Original Bathroom Door Gets a Remake Into a Modern Barn Door
Having a small bath is very challenging in trying to gain ROOM to move around in. The original door was replaced with a new door with a glass panel. Great! Loved the look but it never shut properly and it also opened into the bathroom taking up precious room. Looking for ideas to take my new door to a new level and make it a barn door were not successful. People were either buying a wider door or making their own barn door. So, this is what happened to my door.
Here's the door! I love it and didn't want to give it up and I didn't want to use it as a regular door.
First up was finding the hardware to hang the door. I decided the popular black metal barn door hardware just wasn't what I envisioned for my bedroom. I didn't want black iron going across my wall. This is a sliding door bracket, just like on a closet door only it will hang above the door. It's aluminum and holds up to 125 pounds. You can opt to order heavier rollers depending on the weight of your door.
Since I want to use the original door, it needs to be built up to a size bigger. It is only 28 inches wide. So 2x3's needed to be ripped to size for adding width and height to the top, bottom and sides of the door. The 2x3's were the cleanest boards when out shopping.
Ready to glue and screw.
Using wood glue, wood screws and straps to pull the wood tight. The door went from 80 x 28 to 82 1/4 x 31.
Once glued the new wood was planed to match the original door thickness.
Next filled in the cracks between door and new wood. Sanded well, cleaned and painted with white latex paint .
After painting, searched for studs and added a piece of 1x3 pine the length of the rail to the top of the doorway.
Secured the rail by drilling pilot holes in the aluminum rail and then used wood screws.
Following the directions that came with the kit added the rollers and hung the door. Bought new door pulls that sit flush (sit a bit off center because we used the original hole for door handle).
Guide for door came with the kit. It mounts into the wall, not the floor. At this point realized the door could have been several inches wider on each side! Maybe at least a total of 34 inches wide in order to cover the entire trim on the door opening. Because this was a first errors were made in measurements. The length of the door is perfect but the width needed to be at least 34 inches wide. Depending which way your door will slide, be sure you have enough room to slide past the door opening and trim (which my room does). You want your door to cover all of the trim when it is closed!!
The best improvement we've made to our home are new doors and hardware. Goodbye ugly brown 1970's doors!!
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Looks great. Love the rail. Sleek and modern.
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