_edited_edited.jpg)
*This post may contain affiliate links. Please see full affiliate disclosure here.
I have long been a fan of barn doors, and until a few years ago, I desperately wanted one in our house. I was able to finally create my first barn door as one of my biggest projects at the time, and I did so following tutorials of other DIYers. This time around, at the new house, which happens to have a little bit of a different vibe, I really wanted to find a spot for a sliding "barn door" as well. However, I wasn't too crazy about the farmhouse style that often times comes along with the thought of a sliding barn door in a home.
Our new home is quite a bit older than our last, and so it is important to me to carry some of the classic, traditional styles through the designs that I incorporate here. The same applied to the design of the barn door. You may have been following along long enough to hear me say that I am a pretty visual person, and so for this design, I actually found myself physically laying out trim pieces on the floor of our Home Depot in order to get a visual for what I wanted (you've gotta do what you've gotta do, am I right?!). I ended up using a combination of a few different trim pieces to achieve the look I wanted.
Before I even began building, I pictured a neural colored door and gold hardware, so I had those picked out first, and decided on this hardware, and went with the color Modern Gray by Sherwin Williams (I chose to use the Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel paint).
Since there have been a lot questions about what trim I used specifically, I decided it would be easiest to diagram it out for you guys, so the below will tell you exactly what I did. The spacing of the inner boxes is really quite personal preference, so space as you see fit. In my case, I preferred a smaller picture box on top and a larger one on the bottom, so I measured and cut for that appropriately.
DIAGRAM KEY:
1. Maple Plywood (3/4" thick). *MDF is also an option here, but is much heavier
2. 1x2 trim piece *This piece was necessary in order to have something to mount the hardware to, since I went with the fluted trim design
Before you do anything, (and possibly before you even go to the store to pick up the supplies, you will want to determine the size of your door. That way, you will be able to determine exactly how much of each product you will need. The width is a bit of personal preference, but I like to make it about an inch or so wider than the frame of the door. To determine the length (height of the door), you will want to first determine where you would like your hardware hung above the door. You'll then take the dimensions of the hanging brackets into consideration to see what the distance between the top hanging bar and the floor should be. Most bracket kits that I have seen have specific instructions in their kits that explain this. If you have your dimensions all prepared, a lot of big box stores will actually cut the plywood to size for you, which is really helpful!
As for the actual assembly of the door, I started by sanding down my plywood and attaching the trim pieces around the edges. I measured from corner to corner and made miter cuts for each piece, and this process can been seen in more detail on my Instagram page in the Pantry Door Highlight. I used wood glue and finish nails with my 18 gauge nail gun on each trim piece, and held them in place with clamps while the wood dried. Wood glue is incredibly strong, and will actually do most of the work in keeping these pieces together. Once the trim pieces were all attached, I caulked all seams and filled all nail holes in order for my door to appear seamless. As a final touch, I added edge banding around the outer edge of the door in order to, again, make the door appear seamless as one solid piece of wood. Edge banding is a wood veneer that you can iron right on. It is paintable, and is a great option for unfinished edges like that of plywood. I attached the hardware to the door (definitely a bit nerve wracking to drill holes in my beautiful door) according to the instructions in the hardware kit. For our particular design, we used the 1x2 trim pieces on the inside of the fluted pieces so that the hardware would have something solid to mount to. We attached the hardware to those, and our door was ready to hang!
And there you have it! A pantry door without the farmhouse feel, and I am absolutely in love! I found this method to be incredibly straight forward, and think its a great starter DIY for someone who ins't incredibly familiar with using power tools, so if you've been waiting to try a barn door, here is your chance!