Renovation - Interior "Barn" Doors.

Our house had been added on to a couple of times over the years before we purchased it. There are a couple of places were doors used to be that are now just openings and now there is no way to mount a door in that spot. There are three such openings, one between the dining room (former kitchen) and the living room, one in the basement that separates the family room from the utility/craft room and the last between the new kitchen and the dining room (essentially from the old house to the new addition).

These openings allow drafts through these areas and we have been discussing the best way to cover them, short of sealing them up (not even an option between the kitchen and the dining room). We opted to jump into the barn door fad since these run on tracks above the door rather than on hinges. In both spots there is room to run the tracks and allow the door to slide to one side.

There is a reclaimed wood store on the way to Boulder that we pass by when we visit my mother. A couple of side trips later I have a store of reclaimed lumber to use in the creation of these two doors. I did get to buy a planer for this project which adds another tool to the woodworking arsenal.

These are the strips left over from the planing and cutting of what will be the framing pieces for the doors.

The back side of those same strips, the difference from the exposed side to the inside is quite dramatic. 

The finished framing pieces, and the realization that I didn't have enough linear board feet to finish both doors. I really don't have much experience with wood beyond pine and plywood, I think these are oak. The grain is very tight and they are quite heavy.

Laying out the door just to make sure its going to go together the way I think it will. The side and bottom pieces are 4 1/2" wide after the planing and cutting work. I haven't done anything to the planks beyond a quick trip through the planer.

At this point I felt like the planks were just to thin. Since one side is "unweathered" I figured I would try glueing them back to back to get a more substantial plank.

Pulling out the clamps, I really don't have enough.

Clamping them all together. Unfortunately this means that we had to go buy more planks. I also realized that I was going to come up short for the cross pieces. 

After a second stop at the reclaimed wood place. During this stop my wife decided she needed a table top to provide some extra workspace by using the top of Morgan's kennel. So we also came home with 12 linear board feet of 12" wide maple cargo floor planking (not pictured) which will need some work. The boards on the left will be cut down and will become the cross pieces (top, center and bottom) and then the rest of the planking on the right. More Glue! More Clamps!