How to Build a Wooden Gate X 2 – An Open and Shut Case

Back in 2019, when I wrote up our Spanish tile entry walkway makeover, I casually mentioned that the two stucco columns flanking the walk would eventually get a wood gate between them “in a future article.” By “future,” I mean seven and a half years later. Some people call that procrastination. I prefer to call it letting the project marinate.

Well, the marinating is over. This is the story of how to build a wooden gate, times two: a shorter arched gate between those front columns, and a taller one closing off the gap between our detached garage and the house. Both were built from Western Red Cedar by my friend and HomeFixated contributor Jake Glerup at his shop, Jake Glerup Woodwork, and both involved Jake spending quality time with the recently reviewed Festool Domino XL. If you read that review and wondered what all those giant mortises were for, wonder no more.

Why Build a Wooden Gate Instead of Buying One?

You can absolutely walk into a big box store and buy a gate. It will likely be dog-eared pickets on a Z-brace, it will be a standard width that matches none of your openings, and it will look exactly like the gate on every other house in the neighborhood. On a 1936 Spanish-style house with a terra cotta roof, stucco, and a freshly tiled entry, that’s a bit like wearing flip-flops with a tuxedo.

Our openings also had a few quirks. The front columns are a fixed width that no off-the-shelf gate was going to match, and the opening between the garage and house turned out to be wildly out of plumb (more on that fun later). A custom frame-and-panel gate solves the sizing problem, matches the architecture, and, if built properly, will outlast anything held together with a few galvanized nails and good intentions.

The front entry, pre-gate. Those columns have been patiently waiting for this moment since 2019.

Meet the Builder: Jake Glerup Woodwork

Longtime Home Fixated readers know Jake as one of our resident craftsman. A lot of his work these days is marine carpentry on yachts, where nothing is square, everything moves, salt water attacks everything, and the client inspecting your finish just paid more for their boat than you paid for your house. After that, a couple of garden gates are practically a vacation.

Jake has a methodical approach to projects. As he put it in his notes on the build:

“Every successful gate begins long before the first cut is made. It starts with thoughtful design and careful material selection.” – Jake Glerup

My approach usually begins with the first cut, followed by the second cut to fix the first one. This is why Jake built the gates, and I mostly took pictures.

What You’ll Need

This is a list of what was actually used on these gates. You can substitute some of it (a router and loose tenons, biscuit joinery, or old-school mortise and tenon joinery, can stand in for the Domino), but this is how we did it.

Tools

• Festool Domino XL (DF 700) for the frame joinery. See our full Festool Domino XL review for the details.
• Table saw for ripping and cutting the panel grooves in the straight frame members
• Bandsaw for cutting the arched top rails
• Biscuit joiner or Domino for aligning the panel boards during glue-up
• Bar or parallel clamps, and more of them than you think you need. Bessey clamps did the squeeze play here.
• Graph paper and a French curve for the design (or you can use one of those new-fangled computers or AI)
• Milwaukee Door Lock Installation Kit (49-22-4073) or similar for boring the lockset and latch holes. Find it on Amazon.
• Router and sharp chisels for hinge and latch mortises
• Drill/driver and hammer drill, a Forstner bit sized to your plugs, and a long, thin masonry bit for Tapcon pilot holes
• Angle grinder and oscillating multi-tool if you happen to need to cut into stucco, hopefully you can avoid this bit.
• Levels (long and short), ratchet straps, and a flush-cut saw
• Safety gear: safety glasses, hearing protection, and an N95 or better respirator for drilling and cutting masonry. If you’re like Jake, you’ll also want a leather shop apron that looks like it’s been used for target practice and then dragged around behind a truck.

Materials

• Western Red Cedar, 2×6 for stiles and rails, plus 1x boards for the panels
• Domino XL tenons, we used Festool sipo (outdoor) tenons
• Exterior wood glue, we used Titebond II for the plug dowels
• Exterior stain, we used Benjamin Moore Woodlux solid stain to maximize protection/longevity
• Cedar for the side jambs and stops, shims, and a wood dowel for the plugs
• Tapcon concrete screws, fastener type will vary depending on what you’re screwing into
• Exterior grade hinges, Baldwin lever handlesets and deadbolts, Baldwin Reserve in Dark Bronze, decorative clavos, a speakeasy grille, and copper caps. We got the clavos and speakeasy from Wild West Hardware (links at the end).

Step 1 – Pick Your Lumber (Pick It Carefully)

Western Red Cedar is a classic choice for outdoor projects: it’s naturally rot and insect resistant, it’s light, and it smells fantastic when you cut it. It’s also soft and prone to movement, which means the boards you start with matter a lot. Jake didn’t just grab a stack off the rack:

“Rather than purchasing a stack of boards, I hand-selected the straightest pieces with the tightest grain and greatest density. Careful lumber selection pays dividends throughout the entire build by producing a gate that remains straighter and more stable over time.” – Jake Glerup

Translation: a gate is a big flat thing that hangs from one edge and lives outside. Any twist, cup, or bow in your lumber will find a way to express itself, usually right about the time the latch stops lining up. Spend the extra time at the lumberyard sighting down boards. The person restocking the rack will give you funny looks. Ignore them or smile confidently.

Step 2 – Draw It Out (On Graph Paper, Naturally)

If you’ve read Jake’s article on his project planning workflow, you already know he’s a graph paper guy. These gates were no exception. “Before making a single cut, I drew both gates to scale on graph paper,” Jake says. Since the gates were different sizes, each was drawn individually while keeping the same Spanish-inspired vibe, and he used a French curve to develop the arch profiles.

Measure your openings carefully at the top, middle, and bottom, and check them for plumb before you draw anything. We’ll talk about what happens when an opening is “creatively plumb” in a bit. Also decide your clearances up front: hinge-side gap, latch-side gap, and ground clearance under the gate so it doesn’t drag on the tile or hardscape. You want enough of a gap under the gate that water and any leaves or debris flow under it rather than getting trapped by it.

Step 3 – Frame It Up

Both gates are classic frame-and-panel construction. The stiles (the vertical frame pieces) and the rails (the horizontal ones) are 2×6 Western Red Cedar. The center panels were planed down to 5/8 inch and edge-glued from individual cedar boards. The thick frame provides the strength and keeps the gate flat, and the thinner panel fills the opening without adding a ton of weight to the hinges.

The frame parts are joined with the Domino XL. “Every part was dry-fitted before glue was applied to verify alignment and squareness,” Jake notes, which is the kind of discipline that separates gates that close nicely from gates you have to lift, shove and curse at every time.

Step 4 – Arch Support: Making the Curved Top Rails

A single 2×6 isn’t wide enough to contain a sweeping arch, so Jake edge-glued two 2×6 boards together to form each arch blank. After the glue cured, he laid out the arch, then marked the Domino mortise locations before cutting the curve. That’s a smart sequence: it’s much easier to register a joiner against a straight, square edge than against a freshly bandsawn curve.

Then it was off to the bandsaw to cut the arch, followed by refining the curve to remove saw marks and fair out any bumps. A smooth, consistent curve matters here, because your eye will find every flat spot once the gate is hanging at the front of the house.

Where the Domino XL Earns Its Keep

This is exactly the kind of project the Domino XL was built for. Its tenons run from 8mm up to 14mm thick, compared to the 4mm to 10mm range of the standard Domino, and that extra beef is a big deal on a heavy exterior gate hanging from one edge. Every rail-to-stile joint got the treatment, with doubled tenons in the wider joints. In our case, 12mm thick Dominos were used, which is the default mortise size for the Domino XL kit deployed for this project.

Jake ran test cuts in scrap first to dial in depth and fit before touching the real parts. Cedar is soft, so you want a fit that’s snug but not so tight that you’re beating tenons in with a mallet and splitting your stiles. The Domino’s speed also meant all the joinery for both gates got done in a fraction of the time traditional mortise and tenon work would have taken. For the full rundown on the tool, check out our Festool Domino XL review.

Step 5 – Get Your Groove On (and Let the Panels Float)

The center panels sit in grooves in the frame. On the straight stiles and bottom rails, Jake cut the grooves on the table saw. On the curved top rail, the table saw is out of the question, so he used a router with a bearing-guided spline (slot) cutter, which rides along the curve and cuts a consistent groove.

The panels themselves were edge-glued oversized, with Dominos keeping the boards aligned during clamping. Once cured, they were flattened and trimmed to final size, leaving room in the grooves for seasonal movement.

That last part is critical. Wood expands and contracts across its width with humidity, and a wide cedar panel outdoors moves a lot. If you glue the panel into the frame, it will eventually crack itself or push the joints apart. As Jake explains, “The panel was intentionally left unglued so it can expand and contract with seasonal humidity without stressing the frame.” Here in San Diego, humidity swings aren’t dramatic, but “not dramatic” is not the same as “zero,” and the marine layer is very real.

Step 6 – The Glue-Up: Glue, Clamps, and Mild Panic

If you’ve never done a big frame-and-panel glue-up, here’s a preview: you’ll have a few minutes of open time, a lot of parts, and a sudden realization that you should have done one more dry run. Jake’s process kept it orderly:

1. Dry-fit everything first. Assemble the whole gate without glue, with clamps, to confirm it pulls up tight and square. Then take it apart and lay the parts out in order.
2. Glue the mortises and mating surfaces. Glue went into the Domino mortises and onto the shoulders where rails meet stiles. Jake spread it with a finger to get full coverage without flooding the joint. Some people who want to get fancy roll the glue out or use a glue spreader.
3. Keep glue away from the panel. The panel slides into its grooves dry. A stray smear of glue in the groove can lock the panel in place and defeat the whole point of letting it float.
4. Assemble around the panel and clamp. Bring the frame together around the floating panel and apply clamp pressure across each joint. Be careful so the clamps don’t dent the soft cedar.
5. Check for square. Measure the diagonals. If they match, you’re square. If they don’t, nudge the clamps until they do, before the glue grabs.
6. Deal with the squeeze-out. Some squeeze-out means the joint got enough glue. Clean it up thoroughly, because dried glue blocks stain and leaves a blotch that will haunt you on sanding day.

Step 7 – Sand and Finish

After final sanding, Jake applied multiple coats of Benjamin Moore Woodlux solid exterior stain sourced by yours truly, “allowing each coat to penetrate and dry completely before the next.” The solid stain lets a tiny bit of wood grain show, while adding UV and moisture protection that’s higher vs semi-transparent or transparent stain versions.

Decorative clavos (those big iron-look nail heads) went on at the corners, which really sells the Spanish style. The tall gate got a speakeasy grille, which is equal parts charming, fun, stylish, and useful for seeing who’s at the side gate before you open it.

If you’re building your own gate, make sure the finish gets onto every surface, especially the end grain at the bottom of the stiles. That’s where water wicks in first, and a gate that rots from the bottom up is a gate you’ll be rebuilding sooner than you hoped.

Step 8 – Installing the Short Gate Between the Columns

The short gate hangs between the two stucco columns at the front walk, one of which houses our through-wall mailbox (if you missed it, here’s how to build a mailbox column). Rather than hanging the gate directly off the stucco, we mounted cedar side jambs (stops) to the inside face of each column. The hinges and latch mount to the wood, and the wood mounts to the masonry.

At about 42″ wide, that’s really about as wide as you want a gate like this to get, thus the beefy side jambs. Also, make sure your intended swing route (for the door, not the swingers clubs) is clear. We had a step on one side, but the jambs gave us plenty of clearance.

Plumb the Side Jambs

Stucco columns aren’t perfectly plumb, but ours were close. Jake used ratchet straps to hold each jamb against its column while checking with a long level. Where a jamb needed to tilt slightly to get plumb, he slipped thin cedar shims between the jamb and the column. Once everything’s fastened and finished, the shims are hidden, and nobody but you (and now the entire internet) knows they’re there.

Angle the Stop Tops to Shed Water

One small detail, after installing the stops: we cut the tops at an angle so they shed water rather than letting it puddle on a flat end-grain surface. Flat end grain facing the sky is basically a little cup for rainwater. Even in San Diego, where a rainy week is considered a natural disaster, it’s worth doing.

Counterbore, Tapcon, and Plug

For the fasteners, we wanted a strong mechanical connection to the masonry without a bunch of visible screw heads. The approach:

1. Counterbore with a Forstner bit. Drill a shallow, flat-bottomed hole in the face of the jamb, sized to match the dowel you’ll use as a plug.
2. Pre-drill with a long, thin masonry bit. Drill through the center of the counterbore, through the jamb, and into the column. This is all done while everything is strapped to keep alignment proper. Tapcons need the correct pilot bit for their diameter (Tapcon specifies a 5/32 inch bit for 3/16 inch screws and a 3/16 inch bit for 1/4 inch screws), and the hole should go a bit deeper than the screw will reach so dust has somewhere to go.
3. Drive the Tapcons. Snug them down so the jamb is pulled tight against the column (and any shims), without overdriving and stripping the masonry.
4. Glue in dowel plugs. Put a little exterior grade Titebond in each counterbore, tap in a length of dowel, and let it cure.
5. Cut flush and sand. Trim the dowels with a flush-cut saw and sand them smooth for a clean finish.

Safety note: Drilling into stucco, block, and concrete creates fine silica dust. Wear safety glasses and an N95 or better respirator, and use a vacuum at the hole if you can. Your lungs will thank you, even if they never say it out loud.

Hinges and Hardware

With the jambs set, the hinges were mortised into the gate edge with a router so they sit flush, then mounted to the jamb. For the lockset, the Milwaukee Hole Dozer Door Lock Installation Kit made quick, clean work of the face bore and edge bore. Its jig clamps to the gate edge and keeps the hole saws aligned, which is a lot more reassuring than freehanding a large hole saw through a gate somebody just spent a lot of effort building. The latch and strike mortises were routed and cleaned up with a chisel.

Step 9 – Installing the Tall Gate (Plumb Not Included)

The tall gate closes the opening between our detached garage and the house. Before this, the gap was blocked by a temporary barrier that was functional in the same way a shopping cart is a functional car. Now it’s a proper gate that lets us lock off the side and backyard when we want to.

The catch: the walls on either side of this opening were out of plumb. Shimming would have meant a massive tapered gap behind one jamb. Instead, we partially recessed the side jambs into the wall, cutting into the stucco with an angle grinder and an oscillating multi-tool so the jambs could sit plumb while staying tight to the wall. Jake also did a little finessing by planing down one end of each jamb slightly. It’s more work and more mess, but it’s the right call when the wall is that far off.

A Word About Stucco and Silica Dust

Cutting and grinding stucco and concrete with a grinder is one of the dustier things you can do around the house, and that dust contains crystalline silica. Breathing it in can cause silicosis and other lung disease. OSHA has a specific silica standard for construction professionals, and DIYers should take it just as seriously.

• Respirator: a properly fitted N95 at minimum, and a half-mask with P100 filters is better for extended cutting.
• Eye and face protection: safety glasses at minimum, and a face shield over them when grinding.
• Hearing protection: angle grinders on masonry are loud.
• Dust control: a grinder shroud connected to a HEPA dust extractor makes a huge difference. Wet cutting can also help as long as not mixed with electricity. Keep the guard on the grinder and use a blade rated for masonry.

Don’t Forget a Bumper

We also added a rubber bumper to the brick behind the tall gate so it doesn’t smack into the wall when it swings open. It’s a small, cheap addition that saves your finish (and your nerves) the first time a gust of wind or a kid with places to be sends the gate flying. If you’re looking for more ways to keep doors and gates from swinging where they shouldn’t on a more temporary basis, I’ve previously covered the glamorous world of rubber door stoppers.

Baldwin Hardware and Our Warranty-Voiding Deadbolt Mods

We installed Baldwin hardware on both gates: a wrought iron look lever handleset and a matching deadbolt from the Baldwin Reserve collection, in Dark Bronze. I assume the “Reserve” in the name makes us extra-fancy. Either that, or our hardware may be called up for duty.

On the short gate, the deadbolt is mostly ornamental – more curb appeal than Fort Knox. On the tall gate, it’s functional, letting us lock off the side and backyard from ninjas, hooligans, less agile parkour-burglars, and, with any luck, that neighborhood cat that keeps peeing on our door (I’ve heard even the most diabolical cats can’t operate deadbolts).

The handlesets fit our gates with no drama. The deadbolts were another story. Like most residential deadbolts, they’re designed for standard exterior door thickness, and our gates are thinner than that, at a hair under 1 1/2″. The bolts that tie the two halves together were too long, so the deadbolt wouldn’t pull tight to the gate. The spindle sides that enable the deadbolt to function were also too long. Baldwin reportedly makes thick and thin adapter kits (just found that out while writing this), but we didn’t have time for that kind of thing, we had gates to install!

So we did what any reasonable Home Fixated reader would do. By “reasonable,” I mean we got out the vise and a cutoff tool and started modifying brand-new, high-end hardware – jumping headfirst into warranty-voiding territory. Here’s what we did:

1. Made a test block. We cut a scrap of wood to the exact thickness of the gate so we could test-fit the deadbolt without drilling into the actual gate and potentially destroying that too.
2. Shortened the tailpiece. The tailpiece, the square-ish bar that links the thumb turn and key cylinder through the bolt mechanism, had to be trimmed to match the thinner gate. There’s a male and female side, and it turns out both sides had to be right-sized. We thought we were done, but we weren’t.
3. Cut down the through-bolts. Before cutting each bolt, we threaded a nut on past the cut line. After cutting, backing the nut off cleans up the threads at the cut end so the bolt still threads into the housing. Or, at least we hoped it would. Again, we thought we were done.
4. Shave down the annoying shoulder on the through-bolts. Every time we hacked one step, we found another problem. It’s almost like the deadbolt wasn’t designed for a door this thin.
5. Test-fit, adjust, repeat. We checked the fit on the test block until the deadbolt pulled up snug and the bolt threw and retracted somewhat smoothly, then installed it on the gate.

Safety note: Cutting hardened bolts with a grinder or cutoff wheel throws sparks and hot metal fragments. Clamp the bolt securely in a vise, wear safety glasses or a face shield, and let the cut end cool for more than 30 seconds before you grab it. Ask me how I know about the cooling tip.

It worked, and the deadbolts look good and function. But I don’t recommend you do this. Modifying the hardware almost certainly voids the warranty, and anything that changes how a lock is assembled may compromise its security. Putting the two sides together and getting the right install tension also became very finicky because of our mods. Ultimately, it looks good, and I’m grateful I don’t plan to use the deadbolts daily.

My suggestion here. . . and it’s a crazy one – If you’re building a gate and want a deadbolt, either make the gate thick enough to meet the hardware’s specifications, OR, choose a lock specifically made for thinner doors or gates. Check the hardware specs before you finalize your stock thickness, not after the gates are built (do as I say, not as I do, OK?)

Copper Caps Teaser

To protect the side jambs from the brutal San Diego weather, and add a little bling, we installed copper beam caps on top. Copper looks great with stucco and terra cotta, and it’ll develop a patina over time. Eventually, we’ll add copper caps to the tops of the gates too, but that’s a project for a future article. (And yes, I’m aware of what happened the last time I said “future article.” I’m aiming for less than seven years this time.) Just in case, don’t wait by your computer refreshing HomeFixated.com hourly.

Lessons Learned and Mistakes To Avoid

Every project has a few “if I did it again” moments. Here are ours, so you can make different mistakes on your project.

• Plan the gate edge heights around the caps. On the short gate, the edges of the gate sit higher than the tops of the side jambs, so the overhang of the copper caps rubs the gate as it swings. In hindsight, the gate edges should have been shorter than the tops of the side mounts. If you plan on capping your posts or jambs, factor the cap overhang into your design. We accidentally did it well on the tall gate. If you’re not doing caps, this point is less critical.
• Check hardware specs before choosing stock thickness. See the deadbolt saga above. A thicker gate or gate-specific hardware would have saved us from a hilariously never-ending hardware hacking session.
• Mock up the speakeasy height. The speakeasy on the tall gate ended up a bit lower than ideal for the adults in our household. It’s charming, functional, and perfectly placed for anyone of slightly shorter stature. Next time, I’d mock it up before finalizing the speakeasy height.
• Agree on the arch up front. Jake’s arches are beautiful. If I’m being extremely picky (and I’m told this is my natural state), I’d have liked the short gate’s arch to be a touch more consistent across its sweep. It’s the kind of thing that’s hard to judge on a scale drawing. If your design has a curve you care about, make a full-size template and hold it up in the actual opening before anyone cuts wood.
• Think about how the gate stays open. I planned to add a cane bolt to the front gate to hold it open, but I didn’t love the idea of it rattling around every time the gate moved. So for now, I still need to figure out a bumper, hook, or holdback to keep it open when I want it open.

How to Build a Wooden Gate – Closing Thoughts

Building a wooden gate that lasts comes down to a lot of small decisions made carefully: straight, tight-grained lumber, strong joinery, panels that can shift with the seasons, a finish that covers every surface, and an installation that’s plumb even when the house isn’t. Jake summed it up nicely: “Building custom gates is a series of thoughtful decisions.” I’d add that a few of those decisions can involve a vise and some questionable judgment, but the important ones were in good hands.

Huge thanks to Jake and Jake Glerup Woodwork for building two gates that finally finish off our entry and side yard, and to the Festool Domino XL for making the joinery fast, strong, and a lot of fun to watch (and build). If you’re considering one for your own shop, check out our full Festool Domino XL review.

Now, about that front gate: how do you hold a gate open without a rattling cane bolt? If you have a favorite hook, holdback, or clever trick (aside from a rock or rubber door stop), please let us know in the comments below!

Door Handle Hardware

More Info - via Baldwin Hardware

Clavos and Speakeasy Hardware

More Info - via Wild West

Benjamin Moore Woodlux Stains

More Info - via Benjamin Moore