingeMate150 used in this blog can be purchased at Amazon. If you are interested in purchasing these item click on the Amazon Shop now button in the links to the left.
The Dewalt Random orbitel sander, Black + Decker Circular saw, and the Neoprene dust mask can be purchased at Amazon by clicking on the shop now button to the left. The Clark + Kensington paint and smooth foam rollers were purchased at Ace hardware.
“My Stepdad and my brother took the dogs hunting so I had free range to install the doors uninterrupted. Otherwise, the dogs would be climbing all over me and licking my face while I am trying to install the doors.”
I started out by sanding the wood insert that I made and glued in on my previous blog. I used 60 grit sandpaper to sand it down to be even with the edge of the door. Then I moved up to 80 grit sandpaper. I finished with 120 grit sandpaper to get a smooth finish. At the final stage of sanding, I sanded all 4 edges of the door with the 120 grit, rounding all the corners as I sanded. These doors will be handled on all sides during the opening and closing process. I wanted them to be smooth to the touch. I used a DeWalt 5” (125mm) Hook & Loop Random orbit Sander. I bought the hook and loop sanding disks at Ace hardware. It looks like there are some good deals on amazon. I will try some out and review them when I need some more sandpaper.
To choose the color I looked at the color of the walls in my mother’s house. She has a light yellow paint in her bedroom upstairs. We have a similar color in the loft of our house. It goes really nice with our white doors and baseboards. I took a sample from our baseboards into Ace Hardware and they were able to scan it to get a color match. They recommended a Flat Clark + Kensington paint for my project. I picked up a pack of Foam mini rollers for cabinets and doors while I was there. It took a little longer to paint the door than I thought it would. I would like to review a paint sprayer in the future. They say it will speed up the painting process to use a sprayer. All in all, I am happy with the way the painted doors looked in the end.
Next, I packed the doors up and took them to my mother’s house. The nice thing about the Dutch doors is that they fit easily in the back of our Toyota Highlander. I brought some tools with me for the installation process. I packed a circular saw, a straight edge with clamps, an electric drill, a square, a tape measure, a pencil, and a mortise kit for the hinges. My mother had a set of saw horses so I didn't need to bring those. I sent some pictures of hardware choices to my mother and she picked out the oil rubbed bronze hardware. I couldn’t get the latch in oil rub bronze, so I grabbed a couple of white ones to use temporarily. After a couple of hours of a nice drive we arrived at my Mothers house. My Stepdad and my brother took the dogs hunting so I had free range to install the doors uninterrupted. Otherwise, the dogs would be climbing all over me and licking my face while I am trying to install the doors.
The first step was to check the measurements. I was given the door jamb measurements over the phone, so I had to make some adjustment on site. Like many old houses the measurements can vary a little bit here and there. I had to cut ¼ inch off the side of one of the doors to get it to fit into the door jamb. That’s why I brought my Hart 48” Aluminum I-Beam level to use as a straight edge cutting guide.
Then, I put the original doors on sawhorses and put the new Dutch Doors on top of them lining up the edges of the doors to mark the area I needed to mortise for the hinges. I simply lined up the doors and put a square on the hinge line of the old door and drew a straight line up to the new doors. The original doors only had two hinges on them. So, I needed to decide where I was going to put the additional hinges. I put one six inches from the top of the door on the bottom door and six inches from the bottom on the top door. Then I attached the Milescraft HingeMate Mortising kit to the doors. It has a lip on top to line it up with the top of the door and it comes with too screws to hold it in place. I screwed them into the door and attached to included router bit. I adjusted the router height and used the HingeMate to guide my router for a perfect mortise. After that the hinges fit right in no problem.
Now it was time to figure out where to mortise the door frame to attach the two new hinges to. So, I screwed in the bottom hinge on the bottom door to the door jamb. Then I lined up the new hinge with the door jamb and traced it. I unscrewed the bottom hinge and place the Mortising kit on the door jamb to cut out the top hinge out line. I did the same thing on the top door. The door jambs were all off a little here and there, so I used some cardboard to make some hinge shims to put behind the hinges to slightly adjust the angle of the doors to adjust for the door jambs variations. Then I attached the latches to lock the doors together when necessary.
Viola! My mother has two new Dutch Doors. She loves them and is really happy with how nice they came out. I split the can of paint to leave her some touch up paint in case the dogs scratch up the doors.
The installation process was made simple with the Milescraft 1222 HingeMate150 – Hinge Mortising Kit for Interior Doors.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.
The Bessey Clutch Style Bar clamps, Minwax wood filler, and the Milescraft 1222 HingeMate150 used in this blog can be purchased at Amazon. If you are interested in purchasing these items click on the Amazon Shop now button in the links to the left.
The Dewalt Random orbitel sander, Black + Decker Circular saw, and the Neoprene dust mask can be purchased at Amazon by clicking on the shop now button to the left. The Clark + Kensington paint and smooth foam rollers were purchased at Ace hardware.