I Built Two Massive Barn Doors for Under $350!
DIY Barn Doors on a Budget
We have a formal dining room that we rarely use. Well when I needed a place to work from home this seemed like the best option. I needed to close off a very large opening to the room, so I went online to see if I could purchase a barn door. Let me tell you the cost of one door was $700.00 to get something large enough for the opening. There was no way I could do that because I needed not one but two doors. So this is when we decided we needed a simple cost effective option, DIY it was. The materials I bought for these barn doors definitely kept me in the budget. I spent about $350.00 it would have cost me almost $3000.00 had I purchased them.
The first thing we did was decided on a template for our door. After looking at many posts online I decided to go with a modern style barn door with very clean lines, as this fit the style of my home. I also knew I was in love with black and white decor and this accent made my entryway just perfect.
Tools
- Circular or Miter saw
- Hand saw
- Nail gun
- 1 ½” finishing nails
- Square
- Wood clamps
- Chisel
- Paint supplies
Materials
- (2) large pieces of 3/4″ plywood (I suggest going with the finished ( pre-sanded) wood.)
- Unfinished white wood (4) 1x2x8 -,(6) 1×4,x8
- (1) 1x4x8 primed MDF board for your header
- Wood Putty
- Primer
- Paintable Caulk
- Wood glue
- Semi-gloss white paint
- Barn Door Hardware
- Floor Guides
Building the Barn Doors- time to shop!
The first step was to to prep my plywood. I made the mistake of not buying prefinished plywood- if I could go back I would definitely spend the extra money and buy the pre-finished wood, this would save you so much time and energy.
Next, we started laying out the 1x4x8 inch pieces for wood to measure where to mark our cuts. We had a very large archway to cover ,so the 8 foot plywood was perfect for our space. There were no cuts for the two side pieces because they were already 8 feet long- so we decided to put those on first. I added these to the plywood by using wood glue and the 1 ½” finishing nails. We then then clamped them together just to preserve an extra hold. It did require my husband and I to hold the boards in place just to make sure they were perfectly straight. I let the clamps sit overnight before I moved onto the next step.
Those cases of water really came in handy!
The next day, we used the measuring tape to divide the space between our panels. We then followed the same process to attach the boards (1”x4”x8”) to the door.
Once everything was in place and dry I gave all of the white wood pieces a coat of primer and let all this dry overnight. The next day we flipped the door over and primed the backside as well. We decided not to add panels to the inside of our doors.
Before I painted with the semi-gloss white paint I added caulk to the creases to fill the gaps as well as the nail holes. I let the caulk dry overnight and it was finally time to paint, this took several days as we had to wait for the coats of paint to dry before we could flip the door and move onto the next step. I used 2-3 coats of semi-gloss white paint to achieve a nice finish. Luckily I had a gallon left over from when our home was built.
Installing the Door
We used a stud finder to find all the studs in the wall. This is a very important step, please do not skip. Next, I helped my husband hold the board up while he began to screw the header into the studs with long wood screws. This was especially important as we were hanging two doors and they were pretty heavy.
After, the header was up all we had to do was screw in the bolts that came with the hardware. We followed the instructions that came with the hardware kit for this step. Finally, we had made it to my favorite part -hanging these beautiful doors!
I added a 1x3x8 to the edges of the door to fill in some of the space between the door and the wall.
