Sliding Barn Doors Rock!

My husband and I spent around $25 in lumber at Home Depot and $90 on the hardware through Amazon for this amazing sliding barn door. I considered creating my own sliding system using garage door pulleys and a variety of other items that I found while doing research on Pinterest, however when I found the hardware on Amazon I decided to pay the money because in the end it was not much more than buying miscellaneous parts, it was less work, and guaranteed to work. I am very pleased with my choice because as my neighbor Sam would say, "the door glides like butter".



Step 1: Purchase the hardware of your choice and lumber. For this door we used five tongue and groove 1x6x8 pine boards for $4.42 each and a 1x6x6 pine board for $6.75. We used 1 & 1/4" drywall screws to put it all together.

Step 2: We located studs and attached a stained scrap piece of pine board that we had left over from another project to the wall. We used self drilling construction screws.

Step 3: We attached the hardware for the door to the wall in order to get exact measurements for the door.

Step 4: Cut the tongue and groove boards the correct length. Run two of them through the table saw. One to remove the tongue and the other to remove the groove. Slide the T&G boards into one another using the tongue and grooves. One of the boards was a bit warped so my husband put a 2x4 up against the edge of one side of the door and a wall of the room that we were working in. Then I wedged myself up against the opposite wall and pushed on the door with my legs while my husband attached the 1x6 board with screws. You can see the 2x4 in the photo on the right. The door was laying flat on the floor.

Step 5: I stained the inside/back, upper, and lower part of the door and my husband attached the hardware. Then we put it up on the rail so that I could stain the rest of the door. I was going to do a distressed paint finish, however the knots were so beautiful that I couldn't bring myself to paint over them.