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DIY SLAT BARN DOOR
3 years later and the door of my dreams is finally up! I can’t tell you how happy I am that we finally figured out what would structurally work, found a design to follow, and actually got it done! This is how happy I am stepping into my zen space everyday 😭❤️
The slat design is by @the.orange.home. We followed her tutorial for the most part, but used a few different materials, made some adjustments and improvised with the hardware and tools that we have. At the end of a long week or two, we made it work!
KEEP IN MIND BEFORE SHOPPING
SHOPPING LIST
The slat design is by @the.orange.home. We followed her tutorial for the most part, but used a few different materials, made some adjustments and improvised with the hardware and tools that we have. At the end of a long week or two, we made it work!
KEEP IN MIND BEFORE SHOPPING
- The hardware that you buy should be a little more than 2x the width of your doorway.
- Know the minimum to maximum depth of a door that your hardware will support. We bought our hardware 3 years ago before we knew we couldn’t use a standard sized door. So. we had to put a block of wood between our barn door and each roller to make it work.
- If there are no studs in your wall where the screw holes are in your hardware, you will need to screw in a supporting piece of wood to where there actually are studs, then screw your hardware to that board. The more studs that you have as support, the heavier your barn door can be. A stud finder tool is super helpful for this!
- Install your hardware (and support wood if needed) first so that you know the exact length and width that you need your door to be. Our door is 1” off of the ground. 1/2” off of the ground would have been ideal, but it’s too late for us now lol. We cut our door 39” x 80”. The width of our doorway was 36”. Paint or stain the support wood before you put it up on the wall.
- Know how many slats you need by knowing how much you want each slat to be spaced out. Our slats are about 1 1/2” apart.
SHOPPING LIST
- Hardware. We used the 8’ SmartStandard Sliding Barn Door Hardware Kit* and the 12” SmartStandard Sliding Barn Door Handle*
- 1 pre-sanded plywood board (1/2”) from Home Depot
- Note: All of the boards at the store were slightly bent. Ours was slightly bent on one end, but it worked out since that’s the side we had cut at the store. The 3/4” boards were perfect without any bends, BUT they were too heavy for our doorway.
- Pine slats. We used 21 (LWD 8’ x 3/4” x 3/8”) from Lowe’s. They were in the trim aisle.
- Note: Buy 1-2 more than you need in case you make a mistake. Line up the slats side by side on your cart to help you choose the flattest and straightest pieces. I got a few with a crooked end, but we cut those and used them for the vertical slats.
- Rent or buy a chop saw for the slats
- Gorilla wood glue
- Wood filler for the screw holes and imperfections on the slats and plywood
- Metal putty knife to apply the wood filler
- Sanding block for smoothing over the areas with wood filler or whatever needs it on the door
- Flathead finishing nails (1/2”)
- A nail gun if you will make use of it for lots of projects or you can use a hammer like we did. A nail gun is a huge time saver.
- Paint or stain. We used Sherwin Williams Black Magic in a satin finish from Lowe’s.
- Paint brushes. We used a 1” brush from the Dollar Tree for the front and a smooth roller brush for the back.
- 1 paint tray and 2 liners
ASSEMBLE (Adam and his dad did steps 1-7)
- Lay door flat on the garage floor over a tarp or something similar.
- Layout slats on the door to visualize what it will look like and mark the door where each slat will go. We decided during this step to add a handle.
- Pre-drill holes for the hardware.
- Cut 4 slats in half for the horizontal pieces and cut accordingly to fit the width of the door property.
- Measure and mark where each piece will be glued then glue slats to the board and add nails. We did 2 nails spaced out evenly for the horizontal slats and 4 for the vertical slats. The nails must be hammered or nail gunned into the slats a little deeper than leveled.
- Measure and mark where each vertical piece will be glued.
- Cut, glue, and nail vertical slats one by one as you go. Small gaps between vertical and horizontal slats can be filled with wood filler.
- Vacuum debris off of the door.
- Apply wood filler over nails and any chips or dips on the slats or the door.
- Vacuum the door again.
- Paint the front, sides, then the back (and support blocks for the back if needed). Be careful when painting the sides to avoid a lot of excess ending up on the back. I had to sand off some of what leaked onto the back side of the door. Let each coat sit for a few hours and do each side on separate days.
SOME IMPERFECTIONS WITH OUR DOOR
- One of our door stoppers is defective. Adam was resourceful and used a chopstick in the gap to make sure the stopper stays in place on the left side. We used binder clips for a day and I couldn’t stand it lol.
- The bottom right was cut at a slight angle so the door is not totally straight (vertically).