Midheaven is very much a project about reclaiming and transforming the rougher edges of personal history into a vibrant and healthy existence, and we apply that same philosophy to the reconstruction and repair work we’re doing for the center itself. We reclaim and reuse everything we can and integrate old materials into new spaces. Sometimes, this process creates moments of beautiful serendipity.
This door we’re making is meant to fit into a custom 38″ opening built in 1942/43 when the milk house and stables were added to the back of the attached barn. There’s no other door of this size anywhere in the building, and we’re not able to use materials from the original. My father began by creating a rough frame out of reclaimed 1×5 barn boards to fit the opening. He made simple overlapping Rabbet joints for each corner and screwed them down.
Once that was squared up, we played around with a few ideas for how the front of the door should look. We decided to go with vertical boards and set out to find a few we could repurpose. Pulling from 5 different locations on the property, we found 5 different boards that filled out the 38″ so perfectly it felt serendipitous: 3 1x8s and 2 1x6s sturdy and pretty enough to be used for a door with a little work.
From what will be the inside of the door, we wedged the narrower pieces tight to the center with wood shims. We’ll seal the gaps from this side, and then do some kind of decorative beading in the 1/4″ gaps before planing and sanding and adding the shop’s symbol to the front. The last step before hanging it will be to insulate the interior of the door and seal it with a thin piece of plywood.
Once it’s complete, we’ll stain with linseed oil or something similar and hang it using the original iron hinges and latch from the 1942/43 door, which my father watched his grandfather build. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to transform historical intent into a future that integrates with it rather than overshadows it, that adds to its story like the Ship of Theseus rather than erases what it was.
