How to make a padded door for a theater room...kinda
My Sister's been putting the finish touches on a theater room for the house she built a few years ago. Now, the room has a lot of touches; rope lighting, in wall speakers, theater style wall sconces, and even a carpeted platform to put lazy boys on. But as custom as that all sounds, she really really wanted to padded door. Both for looks, and for sound dampening.
Now, I have no clue where you can buy these, or who makes them, or anything like that. So we did as much as we could ourselves, brought in an upholsterer at the end, and this is basically the story of it. Along with my small part in it, and the pictures I took.
But first, some lessons learned:
1. Typical door hardware is designed to handle a max width of 1 7/8". Make sure the board and material are thin enough so you don't have to buy special hardware made for thicker doors. (at least I had this problem with Schlage F style locks)
2. You can get foam real cheap at a mattress wholesale place, as opposed to like JoAnn's Fabrics or some other craft store Ok, well the premise is real simple. Take a think piece of plywood, cut it to size, and then have it upholstered w/ buttons. Let's start with the door. First thing I did was take a pencil and trace around the door while it was closed. This give me an idea of where the door jamb perimeter is. Then I took the door down, and measured a 1/4" inside that line (compensates for expansion, fabric width and human error) snap a chalk line, and the cut with a jigsaw. Now keep in mind, no door is straight. So don't even try to measure and cut the board manually. It's just really impossible to do. The easiest thing to do is to pick a side and cut all the others around it. And of course to cut the holes for the doorknobs.
So flash forward about 3 weeks, and it's back from the upholsterer, and we're a couple of hundred dollar poorer. 
The only real reason we went with them was simple. There was no way we could do a better job then them, plus making custom buttons with the fabric is kinda hard....although, if I was to do this again, I'd like to give it a shot.
So anyway the next part is just as easy. Take the door down, dump a tube of liquid nails (or generic construction adhesive...doesn't really matter) and then place it down on the door. Of course making sure that it falls within the pencil marks. Then have somebody roll over it to make the glue stick and flip it over carefully (don't let it move). Then place heavy things on it for 24 hours.
And here are the finished pictures of the door back up:
1. Typical door hardware is designed to handle a max width of 1 7/8". Make sure the board and material are thin enough so you don't have to buy special hardware made for thicker doors. (at least I had this problem with Schlage F style locks)
2. You can get foam real cheap at a mattress wholesale place, as opposed to like JoAnn's Fabrics or some other craft store Ok, well the premise is real simple. Take a think piece of plywood, cut it to size, and then have it upholstered w/ buttons. Let's start with the door. First thing I did was take a pencil and trace around the door while it was closed. This give me an idea of where the door jamb perimeter is. Then I took the door down, and measured a 1/4" inside that line (compensates for expansion, fabric width and human error) snap a chalk line, and the cut with a jigsaw. Now keep in mind, no door is straight. So don't even try to measure and cut the board manually. It's just really impossible to do. The easiest thing to do is to pick a side and cut all the others around it. And of course to cut the holes for the doorknobs.
So flash forward about 3 weeks, and it's back from the upholsterer, and we're a couple of hundred dollar poorer. The only real reason we went with them was simple. There was no way we could do a better job then them, plus making custom buttons with the fabric is kinda hard....although, if I was to do this again, I'd like to give it a shot.
So anyway the next part is just as easy. Take the door down, dump a tube of liquid nails (or generic construction adhesive...doesn't really matter) and then place it down on the door. Of course making sure that it falls within the pencil marks. Then have somebody roll over it to make the glue stick and flip it over carefully (don't let it move). Then place heavy things on it for 24 hours.
And here are the finished pictures of the door back up: