The Doors

No, I'm not talking about the 60's rock band. I'm talking about the literal doors on my van.

Cost

black board paint - $10.98

Materials

Left over plywood

Screws

Reused insulation

Chalk

Tools

Scissors

Sharpie

Jigsaw

Sander

Drill

Foam paintbrush

Old Paneling

I decided to remove and replace the paneling on the doors mostly for ascetic reasons. That along with trying to shove as much insulation into any crevice I could find. And there's a lot of empty space in the doors.

Removing the old paneling was easy. They were plastic sheets held on by plastic rivets.

Insulation

You can see in the photo that the doors were in a sense hallow. They were also very dirty with soot probably from the engine. After cleaning it up, I stuffed the doors with a denim insulation. This was the insulation that had been in the roll cage between the roof and drop ceiling. I saved it to stuff it where I could.

New Panels

I used the carefully removed old plastic paneling as templates for the new wooden ones. I traced around them where I could find space on the scraps of plywood. The top two panels I painted with chalkboard paint, because, well, why not? Then I could write messages, leave notes, draw pictures or whatever else my heart desired. The bottom panels and the ones on the side door were left showing the grain, but covered over with polyurethane.

Final step was to attach the new panels. The top chalkboard panels were glued on because the metal behind them was even, where as the panels on the bottom were screwed on with some spare screws. (see two photos up) Screwing into metal (as mentioned before) can be a bit difficult.

Fun Fact: I have a set of multitool hair clips and it turns out that they perfectly fit the screws that I used for attaching the panels.