Dan Antion

These Doors Must Move – ThursdayDoors

Door and window, ready for siding.

Almost three years ago, I replaced the deteriorating hinged doors on our garden shed with sliding (barn) doors. I made a few compromises during that installation, because I thought I would be installing vinyl siding on the shed the following year. Well, one year became three, the way that they do, and I am finally facing my earlier decisions. This is more of a D-I-Y post than a doors post, but it is about doors, so I’m using it for Thursday Doors, Norm Frampton’s fun weekly blogfest highlighting doors from around the world. If you want to participate (or view more doors) visit Norm’s page.

I will spare you as many technical details as I can, but some are going to be necessary. The first detail is the way these doors hang from the track. Since the rollers couldn’t be secured inside the door frame, they are attached to large brackets. Those brackets are bolted to the face of the doors. Those bolts protrude through the door, interfering with passage over trim boards. This isn’t a problem on a barn, but our shed doesn’t have an unlimited amount of space over the doorway, and I really would like for the doors seal against the trim to keep the weather out.

I removed the doors, removed the carriage bolts, inserted threaded fasteners called T-nuts from the back, and bolted through the brackets with bolts that are now flush with the back of the door.

Once the doors had the ability to pass flush over a trim board, I needed to install those boards. However, it wasn’t that simple. In order to slide over the vinyl siding that will be installed, the door track and the doors needed to be moved ¾” out from the wall. This requirement actually worked in my favor.

In addition to pushing the door out, I needed to make the door opening higher. I made the door big enough for this change, as I’ve wanted to make the doorway higher ever since I put the storm cab on my snowblower. It is a very tight squeeze. I also replaced the small window on that wall.

The captions on the pictures in the gallery tell the story better, but the basic steps included:

  • Remove the track.
  • Install a PVC base behind the track. Note: since the track holds the doors ¾” away from the wall, this is the only board I needed here.
  • Remove the header from the doorway, remove the “cripple studs” from above the header and reinstall the header flush with the top plate of the wall.
  • Remove the sheathing below the header.
  • Cut and insert pieces of PVC trim to fill in the missing segments where the bolts from the hinges have slid by for three years.
  • Cover the door trim with a second layer of PVC trim. These pieces are oversized, so that they extend beyond the edge of the underlayment layer and form a channel for the siding.
  • Rehang and adjust the door.
  • Remove the old window.

Note: this was a two-day process. The rolling brackets were made flush one day and the door was rehung the next day. The second door will be rehung once I’m ready to turn the corner.

The side trim was cut to accommodate the protruding bolts.
The only way to get the door down is to roll it off the track and angle it out.
These have to be removed.
The top of the hole has to be enlarged so the T-nut can be inserted.
I had to drill a recess for the flange of the T-nuts. Forstner bits drill a flat hole, but the centering spur had nothing to dig into, so I had to make a guide to hold the bit from the outside.
The T-nut is about 1/2″ long with a spurred flange. It’s pounded into the wood and provides the threads for the bolt.
T-Nuts and bolts, flush with the surface of the back of the door.
Backer strip for the door track.
Note that the trim is now lower than the opening.
The header was removed by cutting away the nails with a reciprocating saw.
Helping Hands support the header until I could fasten it.
A support block was added to extend the jack stud for the header in its new location
Cutting the sheathing away under the relocated header.
This is to show that I do know how to use hand tools.
Ready to reinstall the door.
The old window had to be removed and the opening enlarged by about 1″ at the top.
It’s a shed, but I don’t want the window to rot due to water getting in.
That’s the way we like it.
This shows the channel that the overlapping PVC trim makes for the siding.
Door and window, ready for siding.

59 comments

  2. Barn doors are nice decor that also saves space. For that reason we removed our bedroom walk-in closet doors and put up the barn doors. One of the best decisions I ever made! By how neat and fancy your shed looks, I’m certain you agree.

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  6. Hi Dan – well done … it’ll be a relief when it’s finished … you certainly know what you’re doing, or if not – can cope when things go slightly pear-shaped. Enjoy succeeding … Hilary

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Hahaha – well, I’ve gone slightly pear-shaped, so I guess I should be able to deal with it. I put my wife in charge of reminding me that “it’s only a shed,” but we are hoping to get it in shape to last another 20 odd years.

      Liked by 1 person

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  7. Another job well done….or soon to be well done. Reading all the steps to this project, coupled with the photos, I can’t imagine all that being done in two days! Makes a difference when you know what you’re doing and have the right tools to accomplish the task at hand.

    This shed will serve you well for many years to come.

    Enjoy the break in our weather pattern. Maddie will have some happy walks and ‘sits’!
    🐾Ginger 🐾

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    • Thanks Ginger. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get the siding up on this wall today and tomorrow.

      Maddie has been walked. We had a nice long sit yesterday afternoon, although there was still some storm debris on her porch (I swear I cleaned it, but new stuff…).

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  11. My previous next door neighbor was an interior designer. She redid the entire house, but I loved her kitchen. She had barn doors there for her pantry. So pretty. You do beautiful work, Dan. You could have another full-time job doing this…

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    • Thanks Lois. I did try doing this for a living. That didn’t work so well. I still did good work, but nobody really wanted to pay the extra cost of the little things that make “very good” better than “um, that’s ok.” I literally had people tell me that.

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        • I spent four hours in a couple’s house designing a china cabinet for a very odd space. When I proposed my price, the husband showed me a picture of a cabinet from Sears that was $600 less. I pointed out that the molding on the Sears cabinet was fiberglass, while mine would be custom made from cherry. He said “I don’t care, you can use fiberglass.”

          We went back and forth. I eventually recovered $300 when the woman asked for plate grooves to be cut in the glass shelves. She had an estimated of $125 per groove. I was able to get them done for $10 each.

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  13. OK, since you brought up the topic of sliding barn doors, here is my question: do they rattle when the wind blows? I like the look of them but have it in my mind that they make unwanted noises. Also, cool project. Your doors look great.

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  17. We did not get up early. And we did rush out the door. This is the part where I say/ask it is Friday? And recalibrate the calendar. I do enjoy reading your projects Dan. Even if it is a day late. There are trade offs with every design. One of the good trade offs with barn doors and heavy snow is you are usually able to open the door very easily compared to a swinging door. Because you don’t have to shovel the snow away to open the door. Which means the snow blower comes out easier. Now excuse me while I drop the doorscussion about snow.

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  19. You make it look easy, and those helping hands are really neat gadgets! I hope you and the snowblower/cab can get in and out of the shed with ease now. I suppose you’ll be rearranging it for Winter before you know it!

    I can feel a slight shift here already in the temperature.

    I love that sliding barn door! Our bathroom shower/tub vanity area doesn’t have a door and when we bought the house we said if we couldn’t live with that much “openness” we’d add a door. My first thought was a sliding barn door! There’s room for a smallish one, but so far we’ve not had any issues with “openness of that area of the bathroom, but the seeds been planted. 😀

    Liked by 1 person

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    • The Helping Hands are the best gift I ever received. Clearly one that was as good for the giver (the Editor) as the recipient. She no longer has to try and hold heavy or awkward things, and I no longer have to hurry. I move at a measured, safe pace, without worry.

      The snow blower will pass easily, which means I can come out of the shed with the auger engaged.

      At some point, I want to put sliding doors on the two bathrooms. They are next to each other, but both doors could open. We have hinged doors, but when I fell, I ended up behind one and the Editor had to push to get in.

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