How to Create a Sliding Barn Door

Sliding barn doors are quickly becoming fun indoor pieces.

Here's a tutorial on how we built ours. 

When we redid our laundry room last spring, I took off the door to add in the Hook Board. The plan all along has been to add a door of some sort to this little area in front of the laundry room and master bedroom {in front of that square area called a "hallway"}. After researching a bit {aka, Pinterest perusing}, I settled on a sliding barn door.

And as a lot of fun projects start around here...my dad came to town.

THIS POST IS JUST GETTING STARTED!

This particular project started at Tractor Supply Company. There's lots of tutorials out there on sliding barn doors...this is just what worked for us, and what materials were available in our area. We purchased a Sliding Box Rail System. We needed rail hangers {they come two to a pack...and were kind of spendy, ick}, stop mechanisms {or end caps} and the actual rail {which we bought in an eight-foot length}.

If you decide to do this project in your own house, make sure you have a very secure, stud-filled area to hang the rail on. It is crazy heavy, y'all. Like rip-some-drywall-down, destroy-your-home-heavy. Find those studs!

I'm not going to go into too great of detail regarding the actual construction of the door...this one was made for our very tall doorway. Each door will have to be constructed for its specific area. I will tell you that we took one shortcut to make it a bit easier. This was my dad's idea to use this paneled board for the inner areas of the door. I wasn't too sure at first. I had wanted to construct a board with 1x4 boards in the middle area...but, of course, my dad was right. This was a big time-saver, it made the door lighter and reduced the cost of the project by about $40. Cha-ching.

I cut my board to the size of door we needed {ours was an eight foot tall door...three feet wide}.

Then we used 1x4s along the sides of the door and 1x6s at the top and bottom. We needed the larger ones on top and bottom to be able to be deep enough for the hangers to latch to. 

My dad is an extremely jovial guy...not at all evidenced by this photo {ha!}. Here is the finished door {in some hoarder's unbelievably messy garage}. The back is just the flat part of the panel board. I actually plan to paint the back with chalk paint...a quick little notes area that we'll see when we enter the house from the garage. 

After the door was constructed, we attached its hardware to it. We used the hangers to mark off templates and then pre-drilled the holes to match them up to. We used large bolts and I used the ratchet to secure them in place through those pre-drilled holes.

On a side note, whenever my dad has appeared with me in project posts, several of you have made mention of his hands and how amazing it is that he is able to do the work he can do with them. He was actually burned severely in a building explosion at a National Guard armory over 50 years ago. We are lucky, {blessed}, that he was one of the few survivors of that explosion. Although he spent months in the hospital, his "new" hands never slowed him down a bit once he was out. He is, by far, one of the most skillful DIY people I've ever met...and has never let anything slow him down. A true inspiration!

After the hardware was attached to the door, we turned our attention to the box rail. You can see above how the hangers work with the rail. We had already predrilled our wall studs after measuring where the hangers would be. We used three hangers, total.

We added one of the stops to one end. We left the other end open to slide the door in place, and then added the other stop once the door was in. The stops are needed to keep the door from flying right out of the rail when it is moved along the rail.

Bolting the rail to the wall...

in the predrilled studs I mentioned earlier.

Then the door was slid into place.

I'll be posting a tutorial next week regarding the finish it received. 

This was actually a new method of refinishing a wood piece for me. 

Can't wait to tell you about it!

We added some modern hardware to balance the vintage finish of the door.

I added the wreath for a little more texture. It was one of the wreaths that hung on the chapel door we were married in eleven years ago! :)

Annnnnd closed. 

Perfect to keep washer/dryer noise out of the rest of the house.

We left a substantial space at the bottom of our door because the air intake vent for our cooling/heating system is right in that little hallway. If we blocked it completely, it would drastically affect the way the system functioned...not a chance I was willing to take.

The wood has done some natural bowing, but I have a plan to straighten things out! Other than that, I'm loving the new door. 

What are your thoughts on barn doors inside the home?

{i linky-party here}

and at Coastal Charm and Savvy Southern Style

Neglect your chores like me and don't miss a thing:

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