DIY Large Barn Door, Perfect for Large Openings #DIY #BuildIt

Kaysi Gardner
by Kaysi Gardner
When we first moved into our house I knew that I wanted to do something with our formal dining/living room. It is supposed to be a formal dining room, but it has carpet, so we used it for a formal living room. It was a nice room but wasted space, we rarely used it. We always wanted to turn it into an office or bedroom but the problem was the large opening. It's really big and tall and putting doors on it would cost at least $1000 and wouldn't be easy. So we came up with another solution and I absolutely love it. We made a large (and I mean large, it's about 5 x 7.5 feet!) barn door for it.
Here is the before picture. It's a nice room but wasted space.
Now for the barn door. We used fencing wood (it's cheaper and lighter). We took several pieces and then drilled holes into them and then inserted little wood dowels into the holes and then put them one on top of the other until we got the to be the height we wanted.
Once all the dowels were in, we secured them together with side pieces and a middle piece. We nailed them together with a nail gun. We put the border pieces on both sides of the wood.
For more support and design, we added a diagonal piece to the door.
And then for more support, we added a strip on the side to combine the three layers. Then I sanded the whole thing over and over again to make sure there wasn't any lose wood.
I wanted to have a more rustic look and more unique look, so I burned the wood. And that's it for the door, it was actually really easy to make. We just used nails to keep it together.
Now to put it up on our wall. We took a big piece of 2x6 wood, burned it and then nailed and screwed it into the wall.
Then we put hardware onto the door and put the track onto the 2x6. The track is 8 feet long and because the door is so big we can only open it one way.
And that's it!!
Now instead of wasted space, we have my craft room in there!! I love how it looks and that it gave us another room in our house.
And when I don't want to clean my craft room, I can just close the door :). This door with all the hardware and everything cost about $250, much cheaper and easily than framing the door and getting french doors. Plus I love the look of it!! For more details, check out my post- I went through it step by step and really explained how I made it!
And just for fun, you can see how I burned the wood. It's a cool process :).
Kaysi Gardner
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  3 questions
  • Shauna Shauna on Dec 01, 2015
    Great idea!!! Where did you get the track hardware and how much was it? If I may ask?
  • Cathy Cathy on Dec 01, 2015
    What is the paint brand/color used on your walls?
  • Carol Cole Carol Cole on Oct 07, 2018

    How wide is it. I want one for my dining room . My bathroom and bedroom is right there. I would really love to have one.

    Great job. Amazing to watch.

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  • Itsmemic Itsmemic on Nov 27, 2017

    the knots in the wood was enough for a rustic look. Not a fan of the burned dots. But the door looks great and so sturdy !

  • Karen Rees Karen Rees on Apr 02, 2019

    Loving the burnt wood look. Thank you for the video, you've inspired me to do it to half height cladding. Love it 😍

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