If you missed the first part, you can find it here.

Hope you’re ready for a picture overload!  There were a lot of steps to installing this bad boy and I plan to show you every one of them

First of all, we bought the hardware at Tractor Supply.  We bought the box rail hanger, 8 feet of box rail, and 4 box rail attachments (all in zinc finish because it was the cheapest).  We only needed about 6 feet of box rail, but 8 feet was the smallest we could buy.

Since they were in zinc finish, we spray painted all of the hardware black.  We didn’t spray the part that rolls through the box rail because you can’t see it and we didn’t want it to stick…more details on that later.

Disclaimer: we have an old piece of carpet in our garage that we use as a drop cloth.  Although I wouldn’t put it past myself, I did not accidentally spray paint carpet in my house. Over ‘n out.

The box rail also had to be trimmed to fit the door.  We cut it twice the width of the door, plus an inch for wriggle room…er…sliding room.  We used a Sawsall (reciprocating saw) to cut it.  Sorry, no pics of this step since it took both of us to cut it.

In order for the door to sit far enough off the wall, we needed to add two 2×4′s for the box rail to attach to.  If we didn’t do this, the door would have hit the door frame when it was sliding. We painted them the color of our walls so they will blend in.

To install the end cap, you just have to wedge it in the end of the box rail.  We protected it with a cloth and just hammered it in.  The paint scratched off a little, but I just touched it up after it was installed.

Now you can attach the hanger part to the door. Measure how far in you want to attach it and mark where to drill on the top of the door.

Attach the nuts and bolt to the hanger part as shown:

Hold it up to the door so you know how far to drill your hole.  Since the hanger will sit flush against the door, there needs to be a hole for the bolt to sit in.

Drill the hole…

Then attach the rolling part to the hanging part.  I know, these technical terms can be overwhelming.

This shows a little better how we didn’t paint the rolling part.  No stickin rollers for us.

Now the hanger part fits flush against the top of the door since you drilled a hole for the bolt to slide in to.

Drill holes for the 3 bolts on the face of the door and tighten with a wrench on the back.

First one: done!

Do the second one same as above.

And now they’re both installed:

Now that the hardware is installed on the door, you can install the box rail to the wall.  Find your studs (insert cliche joke about my stud being on the left in the picture below) and mark every stud.

Drill in the 2×4′s to each stud, making sure it’s level as you go.

This is when we realized we will need two 2×4′s…thus why the bottom one isn’t painted.  I just painted it after it was up.

Now you can install the box rail to the 2×4′s.  We bought 4 box rail attachments for the 6 feet of box rail.

Now that the box rail is up, you can slide the hanger in to the box rail.  This door is HEAVY, so it definitely took both of us to slide it in.  And this girl ain’t risking dropping this door for the sake of a picture. (So just imagine us awkwardly holding this ginormous, heavy door while trying to guide it in to the track). Once it’s in, install the second end cap.

We were a wee bit nervous sliding it for the first time…

…but it didn’t tumble to the ground! Success!

One of the best parts about this new door is we have room for a chair now.  Before, the swinging door left no room for a chair.  I borrowed this chair from our living room just to see how it would look, so I still have my eye out for the perfect chair.

The total cost for the hardware from Tractor Supply, tax included, was $130.  Compared to similar track sets of $450, it’s a great deal.

I was a little worried about how loud it is, but it really isn’t very loud.  It is metal rollers on a metal track, but the sound isn’t bad at all.  And it’s very easy to slide.

Finishing this door was one big fat leap towards finishing our master bedroom. So, I’ll be posting the details of the master bedroom soon!

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House of Hepworths

I’ve wanted a sliding barn door in our house since, oh I don’t know….forever. So for my birthday, Jon surprised me with the hardware to make our own.  Seriously!? He knows me so well.  Not many girls will get this giddy over hardware for a birthday present. I just can’t help it!

I’m breaking this how-to into a couple posts because it will get pretty lengthy.  First off: building the door.  Awhile back, we found some glorious old wood at the Habitat for Humanity Restore.

I had the idea back then to make a barn wood accent wall.  Then came the idea for the door.  It was a close race but in the end, the door took the cake (although we still have some wood left over for another project just waiting to happen).

When I first fell in love with sliding barn doors, I did a quick google search on the hardware and got a little discouraged.  At about $450 for just the hardware, I knew I couldn’t justify spending that any time soon (or probably ever).  While grumbling about my woes, a lovely reader brought up the idea to buy actual sliding barn door hardware…like for actual barns…from a place like Tractor Supply. They might not be as fancy, but we decided we could paint it.

We gave the wood a good scrubbin since it was pretty dirty.

We needed something for all of the planks to attach to so we cut some plywood the height/width of the door.

By the way, the measurements of the door were the measurements of our door frame, plus an inch on each side (top and sides).  We wanted to make sure the door totally covered the frame when it was shut.  We thought it might look a little funny if parts of the frame were showing.

I drew out what I wanted and started the building/cutting/gluing/nailing.

We started building the door back in January. I just noticed the Easter basket in the picture below.  I’m very puzzled as to why there is an Easter basket in our living room in January.  We didn’t even get Easter baskets out for ACTUAL Easter. I don’t even recognize the basket.

I’ll ponder this freaky phantom Easter basket and get back to you.

We initially used Liquid Nails to attach the wood to the plywood.  It didn’t work at all.  So, we used the wood glue we had on hand, with some nails for extra security and it worked great.  Lesson learned.

Once we had the frame where we wanted it, we used every heavy object we could find to add weight while it sealed overnight.  Yes, we might have even gotten a couple rocks from the woods to help out.

To get the herringbone-ish pattern we wanted, we cut the planks at 45 degrees on both sides with our miter saw.  We started in the corner and just worked our way up.

No, I didn’t clean my garage just to take a picture. Just keepin it real.

I was the wood cutter and Jon was the installer. What a team.

We even had our usual helper in his usual helper stance. (Usual stance = staring straight at us, not moving a muscle).

Seriously, our dog has a staring problem to the max.  It was a little creepy for the first couple months we got him. I would be cooking or something similar, minding my own business, then I turn around to do something, then BAM! I see a dog sitting in the corner perfectly still, staring me down.

“Oh hey buddy…what’s up?”
(Blank stare, statue-like, no blinking)
“Nothin? Ok…well…um… Did you see that cat earlier? He was just beggin to be chased”
(Blank stare, statue-like, no blinking)
“No? Ok…um…I’m going to…um…go to another room…because you’re being creepy”
(Blank stare, statue-like, no blinking)
(I slowly back out of the room)

But don’t worry, we’re totally used to it now. It would be weird if I WASN’T being stared down every. single. moment.

And again with the find-everything-heavy-you-can-and-pile-it-on:

After it was built, we gave it a good sanding…

Here it is all built, sanded, and ready for staining:

And after.  We used a stain mixture that we had on hand. Then, we sealed it with poly in no gloss.  Sorry for the harsh shadows, but I promise you some better pictures of the finished door will follow soon!

Next up: installing the door!

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If you missed the first part, check it out here.

I’m back with the finished end tables!  I finished these babies last week and they are working out great.  WELL worth the mere $35 a piece they cost. Especially since I sold our old, impractical, ugly set that I didn’t even like for $200…I actually made a profit of about $100 when you factor in the extra materials I needed.  I’ll take it!

I painted the body just a simple black in semi gloss with a couple coats of polyurethane for protection.

The top was a mixture of stains that I had on hand: a little bit of Dark Walnut with some Provincial.   I tested out the mixture on a scrap piece until I found the right ratio. Then of course, I put a couple layers of polyurethane on again.

I wasn’t sure how I would feel about the two toned look of natural wood with a black.  Verdict: I’m diggin it.

The knobs were 1/2 off from Hobby Lobby, so they came out to a little less that $2 a piece!

And now for a reminder about how they started out…

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A couple weeks ago I decided to tackle the problem of our bedside tables in our bedroom.  They didn’t match the rest of the room, they weren’t functional, they didn’t have drawers…just no good all around.  So I set out to find some functional and affordable bedside tables for our bedroom.  Oh, and they had to look great on top of all that.  Sure, I found some that I loved.  Then I saw the price tag…didn’t love them that much. 

After perusing blogland, I landed on this post (be sure to check her out – she’s a DIY genius!) about taking a seeminglingly ho-hum chest of drawers from Ikea (Rast model) and adding a little somethin extra.  For $35 a pop, I gave it a try…

True to Ikea form, it was very easy to assemble, maybe 20 minutes a piece.

These poor guys.  They’re just begging to be spiffied up a little.

I started out by buying about 20 feet of lattice per piece and framed the drawers using my miter saw.  Then I took paintable spackle and filled in the holes.

I made a top by cutting 2 1×4′s and 1 1×6 the same length.  I nailed it down and used wood glue for a little extra security.

I bought some moulding to go around the bottom, but I ran in to a slight problem.  It wasn’t tall enought to cover that gap…

So I took some more lattice and attached it to the back of the moulding, leaving enough space on the sides to fit inside the frame:

And all glued down…

No more ugly gap!

Here they are all ready to be sanded, primed, painted, stained, hardwared (huh?) and put to use!  Stay tuned!

We’re at it again.

This time to work on a Christmas present for Annabanana’s folks.  Hey, better late than never, right?

She wanted to make them a doormat that I posted about here. Plus one for herself.  We made a few little changes like changing the width to 32″ and used 11 boards (instead of 23″ wide and 8 boards).  The size of the assembled mat is bigger and just looks a little better than the first go ’round.

We had an assembly fest in my living room and ate some wonderful dinner the hubs made us.  He’s the best. Seriously.

We painted an “R” on the first one for her parents.  Their last name is Smith. We thought it would be funny.

I kid, I kid.

We dun gone back to dem Texas roots fer the next one, y’all.

This one is for Annabanana and we decided it fits her personality perfectly.  This is definitely a compliment since we all know Texas is the greatest country on earth.

So there you have it…so more doormat ideas fer ya.

In light of doormats, I found these while looking for some inspiration.  Enjoy the awesomeness/wittiness/quirkiness…

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I was this close to using the nice underwear one.  Maybe next time.

I know I’m a little late in saying this, but this whole daylight savings thing throws me off every year.  When we get home from work everyday, we have all of 12 minutes to do everything that we want to do outside before it gets dark.  Things like walk the dogs, get our daily dose of Vitamin D, outdoor projects, get sun burnt (because it takes both of us a total of about 4 minutes).  You know, important things like that.

Our free time lately has been consumed with not-so-fun tasks like building a fence.  In the dark.  Because it would take us about 197 years to finish a fence in 12 minute increments.

Actually, it’s not so fun to the normal person, but heck, I’m super excited.  I’m excited to have a place for these pups –

And I’m excited to have lush, pretty grass when this is what we currently have:

Beautiful, huh? (not)

We knew fencing the lot beside our house would be a big job. But, we finally cleared our fence line.

Jon got to use his chainsaw and I got to have a bonfire and everything was right with the world.

Our goal for this fence is to do as much as we can ourselves so we can save some cash, but digging a hole through straight up limestone is outside of my realm of knowledge (nor do I even want to try).

So we hired someone and it was worth. Every. Single. Penny.

Before the hole digger got to our house, Jon and I tied string from one corner of the lot to the next.  We spray painted dots on the ground every 10 feet so he would know where to dig.

The hole digger showed up with his fancy shmancy….hole digger.  I guess the technical term would be a tractor with an auger bit.

It came out to a total of 39 holes and it took him about 4 hours.  Jon and I decided that we should go in to the hole digging business.  Put on some headphones, play around with a huge toy, make a couple hundred bucks in a couple hours.  Count me in.

Next up:  cement the posts. Wish us luck!