Reuse Your Old Doors To Craft A Stylish Garden Potting Shed

Old doors can often be beautiful, with wood carvings, glass accents, and rustic style that you don't often see in new constructions. With many made of sturdy solid wood, antique doors are also perfect for repurposed DIYs, including everything from coffee tables to workbenches. They are also great accents for the outdoors, where you can find them, along with old windows, often serving as adorable garden decor. You can marry both these ideas together to add a bit of old-world whimsy to your yard by creating a small greenhouse assembled from the doors. 

The structure is a cute and English-cottage-style addition to your yard, as well as a functional build that can help offer shelter and space for your plants and seedlings. Even better, by using scrap lumber and old doors or windows to construct your project, you can save significantly over pre-made and custom-built garden structures, as well as get a shed with a bit more history and personality. 

To construct the simplest version of this DIY, create a frameless shelter by simply placing three doors attached together with a corrugated plexiglass roof. You can fasten the doors directly together with wood screws and pocket holes, or attach them with hinges to each other. This second approach can be particularly handy if you want to move or store the shed off-season. Create a simple frame up top for the corrugated plexiglass or attach it directly to the doors themselves. Add a small table or board across the inside to serve as a work surface or sheltered shelf for plants.

While this DIY creates a small shed, you can scale this project to your desired dimensions with a bit more construction know-how. With a simple framework made of 2x4s and 4x4 wood fence poles, you can use sunken cinder blocks to create a base and frame that will hold the doors in place as a permanent structure. You can also use old windows along with your doors if you would like a more light-filled greenhouse. Create a roof using corrugated tin or plexiglass attached to the frame. When planning your garden shed or greenhouse, make sure to check with local building codes. You may need a permit for covered large or small structures in your yard depending on where you live.

If you don't have extra doors around your own home, great places to find them are architectural salvage stores and estate sales, where people often have their old doors tucked away in basements, attics, or garages. Look for doors with unique accents like windowed cut-outs, intricate carvings, or stained glass insets. French doors also make great sides for a shed or DIY greenhouse since they allow in liberal amounts of light.

This project is very customizable, so you can add other elements to your shed as needed, including workbenches made from additional doors, shelves made from scrap wood, or a small stool or table for spending time there. Paint the doors all one shade for a more cohesive look, or leave them in their original mishmash of colors and textures for a whimsical cottage feel. For an easy DIY floor, add bricks or stone tiles to the ground underneath, or use wooden pallets as a base.