DIY HUGE Barn Door in Living Room

Do you ever dream up a project and think….”yeah that will never happen, we will never find the time to do something like that!” That is sort of how the barn door idea came along.

We have been completely changing our home lately from our traditional colors and decor styles. I thought of the barn door after seeing it many times in houses I have shown, but we have always been looking for a way to cover our back sliding glass door. I am not a fan of curtains especially the blinds that slide back and forth. Half of the time they fall off the track and just get dusty and dirty easily. When we trimmed in our back slider, I knew that I liked the wide open look during the day to let the light in, but never really had anything to cover it for privacy at night. This door fills all the boxes!

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The very first step is to purchase all the materials. I purchased the track online and it only took a few days to receive. I am so happy with my choice. It is excellent quality, heavy-duty, came with all the hardware pictured. The handle is NOT from the same company. Here is the handle.

Click Here to Purchase The Same Barn Door Track

Once the hardware arrived my husband and I measured out how large we needed the door to be and went to Home Depot on a search to get inspired on which type of wood we wanted to use and what extra accent pieces we desired. If you search on Pinterest you will see loads of different styles, sizes and ideas for barn doors. This door is 6 FT, so we needed a 12 FT track and a lot of extra wood.

Let the FUN begin! I am so lucky that my husband is a wiz at tools, I actually had to run out to some house showings and came back to the main layout of the door already cut and glued. We used this wood for the backing and glued each piece together. Once those were all together we did strap them together for all the pieces to be locked on tight. The wood for the trim of the door can be found here. This was placed in a traditional frame on the outer edge of the door. We decided to do a simple style but still give it enough character. All the pieces were glued and also nailed. This needs to be very sturdy as the door is HEAVY!

We always have our little helper around. Teaching her to use the tools young and help us make things with our own hands!

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I went ahead and used putty to fill all the holes and cracks that will be visible once the door is painted. We like the rustic look, so we left all the natural “knots” in the wood and the texture as best as we could. I also used a sander to make it smooth and ready for painting once the putty was all dry.

Hanging the hardware came next. IMG_8539This can be done in a variety of ways. We chose to put a support board behind the track, especially because there are almost no studs above our sliding glass door. We debated on what color to paint it. Most of the examples online show it painted the same color as the door, but since it is a 12 FT board it seemed odd to do it that way.

I ended up painting it the same color as the wall so that it blends in nicely.

Once everything was hung and mounted nicely, we took the door down to paint it. This door is so heavy, moving it in and out of the house was very difficult,IMG_0607 but the extra steps are worth the time.  As you can see the back board was still not painted at this point. We  tested all of our measurements and made sure the door fit before moving on to painting.

 

 

 

We used a paint sprayer to get the door painted evenly and quickly. I don’t think it would have been possible for us to paint this door with a brush or roller since we chose wood that had cracks in between the seams. This was the most effective way to paint the door. We stood it up and did the back and all the edges. We did about three coats of paint. It dried super fast, sitting in the Florida sun for a few hours. During that time I had Travis spray a bunch of other items I wanted the same color.

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Speaking of the color, which we are OBSESSED with! Sherwin Williams BLACK FOX is on the outside of our house, my fire-place is painted this color, my kitchen table, bar stools and now our barn door. I know that sometimes when things are too “matchy” they end up having the opposite effect, but this color brings out every brown, gray, tan in the home and is such a great choice. I would paint everything black fox if I could!

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We are so happy with how the door turned out. I plan on decorating the wall with some greenery or even just a simple wreath attached to the door. This is the perfect addition to our home. It does not feel like the same house anymore with everything coming together.  I think it separates the white but also gives our home the cozy feeling it needed. This was so much fun!

If you replicate this project I would love to see some photos! Any questions you can always comment below or send me a message. I would love to hear from you. Thank you for taking the time to read my article.
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– Niki Luther

 

 

 

 

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