The Walnut Sliding Barn Door Version II

Armed with the 4 feet x 10 feet walnut dining table in the beautiful home, our client asked for a walnut sliding door on the Stainless Steel hardware to complete the look!  Since this is a multi-level house, it's really nice to see the table on the main floor and the door just a few steps below. But there is something different about this walnut door, it's not the slab door you are used to seeing with our work, it's made with walnut veneer, and solid walnut edging banding around.  This definitely makes the door a little lighter to handle and it looks beautiful in its own way.

King City is into it Too!

Two beautiful white frosted glass panels doors sliding into one another right in front of house makes this space a winner for the family.  This main floor family room needed to be turned into an extra bedroom for the kids, since there are four of them, and this option is a great one since it allows functionality and style to co-exist.

Somewhere North of Barrie, in Waubaushene is a Door Sliding on the Heavy Metal

We are driving North again, and again with a door on the roof and the sliding hardware inside the SUV, we are cruising to the destination on a beautiful Friday afternoon. Once we arrived, there was a beautifully just-built home in the middle of a forest!  And this house needed a sliding door made of pine for the en-suite in the bedroom upstairs to go with the rest of the pine architectural beams in the house.

Walnut Slab Sliding Barn Door Finds a Home For Itself in Bracebridge, Muskoka

Remember the beautiful slab walnut door we made for a Toronto home?  Well, the walnut door wanted to explore new worlds, and find itself right at home in this modern condo in Bracebridge.  Sliding on the stainless steel barn door hardware, it looks just as gorgeous as it sounds..."walnut slab door"...mmmm.

Painting With Barn Boards in Mount Pleasant, Toronto

I'm just updating on a new project completed.  The client had purchase the barn boards awhile back for this particular project.  He asked us to make the doors using these barn boards in this painterly way.  You don't need to go to an art gallery for these paintings! These doors are for a large closet opening.  Because there isn't enough wall space on the both sides for the doors to slide into, they are hung on the by-pass system.

What Do You Say We Put a Barn in Our Condo?

Yay! Let's do it!  Well, not exactly a barn but close enough.  These two massive sliding barn doors hanging on a frame made of barn board in a small condo downtown Toronto is enough to take your breath away...or make you feel like you've got a barn sitting in the condo!

When our client got their one bedroom condo, their first intention was to build a wall out of drywall to cover the den and have one  sliding barn door as the entrance so that it acts as a guest bedroom.  Unfortunately (or fortunately), building code does not allow a wall to be built there.  Our client's next step was to look through our blog, and voila, he found the bypass system which he thought was perfect as it acts as a wall and an entrance!

With that, we were set to design a way to make this work.  This involved building a wood frame and covering it with barn boards, then attaching the two doors.

That was the first install, getting the framing done.  Now we come back for the second install, which are the doors.  And look, all of a sudden you have a guest bedroom and a barn all at once! Once the doors are hung, it's like installation art (a barn in a condo, pretty artsy wouldn't you say?)  This really blurs the lines between high art, interior design, and just doing what you love to your space.  Uh oh, am I doing art speak here? Would someone let me know what I'm saying?

And all this time, did I mention the fact our client's condo has the coolest most memorable, most awesome things in it?  Forget about interior trends and rules, everything in the place reflects who they are, from the art work to orange kitchenware... and it was really fun working there...and that's what makes this condo really hip!  There's a collection of images of Madonna hanging above the sofa...and guess what?  Our client has created a Madonna fan website.  Check it out! www.absolutemadonna.com

3 ZiliOTTO stores across Toronto has got the sliding barn door!

From Bloor West to Queen West, to the Danforth...the chic and classy clothing store Ziliotto www.ziliotto.com has got it all -- the clothes and the doors!

Everyone should know what a trendsetter I am (yes, a self-proclaimed one too might I add), so when I discovered the clothing in this store, I was excited about wearing them, and wearing them while assisting with the door installation!  All the doors are salvaged by the owner themselves, we did the installation of the hardware.

You see, Ziliotto has three locations, and Jennifer the designer wanted all three stores to have the same look, so the sliding barn door is to separate the entrance to the back room and the displaying store front.  It was really fun travelling to all the stores for installation (and a little shopping on my part...shhhh).

Well, now I have a good excuse to go to Ziliotto -- to visit the doors of course!

Black powder...ooOO!

Usually, we don't think of putting something big and black in a tiny room.  But sometimes, it's worth it to break the rules...and that's what one of clients did for their tiny breakfast nook that has a powder room tiny enough to be part of the tiny breakfast spot that looks out to the beautiful back yard. We made the slab door out of solid poplar planks and painted it black.  It's pretty heavy, but we still managed to haul it on top of the SUV.

The breakfast room is about I would say 45 square feet, and the powder room about 20 square feet.  The the big and heavy black slab door we built for the powder room entrance is 56" wide.  And the reason for the width is because our client wanted to hang a framed print on it and the print is big.  Another creative use of the sliding barn door!

The kitchen is di-colour with black cabinets at the bottom and white at the top...trendy and hip...and of course very beautiful.  So with a kitchen like that, you can imagine how nice it is when the orange plastic cover is lifted from the entrance so that you can see the flow of blacks from the kitchen to the breakfast room.  Young and Lawrence, that's where all the beautiful things are found!

There's blue berry, there's black berry, then there's the RED BARRIE!

The sweetest berries of all -- the Red Barrie!  I'm talking about the Barrie that's located in Ontario with the two gorgeous red spotted acrylic sliding barn doors.  Due to the ingenious vision of interior designer, Myra Spiers www.myraspiersdesign.com, Barrie now has a little red treasure right by the lake.

This condominium was gutted out and remodelled from top to bottom.  These red acrylic doors on the black hardware is the unusual, cool element that bring the kitchen, living room and dinning room together, definitely a conversational piece (it would be difficult not to talk about it).  Myra contacted us and asked if we were able to do something like this, and we said, as always "yes".

Myra wanted the black hardware to echo with the black fire place and the black TV, and it's the reds that make the flavour of this Barrie unparalleled to any others berries.  These doors are pieces of art first and foremost, and their secondary function while being pretty is to cover up the kitchen once closed to hide preparation mess when dinner guests are over.  How cool!

We are being invited back once the place is completely finished for a the final house tour.  That's when I'll show you the full scope of how all the pieces really come together.  We are waiting on the kitchen to be installed, and all the details to be in place.  But the sliding red spotted acrylic was the special install everyone was waiting for! And it's done.

The sliding WALNUT SLAB DOOR - pretty heavy stuff

Our clients wanted a solid slab walnut door the size of the queen mattress for their master bedroom door...we said "OK".  The fun part though, is that this massive door slides on a stainless steel barn door hardware!  After working on the designs, we decided with our clients that the planks run horizontal for a modern clean feel.

Making this door was anything but easy, because walnut is harder to work with, and handling something big and heavy required a few trade secrete techniques. We were all happy once the door was done!  But then getting it upstairs to the master bedroom was another issue.  Luckily, the house is big, and there was room to maneuverer,  but it took 4 men and me (somewhat) to haul it from the driveway to the second floor.

I think this is the only solid walnut slab door this big in Toronto!  It's pretty bold of our client I would say, considering they have not done their kitchen or bathrooms, or bought couches and furniture suitable for their new big house!  Well, all it matters is that they've got a big fancy walnut door sliding on stainless steel hardware!

Can you see the awesome paintings on the wall here?  It is actually painted by our client herself.  The yellow/orange one on the left echoes nicely with the horizontal lines of the door.  Ahhh, it's so nice to have art in the house!

Four Dogs Behind Doors in Oakville!

Driving to Oakville this morning with the large solid poplar white glass door in the van, we were ready to keep four dogs behind doors!  Our client wanted a door that lets in light and also would go well with her comtemporary home.  She talked to us, and this is what came out of it.  There was a problem with the beam that came down on the left.  This made it impossible to have the regular barn door hardware with the exposed wheels.  Because our client really wanted a sliding door instead of french doors to save space (not to mention the fact that it's cooler), we figured out a way by using a 3" high box track...and voila!

Our client wanted to keep her 4 enthusiastic dogs from running to the front door every time they see someone at first.  I was a little bit overwhelmed with their excitement coming in, and so I understand why the home owner really needed this door!

Milton's new hot spot! Double sliding doors on a barn door hardware !

We are packing the top of the SUV again, this time, not an early morning but a noon outing. We are on our way to Milton, an up and coming town with houses popping up everywhere you look. "Milton. Population 70,000" That highway sign needs to be changed soon!

These doors are made of 1-3/4 thick pine and frosted glass.

We were set to get the installation started.  Those doors were heavy, but Rock carried them in gracefully because I was helping -- without me, nothing gets done right.

With an already stylish and hip interior, this home is about to become hot, melting hot...pouring hot once the new door system is installed.  The new hot spot of Milton is about to be unveil.

It shouldn't surprise you to know that the home owner is a designer.  The first things I noticed coming in the house are the geometric paintings on the wall.  It was like walking into a gallery.  In fact, the home owner painted them.  Once he revealed his talent, everything made sense because the whole time, I was thinking how cool is this house!  So your house does say a lot about you.

And of course, it makes sense that he would choose to have the double sliding doors on a barn hardware track to replace two regular hinged interior doors...it's the hippest thing ever to be invented.  And I believe strongly it's a hip trend that is here to stay simply because it's functional!  They slide quietly to show and to hide.  And they virtually take up no space at all.

Do you want something similar? Contact us to discuss, or check out other door styles. Not looking for a door at the moment? take a look at our other works.

Our Muskoka barn door adventure!

On a sun-filled Sunday in March, we got up early and packed three barn doors and the two barn door hardware on top of the SUV to leave for Muskoka for an install in a handmade log cabin.  The minute we arrived, we couldn't believe the beauty before us!  Can you believe all the logs were de-barked by hand?  It took a year to do that!

See, I told you it's gorgeous.

This log cabin has a little cabin looking down on it from the top of a granite hill.  It almost seem as though they look out for one another and that gave me a warmth that is almost as good as the warmth of that sun hitting the logs. What a cool idea!

Now inside, it was hard to get to work right away.  We were so in awe that we had to walk around and take in as much as possible and...breath before we can do anything.  There is something about being in a space that is made purely of wood.  Moreover, this place had a lot of heart to it, and I really felt it, the little decorations, the hand scraped marks on the logs...no wonder this cabin didn't need any heating system...the small fire place was all there was that actually radiated physical heat.

Our first installation was a single sliding door leading to a bedroom, as you can see from the above photo.

 Rock stood proudly beside his install.

Our second installation was of a by-pass hardware system with two barn doors on one track.  This is to cover two openings that are side by side, one for a bathroom and one for the master bedroom.

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Rock admiring his by-pass install.

We were sad to leave the two cabins as the sun was just about to set. But before we left, our host took us to the little cabin up the hill where I saw the sun peaking out from behind to whisper that it expects us back for a visit.

That won't be a problem!

This rock on top of the hill is where a snake was found in the past summer.

On top over looking the big cabin.

I saw this ladder on the hill and owner said he found it right where he was about to build the little cabin.  How sneakily symbolic of that ladder to have made itself be found there.

Sliding barn door hardware bypass style installation

As I've mentioned in a previous post, Hanging two doors | By-pass style, where we can make modification to The Heavy Metal flat track hardware to accommodate double doors in a bypass style configuration, this post will feature the actual installation. We were commissioned to fabricate 3 doors out of barn board and install them in a beautiful log cottage up in Muskoka. I hope I have an opportunity to come back in the future.

Let's get to business. Below is the initial planning before installation begins:

You can already appreciate the beauty of the log cabin and the great contrast the barn board doors have on the wall. We needed to protect the floor, which is reclaimed wood from the Ottawa river, so we rested the doors on a few coffee bean bags.

Mounting the track was really straight forward, no stud finder was needed as we were able to spot the nails securing the tongues and groves on the studs.

Here is mounting the doors:

and this is how it looks when completed

We intentionally took this picture that shows a sail boat - this is one of fully functional sail boats that the client collects from all over the world as his hobby. He as about 30 of them.

And finally, this how the doors look when they are fully opened:

Please feel free to contact us and discuss with us if you want a similar set up.

Use existing interior door with your sliding barn door hardware

There are many reasons to use an existing interior door with your new sliding barn door hardware:

• You want it to match other doors in the house

• You have one laying around and did not want it to go to waste

• You might not be as adventurous to go with a full blown barn door style door

Whatever the reason might be, an interior door might be option best option. See for yourself below:

Customer Door Black

Image courtesy of Kevin from Etobicoke