Finally finished up the big “barn doors” for my office/exercise/home theater/guest room /etc.  As you can see,  I still haven’t figured out how I’ll use the room.  In my previous post, my problem with this room was the openness and it needed a set of doors for two 9 ft tall entry ways to create more privacy.DIY Modern Barn Doors | Tall Doors | Sliding Doors DIY Modern Barn Doors | Tall Doors | Sliding DoorsDIY Modern Barn Doors | Tall Doors | Sliding Doors

After researching a few DIY barn doors on Pinterest, I found a design that would work here. We got started and put them together rather quickly. I decided to go with Benjamin Moore Wrought Iron for the paint color. It was either that or white because staining wasn’t an option with all the plywood, caulk and wood putty we used.

Prime and Paint

We applied a coat of primer first:DIY Contemporary Barn Doors | Simple Sliding Doors you can make yourself.

Now it was time to see how these would look covered in Wrought Iron. One down and three more to go! I can’t wait to see this hanging up.

DIY Contemporary Barn Doors | Simple Sliding Doors you can make yourself. Benjamin Moore Wrought Iron

The door rail hardware showed up fairly quickly thanks to Amazon Prime.  Dad spent awhile attaching the hardware to the doors. Since this required precision, I just sat back and watched.  Every so often I needed to hold something, but I don’t think I was much use. Directions come with it, but there was a lot of trial and error before we finally got everything attached. You can find the link to the hardware here.

Install Hardware

Since I needed the doors to be 9 1/2′ tall, we had to join together pieces of plywood to extend the length some. The planer helped smooth the edge a bit.  

Hang Doors

Here are the doors painted and hung. I was a little worried it would be hard to hang, but they slid on like butter.  I worried for about half a second if the rail would hold the weight, it did!

Exactly what I needed for some privacy in this room without losing the large openings permanently. You wouldn’t believe how quiet the rail is. There is no noise whatsoever.  

The door handles showed up!!! I needed to find super long pulls and these fit the bill. I found them here.

DIY Modern Barn Doors | Tall Doors | Sliding DoorsDIY Modern Style Barn Doors Benjamin Moore Wrought Iron | DIY Barn Doors | Tall DoorsAnd we’re done! Now, I need to paint this room and add some molding. It’s going to have to wait until I can finish up that bonus room for now.  Thanks to Pinterest, I can at least start pinning a few ideas for later.

Go here to see more details about building the doors.

18 COMMENTS

  1. The hardware link is for one door. Did you purchase two complete hardware sets? And just use the door slides from the second set?

    • Hi Nicole! So, I actually bought four sets of rails. At the time, they were considerably cheaper than they are now. Each door needed two rollers and I have four doors. Since, the set only comes with two rollers I had a problem. I ended up having two rails leftover that could not be used. If you are having the same issue, you might want to try contacting the seller to see if they will sell the rollers separately. Did I answer your question? 🙂

  2. Very nicely done! Was it difficult to add the extra length of plywood to extend your door to 9 ft? What method did you use to add this piece? Thanks

    • Thanks, Mike! I used the trim pieces to join the plywood to extend it. That was the only way I could figure out a way where it would be secured. So, you’ll see in the pics about a foot up from the bottom there is a piece that lies horizontally…that is actually holding the seam of the extension of plywood. I used wood glue and finishing nails and did it on both sides. It looks like there was a strategic box design, but that was just me trying to cover the seam and I just copied it at the top as well. I had to use lots of wood putty on the edges and quite a bit of sanding to make it blend. Thanks for checking out my blog and let me know if my explanation made sense.

    • So, my doors do sway but there are two reasons why. The first is because I didn’t make the doors wide enough. I was so worried about them being too heavy and I just didn’t trust the hanging hardware at the time. Now I know the hardware can hold three times this weight so I should have made them wider. The other reason mine sway is because I thought the doors might drag on the carpet so I hung them too high. Since this was my first time I made several rookie mistakes. If I were to correct those mistakes, there would be zero swaying. Right now, I’d say the sway is mostly noticeable to just me. It’s really not bad at all…especially for a rookie. 🙂

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