HOW TO MAKE A BARN STYLE SHED DOOR OUT OF PALLET WOOD

Recently I have had to build a brand new door for our small brick shed in the back garden. As always I only had a small budget so decided to use pallet wood we already had in the garage. The only thing this project cost me were the fixings!

The brick shed came with our house and while structurally it’s still good, aesthetically it was anything but. It had a wooden door which I thought I could get away with just re-painting. However, when I tried to de-spider it by hoovering, rotten pieces of wood started falling off the bottom of the door. Hence the idea for this beauty was born.

Unfortunately, this was built before I knew I would be writing a blog so while I have loads of finished photos, I have no photos of the original door and my step by step will be a little light. I will try to illustrate what I can’t explain though.

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THE PLAN

The plan for this door was to have a traditional, rustic, barn-type design. I wanted something that looked effective but was really easy to put together as I can never quite get the lengths and widths to match on my table saw. I decided to go with a single layer of pallet planks as the door and add a frame to the front and back to make it look chunkier than it actually is. To complete the door front, I decided to add a criss-cross décor to the bottom and top of the door. Here is the front and back view of the design, step by step of the build.

The size of my door is 75cm wide by 195cm high to fit the shed opening perfectly. I will list each size of cut pallet planks separately below and explain how to adjust the sizing to fit your required door size.

By the way, if you want to use pallet wood for a project like this but aren’t sure where to get it, click here to read my post on sourcing it in the UK. 

MATERIALS & TOOLS REQUIRED

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STEP 1: PRE-CUTTING THE REQUIRED WOOD

The first step was to cut all my pallets down to the sizes specified in the ‘materials’. The ones I didn’t cut down to length at this stage were the decorative criss-crosses as I wasn’t sure how long exactly they needed to be.

To make all the cuts I used a table saw. I much prefer working with hand tools but a table saw gives a much quicker and straighter cut down the length of a pallet plank. It helps ensure that all the pallets are cut to the identical width which is what we need for this project.

I also ran the planks through the table saw sideways to make sure they were all 1.5cm thick. This helped remove the worn out surface of the wood – kind of like planing.  

STEP 2: ASSEMBLING THE DOOR BASE AND ATTACHING THE HORIZONTAL FRAMING PIECES

I found myself a large, flat, even surface to assemble the door on. To start the assembly, I lined up the 26 base planks in two rows, 13 in each. Then I carefully laid the top horizontal framing piece underneath the top of the planks and screwed it down. This underneath side is going to be the front of the door. I did it this way because I didn’t want any visible screw marks on the door front.

I then did the same thing with the mid and bottom framing pieces. Make sure that the mid piece is exactly centred across the top and bottom layer of the base planks.

Next, I got the last 3 planks cut for the horizontal framing pieces and laid those on top of the base planks. These ones will have visible screws but this is the inside of the door so I didn’t mind that. After this step, the base planks should be sandwiched between the top, mid and bottom frame pieces.

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STEP 3: ATTACHING THE VERTICAL FRAMING PIECES

All that is left to complete the structural part of the door are the vertical frame pieces. I first attached the front of the door ones by screwing them through the back to avoid visible screws. Then I finished by attaching the back ones. Easy-peasy!

STEP 4: ATTACHING THE DECORATIVE CRISS-CROSSES

Last but not least, it was time to attach the décor pieces. To get a nice snug fit with these, I first laid the piece that was going to run from the left top corner to the bottom right corner in the top half of the door in its place. I then marked where the top left corner needed to be cut. I cut it off and placed the piece back in position.

I now marked the bottom right corner where it needed to be cut and made the cut. Once cut, I attached the piece from the back of the door to avoid showing screws.

I did the same thing to the bottom half of the door.   

After, I laid the pair piece in its position, the one running top right to bottom left, and marked where the top right corner needed to be cut. I also marked where the piece meets the first one as this is the piece that needs to be cut in half. Once cut, I attached the piece from the back and laid the remnant piece in the correct place. I only needed to cut the bottom left corner now.

Once cut, I attached this piece and did the same thing to the bottom half of the door. You can click on the images below to enlarge them.

STEP 5: FINISHING TOUCHES

I wanted the final look to be quite rough and rustic so I only did a few small things to tidy up the door. First, I ran a small electric plane around the edge of the door to make sure that all the pallet pieces fit together nicely. This helped the door fit into the doorway without any issues but also made it look less DIY.

The second thing I did was to give the whole thing a quick sand. Literally just a quick one, to get off any obvious flaky wood bits.

The final thing to do was to stain the door. I didn’t want to buy anything special for this so just used some leftover Cuprinol Natural Oak decking stain. Yep, it is a little weird to use decking stain on a door and nope, I didn’t use it for decking in the first place – I just really love the colour and finish!

Once the door was fully done, I somehow managed to attach the hardware and attach it to the shed by myself. I still have no idea how as it was heavy and super fiddly – but here we are!

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THE RESULT

The way it turned out is just perfect. It’s exactly as I pictured it. The latch, handle and hinges matched the door style well and were very budget friendly. I think I picked the latch and handle up at The Range for a few quid and got the hinges off eBay for under a tenner. As I’m writing this, it’s been almost a year since the door has been built and it survived its first wet UK winter. It still looks fantastic, exactly as when it was first hung – the decking stain did not disappoint.