What Size Barn Door Do I Need?
About time you finalized your decision of getting a barn door for your home. But wait! is the decision-making part really over? Well, you do need to figure out a couple of more things for your new barn door. What type should it be? Where to get it from? More importantly, what size barn door will you need? In this piece we’ll be addressing one of the most significant pre-requisites of buying a barn door, the size of the thing. By the end of this, you’ll be certain on which size would be the best for you.
How Many Barn Door Sizes are There?
Barn doors come in several different sizes. There is no widely-preferred single standard size for them. The most commonly found default sizes of barn doors come in 24, 30, 32, and 36 inches. These are the width of the doors and the length is quite often the same, 80” to be specific. Of course, there is always room for custom modifications, but for that, you’ll need to measure your doorway first. Even before that, you’ll need to know which room you want your barn door in. Once you got that, measuring the doorway is probably the most important part of the task. We all know the reason behind its importance, but how bad can it be if your measurement has errors in it?
Why is the Right Size for your Barn Door Essential?
You guessed it, having the correct measurement is important for obvious reasons. If you get the wrong door size delivered to your house, having a peeking space in your doorway won’t do that good of an impression, right? To make sure that never happens, you should always leave some extra room for the door to occupy. Having your barn door cover an inch or more space is way better than falling short an inch or two. So, when you’re taking measurements, be lenient in adding more to the numbers. We’ll discuss below how you can do that and minimize the chances of errors.
Do You Need a Professional to Measure Your Doorway?
We’ve established the importance of getting the correct barn door size, but is the matter really that complex that you need to call a professional to take measurements? The answer is no, you don’t. Measuring your doorway is pretty easy. All you have to do is take certain things into account before noting down the measurements, such as making sure that there’s enough space for the mounting track and likewise. Nonetheless, there’s nothing wrong in calling someone experienced over to get the job done.
How to Measure Your Doorway
Stuff you’ll need:
- Measuring tape
- Pencil
- Notebook
- Stool
Before you start, make sure that the doorway has enough space on either side of it for a barn door to slide open. The barn door should be able to fully uncover the doorway once it slides. If you already have an existing door in the place, you’ll have to remove it for an accurate measurement. Otherwise, it’s only going to bug you during the measuring process.
If your doorway has a trim, measure how far it sticks out. Trims that stick out more than an inch will lessen the space needed for the door to slide open and bug you later on. You can either have them removed or retracted for the barn door to not make contact with them. Lastly, you don’t want any sockets or outlets on your expected door track because you won’t be able to use them. Make sure the side you choose has no obstacles to offer your barn door. Once you’ve cleared the way, whip out the measuring tape and extend it throughout the area of your doorway. You’ll need both the width and height in inches.
Measuring the Width
Measuring the width is the backbone of this procedure because it’s the most vital reading. If your doorway has a trim, then you’ll need to measure from the outer line of the trim to the other outer line. You want your barn door to fully cover the trim. If you don’t have a trim, simply measure from edge to edge.
Measuring the height
Once again, for doorways with trims, you’ll have to position the measuring tape from the outermost line and bring it all the way down to the floor. Your barn door should obviously not be touching the floor, so subtract half an inch from the reading. If you have a carpet or rug on the floor, take it into consideration as well.
Add 2-4 inches extra in both the height and width reading and note down the measurements.
Measure the mounting track length
Now that you have the height and width of your barn door, you’ll also need to measure the area for the mounting track. Grab a stool and extend the measuring tape once again. Mounting tracks typically go right above the doorway and require about six inches of available height. You have to make sure that there are at least six inches of space between your doorway’s top and the ceiling.
As soon as you’ve got the width measurement, see if you have that much space on either side of the doorway. If you’re going for a double barn door, you’ll be needing space on both sides of the doorway. Any immovable object or piece of furniture will have to be removed for this. Usually, track lengths do not go more than the width of your barn door. However, if you have enough space and wish to extend the track, we can’t blame you for wanting to slide your door more!
Wrapping up
Your width measurements will mostly determine the barn door size you need to choose. For instance, if the width turns out to be 34”, a 36” barn door would suffice. Similarly, for a 30” opening, a 32” would be optimal. Now that you got all your measurements written down, it’s time to make the big purchase. But where from? We’ve got the answer to that as well!
Get a Perfect fit from BarnDoorsforSale!
We here at BarnDoorsforSale cater to all of your needs to add a stylish barn door to your home. From frosted glass barn doors to classic pine barn doors, we have them all. As far as the sizes are concerned, we have a wide range of available sizes in our products starting from 28” inches and going up to 42”. Simply visit our website here after you’ve measured your doorway and order your favorite piece in the right fit!
FAQs
How much bigger should my barn door be than the opening?
This is perhaps one of the most important questions asked regarding the sizing of barn doors. Generally speaking, your barn door should be 1-2 inches more than the actual doorway width. If you go for a precise fit, your barn door will leave a slight space around the sides which will compromise your privacy. Barn doors are already not the best when it comes to maintaining privacy, so there’s no point in adding more to this drawback.
How do you fill the gap between barn doors and walls?
Suppose you got your barn door but it doesn’t entirely cover the doorway or leaves space for sound to travel through. You’re also not in the condition to have the door replaced by a bigger one. In this case, your best bet is to add an additional piece of wood to the doorway to compensate for the shortage. Once again, this isn’t the ideal way out of the problem, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Should you remove trim when installing a barn door?
There’s absolutely no need of removing your doorway’s trim unless it sticks out too much. Trim that doesn’t intervene in the pathway of your barn door is actually something that can help in filling the gap between the doorway and barn door, giving you an upper hand on privacy. Even for trim that sticks out too much, we’d recommend having a mounting track that positions your barn door a bit further from the doorway so it doesn’t make contact with it.
How far away from the wall does the barn door hang?
Your barn door will hang just far enough from the doorway to barely leave any empty space from the sides. We’re talking roughly about a one-inch gap here. You also don’t want your barn door dangling back and forth while it slides through. So, all you have to do is take trim (if any) into consideration. Other than that, the mounting track will take care of how far your door hangs.
Is a bottom track needed for a barn door?
A bottom track for a barn door can be useful, but the door can still perform well without it. Most of the time, barn door kits come without the bottom track, so having a bottom track installed is just an extra expense. It can come in handy for barn doors that hang too far from the doorway and need to be secured from the bottom too.
Conclusion
So, there you have it, folks! Figuring out which size you need for your barn door isn’t that hard, especially now that we’ve shown you how it’s done. Head on down to our website and feel free to contact us if you have any further questions!