Natural Interior Barn Doors

Larger than conventional doors, barn-style sliders function like art in a room.

Unpainted sliding barn doors are often chosen for their particular character – anything from the color and grain of the wood to the look of the bracing and hardware. These natural interior barn doors may be vintage pieces with embellishments that add a layer of texture and pattern to walls and they often blend in to neutral spaces. As decorative screens-on-wheels, their placement also can determine whether a door functions as a background or as a partition, or both.

For a house with a distinct wood look – heavy on the beams – North Carolina decorator Francie Hargrove chose a hefty natural interior barn door — a planked beauty with horizontal wrought iron braces outlined in wood [top]. Even the handle is substantial. As a divider between a hallway and sitting room, the door eliminates any need for a large piece of art behind the game table.

Reclaimed oak planks, cut short and run horizontally in an iron frame, create a door with a whiff of that 1940s French industrial look that’s been so popular in catalogs. While a door this wonderful could go in any room, an antique stone wall and limestone block flooring add heaps of cachet. Not ironically, the door is an ideal background for the metal Lustre Bombé pendant light offered by the French home décor retailer Athezza.

I’m cheating a little here because the wonderful doors with diagonal weathered planking and heavy contrasting 4-square wood frames aren’t actually sliders. Shown in a 2009 Anthropologie catalog, these have hinges. I think they would look better as sliders and I’m including them for anyone seeking beefy natural interior barn door ideas to knock off.

In a room with a shiny white floor and painted batten walls, a planked barn door with a Z brace and prominent nail heads almost looks like the floor was flipped up. The inversion is prime and the tone of the  wood (which appears to be  stained) warms up the ascetic black and white scheme.

One look at this funky old slider and you know there’s a back story. Location: rural Ontario, Canada. Style:  Euro-Boho eclectic. An artsy couple with twin toddlers sold their city place and renovated a falling down house in the country. All the wood came from local mills and the restored-barn-bathroom-door is, the owner says “squeaky and hard to deal with,” and evidently a conversation piece. Any wonder why?

A minimalist, pale wood sliding door in an actual restored barn does double duty creating a modern Scandinavian look and functioning as a partition. Originally built in the late 18th century, the barn was enlarged at the end of the 19th century and used for livestock until it was converted to a 25-room, two-story living space in the late 1990s. For a new owner, the English architects McLaren.Excell stripped it down and completely restructured the space creating enormous open rooms that are distinctly modern. The full story, complete with construction photos, is an interesting read. However, the door is a perfect expression of a modern take on this form.

(Source: Francie Hargrove, Athezza, Decorology,  detalhesmagicos, themarionhousebook, mclarenexcell)

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