A barn door doesn’t have to be made out of wood, the Hubster and I installed a modern spin to the original farmhouse barn door in our home office. It was the final addition to the office that we needed. The Hubster and I take you through the entire installation process so that you can have the confidence to add this perfect look in your home.
Selecting a Modern Farmhouse Barn Door Design
When the Hubster and I were in the beginning stages of our building process, we intentionally left the entryway open. We really wanted an open concept and felt that doors would take away from that. We moved in, still loved the lack of doors, and then three months later…the Hubster is working from home. With his work position, meetings were inevitable, which meant conference calls. Little Miss really didn’t get the memo of being quiet, so long drives around the city were our thing.
Once the Hubster had indefinite work-from-home orders, we knew that it was time to figure out a solution. We still wanted the open concept feeling, but with a door that offered major noise-reduction (a.k.a. Little Miss). After scrolling through countless ideas, I knew that Artisan Hardware’s Trade Sliding Door would be the perfect fit.
Once I showed the Hubster, he was completely onboard. We both knew it was the perfect combination for our Modern Farmhouse home. The sleek design with clear glass not only added to the modern style, but made the open concept attainable. While the traditional hardware and barn door track added to the farmhouse charm and would achieve the needed noise reduction.
“Add to Cart” Purchase
If you are like us, the Hubster and I had never installed a barn door before this experience, let alone a metal modern farmhouse barn door. Nor did we know how to measure the correct specifications for our soon-to-be door. Thankfully, Artisan Hardware has an entire page of videos that allowed us to watch and walk us through, step-by-step, to ensure correct measurements for our door.
It was so simple! The hardest part was having to anxiously await for the delivery of our door.
The Modern Farmhouse Barn Door Delivery
The freight carrier company called me to schedule the delivery, the next day there arrived not one, but two freight carrier trucks. They delivered our securely packaged door in a pallet curbside.
We carefully removed the top plywood portions with our drill and revealed the most beautiful modern farmhouse barn door I have ever seen!
Man Power
Artisan Hardware has amazing quality craftsmanship with their products! Which made this door extremely heavy. There was no way that the Hubster and I were going to be able to carry this door from the driveway to the inside of the Farmhouse. Thankfully, my brother was able to come after work to help. My anxiety levels were off the charts during this move… I mean it’s all glass, do you blame me?!
Heading into the Header
Originally, the Hubster and I thought that we wouldn’t need a header for the door. We felt that due to the archway of our home, that there should be a solid framework to support the weight of the door. Wishful thinking… We were able to look through our four-way walkthrough video and found that was not the solid framework that we were hoping for.
So we would need to have a header. Once the Hubster and I made that decision, we knew that we would have to place a header on the wall so that the weight of the door would be supported. While we were creating our faux wood beam, we knew that we would replicate this process again in this area. So what if we just extended the “beam” to create the header we needed? It would either work, or it wouldn’t.
It actually worked!
Now it was time to install the barn door. The Hubster watched the video tutorials that Artisan Hardware provides approximately 18,783,758,427,502 times… I’m just kidding! It was more like 4-5 times just to make sure he thoroughly understood them. There were definitely some learning curves, meaning that this was a two person job. And more preferably someone strong enough to lift the door by themselves in certain situations..aka wasn’t my finest lifting moments.
Installing the Track
In order to install the track into studs, we opted for the track to not be pre-drilled. The two ends of the track were pre-drilled, but the spacing throughout the track was not. We used a stud finder to find the spots where we needed to drill a hole. Using a header you don’t actually have to screw into the studs but we wanted the extra support. We then used the appropriate drill bits to make the hole.
Once the holes were drilled into the track, we held the track up to the header and marked where we were going to drill a pilot hole on one of the ends. Once that pilot hole was drilled, we attached the one end of the track with the lag bolt. We then held up the track and used a level on top to then mark the other pilot hole on the other end of the track. Builder grade homes are notorious for surfaces that aren’t perfectly level so measuring the height wouldn’t work for us. Once the pilot hole was made, we attached the other end of the track with the lag bolt. We then drilled the other pilot holes on that side of the track and attached the lag bolts. We then continued this same process on the other half of the track.
Thanks to Artisan Hardware’s patented product, the spacers between the track and the wall are able to move. So that way you can truly customize the amount of space between the barn door and wall. Because we needed a noise barrier, we made sure that the spacers were as close to the wall as possible. We also had a soft close system added to the track so that way we wouldn’t have to worry about Little Miss slamming the door when she gets older. Both the spacers and part of the soft close system were installed with the track during the track installation.
Prepare the Modern Farmhouse Barn Door
We needed to prepare the door for the soft close system. This was by far the hardest part of the project. We first prepared the door by drilling pilot holes where the latches needed to catch.
We attached the soft close tabs to the back of the door and prepared to add the door to the track. That’s where we hit a major problem. Because of the space of where the soft close tabs needed to go and the height of which the door and track where at, we couldn’t lift the door onto the track. The soft close tabs were catching onto the bottom of the track so that the wheels couldn’t be lifted up and over the track.
The Hubster then tried lowering the soft close tabs and then went on the other side of the door to try to secure the soft close tabs where they needed to go. But I couldn’t lift the door by myself to allow the Hubster to secure the soft close tabs… Thankfully, that’s when we realized that the soft close tabs were secured backwards. Once we were able to fix that, the door was hung without any problems.
Final Impressions
This door has been the biggest blessing for our family. The Hubster is able to finally have the privacy he needs for conference calls. Little Miss is loving the ability to stay at home and be a two year old while her dad is able to work. I am grateful that I don’t have to drive aimlessly around the city anymore.
The Hubster and I are extremely impressed with the quality and craftsmanship of our door from Artisan Hardware. Artisan Hardware will forever be our go-to company for barn doors and hardware.
I have a few exciting posts coming in the next couple of weeks that you won’t want to miss! Since we are always working on new things at the Farmhouse, I like to share snippets of these projects and other parts of my everyday life craziness on my Instagram account. Come stop by!
DISCLAIMER
A big thank you to Artisan Hardware for providing the barn door and hardware mentioned throughout this post; all opinions are mine.
