Knock Off Modern Door
I live in a very old house, with original doors. I wanted to update them but didn't want to spend tons of money, as well, I wanted to reuse what I had. I thought of staining them a light grey but when I sanded a spot, and looked at the sides of the door, I found out there was a veneer on top.
There were so many dings and dents, so I started patched those while I thought about plan B. Once sanded down, I used two coats of primer and two coats of door and trim paint.
I really like the look of these modern doors. But not the price tag. So I decided to copy them using the old doors!
The neat thing is you can have as many panels as you want. I chose four. I just measured the door and divided it by 4 to get where I needed to mark the lines. For the vertical line by the handle, I just chose where I thought the one line looked good.
Using painters tape really helped to visualize how it would look.
Now for the next step, we did it all wrong. Let me tell you why. We first tried a Dremel. It works good for the size of the lines but it's really hard to keep the line straight. Even with a level or piece of long trim.
So this one finished door out of the 5 is to show how it looks but I will explain later how we finally realized how to do it better.
So, basically just trace the painters tape lines and use a level or trim to guide you as mentioned. The pic below is just showing how it did it, note the level is not there.
Once done, I used the primer again to redo the lines. BTW, this primer is amazing!! Not sure where it is all available, it might just be in Canada but I got it at Home Hardware.
Once done, I added a new handle and I'm quite pleased with my knock off look.
My phone takes pretty crappy pics so hopefully you can see the difference!
Now for the lesson learned, we ended up trying out a router, so much better! The lines are very crisp and perfectly straight. I'm sure some of you were probably thinking that in the beginning but it took us a sec to figure it out!
Comments
Join the conversation
-
Love it. I can see this with black in the groves!!
-
Very nice May have to try this ! Also there is a roto attachment available for a dremel May have some fun this summer with the granddaughter teach her now 😉
-
Oh ok good to know. I'm sure she'll have fun with it!
-
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?