How to Build a DIY Screen Door

Follow these step-by-step plans for building a beautiful screen door for your home.

By Strother Purdy, Excerpted From Doormaking and Linden Publishing
Published on December 7, 2017
article image
courtesy of Linden Publishing
Build a beautiful rustic screen door that will withstand the test of time.

Follow these step-by-step instructions for building a beautiful DIY screen door that will stay on its hinges for many years to come.

Not every open door lets everything in. Not every closed door keeps everything out. Dutch doors are designed so the top half can open leaving the bottom shut, letting air and bugs in, but keeping animals out. Screen doors are designed to let air in, but no bugs, and only when they’re shut. Got it?

Screen doors are traditionally thin and lightweight. In part this is because they don’t need to be thicker. Screening weighs next to nothing, so the door is only holding up its own frame. They also need to be thin to fit the outside of a jamb already occupied by a full-size door. The trouble with thin, though, is obvious — thin means flimsy, and making a durable screen door is something of a trick.

I use pegged mortise-and-tenons and stock at least 7/8-inch, but preferably 1 inch thick to make a durable screen door that looks nice and holds up over time. You can make thinner doors, but you’ll need to come up with a different way to integrate the screen, perhaps losing the stop that covers the spline.

I made this DIY screen door out of western red cedar, a lightweight yet rot- and weather-resistant softwood. It is sold in my area as dimensional building lumber in housing construction-oriented lumberyards, and not in hardwood lumberyards.

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