"You Don't Live in a Barn"

I can still hear my mom saying that when I would leave doors open. I don't live in a barn...but maybe just a little! Because, you see, my barn doors are FINALLY done and hung! This is one of those "it takes a village" kind of projects!

My oldest and my youngest daughters and their families gifted me with the barn door hardware for my birthday in March with the thought that sometime after it arrived, we would have a "work day" and get it done. Unfortunately, with this being the year of so many graduations, jobs, vacations and just plan life itself, we were never able to co-ordinate a weekend when we could all gather to do this.

And so, the hardware sat in its boxes until last week. Daughter #3 finally just hired a carpenter who works with her in her design business. His job was to hang the track. I actually worked with him because it was definitely a two "man" job. I don't know if it was just the hardware that we had or the fact that ours was a 13' expanse, but this was NO easy task. I had a few choice words for Pinterest along the way as this was the place that I first saw this idea and they made it look so easy.

The hardware that we have is really good hardware but there were NO instructions per se. There were pictures but they were really hard to make out. And, it must have come from somewhere overseas as there were only metric measurements. And, they didn't say what tools were needed, how thick your doors should be to work with this hardware, how high or low to hang the track and oh so many other necessary things. There is NO WAY in the world that anyone could hang this thing without a lot of carpentry experience so that you could foresee an issue before you got too far. The poor carpenter and I spent all day on just the track but, in the end, we got 'er done.

And then came the doors. I didn't have any doors to use so I wanted to build something simple. But then again, there really is NO simple even at this point of the game. There is SO much you really need to think about before you can start-unless, perhaps, if you have a complete workshop at your disposal and can keep running back and forth to a large saw. We on the other hand had one shot to get the large cuts of the plywood done at Lowes. If we went too short it would look terrible but if we went too long, it wouldn't travel on the rail. My brother and sister-in-law came down to help at this stage of the game and I was so glad they did. They thought of things I didn't and vice versa...and, eventually, we were off to Lowes to but the supplies. We ended up using furniture grade plywood and I am so glad we did as it was smooth and tightly plied.

I kind of knew what I wanted so the next morning my chop saw and I got busy and before I knew it, I actually had two doors built!

Then, it was simply a matter of staining them first...

...then painting them-first with a gray chalk paint and then with linen white.

I just about got the last of the paint on when daughter #2 and my brother and sister-in-law arrived again. We had a nice Father's Day/Birthday (my hubby's) lunch while we talked about everything left to do and who would do what. And then the REAL fun began!

It was now time to make the real committal and put on the door hardware. If it is not exactly right, the doors will not travel or hang correctly. We were either really smart or really lucky because we "did good". We had to make another quick Lowes run because again their hardware was off for our door but we persevered!

I know these doors may not be for everyone but I LOVE THEM. I love shabby and not perfection. I guess in this case that turned out to be a really good thing because if I was a high-shine spit and polish kind of gal, I would be disappointed. But, this is exactly what I have envisioned all these moths. Behind those doors are my washer and dryer and having them behind sliding doors instead of those horrible bi-folds will make my life so much easier. After we were all done, my sister-in-law commented that is was too bad that we didn't extend the rail the whole length of the wall and get rid of the other two bi-folds as well. Drats! Why didn't I think of that. Lol

And, as if that wasn't enough excitement for the weekend, our granite arrived-and it is beautiful and ties together the floor, shower and vanity.

 
Tomorrow the contractor will be back for all of the final detailing and then we will be done-stick a fork in me...I am done. Think that will be our last big project for awhile-although I do have a few smaller ones perking in my mind. Stay tuned.