barn door

BUILDING A BARN DOOR

Happy Fall Y’all!!!

Here in NC, it’s beginning to feel like autumn!! Just a few days ago it was 90°. Welcome to the great state of North Carolina!!

We’ve been very busy for the past couple of weekends watching Son #3 and Son #4 play in ultimate frisbee tournaments so this past weekend we finally found some time to build a barn door for our master bedroom closet. Remember our master bedroom closet makeover?

master closet before and after

We still absolutely love our closet. Isn’t it pretty and so dang organized??!!

We removed the door when we did the closet with the plan to build or buy a barn door. We weren’t sure which one we wanted to do. The LOML had it set in his mind to build it so we ran to our neighborhood Home Depot to buy tongue and groove boards for the door and 2×4’s and 1×4’s for the trim.

pile of wood

tongue and groove

I also ordered a door pull from Amazon that matches the hardware in the closet shelving.

door pull

We also bought the Classic Standard Single Barn Door hardware kit from Wayfair.

barn door hardware kit

We took out our trusty table saw, “measured twice and cut once” as the old adage goes.

table saw

We planned out the dimensions according to the barn door track directions along with the size of the doorway opening plus the door jambs. This piece of paper is a great depiction of how the LOML’s brain works. I look at this piece of paper and my head wants to explode!!!

barn door calculations

We determined that we needed a door that measured 84¼” x 35¼.”
The math:
Each tongue in groove board was 5″ wide, so we started with seven whole boards, 35″. Then we cut a little off of each end board to remove the “tongue” and the “groove” to leave a finished width of 33¾”. To the flat edges we will attach 1×2’s to give the edges a finished look and that’s the other 1½” to get us to 35¼”.
The math for the length was a lot simpler – each board was cut to 83½” and we will attach a 1×2 to the top edge, adding another ¾” to get is to 84¼”.

Our tongue and groove boards cut to size and rough fitted.

tongue and groove

“Tongue” and “groove” removed from the end boards.

barn door edge

We used 1×4’s to make the border.

barn door trim 1

And a couple of more 1×4’s for the cross-pieces.

barn door trim 2

We put the tongue and groove pieces together and I conditioned the wood on both sides of the door with Minwax Pre-stain Wood Conditioner then I stained both sides with two coats of Minwax Wood Finish Satin in Golden Oak Oil-Based interior stain.

barn door stained

trim cut

I repeated the wood conditioner and two coats of stain on each trim piece.

trim stained

Then we applied wood glue to each trim piece, nailed them into place and then clamped for an hour.

gluing boards

clamping trim

Then we applied wood glue to the cross-pieces, nailed them in place and clamped for an hour.

clamping cross pieces

We flipped the door over and drilled pilot holes and screwed in nails to hold trim pieces on.

drill

door screws

door screws 2

We wanted the nails to look uniform on the inside of the door so we measured and marked where to drill the holes.

marking for holes

We then wood glued and nailed the trim onto three sides. We didn’t need trim for the bottom edge of the door.

trim

The LOML is a pro at using the mitre saw. The corners look perfect!!

mitre cut

After the door was completed, I applied two coats of polyurethane with a brush. I followed the directions for drying times.

We read that the average height of a door knob is 34-48 inches above the floor. We placed the center of our door pull at 38 inches.

placing knob

screw knob

And we finally have our finished barn door!! YEAH!!!

barn door

Next up….how we hang it in its new home!

 

Happy Hump Day!!!!!

Love y’all,

Linda

Linking up to:

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