The master bedroom also had a curtain instead of a door since we had guests who needed privacy.
Due to my brother’s help and because I completed the family bath door, it was time to try to install barn doors instead. I ordered a 6′ bypass track because it was an Amazon warehouse deal and cost less than $100. Most of the bypass tracks are closer to $200 full price. I thought the track might work if I mounted it above the light sconces. But we found that it needed to be closer to the floor. So my brother helped cut about a foot off of the tracks and repaint them black.
For the family room I hung one door on each side of the opening because the doors with the cross pieces were too wide to slide toward each other. But I got the brilliant idea to remove one side of the cross pieces to allow for both doors on the same side of the room. The master does not have enough ceiling room to hang a barn door on the inside. I had new bolts for all the doors that were more decorative than the bolts that came with them but removing one side of the cross pieces meant that they were too long. My brother cut each bolt to the correct length for a single cross piece.
He also spent quite a bit of time trying to sand out the doors where they were faded from the cross pieces and he sanded out all the water marks. I told him that I had intended to mar the wood and stain them to look antiqued but he is a perfectionist beyond my skills. While he was working on the doors I installed the track.
All of the boards for the frame and the track were reused from the trim work on the original house. The track was installed on a wide board as in the family room. This allowed for the bolts to be inserted anywhere along the top and not have to hit a 2×4. I had to use the bracket for the second track in a U shape instead of an L shape because I didn’t have enough room to attach it above the board. The track needed several adjustments to get the hangers on the door so that it hung below the opening. The bolts for the U shaped bracket interfered with the sliding J hook so they had to be turned around. The track has to be level so there were several adjustments to level it.
Testing the door for height and the cross piece side, I decided to use the cross pieces facing the living area instead of the bedroom. That copied the look of the family room doors. One idea was to install small casters below the doors so that they would not swing because installing a guide on the concrete floor would be difficult. However the wheels made the doors too tall for the hanging brackets so I had to remove them.
Another issue was that the floor is off level by at least 3/8″. So the bottom of the doors scrapes the floor on the shallow side.
Although the first door was hung high enough to slide across, the second door pulls on the track down enough to eliminate the same space below allowing it to scrape. I tried installing the J brackets just a bit lower and adjusting the bolts of the track to push it as high as I could but the door still scrapes. So I will have to cut off the bottom to fix it.
These doors are extremely heavy even without one set of cross pieces. So I need help carrying them outside to cut. My back got sore just maneuvering them around.
One tip I used for drilling straighter holes than I did on the first set of doors was to use a piece of 1/2 pex pipe to keep the drill bit straight on the door. Although the article recommended metal I just used what I had and the holes stayed straight and true.
I also dented the center of each hole with a dart that was laying around to give the bit a start in the correct position.
It turned out that the doors did not have to be trimmed. The weight of hanging the doors pulled the header board away from the wall. My brother noticed and helped install some long lag bolts into the 2×6 over the door frame. That held the board against the wall and the doors cleared the floor.
Another “just needs trim” project completed.