How To Make A Beautiful Sign Out Of A Door??!

Updated 7.15.22

We are back to finishing up the bedroom decor. If you follow me on Instagram you might have already had a sneak peek! 😉

How To Make A Beautiful Sign Out Of A Door

*This post contains some affiliate links. Please see my full Disclosure Statement.

I am almost done with our bedroom makeover, I can see the finish line! We've come along way baby!! Here's a before photo...

Whoa!!! I'm so glad it doesn't look like that anymore!! At the end of this post, I'll link up the all the progress we've made, so you can check it out!

A couple of weeks ago we were working on the Built-in Microwave Shelf (which came out fantastic!!) and I had some free time...

I was ready to make the sign for over our bed. I had an idea in my head, but I wasn't sure how it was going to work out. I wanted something that would be like wood, but I definitely didn't want it to be heavy. Hmmmm.....

I started walking around the garage, then went into the basement.... Then I saw it.... It was an old door from one of our apartments. We replaced it because it had some damage on part of it, but it would work perfect for what I had in mind! Why did we keep it? Hubby thought he'd use it as a top to a workbench. Well, that hadn't happened, so I snagged it. 😊

The door was light enough, because it was a hollow core door. They are cheap doors. Basically, it's framed in wood with a veneer front and back with cardboard weaved throughout the inside to stabilize it. Would it work? Well, I was about to give it a shot!

I measured and taped the door with the size I wanted. When you cut veneer with a table saw, it tends to chew up and/or shred the edges. If you tape it and cut through the tape it saves the edges and they stay nice and clean! 👍

We cut the door to 53x24 inches. Because the door was a hollow core door, I wanted to add some wood blocks in the corners and anywhere along the edge it felt unstable. I glued them in and clamped them until they were dry.

Next, I lightly sanded the door, just to rough up the finish. Then gave it 2 coats of my favorite primer Zinsser Bullseye 1-2-3 Primer and 2 coats of the paint we used on our Shiplap Accent Wall. The paint color is Simply White by Sherwin Williams. I just had Home Depot mix Behr paint with the Sherwin Williams color.

The next step was probably the trickiest of all! Finding the right font, then printing it up big enough for the sign. I was determined to get this! Did you know you can download fonts for FREE onto your computer and use them in Word documents? This is for my private use, so I don't have to purchase the font. Here's a link to the font I used. Aidian Script

I ended up printing the font in portrait mode as large as I could. Basically, one letter per page. I had to hand draw some of the parts to complete each letter, but it worked!!

After, I spaced and taped it together, I flipped it over and colored the lines with pencil so that it would transfer onto my door. Then I centered it and traced the wording.

I've done this with several projects. Sometimes the wood is soft enough that I can just trace it and it indents the wood with the word. This veneer was too hard.

Then I outlined it with a permanent black marker, and filled it in with black acrylic paint. Painting is so therapeutic for me, but it helps to have a steady hand. 😊

You guys! Look!!! I am positively in L O V E!!!

Of course, you follow the same steps to add the rest of the lettering. You know there are so many sayings out there, Hubby and I had a couple of favorites. This one seemed to fit us perfect! 💕

On the back, we drilled two holes at an angle to work like a 'cleat'. Then we measured and added two screws to the wall, screwing them in at an angle, so that they will slid into the angle of the holes. Sounds complicated... but it's not.

A few last steps for the finished product. I purchased 1x2 boards, cut them to frame the door. Spray painted them black with my favorite spray paint! Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch 2X Ultra

Then we used our nail gun to attach the frame to the door. This is where having those extra blocks of wood I added, come in handy.