Farmhouse Door from 2x4s
My wife and I have been living without a door to our bathroom for several months now, which wasn’t originally a big deal, but now our toddler is running around so we need to fix that by building a sliding farmhouse door. To add an extra challenge to it, I’m going to make as much of the door as I can out of 2x4s.
Now, a lot of woodworkers don’t like working with 2x4s and they aren’t completely wrong, they can be difficult to work with. But with some extra work, they can still be transformed into unrecognizable projects.
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Tools Used
Thickness Planer
Table Saw
Dowel Jig
Drill
Miter Saw
Chisel
Circular Saw
Circular Saw Track & Sled
Mallet
Bandsaw
Orbital Sander
Speed Square
Handsaw
Paint Brush
Paint Roller
Socket Wrench
Tape Measure
Clamps
Pencil
Materials
2x4s
1/2 Plywood
3/8” Acrylic
Sliding Door Hardware
Door Handle Hardware
Dowels
Water-Proof Wood Glue
CA Glue & Accelerant
Wood Putty
Sandpaper (various grits)
Paint
3” Deck Screws
Steps for Build
Clean Up 2x4s
Assemble Larger Beams
Cut Door Joinery
Cut Panels
Assemble Door
Create and Install X’s
Paint
Install Hardware
Install Door to Wall
1 - Clean Up 2x4s
Since 2x4s are so notoriously bad looking, we need to start by cleaning them up a bit. I started by planing them down just until the roughness and marks were gone, but left them a little thick to remove glue lines later. Once milled up, I took off the rounded corners at the table saw. Again, leaving the pieces a little wide to give me room to refine later. This leaves a piece of wood about as square as a 2x4 will ever get.
2 - Assemble Larger Beams
To account for some of the bowing the 2x4s had, I used dowels. This not only helps add some needed strength to the glue joints, but will help keep the pieces aligned while the glue dries. Once the dowel locations were marked on each 2x4, I used a dowel jig and drill to drill them out.
Glue up was a bit easier with the dowels in place. I used a water proof glue since the door will be for a bathroom and we don’t want steam to weaken anything. With the dowels in place and glue liberally applied, I put every clamp I could on them assemblies to keep them in place. I did run out, but was able to clamp up two assemblies in one with some of my longer clamps.
Once the glue dried, I chiseled off the squeeze out on one side of the pieces, then ran each piece back through my planer for final thickness, then ripped to final width at the table saw.
3 - Cut Door Joinery
Tongue and groove joints are a standard with doors for good reason: they are STRONG. I started by cutting the grooves in the exact center of each piece. To make things easier, I used my dado stack and some scrap to dial it in. I like to have my stack slightly thinner than I need, but also just offset from cutting in the center. If dialed in correctly, this will let me make one pass that’s too thin, flip my piece around, and make a second pass. This two-pass system gets to the final width while also ensuring that I am in the exact center of the piece.
With the grooves cut, I can cut the cross pieces to their final length and dial the dado stack in for the tongues, again using some scrap.
Once dialed in, cutting the tongues was a very quick, although I did test fit each one just to be sure. Some of the tongues were very slightly too thick. For those, I took off just a little extra wood with a sharp chisel.
4 - Cut Panels
Dry fitting my assembly allowed me to get a real world measurement for the panels. I’m glad I did because I was slightly off from my plans. Adjusting for reality, I cut the plywood panel with my circular saw and track saw sled jig. While I am trying to get better at using the circular saw freehand, the sled lets me dial it in very precisely.
I also cut the acrylic to size at the table saw, but not without jamming up my insert plate a bit. Once the acrylic was cut to size, I sanded it to give a frosted look.
5 - Assemble Door
Before assembly, I sanded everything through the grits up to 220. Then, using the water-proof glue again, I assembled everything together. The slight warp on the 2x4s made it a little more tricky than I initially thought, but clamping one end while I used a mallet on the other was helpful. I slid the acrylic into place before installing the top cross piece and left the assembly to dry overnight.
I went over the entire door and filled gouges and gaps initially with wood filler. My can was a little old though, so I also used some CA Glue and accelerant to fill (or re-fill) where the filler didn’t work as well. Once everything was dry, I sanded everything to 320.
6 - Create and Install X’s
No farmhouse door is complete without at least 1 X, and this is no exception. To keep with the 2x4 theme, I planed one side of a 2x4 and then cut some thin pieces with my bandsaw. Re-sawing like this is much easier at the bandsaw than table saw. The thinner bandsaw blade also allowed me to get all 4 pieces from one 2x4 instead of needing another one as well.
Once the pieces were cut to thickness, I marked the angles for each cut directly on the door. This lets me stay away from finding the perfect angle and just use the relative measurement. Since the pieces were so thin, I just used a handsaw to cut the pieces. I also did this in the middle after marking where the center of the X would be.
Once everything was cut to size, I used a combination of wood glue and CA glue to attach the pieces permanently. The ca glue dries quickly so that I don’t have to worry about clamps, but the wood glue will keep the pieces secured long term. I also came back and filled any gaps with CA glue.
Once everything was secured, I sanded up to 320 again.
7 - Paint
I used a water resistant paint just to combat steam from the bathroom and applied the coats with a roller. For something like this, a sprayer would have worked as well, but it was a little faster just to roll it with my small roller. Before painting, I did add some tape to the acrylic so it wouldn’t get paint on it later (although I missed a spot and had to fix a few spots anyway.
I painted one side entirely first, then flipped the door over and painted the other side. When doing this, I made sure not to create any drips on the bottom that I would have to fix, then spot touch up later.
8 - Install Hardware
I took some very careful measurements and installed the rollers to the top of the door. It ended up being slightly too thin for the bolts that came with it, so off camera, I ground down the bolt length a bit.
Once the top was installed, I repeated similar steps to install the handle. We just estimated the height that we thought it should be and fortunately it worked out (having a long handle helped too). Although I lost the footage of the final hardware install, the pieces were just bolted on through the holes with washers and rounded nuts.
9 - Install Door to Wall
It’s finally time to mount the door to the wall! I marked the stud locations and secured the header directly into studs with long, exterior grade screws. Then marked the hole locations, drilled the holes for the rail mount, and mounted the rail to the header with a socket wrench. We did later decide to shift the rail a few inches one way, so I did have to re-drill the holes, fill the original ones, touch up the paint, then re-mount, but it wasn’t too bad.
Last thing to do was to roll the door on and install the stops and it’s ready to use!
I’m happy with how the door turned out, but more importantly, so is my wife. By looking at the door, no one would ever guess it was made from 2x4s, but there are some spots that the imperfections in the wood still come though. We’ll just say that adds to the charm of a homemade farmhouse door.
I really like taking a common material and transforming it into something unrecognizable, which is why I like to work with 2x4s. I also power carved a Mythosaur Skull out of 2x4s last year that you can check out here.
