The journey to update my home continues… I had a bathroom door that had a hole in it and transformed it with paintable wallpaper. I wanted to save the door and that project turned out great. You can view that project here.
I had another door that had a small cat door on it. The challenge with saving this door was that the cat door was cut out of the door. I came up with a unique idea to not only save the door, but to update it in the process! I was super excited about the idea which was to use wood slats to create a modern look and cover the hole. If I could pull it off, I would save hundreds of dollars. The cost for new rustic doors with a chevron pattern ranged from $700-$1000 when i did my research.
I decided to repurpose old wood blinds since the slats were real wood and a good width for the project. I found a used blind on an online marketplace for just $15! The slats were 2 inches wide. I made sure they were long enough to use on the door.
Here are the steps with pictures for anyone interested in trying something similar.
Supplies and Tools Needed:
- Old wood blinds
- Scissors
- Measuring tape and pen for marking cuts, etc…
- Masking or painters’ tape
- Wood putty and small putty knife
- Paintable caulk
- Sandpaper. You can use a power sander if you have one, but it’s not required. The sanding will just take you a little longer.
- Hack saw and hand saw with miter box
- Wood glue
- Paint (I used white door and trim paint)
Steps:
- First cut the rope/string on the blinds to remove the wood slats.
- Then fill in the holes that the rope/string passed through with wood putty. I used 2 coats on most of the holes and sanded between each coat.
- Now you will need to create a frame if you want to use the same design that I did. I measured ½ inch from all the door edges and used the blinds to create an outside frame. I used the hand saw and miter box to make 90-degree cuts for the corners.
- I worked in the garage and laid the wood to create the design on a drop cloth.
- I measured and cut each piece of wood one at a time with a hack saw. If you have some sort of power saw that’s great, but it isn’t required. As you can see from some of the pictures, I would lay each piece of wood where I wanted it after I had built the frame. I used a pen to mark each side of the wood where I needed to make the cuts and then I used a ruler to connect the two marks and drew a line for the cut.
- To make the cut, I would place the piece of wood on a table with the angled line along the edge so that the table became a guide as I made the cut. I used the top of my table saw and an old metal table. Don’t use a table that you don’t want to scratch up!
- I also used a hack as I was putting all the pieces together before permanently gluing them to the door. It’s a simple hack using masking or painters’ tape. I just taped over some seams as I was working to keep things in place and I even taped a few pieces of wood together and measured and cut them together to speed the process up. You can get a visual in the pictures.
- I sanded the ends of each piece of wood after I made the cuts by hand using a basic sheet of medium grit sandpaper.
- Now it was time to glue the pieces to the door!
- I removed the door by using a power drill and detaching the door at the hinges. I also removed the doorknob.
- Place the door on a flat surface or on a pair of construction horses.
- I used gorilla wood glue to glue down each piece of wood until the pattern was complete and let it dry for 4-5 hours.
- Next, I went around and filled in gaps and areas around the frame with caulk.
- Once the caulk was dry, I applied a coat of paint using a brush. I used white trim paint. I needed 2-3 coats and let the paint dry between coats.
- I was excited to see it all come together and hang the door back up! I used a doorknob saw attachment for my drill to cut through for the knob and then installed a new more modern doorknob.
I’m so happy with how it turned out. When I have time, I will do the same thing on the bottom half of the other side of the door.
I hope you like how the project turned out as much as I do, and I hope you find inspiration to try something similar on an old door that maybe has some imperfections… or a cat door that you don’t need 
!