Wood Barn

We bit the bullet and bulk ordered all the oak boards I needed to build the rest of the solid internal doors. It was a big moment as they’re expensive and therefore a big commitment. What gave me the confidence was that I had a prototype that we adored and was still working as intended.

The stock that arrived I’ll admit was a bit daunting but also exciting. After acclimatising the boards in the house for a few weeks, the time came to get cracking and make up the doors. I tackled them one at a time rather than bulk prep boards in one go. I again took my time and followed exactly the same process I’d learned on the prototype.

I also took some care in selecting the combination of boards for each door, leaving them random but ensuring each door maintained a consistent character across the house. It was a painstaking process and would have been easy to slip up through tiredness or lack of concentration. It took me longer than it should have done and I took regular breaks but overall, thoroughly enjoyed the build. I completed the 8 doors in just over a week, making around one door per day.

The challenges were things like the odd board not being truly flat and occasional large knots that created a ‘wave’ in the surface. This made the glue up awkward but with a bit of persuasion using clamps and a mallet, all worked out in the end. It’s fair to say my last doors were probably better than the first efforts but given the resulting effect was intended to be one of character, minor imperfections were not a problem here.

For reference, the above photo shows what we were the doors we were replacing.