Renovating A French Door

I had the recent opportunity to renovate a French door. It is from my own home, one that my brother gave to me when he replaced it with something else at a house he owned for a while. It was a Craftsman Style home that is about 100 years old or older. The glass had been painted over at some point, probably to be used for a private room. I did pull out a couple of obstructive nails where curtains might've hung.



It took about two quarts of orange stripping gel. I removed about three different colors of paint, and it took a total of about twenty hours.

Bi-fold Doors

I was asked if I could create a set of bi-fold doors to match the southwestern style cabinets that one of my clients had been installing in his residence. The furniture maker said that he couldn't do that for one reason or another. In order to make them rustic-looking the lumber chosen to do the work was less than FAS. It was 2" x 6" tongue and groove decking and 1x pine stock. I planned on using the groove as a pre-set  gauge for the raised panels, which I would shoulder rip out of 1" x 12". I just copied the existing press-board bi-folds.



The decking would require a little planing with a 12" planer that I borrowed from my brother. Drilling dowel holes into the stiles was a little tedious, not really set up for this, and the horizontal boring into the rails I had to improvise with a scrap of tongue and a 3/8" piece of pipe reamed out to 7/16". The formula was shared for the stain which was Minwax with 50% turpentine.