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I’ve gotten a few comments back on the attic door and it seems a lot of people want to know about insulation. My plan was to build the door thick enough and solid enough were I didn’t really need to mess with it. I’m not against putting some foam insulation on the back it’s just that I don’t have any right now.

Today the temp was about 30 degrees so I grabbed my infrared temp gun and went to go see exactly how cold the door was.

So the temp is basically 10 degrees colder than the door and maybe a little more down towards where there is only weatherstripping. Like I said I don’t really feel like it’s actionable at this point but if I ever trip across any foam I might just throw it on. For me the project was mainly about stopping the breeze and condensation build up on the old plastic seal.

jen got me a surprise today! Two HP x2301 23″ monitors! Holy crap are these things cool.

For the past 6 years that we’ve been living here our daughters room has been blasting hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. The reason why is because she has an attic door in her closet wall that lets you reach the first floor attic space. And by door I mean a piece of crud left over 1/2″ plywood board with a plastic handle in its center held in place by scrap trim work. Don’t take my word for it see for your self:

You can see the condensation that builds up on the plastic seal wrap I put on in the first picture. The whole thing is just a total joke and I’ve been wanting to fix it for a while now….for some unknown reason I decided these past few weeks would be a good time. The first thing I did was sketch out my ideas, buy some wood and setup my “wood working” area:

So at this point I’ve decided I’m going to use some 3/4″ scrap plywood and buy some cheap poplar wood to use for the box and the faux door panels. I ended up only buying about 18″ of 1×4 poplar. So my plan of attack is basically very simple:
1. Build a box to fit in my measurements
2. Build door, stuff in box
3. Stuff completed door in attic hole

So the first thing I did was build a box that fit within the measurements from my sketch. I didn’t do anything fancy with it. No wood glue or notching I just simply dropped a few nails into it. The idea behind this is that it would be more “flexible” when I put it in the attic rough in. If there is anything I have learned it’s that there is no such thing as a straight line in a house. So I built the box, then put it on my 3/4″ plywood and traced out the inside. I did this twice and then joined them together with wood glue and a ton of nails.

Once that was done I dropped it back in the box and did some rough sketches on how I wanted the “panels” to appear. After that it was just a matter of cutting and putting them in place with my nail gun. Remember that every nail hole you put in this thing at this point you have to fill later, so don’t go to crazy.

When I got done with the panels I decided that a little quarter round would really help with the look so I added it in the panels. So I added some. I ran out of raw wood and had to dip into some pre-painted stuff towards the end so don’t let the white throw you.

Hinges. God how I hate hinges. You think I’d be good at them after hanging so many doors over the years but damn if they never come out 100% for me no matter how I try. Forget trying to chisel plywood either I ended up using my Dremel Multi Max. Do it however you want to really it doesn’t really matter exactly where you put them. I just kind of eyeballed it honestly.

Now for the whimsey. I was thinking about what kind of lock to put on this door and I was originally going to go with a standard slide bolt but after thinking about it I decided I wanted a skeleton lock. I really wanted the door to look a little mysterious and magical if possible. Now it turns out there is quite the market on ebay for replica skeleton locks (search for L-2 or M-1852) so I ordered one despite the lack of schematics online. Anyways it all worked out but first I had to deal with the fact that it’s a double throw when I only needed the lock bar to go one way. Enter my dremel cutting wheel.

In the end even though cutting off one side made the lock a little crooked everything worked out fine:

So the door is mostly done and the flush mount lock is installed. At this point the only thing to do is get the hinges attached to the box we made. Now at this point the door ended weighing like 30lbs or something so keep in mind the weak little box I built isn’t going to really support it well. The end strength will come from when it’s installed. So I just took the door and gently placed it in the box and marked off where the hinges lined up. After that I just popped the hinge off the pin and traced it out on the box or the jamb as you’d call it. Have I mentioned how much I hate hinges lately? All I can say is take your time especially if you are working with a soft wood like I am. Although the good thing about that is you can use a razor blade to clean up the edges.

The next step is kind of the boring one….paint. I filled all the nail holes and sanded them down with 120 grit paper. No magic there really. I then setup the painting area in the house (garage was 30 degrees) and enlisted some “helpers”. I still had a can of paint from when we painted the room 7 years ago and amazingly it was still good! When it comes to painting doors don’t go the foam brush route….they work great on the door jamb and trim but they will leave streaks on the door itself.

So now the door is built and the frame is ready, painting is done and all we really have to do is stuff it in there. I recommend you use finishing nails and a centerpunch to sink them so you can fill it with wood filler of course. If your really thoughtful of where you put them they’ll be covered by the door stop trim and you won’t even have to mess with them at all. First thing I always do is make sure I shim and align the hinge side of a door however I’ve recently learned that the first thing I need to do is make sure all the cats are accounted for. One thing to keep in mind on the lock side of the door is that you want to get as close as possible to the door while still letting it swing freely. if you look at the pictures you can see I had shims in three places that I adjusted as I went. Close as possible while still being able to swing freely is the goal.

Now it’s time to deal with the lock. I don’t have a fancy strike plate or anything like that. I certainly could go through the trouble of making one but I didn’t see the need for it honestly. All you need is a slot to make sure the door doesn’t open randomly and nobody is going to see it. So what I did was swing the door closed, made sure it was in the proper place by measuring both ends and making sure they were the same distance from the edge and cut a notch with my Dremel Multi Max. I cleaned it up a bit with a razor blade knife but that’s about it. After that it’s time for the door stop trim. What I did was take the weather stripping I was going to use (self adhesive, 3/8″ tube) and cut little bits of it off to make sure I didn’t put the door stop trim to close. I cannot repeat this enough…do not DO NOT go crazy with compressing the weatherstripping. You are building an attic door not a bulwark to contain the ravenous zombie hoards! Otherwise you’ll get all the door trim in and wonder why it takes the force of a hundred He-Men to close it.

The next step is pretty easy just put on the door trim to clean it all up. Again I recommend a help to hold the longer pieces as your cutting them. Once your done installing them just fill all your nails holes, paint and you’re pretty much done! Oh probably helps to ad a handle to the door so you can pull hard enough to get a seal against the weatherstripping you put in. I actually ended up using 1/4″ along the hinge side of the door and 3/8″ along the rest of it.

And here’s the completed door versus the old door:

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