How to Build a Custom DIY Sliding Barn Door

This weekend we tackled another big project in our quest to finish up this house. It took us most of the weekend to finish, but we now have functioning sliding barn doors for the mud room and den/flex space. The process was fairly straight forward, but a little time consuming. We used sheets of 1/2" veneer plywood as the base and tacked on the trim in a pattern to somewhat match our other doors in the house. We tried buying these doors from Jeld-Wen to completely match our existing doors in the house, but the largest they come in is 36" and we needed 39" for the mudroom and 49" for the den/flex space. Our ceilings are just over 8' high so a normal 4x8 sheet of plywood worked for us. We also used baseboard trim for our stiles/rails as it was wider than anything else we could find and also the thickness was just right at 9/16". This did require using our table saw to rip off the milled edge to give us two squared edges.

Materials:
- 1/2" veneer 4'x8' plywood
- 6" floor trim (ripped to cut off the milled edge)
- wood glue
- 1 1/4" plus 3/4" 18 gauge nails
- Track hardware from http://hangingdoorhardware.com/pocketdoors/industrial_door_track.htm. We used the 290 style tracks since our doors were definitely going to be under 400lbs. I highly recommend this site for tracks and hardware as they are very reasonably priced and have fast/cheap shipping.
- band-aids (for when you shoot a nail through your finger)

Tools:
- air nailer
- chop saw/miter saw
- table saw
- circular saw with guide for ripping 8' sheets of plywood (or a very steady hand)

We pre-primed and sanded our veneer plywood to make it easier to finish paint. Cut to size, ready for trim.

Figuring out the layout of the trim. 

Close up of the trim we used after we ripped off the decorative part.

We need an extra inch on the sides plus I wanted to get rid of the plywood edge so we added a 1/2 filler strip.

First stile trim added - glued and nailed.

Fitting in the rails - glued and nailed again. I tried to get as tight a fit as possible so plan to trim each piece carefully multiple times if necessary.

Coming along.

First side done! The angle was a pain. I used an angle finder and then used a scrap piece to find the perfect fit.

Back side of the den door. I wanted the door to slide over the existing baseboard trim so I left a 5 1/2" gap at the bottom.

Back side done with the added gap for the baseboard trim. 

Working on the smaller mudroom door. 

Side one of mudroom door complete. 

Backside of mudroom door with the same 5 1/2" gap for the baseboard trim. 

Dry fitting doors before putting on hardware. Almost a perfect fit!

Adding sliding hardware. 

Mudroom door installed.

Close up of the gap I left to slide by the existing base trim. 

Den door installed and sliding.

Both doors installed and closed. All that's left is some sanding and finish paint.