After deciding we wanted a sliding modern barn door leading from the kitchen to the future laundry room/mudroom, the search was on! We kept our eyes on Craigslist. We went to a ton of thrift stores and the ReStore. We hunted and hunted and nada. Nothing even close. So, we decided to not waste any more time and just make a door.
To get inspiration, I pulled up a photo from Ebay of a door that I really liked and maybe we could draw our inspiration from it.
Cool, huh? Originally we really wanted glass in the door, but going the DIY route, we just weren’t sure how to do that and it would add so much money to the project. Tempered glass is not cheap! We mapped out all the dimensions and decided to add a third row of paneling so our door would be nice and wide. When we went shopping for the supplies, all of the wood came to about $150. Chris and our friend, Preston, worked on making all the cuts for a few nights and then planing the wood and then, two days ago…
We got a text from my mom:
There were two really old large solid oak doors WITH GLASS next to the dumpster! I was in the middle of painting a floor to ceiling eiffel tower on my niece’s wall (apparently the eiffel tower is trending among 14 year olds), so Chris drove right over and hauled them home. We had to call a neighbor to help get them in the house because these suckers were heavy at about 125 lbs a piece. The stand about 89″ tall and 36″ wide and just like that, our barn door plans have changed.
We are thinking one will hang here in the great room and the other might end up in our bedroom. We don’t have a door going from our room into our bathroom and have always wanted one–weird, I know. We need to do some work on the doors before we can hang them.
-Remove the hinges and swinging hardware from the top and patch the holes
-Give them a good cleaning
-Polish the backplate on the handle
-Sand and refinish the wood (but keep the vintage charm!)
-Frost the glass
-Possibly raise the door frame up
So, yes, we already spent some money on wood for a different door, but “you gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em” amiright? This is the door our dreams are made of and we can’t wait to see her all fixed up and pretty. Did we score or did we score? #dumpsterdivingftw
Something about that clear glass is really speaking to me. Are you considering at all leaving it clear? Or maybe just test-driving the “frosted” look with a removable film before making it permanent? Granted, I don’t know what kind of messiness you’re hoping to obscure, but there’s just something about it. Just wondering. What a find!
Oh, and while I’m butting in with my own ideas (just sharing!), have you seen this partially-frosted door? http://www.abeautifulmess.com/2014/02/frosted-pattern-privacy-glass-diy.html Maybe one possibility would be frosted pinstripes on the bottom half only? The bottom half of the laundry room is always where all the mess is, anyway! :) (Also, kiddo-fingerprints and puppy-nose-smudges are going to happen on the bottom half of the glass, for sure.)
We love the clear glass. Truly. But, beyond the door is going to be a mudroom and laundry room combination. While we plan to put in a lot of pieces to help us stay organized, it has the potential to get messy. Hence the frosted glass. And I am still trying to figure out the puppy smudges. ;)
Great find!
(BTW, we have a barn door separating our master bedroom from bathroom and love it.)
Who in their right mind would throw that out?! I mean, worse case scenario, sell those suckers! Oh the humanity! A family that dumpster dives together….
Door of my dreams as well! Can’t wait to see it transform!
I’d seriously consider not refinishing them, that door looks pretty great as is. I guess you do have two so you could do a test run on one?
We had varying opinions about this, but we have decided to just dust them off and clean them up! :) The color is very rich.