Of Garage Doors

Well they are finally finished, and I am hugely relieved.They started out like this:

And three days and much hard labour later, they ended up looking like this:

More important than what they look like, they now open and close and are not in danger of blowing down in high winds. The area in front of my garage is used by the district nurses visiting my next door neighbour and I didn't relish any of the complications of having a garage door fall on their cars. 

Anyway, I couldn't afford new doors and my carpentry skills aren't up to completely making new doors, so my only option was to  do a make over on the old doors. I knew from when we repaired the dormer roof that  sheets of 18mm exterior grade plywood came in 8ft x 4ft which is exactly the size of each door, and cost around £20 each. From that it seemed a simple idea to take the doors off their hinges and glue and screw the new wood over them and then give them new heavy duty hinges.

By Saturday, I had given each plywood sheet two coats of paint  in the garage where I could do it in the dry without having to use a stepladder. I had also sanded and painted the wooden surrounds, which meant by Sunday there was nothing left I could do without taking the doors off.

The trouble was that the doors were already up when we moved into the house twenty seven years ago, so I was trying to remove rusty bolts that could have been in place for forty or fifty years.

 I got them all off except two, which I struggled with all day. I went off and bought a metal blade for my jigsaw and then realized I couldn't get the blade close enough to use. I tried to drill it through but my drill ran out of battery. Eventually, once the drill was recharged, I drilled the wood round it and pulled it out that way. The second bolt just needed the wood drilling a little round it to let me get a spanner to it. Then I was left grappling with a completely free 8ft door. 

There was a distinctly wobbly moment when it looked like the door was in control over me, but then I got the upper hand and lifted it on a trestle table. The actual gluing and screwing process wasn't difficult apart from the old door was warped out of line and I think the new wood had  warped during its time in the garage so the two pieces had to be clamped together before I could screw them. By the time it was done it was about seven in the evening and I was too tired to have confidence in my ability to measure the spaces between the hinges properly so I had to call it a night leaving the garage missing a door which was not what I wanted. 

 On Monday, talking with a neighbour, convinced me that I would be better off using bolts rather than screws, so I set off for the ironmongers on the other side of Leeds.I had a meeting in the afternoon so it was evening by the time I had the hinges up, and was ready to ask neighbours to help me lift the door into place. Unfortunately the measurements had not been quite right and the door was too high up to close properly.

 Tuesday morning, I had to try and take the hinges off and drop them by an inch without taking the door off or putting too much strain on the new hinges. With the help of David, my neighbour, and using blocks of wood as levers we managed it,
And I was free to start on the second door. After all the trouble of the first door, I can't say I was looking forward to the second door but it was easier second time around. For one thing, I had borrowed an angle grinder which made short work of cutting through troublesome bolts. The only hitch came at half past four, when I realised I was a hinge short, which meant another trip across Leeds, driving through rush hour traffic to get to the ironmongers before it shut. Then I should confess, that I screwed that hinge in the wrong place so when with the help of the neighbours again, we lifted the door into place, it would only rest on the top two hinges. I needed to move that hinge and cut a inch of plywood off the bottom. I was getting distinctly tired now but I wasn't going to give up so close to the finish, and by eight o'clock it was done. I'd even screwed a bolt on the door to keep it shut.
There are a few more bits to do, the paintwork needs touching up and there are two battens that are still to be screwed on the bottom but they can wait. Today is going to be spent relaxing with Oliver (hopefully a happier picnic than last week) and then tomorrow I am harvesting my first honey!