What to do with an old barn door

By now you know that I really dislike buying new and if I can find a unique way to use an old item, I will.  

I needed a 30 inch door for a sliding pocket door in my new room but didn't really want to buy one.  I love the texture and color of old wood and considered building one out of scrap wood found in my machine shed.  One day out feeding my chickens I noticed this door inside my barn looked about the right size.  

So, after an hour of struggling with the rusty nails on the hinges and another hour scrubbing 60 plus years of cow manure and dust off of it, I had this really neat looking door.  Its still wet in the picture, it hasn't been finished yet.

So here I am with this cool door, not quite long enough, or thick enough to hang as a pocket door.  

First thing I did was attach a piece of 1 X 6 to the back at the top, glue up the loose pieces and  secure with a band of metal and some machine screws.  I was able to attach the sliding hardware to the top of it.   

Once I had it ready to hang - here we are

Looks gorgeous doesn't it?  Wasn't hard to do, considering a middle aged female with no real carpentry training did this.  Ok so not quite, I had help with my son Jesse.  Never hang a door alone unless you're a master or something.  Even with help it slipped and whacked me in  the head.  A black eye is a small price to pay for beauty right?

So, now the pocket door was in place, shimmed, trimmed and secured down - I took down the door and added the missing length to the bottom.  Same process as the top, add a 1 X 6 board with some glue and machine screws, and fit in a 1 X 3 to the bottom to add length.  I put some stain on it to match the color of the old wood.  - I think the finished look is pretty cool - don't you think?

 I saved the original trim boards from the old room, so this should look pretty good.  This will be possibly my favorite piece in the room, but then I just like being able to say "I did that by myself!"