Do you have an old wooden door laying around? Do you want a unique way to decorate for the holidays? Learn how to repurpose an old door into a tree.
How To Repurpose An Old Door Into A Tree For The Holidays
Do you have an old wooden door hanging around? Do you want a cool home decor project to do for the holidays? Well look no further!! This is a complete guide on how to repurpose an old door into a tree for the holidays. This does require a few power tools but in general is a pretty beginner project. The following list is what you will need for this project.
(This does include affiliate links but does not cost you anything to use, it just allows me to keep on creating for you, for free!)
What you need:
An old wooden door
T Square (or something long that is similar)
Pencil
1×3 pine boards long enough for your door (this is the outside border)
2x6x6 board
Screws
Wood Glue
Dixie Belle Walnut No Pain Gel StainIf you want to learn how I painted the Buffalo Plaid on the smaller door you can check it out HERE, it has a list of the supplies you will need.
SAFETY DISCLAIMER
If you are working with old doors, especially ones that are painted you need to make sure they do not have lead paint. You can get a lead-based paint tester kit at any hardware store. My personal suggestion would be to just walk away from the door if it tests positive, there is too heavy of a risk once you start cutting the door that the lead dust will be released. One cool project is not worth your health.
Let’s Repurpose an Old Door!
The first step to making this door tree is to get some saw horses and set your door on top. You will want to remove all old hinges from the door. Then you will want to thoroughly clean the door. I used bleach water because my doors had been outside for a long time. I then rinsed them down with water to get all the remaining residue off.
Once you have cleaned and prepped your door, you want to decide how big or small you want your tree. For this particular door I went smaller. I took my T-Square and started at the very outside corners. This will help later when you put your outside trim on. I took my sharpie and marked exactly where I was going to cut with my jigsaw.
Once you have marked your piece you will need to clamp the door down. Jigsaws are not the smoothest cutters so you need to make sure the door is clamped down otherwise the door will fly off the sawhorses. Okay, that’s dramatic, it will just vibrate a lot and move too much. Sometimes when you repurpose an old door it will come apart because it is pieced together in the first place. You will just want to reassemble the door and glue it.
Once you have cut the door into the shape you are happy with, you can now paint it. Painting it now will make it easier later so you aren’t having to worry about getting the paint or even stain on the wooden border that I will show you right now.
Final Touches to Repurpose an Old Door
For this part you will want the 1×3’s, 2×6’s, miter saw, nail gun, screws, drill, glue and stain. The first step is to take the 1×3’s and marry up the top, you will want to use the miter saw for this part. Once you have married up these two pieces, you will want to measure how long you want the side pieces to come down. Do not nail or glue anything down until you measure the bottom 1×3 also. Once you have measured and cut all of the 1×3’s and you are happy with the way they fit, you will glue and nail the side 1×3’s but do NOT nail or glue the bottom 1×3.
The next part of this is project is the stem. This will be the 2×6’s. You will want to center this stem onto the door. Before you screw and glue this piece you will want to screw the 2×6 to the bottom 1×3. Once you screw the stem into the 1×3 you will then glue and nail the bottom 1×3 to the door. The next step is to put the bottom part of the base on. You will glue and screw the bottom of the 2×6. Once this is complete you will stain the border. Your tree is now complete once you are happy with the way it looks. You can repurpose an old door in so many different ways but this is one cool idea for the holidays.
Check out two of the doors I made!!
Check out this video for a full video tutorial!!