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Easy steps for a gorgeous barn door build that will cost you less than $550 for two doors, hardware track and handle – is cheaper than a (premade) store-bought and double-sided!
Ever wanted a sliding barn door? We did too! So, we crafted some to put in front of our sliding patio door since we didn’t want vertical blinds or curtains, instead we went with sliding barn doors. Just call them barn door blinds. It’s almost like rustic barn doors just married a modern barn door gal and here is their baby whitewash barn door. She is pretty cute for a barn door, don’t you think?
Stick around for the full tutorial below so you can build a set of interior barn doors. They will work wonderfully for either a patio slider like ours or closet barn doors since they are bypass barn doors or you can even forget the double barn doors and do a single barn door…you will just need to make the adjustments.
Let’s build a diy barn door!
Supplies You’ll Need To Make These Custom Barn Doors
11- Packs of Whitewash Accent Boards
1 1/4″ Kreg pocket-hole screws
Tools Required For Barn Door Design
Multi-Tool (If you’re a beginner and find yourself needing a lot of these tools buy this power tool combo kit)
How To Make A Barn Door: The Steps
1. Measure The Door Frame To Verify The Fit Of Your Interior Barn Doors
The first step is measuring your door frame opening. You’ll need to measure the width of the opening from the outside edge of each side of the door casing. Now measure the height from the floor to the top of the door casing. This is the most important step to verify the size of your door opening. The sizes in this post fit a common size opening for a sliding door of 75.5 inches by 81.5 inches.
How To Build A Barn Door
2. Make The Cuts For Custom Barn Door
For the frame of the barn door, you will need to gather your 1x3x8 whitewood boards. Cut four of them to 82.5 inch and cut two of them at 77.5 inches. Now you will cut four pieces at 39 inches wide with the remaining two boards. The frame of your barn door will be 44 inches wide.
3. Assemble The Barn Door Frame
Setup the Kreg jig to 3/4.
Using any clamp (we used the one that came with our miter saw) you will make two pocket holes on both ends of the four pieces that are 39 inches wide and on the two pieces that are 77.5 inches long.
Lay out the frame of the barn door and line it up straight. Starting at one corner line it up to the edge and make sure it’s as flat as possible and using your 1.25 inch Kreg pocket hole screws assemble the frame on all four corners.
Building A Barn Door
Making A Barn Door Frame
Now you’re going to attach your 77.5 inch boards to the center of your frame using the same Kreg jig screws.
Distressed White Barn Door Accent Planks
4. Install Barn Door Accent Boards
Cut 60 of the whitewash accent planks to 43.75.
Note: If you use the same miter saw we have, we were able to cut five boards at a time to make it easier.
Arrange the boards in a pattern that is the most appealing to you, creating your barn door design.
Note: These boards are purposely cut short to make a later step easier.
Go ahead and take the boards back up but keep them in order so you don’t lose your pattern. Add wood glue to the frame then starting with the bottom piece make sure your board is flush to the bottom of the frame but not flush to the sides. Shoot three nails in on each end close to the end of the boards using your 5/8 inch nails. Repeat this process all the way up making sure each board is as flush as you can to the next board.
You’ll want to do this on both of your door frames on both sides.
The barn style doors will then look like this once finished with that step and you will need to add your pretty white trim to cover these edges.
5. Attach Trim
You are now cutting nine white trim boards to 82.75. Using the table saw, rip four trim boards to 1 5/8 inch.
Using the same 5/8 inch nails and nail gun, attach your trim boards. Your ripped pieces will go on the sides of the door frame and the non-ripped pieces will go on the faces of the doors. Starting with the front door, place a ripped edge to the front of the side and the other piece of trim in the front so it overlaps.
Repeat on both sides. On the back side of the door, you’ll add one piece of trim board to the outside of the door.
Note: The outside edge of the door will have a piece of white trim board on all three sides. The inside will only have it on the front and the side (two pieces versus the three).
Now onto the door that will be in the back, put the trim board on the outside edge and the front exposed edge. Repeat for the other side only putting your trim on the back side of the barn door and not on the front of that same side.
The front slider will have five pieces of trim and the back one will have four pieces of trim total.
Barn Door Header Board
6. Replace Casing With Header Above Double Sliding Barn Doors
Remove the top piece of casing from your door. Use a razor knife to cut the caulk loose from all the edges then gently pry it off. Using a multi-tool carefully cut your side casing straight across so that it’s flush with the top of the door. Next, use a razor knife or a scraper and scrape off any caulk or debris that would be in the way.
Cut a 1x8x8 board to 81.75 inches and paint the bottom edge of the board with white spray paint. Hit it with several coats. Center the 1x8x8 header board on top of the door using the casing on each side to rest on and attach using #8 2 1/2 inch screws (make sure you attach the header board so it’s screwed into studs or a header for support).
Now we’re going to cover the header board for barn door that we just attached with our whitewash planks. Attach them using a nail gun and 5/8 inch nails. You’ll need four pieces cut to 3/4 inch (we used scrap pieces that were left from the door). Two of these planks need to be cut to 1.75 inches long. The small pieces go at the bottom of the header board with the finished edge down. The other two pieces go on top of those on each end.
Now cut three planks to 41.25 inch (if these overhang a little, trim down as needed). One of those pieces you’re going to rip from each finished side at 1.75 inch.
If any of the finished edges show wood touch it up with the spray paint.
Go ahead and attach the 1.75 inch bottom pieces with the finished edge down. The other two pieces will go on top.
7. Add Barn Door Hardware
Now assemble the sliding barn door hardware and your barn door track per instructions provided with it. Just be cautious of where your pocket hole screws are at. We put our hinges 4 inches in on center to avoid hitting them.
Also, now’s a good time to add your barn door handle. Since we went with a double sided barn door, we bought a double sided barn door handle. It was inexpensive and these inside barn doors work perfectly with both sides as we are often letting our puppers outside. Here are some views of the interior sliding barn doors from the back while hanging out on our deck.
Go ahead and fill your nail holes and any seams that you desire using caulk and a caulk gun. A DIY hack we love is to use baby wipes to keep it clean and smooth.
They will definitely be less noticeable when you’re done. Look at the difference below from the left filled hole compared to the right.
After you have finished these final touches…congratulations you have yourself some barn doors! If you love these barn doors for sliding glass doors as much as we do, please give it a share and save it for later.
