There’s a moment in every shop build where you stop measuring progress in walls and start measuring it in “can we actually get inside this thing yet.” For us, that moment was the doors.
This was supposed to be the last big push to get the shop dried in — sort the trim, figure out the track, get the doors built, get an inspection, and finally start building cars again instead of building a building. Simple enough on paper. Less simple once pollen-covered concrete, solo bracket installs, and a door that nearly clotheslined half the family got involved.
Day one was the boring-but-necessary kind of progress. Sorting metal, figuring out the perimeter trim, working out the track height off the 2×8 up top so we’d know our actual door dimensions. The trim gets reinforced with wood on the inside so it can take a hit without denting — small detail, but the kind of thing you’re grateful for every time someone backs a trailer in a little too enthusiastically down the road.
Mason showed up the next day and we knocked out a solid chunk together — trim reinforced, Z-flashing up, header trim in, ready to start running the light gray metal across the face. Some of that process had a plan. A lot of it was figuring it out in real time once we knew where the ribs were going to land. That’s pretty on-brand for us.
Then Mason wasn’t there, and the rail still needed to go up. Hanging a long track of brackets by yourself, half-guessing where the screws are because you can’t see up there, hoping you can slide the bracket on and pivot it into place — that’s the kind of task that sounds like a two-minute job in your head and turns into an afternoon. Verdict: “wasn’t terrible, wasn’t great.” Which, around here, counts as a win.
Framing the doors themselves came with its own small annoyance — the rail material came in white instead of the charcoal we needed, which meant a spray paint run got added to the list. Not a big deal, just one more thing standing between us and actually hanging these doors.
Then came the part we’d love to tell you went smoothly. It didn’t. Camera wasn’t even rolling for the worst of it — but my wife and youngest daughter were both nearly caught under the door as it went up. It got hung, but the door rail height was off enough that it was dragging hard on the concrete. The fix: pack two inches of material under the rail, re-level, and try again. Mason and his family came back out to help muscle it into place. That’s the kind of moment that reminds you why you don’t do these builds alone — not just for the extra hands, but because somebody needs to be the one yelling “watch out” at the right second.
Door two went up with a little more grace (and a camera that actually stayed on, eventually). Track cover went on with about thirty minutes to spare in the work day, which is the kind of deadline we seem to specialize in.
Standing back and looking at it now — it’s hard not to grin. Big sliding barn doors, fully hung, siding going up around them. What’s left is small stuff in comparison: some wall framing, a man door, a ceiling section, and roughly 250 feet of soffit standing between us and a final inspection. We’re close. Genuinely close.
If you’re wondering — yes, we thought about a roll-up door instead. We landed on sliders because we like how they look, and because there’s hardware out there (basically aluminum track lined with nylon bristles, like a push broom) that’ll seal them up properly once we’re ready for that step.
This shop has been a grind from the slab up, but every door we hang gets us one step closer to doing what we actually built it for: building cars again.
Wheel it, Wreck it, Wrench it, Repeat!
Want to see the doors actually go up — pollen allergies, near-misses, and all? Catch the full build on the DPV YouTube channel.
Days of Pain and Victory 
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