Building a bulkhead door (part I)
My first attempt at building doors and first real home improvement project.
We love our house. It’s a 1920’s dutch colonial with subtle but impactful touches. Unobtrusive columns and balusters, a tinted, stained glass-like yellow and blue window over the stairs, a well worn built-in cabinet in the dining room. It sounds pretentious, but it feels anything but. It feels thoughtfully crafted. The light these features let in and redirect – and the shadows they cast – create a nice aesthetic from any room.
[Have I been cooped up at home for the past year? No, why do you ask?]
The previous owner bought the house in poor condition decade ago and brought it to life – armed with her own two hands and a few renovation workshops. Bathrooms, drywall, new kitchen, landscaping, you name it. She did a fantastic job all around, so when we moved here in 2018 we walked into a fresh, tasteful modernization on top of 1920s character and craftsmanship. There were only a few things that had to go, the most pressing of which was the bulkhead door leading to the basement.
The cursed bulkhead
Built of thick, warped plywood attached with rusting metal brackets, the door was irreversibly warped and painful to look at. When we got a quote for its replacement, the bulkhead repair man recommended a $3,600 project involving significant cement foundation work in addition to installing the primed metal bulkhead. It’d be beautiful, I’m sure, but more than we felt we needed. Plus, the frame is in good condition, the major problem was the cursed plywood doors.
So I did what any ill-prepared and overzealous homeowner would do: decided to build new doors from scratch. (Jokes aside, I was excited about challenging myself to create doors that are as square, snug and strong as possible.)
The project
Over the course of six-ish weeks leading up to mid-December, my tools and woodworking abilities ventured into new territory. For the occasion I recorded almost every triumph, fuckup and redemption, and created an instagram highlight story to document the process. Check it out here.
The day after I installed the doors, we got a foot of snow. That was a month ago and I’m happy to report that the doors held strong, kept out water and are so snug they’re going to need to be planed down when it warms up. I also ran out of time for a final coat of paint and some finishing touches, so I can’t call the project finished.
Stay tuned
What I can call finished is this post. Enough for today. Thought I might get to sharing my actual process, plans and pictures but I’ll save that for a part II.
Thanks for reading,
Andrew
@agbegin