I have always wanted a set of barn doors in my house. When we found out we were moving earlier this year, I decided to put off my dreams of installing barn doors until we moved into our new home. Because who wants to do all that work just for a new owner, am I right?

When we moved into our current home, I was bummed that I didn’t have many options for a barn door. I thought perhaps my barn door dreams had gone up in smoke when, one day, I walked through my outdated double bathroom doors and had an ah-ha moment. I realized there was just enough space on each side of the doors that lead from my bedroom to my bathroom to install more narrow barn doors, so I put a plan into motion, bribed my husband and we got to work!

For this project, I wanted to the look to be a bit more refined and not as rustic. I also knew that we would need to find a tutorial that was easy and required tools that we already had. This was our first time building anything like this so we didn’t want it to be too complicated! We finally found a great tutorial on YouTube (you can view it here) that we decided we would use and modify for our own project. So, here’s how we did it:

DIY Double Barn Doors

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Supplies:

(5) 1x10x8’s
(8) 1x2x6’s
1 1/4″ trim head screws
wood glue
wood filler
sanding block
paint (I used Behr Creek Bend)
cordless drill
miter saw
barn door hardware kit
extra barn door hangers (for the second door)
door handles

What we did:

First, my husband followed the instructions of the online tutorial to build the barn doors. He did an amazing job considering this was his first time building anything like this! The video tutorial is very good, but there is one step that is misleading. Once you get to the part where you’re cutting the small pieces that make up the X of the door, you will have to use a jigsaw to get those cuts right. A miter saw will not get cuts at that angle, so we had to figure that out the hard way.
After he built and sanded the doors, he passed the baton to me and I primed and painted them. I chose to paint them with Behr Creek Bend because it’s a nice medium gray color that compliments the light gray of my walls and looks beautiful with the black iron of the barn door hardware.
Once my doors were dry, it was time to install the hardware and hang them up! To install the barn door hardware rail, my husband checked our walls with his stud finder to see where our studs were located. He marked their location on the wall and then we took the rail of the barn door hardware kit and compared the holes for the bolts to the holes for our studs. Unfortunately, we would’ve had to offset the rail quite a bit to attach it to the studs, which clearly wouldn’t look great. So we took a scrap 1X6X8, painted it the same color as my wall (so that it’s barely noticeable), then attached it to the wall directly above the trim of the door opening and into the studs. Then we were able to install the rail onto the board and hang the doors on the rail.
Finally, I added some black iron handles I found at Hobby Lobby and we were done!

I am so pleased with how they turned out! They look amazing in our room and really add interest to our space. These door are one of my very favorite features in our bedroom now and I am so glad I was able to convince my husband to let me do it!

In all, this project cost us about $300 for the hardware and the lumber. If you use really cheap lumber, you can do it for less but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you want a really rustic look.