Barn Door Redo

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A few years ago my husband built the barn door pictured below, since it was made of real wood and we didn’t acclimate it to the space before hanging it up, it warped. Some people have suggested it was because of the humidity in our bathroom, but he made a similar door for a friend for her pantry in her kitchen and hers did the same thing. I ended up building her a new barn door too, you can read more about it in this post.

While I loved this barn door and how pretty it was, the warping drove us a little crazy. We ended up selling it to someone in our neighborhood for a good deal that was aware of the warp, so it didn’t go to waste!

I was scrolling Pinterest one day and came across the below photo and fell in love with the style of the door!

I built my friend Jen’s new barn door for her pantry out of MDF because I knew it wouldn’t warp and as long as you seal it well it shouldn’t get damaged from water. You can read more about Jen’s bar door in this post. Because I had success with her door I decided to build a new one for my master bath too. I wouldn’t be able to stain it like in the inso pic because it’s MDF, but I was okay with that.

I ran to Home Depot to pick up everything I needed for this door. Once I got home I set it up in the driveway and started to rip it all down with my circular saw and a guide, by guide I mean I use a long straight piece of wood and clamp it down at both ends so I have a straight edge to run the circular saw down. They do make actual guides though, like this one or this one.

Once I got everything cut down I started securing the stiles for the door in place with wood glue and brad nails. The stile of a door are the pieced that go vertical on the door, like the image below. If you use a brad nail gun a lot, I’m telling you, it’s 100% worth it to invest in a battery operated brad nailer!!! I have the Milwaukee brad nailer, but there are lots of brands to choose from. If you already have battery operated power tools I recommend going with that same brand you already have so you don’t have to worry about keeping a bunch of different brands of batteries charged.

Once those were in place I started cutting down the rails with my miter saw and installing them the same way I installed the stiles. I cut extra and set them down on the door to see how many I wanted and how far apart I wanted them before permanently installing them. The rails are the pieces that go horizontal, as the image above shows.

Once I got all that secured in place it was time to figure out what to do with the edges of the MDF. The downside to working with MDF is that the edges are rough and it’s hard to paint them and have them look nice because it’s a rough texture. So I tried something I saw on Instagram that another DIYer did. I mixed 1 part water to 1 part wood glue and went over all the edges with this mixture to try and seal them so the paint would look better. I went over the door edges twice with the glue water mixture. I think it did an okay job, not perfect but better than it would have been.

I wanted this door to be a little fancy so I found some small wooden moulding at Lowe’s and added it to each of the boxes by mitering the corners with my miter saw and gluing it all into place. I didn’t need brad nails for these since the pieces were small and fit snug into the boxes, if the pieces were longer I may have needed to use brad nails.

It hangs over the edge just a tiny bit, but I was okay with that.

Once that was all dry, it was time for primer! I painted the boxes first and then worked my way out.

Then I decided on Accessible Beige by SW for the color since the rest of the doors in my house are this color, along with all the trim and baseboards. I’m using my trusty Zibra paint brushes instead of a sprayer because the Zibra brushes are so soft and leave minimal brush marks, plus I wasn’t as experienced in using my sprayer at the time and I couldn’t move this heavy door on my own and Tyler wasn’t home yet when I started the painting process. If I were to paint this door again I would have just taken it to the backyard and sprayed it, it would have gone much faster! But thanks to Zibra it still looks great!

Here’s a quick video on the whole process.

When I first replaced the regular bathroom door with the old wooden barn door we didn’t change the door casing at all, we left the door stop just to make sure we liked the barn door there and didn’t want to add the regular door back on. This whole thing stemmed from us hating the regular door because it swung out into the main bath area and was in the way. As I was replacing the flooring in the bathroom, I removed the door trim and I also removed the door stop since we were sure at this point that we loved the barn door there.

All you have to do to remove this is score the edges with a razor knife and pry it off, here I used a large flat head screw driver and a hammer to remove it, works great! But if you want less damage I’d use this trim puller instead, I didn’t have one at the time. This trim piece is just installed with staples.

Also, when we installed the old barn door and I was super new to DIY, I tried filling in the areas where the door hardware was and I did a really terrible job! ha! You live, you learn! Or you try DIY, you fail, you learn and you try harder the next time.

I removed those with a razor knife and they popped right off.

I don’t have photos or video of the next process, but I removed all the staples, scraped off all the caulk with this razor scraper, sanded it down as smooth as I could get it, filled it all in with drywall putty, sanded again and primed and painted it, just like I did here in this post with my laundry room door casing. If I did it again, I’d use bondo since that is a lot stronger than drywall putty and has a smoother texture once sanded. Here’s some pictures of the casing as it is today.

I also removed the door frame on the inside of the toilet room, aka water closet, with my new trim puller! I first scored the trim on both sides and then hammer the trim puller under the edge of the trim and push out on the handle and it pulls it up. This thing is awesome btw!

Once that was all removed I began replacing the trim. On the outside where the barn door was goin I just did 1×3 primed pine all the way around. On the inside I did my normal style door trim I have throughout my house, like in this post and pictured below. I just install it with a brad nailer, caulked all the edges and used spackle to fill the seams and then paint. I prefer this primed pine when doing trim because it’s super smooth and it’s already primed so I can skip that step! Plus you can’t see the wood grain through it like you can when you buy regular wood and prime it yourself, I think it’s because they spray on the primer so heavy, it’s well worth the extra money! You can also buy primed MDF, but wood is stronger.

Then I got Tyler and my neighbor, Shane, to carry the door inside cause this thing was HEAVY! I still hadn’t finished the back, and I wouldn’t for a couple months.

Then they got it hung up for me and I was instantly in love!

Then a month or so later I had him take it down so I could finish the back and paint the upper wood railing that is attached to the wall Accessible Beige as well, so it would match. I put the same wallpaper on the back as I did on the ceiling of our master closet, I started by rolling on wallpaper paste and then added the wallpaper.

When we originally hung it the door was too thin for the barn door hardware so we had to add spacers. Now I’m going to redo the spacers to something more permanent that looks nicer!

I replaced those with some 1/4in poplar boards you can find at Home Depot and Lowe’s.

I removed the hardware and the old spacers.

Then I used wood glue and brad nails to secure the new spacers to the top of the door back.

Then I got it painted.

Once the paint was dry I reinstalled the hardware. Funny part is I put them on backwards and I freaked out a little when Tyler tried to put the door back up and it wouldn’t fit! But then he fixed them and all was right in the world.