Outdoors

Maine inspired screen door

Country style screen door
Screen door installed

While on vacation in the south of Maine, we noticed a lot of these on summer homes. So I took a real good look at them and when I got home I made one. My first time building a screen door.

The new experiance on this project was the mortise and tenon joints, if you can believe that. Being such a naive woodworker I used only yellow carpenters glue to join it all together. The door has been covering our front main entrance since 1996 now and not a crack or sag can be noticed. (2005 update: Still holding strong!) Pure Luck!! This project is made with 2×6 clear pine ripped down to 1 inch thickness. I basically made it to fit the exterior door casing. Some more spindles and a piece of 1/4 plywood and we’re in business. The door was painted white, then green and now its white again!

I made that door from scratch so the plan is in my head.  Pretty simple actually. To start, the overall dimensions are custom fitted for the house door. The joints for the rails and stiles are mortise and tenon. Tenon is standard 1/3 thickness of stock. In this case I used 1-1/4 inch stock.  The bottom panel is set in place much like you would for a cabinet door, floating. The gingerbread was just a freehand design to add support to the frame to prevent racking, held in place with wood screws.

Screen door
I was framed into making this. 🙂

A Newfoundland born Canadian with a life long interest in woodworking, baking and anything else that peaks my curiosity.

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