Barn Door Project

[Darren Wright]

I'll be hopefully finishing up the painting for what was our loft area to make it my wife's office/craft space. She has been wanting to be able to close off the space from the first level since the grand kids room is across the space from our bedroom and also right at the top of the stairs. We'd be able to shut the barn door at night and even latch it to keep the little ones from going (or falling) down the stairs in the middle of the night.

There is a half wall at the top of the stairs opening and I've been trying to figure out an appeasing solution for closing that as well, and not cutting off light from the skylight above the stairs.


This is what she has approved for the design, the door is just over 8' tall and 40" wide. We'll be looking around at the local restore and architectural salvage places for some older casement windows or at least their sashes. Hopefully I can find some that fit the planned openings, but if not, I'll just make the windows.



She also wants to cover the main wall next to our stairs with either a barn wood or laminate stone, though not cheap, should make quite the statement in the space.

 

[Ryan Mooney]

Oh hey that looks a lot like the door project I've got some cedar sitting out in the garage for since last fall Mines closer to 53" wide though, and outside so I can use actual barn door hardware (and salvaged bits of plexi from the old doors that kind of blew apart for the not-quite-windows). The track is hung, now i just need to .. y'know.. make the door.

I'm not going to race you on this one, you're definitely on a roll here

 

[Darren Wright]

Thanks Ryan. I was planning to maybe just use dimensional lumber since it's going to get painted anyway. You've got me wondering if Cedar may be a lighter choice. I plan to run over to the restore this week to see what I can find for salvaged windows, but worst case I just need to buy some 1/2" and 3/4" zinc H/U came from the stained glass supply and make some.

 

[Ryan Mooney]

I'm not strictly looking forward to doing the joinery on the cedar... I'm hoping the pieces I managed to pick out will be some of the easier stuff to work It will be lighter though and in my case I'm "matching" some redwood/cedar on the rest of the structure so material choice mattered more. I think the dimensional will be easier to work and paint for the most part.

 

[Rob Keeble]

And there went South your not doing the work on this reno. Lol

Darren why must door go full height.

this image kind of brings back the trauma of living in SA where we had floor to ceiling and wall to wall security gate installed across our passage separating the bedroom area from balance of house to protect against intruders. was like living in prison and locking your own cell door at night.

For young uns wouldnt a door same height as ledge be sufficient to stop them going awol at night down stairs.
By the time they can get over that well then there aint nothing stopping them anyhow.
Also think of air circulation.



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[Darren Wright]

And there went South your not doing the work on this reno. Lol

Darren why must door go full height.

Oh, I am doing this part of the reno, the contractor did all the structural work and is finishing the downstairs to a point. My wife has suggested removing chair molding and such that isn't in his bid, so I'll be taking care of that patchwork after he's done with the ceiling.

The door is full height on the downstairs side of the wall, there is still 7' of wall above it on the upstairs side. My goal is to find some windows that open, but most of the time the door will be open. I think it will actually help with balancing the airflow in our house since there's nothing stopping hot air going up or cold air going down at this point.

 

[Darren Wright]

Looks like I'm going to Ikea!

No...I'm not buying a door there, glass, they have a set of 4 pieces of frosted tempered glass that should work great for my door.
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90442348

Every where else I priced it, it was about that much for a single smaller sized pane. Will know more once I see the glass, but hoping it will work.



I'm going to go with some cedar for the door frame, probably planed and painted, the bottom panel will be 1/2" ply to add some rigidity to the door.

 

[Darren Wright]

A quick 30 minute drive and a 2 minute in/out, glass in hand. Upon a quick inspection, the glass is acid frosted as the edges show some frosting as well on one side, the other side is smooth/clear. I thought maybe they may have just used a film on it, but doesn't appear to be the case. Size was also what was expected.


I may stop and get the cedar on the way home tonight.

 

[Darren Wright]

I havent used my extended planer bed in a while, but it worked well on the adjustable height table.

I was due for a bag change on the DC, but ended up filling up another.

I took all the boards down to 1 9/16". These are the door and will be mortise and tenon joined.

I'll need to pickup another board, I'm short one for the window.

 

[Darren Wright]

Today I started all the mortises. I had planned to do them on the mortiser, but its got a 5 " limit, so doing them the old fashioned way. That's ok with me, but need to do some sharpening.

My carpel tunnel was kicking in after the second mortise, so going to take some time to finish these up.

I'm also only doing these about 2" deep, standard depth is about 5 times the tenon thickness, but there isnt going to be much stress on these joints since the hanging brackets will be on these longer boards.

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[Darren Wright]

Saturday I was able to get a template made for routing out the mortises.


The large ones are 4" x 7/8" x 2 1/4" deep, there are a couple of shorter ones, for those I just route half the mortise at a time.


I only got about half of them done before the grandkids put a stop to shop work, so more later this week.

 

[Darren Wright]

I'm finding the magic in really sharp chisels, looks a lot better than the first set of mortises.

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[Ryan Mooney]

Really sharp starts being relative as you keep figuring out way to get them sharper and yes huge difference

The other thing I'm still working out is there seems to be a "correct" amount of wood to leave at the ends of these where it provides enough support for in front of the chisel but not so much that it's a lot of work and you can do it in one or maybe two passes without bruising the shoulders to much.I suspect it has to do with the size of bit/mortise, type of wood, sharpness of chisel, and phase of the moon. Your end walls look pretty nice and crisp from here so looks like it at least got there one way or the other

 

[Darren Wright]

I took advantage of the 60* weather tonight and played in the shop. I was able to get all my rails cut for length and the tenons milled out. I left them a bit over-sized by a hair to clean up with the shoulder plane. I also went ahead and cut the rabbets for the glass and bottom panel in these. I'll run a router bit around the sides when its glued up to match and square up the corners.


One slight measurement issue though, my glass is 19 1/4" tall, Luckily I have enough stock to do some fillers on the smaller rail at the top to make it the same height as the other three. The door is getting painted and distressed anyway, so not worried about the grain matching.

 

[Darren Wright]

We had a 50*+ day to day, so after adding a couple of shims under my out feed bench to level it out, I got the door frame glued up. I did do a quick dry fit first and had to clean up a few tenons with my Lee Valley Veritas shoulder plane, love that thing.

I used some winding strips to verify that things were flat and measurements corner to corner were square.


We may have another warm day tomorrow, so might get the fillers installed on the smaller rail.

 

[Darren Wright]

This morning I broke out the track saw and trimmed off the extra length from the top of the styles. I brought the door down to the house and did a test "placement".


Tonight I broke out the sliding barn door kit and got it hung. I wanted to have it up to do final measurements for the side window since the glass needs to match height wise for each.


I'll take it up to the shop tomorrow and finish the rabbets for the glass and bottom panel. I still need to glue in the fillers on the top middle rail too.

SWMBO was very happy with it.

 

[Darren Wright]

Today I finished routing the rest of the rabbets for the bottom panel and glass. Then had to square up the corners.


The bottom panel is 1/2" baltic birch.


A test fit of the glass.


Tomorrow I'll cut some stop material for all the glass/panel and install them. I still have some plane work to do on the back side, or front rather.

 

[Darren Wright]

Today I got the stops milled out and installed. Also gave all of it a good sanding.






Next I need to get stock for the window and door frame.

 

[Ted Calver]

Getting there.

 

[Bill Arnold]

Progress is good!