Finishing the entry to the "Hobbit Wing"

We finally hung the sliding barn door to the Hobbit Wing (a.k.a. lady genevieve's room)!  We've had all the hardware for sometime, it just took a little outside confidence from a friend and some time to get the job done.

Returning to the story of a door for lady genevieve's room...  I couldn't find a cool one to fit the very small doorway, but saw a cool barn door style and decided I could probably make one myself.  And so I did.  Check out the beginning of this story at Building an entrance to the Hobbit Wing.

Due to the very short ceilings in lady genevieve's room, we were not sure how we were going to accomplish the task.  Initially I had planned to make a normal swinging barn door.  But due to the very small size of the room, I realized that a sliding barn door was an amazing space saving solution to prevent having a door take up half the room when open.  A genius idea!  So I ordered the track and wheels, and waited for a good time to hang it.  We realized that the job may not work, since the rafters were parallel to where the track needed to hang.  Ideally we needed to hang the track perpendicular to the rafters to disperse the weight across them all, rather than stress one rafter with all the weight of the door.  The Laird was very uncertain we could proceed with our plan.  So we put that project on hold, and it wasn't until recently that we asked a friend's advice.  He was completely confident that it was possible, and boosted the Laird's encouragement to proceed with the plans.

This weekend we hung the track and door!  First he attached the wheels to the top of the door.  Then he measured where the track would hang and then drilled a large hole to see what was above the plaster ceiling.  He discovered super thick plaster and then some plywood just above that.  He then traced out the holes to be drilled.  Then he applied a layer of liquid nails for added strength and support.  Screwed the track into place, and allowed it to dry for about 24 hours.  Now the door is hanging and slides wonderfully.  We have yet to add the handles- we waited to attach the handles as we wanted to see how high they should be placed while the door was hanging.  A job for another day.  For now- we are quite pleased with the look and function of this new door.

lady genevieve's sliding barn door

The current bathroom & bedroom doors

Now that we've successfully hung one sliding barn door, I am eager to build 2 more to match- one for the bathroom (sliding) and one for our bedroom (hinged).  Then all 3 upstairs hall doors will all match and also add some character to the hallway.  The Laird says I need to wait until we've finished the Primitive Cabinet, before we start another project!  It is so satisfying to see a project come to completion- especially one that was begun 5 months ago.