DIY Doggie Door Insert

In. Out. In. Out.

Opening our sliding door for the dogs was starting to take up approximately 82% of our day, and my kids and I were sick of it. But those sliding door inserts with doggie doors in them are NOT cheap, so today I figured out how to make one myself. I had scrap wood, paint, and window screen, but all total this project would only have cost me $85 – certainly cheaper than the $175+ doors I’d shopped for!

Step 1: Measure for the doggie door insert. Since this doggie door was only about $56, I opted to buy this part rather than try to figure out how to make one from scratch. It worked perfectly, so I’m glad I saved myself the headache.

First, I measured for 2x2s that would attach across the top and bottom of the doggie door. I wanted my long side pieces to also attach tightly, so I pulled the wood in a bit to allow room for the side pieces to go all the way down. Starting at the bottom, I measured from the bottom corner screw hole to the other bottom screw hole. This was 14 inches. The same was true for the top – 14 inches.

I wanted a third piece at the very top of the whole insert, so I planned for another 14-inch piece there too.

As for how tall the insert would be, I noticed that my sliding door’s frame would perfectly fit the 2x2s inside the track at the top as well as along the side where the door would normally close. I had about an inch of depth inside the tracks, so I made the tall sides of my door insert a half inch shorter than the whole height from the bottom of the door to the top inside the track. This would let me install the whole insert by pushing the top piece up inside the track, then lower the bottom piece in place so the whole thing would sit on the bottom track but also stay in place at the top, just inside the tracks. As for the side, I could just slide it over into that track space where the slider normally closed. By doing this, the insert would be held in place at the top and along one whole side, and that would make it easy for the sliding door itself to gently hold the other side in place.

So, this height for the 2 sides needed to be 76.5 inches.

Step 2: Cut the wood. I cut three pieces of 2×2 down to 14 inches. Then I cut two more to 76.5 inches each. That was it!

Step 3: Paint. In all honesty, I didn’t paint the wood pieces until I had the whole thing assembled and the screen on, BUT it would be much easier to do now, before you have to worry about slobbing paint on the screen. 🤦‍♀️ I’ll save you that trouble by telling you to paint your wood pieces at this point rather than later.

Step 4: Place wood pieces around the doggie door and secure. This was SO much easier than I’d feared, and I did it all on my living room floor in about 15 minutes.

(Note: If you buy a doggie door like the one I used, be sure to remove the solid insert that normally would be used to “close” the opening. You might not be able to get it out once the whole doggie door frame is assembled. I completely discarded mine, since I’ll just take my constructed doggie door out of the doorway entirely when I don’t want the dogs to use it.)

Anyway, by pulling the two sides of the doggie door slightly apart, I could set the bottom piece, top piece, and side pieces in place evenly (where normally the doggie door would fit inside a normal door). My 2x2s wouldn’t fit all the way inside like a normal door because the screw hole things get in the way. But the 2x2s set inside enough to hold in place so that I could screw the two sides of the doggie door back together and the whole thing held tightly.

First, I held one hand pushing on the doggie door’s frame to be sure it held the bottom 14-inch 2×2 pinned in place, and then I screwed the bottom section of the doggie door together by using the screws provided.

Once the bottom was secured, I did the same along one side, again holding the frame tight to be sure the long 2×2 stayed in place. Most importantly, you want to be sure the corners at the bottom line up nicely. (See picture below.)

Once the bottom and one side were done, I took my second 14 inch piece and fit it along the top part of the doggie door. Pushing the frame down to hold this 2×2 in place, I pushed the last side piece in place as well, again making sure the bottom corners of the 2x2s were even. Then I screwed the doggie door’s top together, and that other side.

Lastly, I put the very top 14-inch piece in place and made sure the corners lined up with the ends of my long side pieces. Then I used my drill to screw in 1 screw at each end.

Insert frame assembled!

Step 5: Add a screen. We had a scrap screen door lying around that had never fit right over the door to our garage, so I cut off a section of that screen. If you need to buy screen, it’s fairly inexpensive to get a repair kit for a screen like the one I linked in my supplies list. You want to make sure your section of screen is a little bigger than the actual opening, so I measured for 53×16 inches and cut the screen down to that size.

With my frame lying back-side up (the side that will go outside), I positioned the screen over the open space of my frame. Then I used a staple gun to staple the screen edges into the wood frame. Pretty easy!

After the screen was on, I took a few scrap pieces of wood and set them around the edges, over the staples, to really hold the screen in place and keep it secure. These wood pieces I nailed on with a few little nails. (You could also use wood glue, but I’m not that patient.) Just be sure not to place the wood too far to the outer edges, where they’d be in the way of the 2x2s fitting inside your door’s tracks. You could skip this step altogether, but I wanted to help my screen stay as secure as possible.

Once my whole doggie door insert was assembled, I carried it to my open sliding door and lifted the top so it slid up a little into the top track, then I moved the insert to sit on the bottom of the doorframe, and finally I pushed it over to fit inside the track along the wall where the door would normally close. It stood in place pretty well like that all on its own, but with the sliding door closed against it, it was really secure.

My 5-year-old gave it a test run, and she reported that it worked great! 😂

That was it (after I painted 🤦‍♀️)! With the sliding door closed tight against the insert, it looks pretty even – like it belongs. And I’m really glad the insert stays put in the door’s track system even when we open the sliding door wider, because now we can still open the slider if we humans want to get outside too. I only remove the insert at night or when it’s raining and the dogs don’t want outside anyway.

I’m happy to report that the dog in the picture figured it out pretty quickly. Our younger mutt is less sure about this thing, but hopefully she’ll get the hang of it. 🤞

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