barn doors

I wanted a barn door right after I saw it here. P and I agreed that it would make sense to have a barn door in lieu of a regular door in our upstairs bathroom, as the door was swinging into the already small room. The existing bathroom door was cheap looking, dinged up and unfinished and not worth saving, pretty much like almost all our upstairs doors. Of course I started to search craigslist and Ebay right away for the perfect door for my project and found it around Christmas of 2010 (yes, 2010!) in Connecticut. The door was located near friends and we planned to visit our friends after picking up the door. Our friends cancelled last minute because the whole family came down with a stomach bug but we still headed to CT to pick up the door. When we hit the road it was snowing lightly, there was some talk about a blizzard the day before which we both shrugged off as being totally exaggerated. The roads were pretty clear until we left the freeway, this was when we realized it had snowed more than we thought. We loaded up the door, grabbed a quick bite to eat and started our journey back to New Jersey. The drive back took forever because it was snowing pretty hard and driving got worse by the minute and I was a nervous wreck when we finally made it home in one piece. The next morning I opened the door and we had three feet of snow. After all we had to go through to get the door home we stored it in various rooms around the house until we started to renovate our guest bath and powder room and had our contractor put it up. I was afraid if I would give it a try it might fall off the wall as I am very good at missing studs by a millimeter.

It all started with a peach colored hallway and cheap and beaten up doors. First thing we did was to throw out the door to the room on the right, my office, because it was falling off its hinges. A week later we remembered that my parents had to stay in that room because they helped us paint the house and move in. Classy people like we are I just nailed an old bed sheet to the door frame and called it a day, at least it gave them some privacy. The left door leads into P's office, it needs to be replaced as well. Although it doesn't look so bad in the photo the wood veneer is coming off in several places, where it has been nailed back into place. My office is still without a door as is the hallway closet and our "walk-through closet" that leads to our bedroom.

We love our new barn door and I cannot believe it took me so long to finish this project. At first we thought about painting the door but we think its imperfections make it look just the way we like it.

It's funny to talk about all the snow we had back when we picked up the door because I snuck away to sunny Florida yesterday and when this post goes online I am either on my way to or already at the Disney Hollywood Theme Park. Miss Piggy & Kermit here I come!

Here  is a list of items used in this project:

-door, found on Craigslist for $40 but be sure to check out your local Re-store or other places that sell reclaimed building materials

- hardware from McMaster-Carr

-two recessed pulls 

 Have a great weekend everybody!