You’ve probably heard of the honey-do list, but when my father comes to visit it’s more of a Daddy-do list. Ever since I moved into an apartment in college I’ve always had a list of things for him to fix or do while he’s visiting me. There was one time my parents came to visit and my dad walk in the door, looked at me and said “so what do you want me to do this time?”. I couldn’t help but chuckle a little. Although he might sometimes pretend to be annoyed by my wanting him to do stuff around my house or fix my computer I think deep down he loves it.
So when he arrived a few weekends ago for a visit I already had my daddy-do list planned out. The last time he visited us in the condo he installed a dimmer switch in the living room. The best part of the dimmer switch in the living room is we can make “movie theater” lighting when watching tv. I love it. I mean who doesn’t like lights that dim?!?!
Anyways, I wanted him to install a couple of additional dimmer switches in the condo, but the big project I had in mind was building us a screen door. As I had mentioned in my herb garden post we have this little “smokers balcony” off our living room. Since the weather in DC is finally getting cool it’s nice to open the window and the fresh air in. That’s front door offers a lot of air, but doesn’t keep the bugs out. Seriously my legs and hands were eaten alive by the mosquitoes that got in our house. So you know what that means … clearly we need a cheap/DIY screen door.
That picture was taken prior to moving in. I promise we now have furniture in the living/dining room. My dad was up to the challenge and here’s how we (read my dad) made the screen door.
What you need:
First he measured the door frame and then cut the aluminum screen frame down to size. We purchased 4 pieces of frame. We probably should have bought an extra just in case because somehow we cut the frame a little too small. Luckily my dad is a master problem solver and with a little cooking twine we were able to add in the extra amount of space we need.
After my dad figuring out how to fix our little measuring problem we laid the screen out over the door frame. Make sure to give yourself a little extra screen around the edges. You don’t want it too tight or the screen door will bend inwards.
Take the screen spline and roller and attach the screen to the frame.
Then we cut off the extra screen along the edges. We realized there was nothing to hold onto when pulling the screen door into place. Sooooo Daddy to the rescue as always. We put screws in to use as handles. At some point I plan to go ahead and buy one more piece of aluminum frame and attach that so the handle is a little easier to grab. For now the screws are working out just fine!
So there you have it. A pretty easy, cheap and quick DIY screen door.
Best part is you can barely tell there’s a screen door in there unless you get close up to it. Here’s your close up:
Happy home improvements and a little DIY!
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