Cupboard Door

[RJH]

I want to put a door, about H90cm x W40cm in a section of timber stud/plasterboard, to give access for storage to the void behind. The void is encased in insulation board, so it doesn't need to be the last word in airtightness.

I keep thinking about doing it, looking, head scratching, but don't know where to start. I've got lots of odd bits of timber for a frame, but I'm not sure how to go about it all. I'm not completely clueless - I did put the partition in, and have done quite a bit of mild joinery.

Any ideas please? A sort of scheme of work would be much appreciated!

[steve.n]

buy an access panel ?

steve

[John Rumm]

If you want to store stuff in the storage space, I would make it wider than 40cm - else you will have difficulty getting anything worthwhile in there!

Decide roughly where you want it. Make a hole though the wall somewhere in the proposed door space. This will let you see where the studs are, and mark out where to cut the plasterboard. You want the left hand edge cut flush to the right side of a stud, and the right side cut flush to the left of a stud 2 over to the right from the first (so your gap will be twice the stud spacing - typically 800mm ish). Cut the top about 1" higher than where you want the top of the door.

Now cut out the middle stud, and chop the top off behind the plasterboard about 2" higher than the cut you made in the top of the plasterboard. You can now use the bit you just cut out to trim to length and put back a horizontal timber to make the top of the door way. It will also give you something to fix the top of the cut stud back to. A bit like the header above the door in the picture here:

Once done you should have an opening looking like:

Now you can fit a door lining (aka door frame):

Then just follow the steps to fit the door:

[RJH]

Splendid - thanks very much indeed.

[Roger Mills]

Just one thought which occurred to me. If you make the opening two studs wide, as suggested by others, it may look better - and wouldn't take up as much room space with the door(s) open - if you were to make a pair of half-width doors rather than a single wide door.