Bike Rack From an Old Door

My patio was barely navigable because the bikes had taken over. I made this bike rack with an old chicken coop door and some scrap wood. I am not a master builder. It is not perfect by any means, but it works and I am proud of it. Maybe it will give you some ideas about what you could reuse.

To make this you will need: An old door or frame of some sort

a jigsaw

a drill

screws of various sizes

some measuring devices (I barely used them since craftsmanship was not my goal, I mean I am using an old chicken coop door for crying out loud, it was also made from scrapwood and very imperfect)

I did measure my bikes to see about how wide a space I needed. It varied between 6 to 8 inches. To get the right length for the slats I just laid it against the door and marked it then cut it. To find the other two slats I marked them by the first one. I ran out of the first scrap wood and used some left over baseboard material for the last slat. Finally I sat it up again to make sure that was about the width I wanted. Bikes vary in width so it's fine if the width between the slats vary too.

I used different lengths of screws because the slats varied and really just eyed exactly where the slats should lie. It isn't perfect neither my screwing nor my placement of the slats. Here is a screw I stripped. That is all ok. It is functional and all free. On some of the wider boards my screws were not long enough so I took a larger drill bit and put larger holes so I could sink the screws. My goal on this project was to not buy anything and only use what I had on hand.

I laid the frame against the house with the front bicycle tire in it to see if what angle I should cut the sides at.

I laid out my scrap wood and marked it. Then I cut it. On two by four wood scraps you will need a pretty long blade for your jigsaw. I got the longest one they have at Lowe's. It works, you just have to cut slowly.

After trying shorter screws I found the longest one's I could find to make it strong. I tried to get two in on every place where two boards joined. Once again this was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I stripped some, put them in at odd angles, one screw sticks out on the inside, another sticks out on the outside. I show you these pictures to say it is ok, because it still works. As long as it is not going to stick out where it will hurt a person or tire. It is about function not perfection. I learned that it is helpful to drill holes before you put the screws in this makes it much easier.

I used a two by four to strengthen the structure in the back. Once again I laid it out to get the measurement. This is the one time I used the speed square because I wanted to make sure my line was straight.

I used my super long screws on this part because I wanted them to go through all three boards. I had a helper switch out the drill bits so I could make holes and screw the screws in. Drilling holes first made it much easier. I also pushed the structure against the house to help me put pressure on the screws.

Before I painted it I checked how it worked with bikes.

After being with the chickens this door needed some scrubbing.

It took two cans of paint to cover the bike rack. I didn't worry that I ran out before I had painted all of the inside. No one will see it and it will be under the carport anyway.