Country Living editors select each product featured. If you buy from a link, we may earn a commission. Why Trust Us?
Nothing adds character to a country home like a sliding barn door! Here, we give you 16 barn door design ideas to inspire you to install one on the exterior or interior of your home.
Sliding doors save space and create a unique look in a bedroom, dining room, kitchen, bath, living room—you name it! And they don’t have to feel rustic! Depending on the door style you choose, it’s a look that can work in modern and traditional style homes as well. You can easily buy an old or new door (or perhaps a double barn door set!) and DIY its hanging with the right steel track hardware that will remind you of the utilitarian origins of its design. (There are also full sliding barn door sets available.) The doors can come in any design from simple panelling to the traditional Z design, and you can keep them in their natural wood color or paint it any hue you like (check out our favorite 100 paint colors of all time!).
Now for those barn door design ideas! Get ready to get inspired for how to add one (or two or more!) to your home.
For More Ideas on How To Bring Farmhouse Style to Your Home:
Hide an Office
A sliding barn door is a great way to hide an office (and all its “real life” stuff!) just beyond the kitchen, making it easy to get to and even easier to conceal. This home’s paneled door style is in keeping with the doors throughout the house.
Close Off the Cook Space
These dark painted barn doors divide the kitchen space from the living space in Laura Akins and Thomas Rhett’s Tennessee party barn. And can you beat putting a hanging indoor sofa that’s like a porch swing in front of them?
Go Bold and Playful
This happy red barn door is just one of many playful design elements in the bunk room of this Michigan lake cottage, all as as vibrant as the landscape and water that surround it. Full-size beds on bottom and twins on top make for plenty of sleeping space when cousins come to visit, and draperies in a bold pattern add privacy to each bunk.
Keep Storage Items Out of Sight
Barn doors don’t have to be tall! This clever sliding-door pantry keeps ingredients and appliances readily accessible but out of sight otherwise. It also houses snacks for both humans and dogs, as
Abby, the Australian Shepherd, is well aware.
Add Warmth with Wood
The homeowners of this renovated 1870s barn house hung reclaimed doors on a track for their master bathroom, completing its neutral and calming palette that also features floor-to-ceiling subway tile and a freestanding tub.
RELATED: The Best Places to Shop for Antiques and Vintage Online
Add Texture with Tree Bark
Poplar bark on this living room barn door (and on the ceiling of the study beyond) reflects the regional heritage of area cabins originally clad in chestnut-bark shingles. It’s one of many textures and tones that adds interest to the monochromatic space in this North Carolina cottage by architect Ken Pursley of Pursley Dixon Architecture and designer Patrick Lewis.
Upgrade a Backyard Retreat
Apple red barn doors set the tone for this Delaware party barn and all the good times it hosts. Traditionally, sliding barn doors allowed farmers to enter and exit the barn without swinging a door
wide open (and thus letting in frigid air). The widely seen X and Z motifs actually served a structural purpose to keep doors from warping and coming apart at the joints.
White Wash Wood
An old white paneled door gets new life as a sliding barn in this tiny (728 square feet!) Indiana farmhouse. The well-patinaed door adds charm while eating up less space than a traditional door to close off the bathroom. The claw-foot tub homeowner Angie Wendricks found at an architectural salvage spot furthers the reclaimed vibe of the space.
Add a Pop of Color
The mint green barn door in the laid-back eating area of this Alabama farmhouse adds a pop of color against white walls, as do the primitive green hutch and glossy blue paint on ladder-back chairs.
Get the Look:
Door Paint Color: Bud Green by Benjamin Moore
Frame French Doors
Nine foot-tall cypress trolley barn doors add heaps of curb appeal, along with cypress siding, to this St. Simons Island, Georgia, cottage renovated by designer Kim Kelly. There’s another set of cypress barn doors inside, too!
Repurpose an Old Door
A sanded down old door hides kitchen dry storage in a newly created pantry for Maria Carr’s 1800s all-white California craftsman cottage. What a clever use for that wasted under-the-stairs space!
RELATED: The Best Pantry Organization Ideas to Keep Your Kitchen in Order
Match the Wall
A sliding panel in this barn loft living room is made of the same white shiplap as the walls in the room, creating a seamless look when the door is closed.
Create an Outdoor Shower
Barn doors work great in their natural habitat outdoors, too. Here at a beach house in Connecticut, designer Gaelle Dudley added an enclosed outdoor shower using a customized barn-style door on a rolling barn door track and chose a breezy pairing of soft blue and white paint for the enclosure.
Try Two Tones of Paint and Stain
These barn doors are not only in an actual barn, they also enclose a bathroom that holds a stock tank as the tub/shower. For extra barn appeal, they are painted red with a natural wood trim to boot.
Get the Look:
Door Paint Color: Barn Red by Valspar
Transform Pocket Doors
In this Michigan farmhouse, homeowners Stefanie and Scott Turner added a new barn door-style track to the wall between this dining room and living room, then hung that room’s original pocket doors, preserved with the original hardware, to create an interesting focal point.
Stain ’Em Dark
These two barn door-style panels that cover the pantry were built by the homeowner, Junk Gypsy Jolie Sikes-Smith, stained dark, and hung with a flat track hardware set.
Get the Look:
Barn Door Stain Color: Ebony by Minwax
Madoline Markham is the assistant managing editor for Country Living, where she covers shopping, home decor, news, and culture.
9 Antique Finds for Laundry Room Decor
6 Dreamy Farmhouses for Sale Right Now
Tour a Vintage-Filled Farmhouse on a Wyoming Ranch
This Photographer Captures Home Through a New Lens
