Barn Door Tutorial

Hello friends! I’ve had a lot of requests regarding how we made our barn door, so here’s all the details I can muster up on it. We are sort of like the renegade cowboys of the woodworking world. We don’t like to clamp and glue or be patient for that matter. We prefer to just make it happen and enjoy the rustic look we get when we build a piece.

I started the barn door with a sketch of what I wanted it to look like. After looking at countless photos of barn doors, I decided on the British inspired look, and I love it.

The door is made with a total of 16 1×6 boards 10′ long. The completed size of our door is 8’2″ tall. We simply laid 9 boards side by side and used a scrap 1×3 cut into the correct width and attached it to each board.

Once we had the back braces we flipped the door over (she’s heavy) and we framed the front to the edge of the door and then placed the center decorative wood to make the British design. I’m not sure what makes it British inspired except that if you had 2 and placed them together they would make the British flag, I’m guessing, I didn’t research it.

once we got to this point we stood the door up and admired our handy work. It was still a bit flimsy so we used extra wood screws to add extra support. My only tip on cutting those angles is to use a mitre saw, too much math. Next up, stain! At first I thought we would do a white painted door, but after talking to my buds Tammy & Sarah I decided to stain first and paint later if we didn’t like it….but we love it! We chose the shade Dark Walnut by Minwax (no this is not a paid advertisement).

So my hubby is the best! We work so well together! We had a lot of fun building this big door!

I ordered my hardware off of amazon. Once the hardware was attached we hung this bad boy up.

we added a header board to help anchor the hardware on the wall, because this door is heavy! Once she was up, we had to do some touch ups to the board, add the stoppers and floor guide and add the handles. (All included with the hardware package)

we could not be more thrilled with our finished rustic barn door DIY.

Xoxo – Tammy Kate