Adding Character to our Hallway with DIY Plank Doors
Our house is a basic builder grade house built in 1989 and, as such, is full of brown, hollow-core, faux-wood doors (emphasis on faux). As I’ve worked on the rooms in our home, I’ve painted the doors as a quick way to make them feel more updated. When I started a refresh in our upstairs hallway, I knew I was going to make the hallway a pretty neutral space because it’s basically just a series of doors. You get to the top of the stairs and to your left is a door, to your right is a door, and in front of you are two doors separated by about three feet of wall space.
The hallway is just a pass through to get where you’re going, and because each room off of the hallway is colorful, I wanted to make sure the space felt like it flowed with each of the rooms. However, I didn’t want it to lack character. I thought about wallpapering the whole space, or painting some neutral stripes on the walls, or maybe adding some kind of wood trim detail. But then I came across an image of a plank door on Pinterest and knew it would be the perfect way to add character.
This is a great DIY to take any plain doors in your home and make them look more custom at a relatively low cost!
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Tools Needed:
Materials Needed:
- 1/4-inch plywood sheets
- Adhesive
- Finishing nails
- Sandpaper (120 and 220 grit)
- Wood filler
- Paint or stain (I went with a timeless black stain for a bold look!)
- Paintbrush, roller, or rag (depending on what finish you decide on)
Remove the door. Start by taking the door off its hinges and laying it flat on a sturdy surface.
Prep the door. Clean the surface to get rid of any dust or grease. Then give the door a quick sand with 120-grit sandpaper to help the planks stick better.
Cut the planks. Use your table saw or circular saw to cut the plywood into strips. I went with 5-inch-wide planks, but you can customize the width to fit your style and size of your door. Then use your miter saw to cut the planks down to the height of the door.
Paint the gaps. This is where I’ll say – do as I say, not as I did! When I started, I wasn’t sure how I was going to finish the planks (paint or stain them), and so I glued the unfinished plywood planks to the door. The white of the doors showed through between the planks and once I decided on a black stain, it was painfully obvious. I had to go in between each gap with a teeny, tiny paintbrush to fill in all of the gaps and the sides of the plywood planks!
If you can, I highly recommend deciding on how you are going to finish the door first and paint the door the color you’ll be painting the planks. If you’re going to be staining your door like I did, you could get a paint color similar to the stain. This will make sure the nickel gaps between the planks blend in with the color of the planks.
I’d also suggest painting or staining your planks, or at least the sides, at this point. 1/4″ plywood is very thin, but the sides are visible because of the gap left in between the planks.
Attach the planks. Spread the adhesive on the plank and then press it firmly onto the door. I used nickels to literally give it a nickel gap between the planks. Because the plywood is so thin, it was a little warped so I used weights and really anything I could find in our garage to hold it down firmly while the adhesive dried.
Trim and sand. Once all the planks are on, sand down any excess plywood. Then, give the whole door a good sanding with 220-grit sandpaper until everything feels smooth to the touch.
At this point I wasn’t sure how I wanted to finish the doors. I originally thought I wanted to paint them, but then I hung the door back up to make sure it was going to fit and see if there was anything I need to adjust for. And I fell in love with the wood look. However, as you can see, I was also installing LVP flooring that looks like wood, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to try to find a wood stain that would match or coordinate with the flooring, or if it would end up just looking like too much light colored wood in the space.
I was playing around in the Sherwin Williams paint color app to try to figure out what to do, and when I selected black as a color, this was the image it gave me.
That’s when I knew – I needed to stain the doors black. This would maintain the visual of the wood grain but also gave some contrast to the floors and really, the whole hallway space.
Paint or stain the planks. I applied pre-conditioner to the doors to ensure the stain took as smoothly and consistently as possible to the planks.
I applied one coat, let it dry, and then sanded lightly before adding a second coat.
As I mentioned before, if you can, do this before gluing down your planks. I do think it will make the job a lot easier and more efficient!
Take care of the sides. I’ve color drenched the rooms that the hallway leads to. This means that I painted not only the walls, but also the trim, windows, doors, and in some cases the ceiling, the same color! Because of this, I only planked the side of the doors that faces the hallway and kept the other side the color of the room it’s in.
When you have a door that needs to be two colors, you want the edge opening into the room to be the same color as the interior of that room. The edge that you see from outside the room should be the same as the exterior space.
For this project, that meant that one side would also stay the same color that the bedrooms and bathroom were, and one side needed to match the planked side. I couldn’t stain that side because it isn’t real wood and also had a coat of paint on it. Have you ever noticed how when you paint with dark colors, the first coat is usually pretty streaky? That it almost kind of looks like a wood grain. I decided to try just brushing on a first coat of black paint to the side of the door and hoped that it would give the impression that it was also black stained wood. I think it worked pretty well!
Reinstall the door. Once the finish is completely dry, hang the door back up.
One other thing to note… because you’re adding depth to the door with the addition of the planks, you will need to take off and move your door trim. I found it helpful to close the doors, mark with a pencil where the trim needs to line up, then open the door and use your nail gun to reattach the trim. Once attached, you’ll want to fill the holes from the nails with wood putty, sand, then paint.
This plank door project wasn’t just budget-friendly—it completely transformed the feel of our upstairs. What was once a plain, boring door is now a custom feature of our hallway! They add so much character. My home style involves with adding earthy, organic touches and textures, and this project did just that!
