Building the front door

One of the many things I did not get to before we moved in was build the doors. So, since March of last year (2012) we have had a sheet of 1/2" OSB as a door. With the weather getting colder now we have decided that a door would be nice to have (less drafty). I considered buying a door, but I really wanted to build one.

The house is sided with rough sawn cedar and the inside will be pine, and I would like the door to match both. 

Another plus to building a door is that if something goes wrong with it, I can fix it.

I had to start by finishing the rough opening. Agian, I wanted cedar on the outside and pine on the inside. 

I had a problem with nails backing out of the cedar siding, so now I use stainless steel trim screws to hold the siding on.
I used these screws to build the door as well.

This is the finished opening. It is hard to tell but the inside is pine and from the door stop out is rough sawn cedar.

I hung plastic over the door to try and keep some heat in. I could have done this in the summer, but the would have made to much sence.

Prepairing the windows for stain and varnish.

I applied the stain with a cloth. I go over all the surfaces twice. Then leave the stain set for a few minutes. Next, I whipe off any extra stain. Once the stain has dried I apply a coat of varnish, then let it dry. I then sand the first coat and apply a final coat of varnish.

The core for the door is a piece of 1/2" plywood.

I then added rough sawn tongue and groove cedar to the outside of the door.

The cedar is glued and screwed to the plywood core. The glue is weather proof.

On the inside I used tongue and groove pine. Agian, I glued them.

This is the outside of the door. I wanted to use galvanized pipe for door handles, but I could not make it work how I wanted.

This is the inside.

The door is hung.

This is how you would see it when comming to visit.