Replacing a Barn Pantry Door

I’ve been making a few changes in our kitchen recently. There tends to be a domino effect when I make a little change…it’s a little “if you give a mouse a cookie” situation. After I painted the cabinets and island ,I recovered the breakfast nook cushions. I decided it was time to get rid of the barn pantry door. Replacing a barn pantry door was a little out of my comfort zone to DIY, so I hired a local handy man to help me.

Let’s back up to the barn pantry door saga…if you were following along while we built this house, you may remember me stripping a million layers of paint off this door. My vision was to stain it the same color as the beams in the breakfast nook. Unfortunately, after all of the paint was stripped off the door just would not accept the stain. So I repainted it, but it was never quite what I had envisioned for the kitchen.

Which brings us back to my wild hare of painting the cabinets, swapping the cushions, and scouring the internet for a wood door that could replace the barn door. I found this unfinished bi-fold door that was the right dimensions. I had originally thought I would separate them and have them open like french doors, but that would have blocked off our beverage fridge.

I actually love the bifold option now that they are installed.

They tuck away so well when they are open, and I love the look of them closed too. They are actually closed more often than the barn door ever was. The barn door was heavy and awkward to slide closed, these are so easy.

BEFORE – this is what the kitchen looked like 7 years ago –

AFTER – What it looks like current day –

The handy man stained the wood for me in Provincial by Minwax, which was a pretty close match to our beams. He also routed out the wood to add this flush mount pull, so we could easily open and close the door with it.

I also installed a motion sensor switch so that the pantry light automatically pops on when someone walks in. Let me tell you, life changing! My kids always left this light on and it drove me nuts. Now it automatically shuts off after 1 minute. I may need to put these everywhere in my house!

Oh and here are my newly striped cushion covers! I used to have a bunch of throw pillows in this nook and they always looked messy. These extra long lumbar cushions feel so much cleaner looking but still comfy.

It’s crazy how removing the barn door opened up this part of the kitchen now. It weirdly feels so much bigger!

I have plans to swap out the paneling to match the vertical planking in the breakfast nook (again things are snowballing) but I’ll wait to tackle that this winter when I’m stuck inside.

For now I added this cute hook rack and hung an apron and a few kitchen accessories.

I’m SO happy with this little swap. The touch of wood on this wall along with the navy cabinets really warmed up my kitchen.

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Sources:

• Pantry Door
• Rack
• Apron – similar
• Cutting board – similar
• Copper colander
• Copper Sieve
• Chairs
• Stools
• Table – similar
• Navy paint – Hague Blue by Farrow and Ball
• White paint – Extra White by Sherwin Williams
• Beige Paint – Agreeable Gray by Benjamin Moore
• Fabric
• Motion Sensor Light Switch