A tutorial to build a pair of barn doors from scratch. Save money with this easy DIY tutorial!

You can click here to see our bedroom before it's makeover...and click here to see the completed bedroom full reveal.

We were definitely tired of the beach towel look and decided that barn doors would be an ideal solution! Let me just start this tutorial by saying that we are not experienced builders. We've made a few things, but each time is a learning process! So if we could build these barn doors, I know that you can too! They were very straightforward!

One of Mr DIY's friends has a shop with every tool imaginable! So we headed over there with our wood to build our barn doors.

Step One
Snap together the tongue and groove boards on a large, flat surface. A rubber mallet is helpful for stubborn boards.


Step Two
Clamp boards together at the top, middle and bottom. This will hold them snugly in place while the excess length is removed.


Step Three
Mark a line and carefully cut off the excess wood with a compact circular saw.


Step Four
To better envision how the doors will be built, picture the completed door as a pb&j sandwich! 🍞

• The tongue and groove boards are the pb&j filling
• The 1x6 and 1x4 boards are the bread. They will be attached to both front and back of the 'filling' 
• The 1x6s will be the crust on the top and bottom of each side of the door, and the 1x4s will be the crust on the side edges (as well as the cross piece in the middle). 

Does that help? Or just confuse you? Hopefully it helped! 👍

Cut the 1x6 and 1x4 boards to size for top, bottom and sides of door. Starting with a piece of 1x6, add wood glue and clamp board in place, lined up with the top of the door. Use a nail gun to secure. We ended up using wood screws as well along the top and bottom boards, just to ensure stability.


Once the top is secure, do the same to the bottom. The clamps help to hold the wood in place while the glue dries and keeps the board from shifting while securing it with screws.


Step Five
Now it's time to work on the sides. Use wood glue and a nail gun to nail 1x4 boards along the side edges. Then one across the middle.


Step Six
Finally, cut a piece of wood at the appropriate angle and attach it with glue and nails as a crossbar. You can do these on the top of the door as well, but we chose to just do the bottom. You will need math to make these cuts! (truthfully, this is where I gracefully 'bowed out' of the door making process and headed home to bake a cheesecake!!) 😃 Much less stressful!

Step Seven
Repeat the same exact steps on the reverse side of the door! Mr DIY finished this step, and built the second door, without me. I'm so thankful for a handy hubby!! 😍

How to stain barn doors

The finished doors came home and Mr DIY turned them over to me to beautify them! Well, he did have to carry them for me because these suckers are heavy! He set them up on saw horses on our back patio and left me to it!

The pre-stain conditioner is optional, but I highly recommend it for the best results! It helps to create a more even finish, especially when you're working with blotchy woods, like pine. It just sets you up for the best results!

Step One
Wipe off doors with a damp lint-free rag to remove any sawdust particles. Stir pre-stain conditioner and apply with the grain using a foam brush. Let dry the recommended amount of time.

Step Two
Stir stain well and apply a light coat with foam brush. Brush with the grain. Let stain soak in for recommended amount of time (5-15 minutes usually) and then wipe off excess with a rag. Let dry and repeat for a dark, richer color.


After two coats of stain, I still wasn't happy with the color and so I did an additional light coat using the darker Espresso stain. This gave me the rich color I was wanting. Don't be afraid to experiment with stain (usually I would recommend doing this on a piece of scrap wood first! Obviously I didn't do that and it worked out fine!)


The doors will need time to dry, then you will flip over and stain the other side. And let dry again. All in all, the staining process took several days before the finished doors were ready to come into the house!


Hanging the doors was a bit of a challenge because the wall in our Master that we hung them on is an add-on, and one side bows a little bit.

We chose to add a header to our wall, from which we hung the doors. I painted the header (just a really long 1x6 that I painted white to match the walls). I actually mixed up a little container of my DIY chalk paint recipe using the leftover wall paint because I wanted to do fewer coats over the raw wood.  That, my friends, is a great timesaver when you're painting over raw wood! Even if the top coat of paint is something different, chalk paint will cover the raw wood much better than regular interior latex!




This little trick worked really well, and 2 coats completely covered the pine in just minutes. The header was attached to the wall studs, and then the hardware was hung on that. I chose not to apply any kind of top coat to our barn doors. I like the matte look with just the stain.


And after a couple hard days of work...we had our own custom barn doors! We made these doors for about $350 (including hanging hardware). This was much cheaper than if we had paid someone to build them for us! There's a small gap between the doors when they're closed, because of the weird wall! But didn't they turn out gorgeous? SO MUCH BETTER than the beach towels!



...and here's how our DIY barn doors look from my office on the other side. Don't they look yummy with our farmhouse floors?


I did purchase handles for the doors, but we ended up not using them. They slide so easily and the handles aren't really necessary.

We are loving our DIY barn doors, they add such a gorgeous farmhouse feel to our home! The doors would not have happened without the skills of my Mr DIY!! He is so talented! But if you're not into building your own, you can purchase beautiful custom barn doors!

Go ahead and pin this for later!


Let's see what the other Thrifty Style Team men built this month. Click on the links below for each tutorial.


bringing beauty to the ordinary,