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| AFTER (left view dining room, right view living room) |
Almost two years ago I was inspired by this interior barn door over at KillerB Designs. Although I loved how this door looked, even more so did I desire the functionality of it. See we have a 1970's "open" floor plan in our home. Basically, the living and dining room are one big room with a fireplace stuck in the middle of it. We also have no foyer... so there was no place for shoes and such unless they were just lined up against the wall as you walk in. Even more disturbing than that was that you could see straight into the dining room from the front door. You know... the awkward moment when someone shows up unexpected and you haven't swept your dining room floor in a week, because the baby is just going to keep throwing stuff down every five minutes, and you can't hide it from the unexpected visitor? Yeah... you get the point :-)
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| BEFORE |
There is also something about a never ending circle of a room, that causes the kids junk to just continuously move about the house, hiding in nooks and crannies. SO, after putting this on the list after many other updated and changes that we desired in the house, we finally got all of the materials and just did it. (and by "we", of course I mean mainly my wonderful husband!)
Much like KillerB I am too cheap to spend the hundreds of dollars that is quoted online to install this door, and the hardware that she purchased are not sold at the Lowe's or Home Depot in our area, so I had to do a little extra searching. Also, the biggest difference between KillerB's design and my own, is that I had no wall to attach hardware to. We had to find a rail for the ceiling that could be screwed into the ceiling joists. Despite the store associates telling me it wouldn't work, I trusted my very handy husband and purched this rail and wheels from Tractor Supply Co.
I was not sure what color I wanted the door but teal is one of my favorite colors, and I love unexpected pops of color in our home. I was absolutely floored when I went to a local building material surplus store and found this wood called "BluWood" due to the color it changes when treated with an eco friendly product. Apparently, this should have been more expensive then the regular peices of lumber I was planning to buy, but we happened to walk in 10 minutes before close, right before a holiday weekend, in which the owner was ready to leave and get to partying :) He sold me this wood $4 a piece and each piece was twice as long (or more) than I needed. I bought five of these for $20... and even greater than that I decided to keep the color on one side then sand and antique the other side, so I didn't have to buy any paint! Total out of pocket cost for our interior barn door? $110!
No, that's not Aaron having a snack... that is wood glue. Why he keeps it in a peanut butter jar, I am still not certain of. So at this stage he used wood glue to hold all of the wood together as he nailed in the supports on the top of both sides. I chose not to buy extra hardware as supports and instead used antiqued 2x4's on the dining room side. I knew would eventually want to hang something on the living room side of the door, so I opted for cutting one of the blue board in half long way and using it to support on the top and bottom edges. I absolutely love the way it turned out!
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