I chose primed mdf boards for my barn door – I’m painting it white as opposed to staining it so I thought primed boards would save me a coat of paint, LOL, andddd mdf boards have a slightly rounded edge and I wanted the extra visual definition between the boards.  I purchased 7 – 1×4″x8′ and 2 – 1×6″x8′ for the face of the door.  I cut my first board to 83″ then stacked and clamped 2 more 8′ boards to cut to size.  I’ve found that clamping the boards together and placing the first cut right up against the saw blade gives me more precise cuts (cause I’m not that great at measuring, lol).

I took all the boards in the house and laid them on the flat floor of my kitchen – because building it inside made more sense to me.  It’d be way to heavy for me to get it inside the house after building it.  You can see the 7 inside 1×4″s and the 2 outside 1×6″s.  I used 1×6″s for the outsides because the vertical trim I’m using on top will be 1×4″s and I wanted the reveal under the 1×4″ to show – as opposed to using all 1×4″s and the edges of the door just being stacked on top of each other.  Does that make sense?

Here are my trim pieces.  The door ended up being 35 1/2″ wide.  (You can see the 1×4″s laid on top of the 1×6″s and you can see the reveal of the 1×6″.)  I used a 1×6″ board for the top and bottom of the door and I cut those to the width of the door first (1 extra 1×6″x8′ board for the trim).  Then I cut the vertical 1×4″s to fit between the top and bottom (2 extra 1×4″x8′).

Before attaching everything I painted all the boards first.  Not sure if you can tell but a storm came through so painting happened inside the house. I used Behr Semi-Gloss White.

After the boards dried, I laid them back on the floor.  Then I used 1 1/4″ brad nails and Gorilla Glue to attach all the trim boards which then started holding the door together.

I was pretty generous with the Gorilla Glue, lol.  Glued first, then nailed.

Soooooo, I hate it when I forget to make sure the nailgun has enough nails!!!!  When I realized I was out I couldn’t tell when it happened so I had to go back and nail them all again!

More to come . . .