I’m so so excited about this project for a couple of reasons. First, we’re refurbishing old French doors that we saved from demoing our office (any time I can use old rather than buying new is a win for me) 2. I’m going to take inspiration from our glass barn doors and create cohesiveness in our house and 3. I’ve literally never seen this done before. I’m going to DIY mirror barn doors!
DIY Mirror Barn Doors
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Prep the Doors
These doors are in decent condition so I started by taking all of the hardware off the doors, including the hinges and the door knobs.
I got really lucky with these doors because as you probably know, most doors have a hole where the doorknob typically sits. What I didn’t notice about these is there was no latch, which means the door knobs were really just handles and were screwed on. It saved me a ton of time not having to patch massive door holes.
Next, the door got an initial sanding before patching the holes. For covering up the door hinges, nail holes and scratches I’m using Bondo. Bondo dries fast and hard; you can sand it and paint it just like regular wood. Since it dries so quickly, it also means you have to work really fast. Start by scooping some of the putty out onto a disposable surface. Then add a little bit of the hardening cream and mix well. (Be careful not to add too much of the hardening cream. I did this the first time and it pretty much turned into a brick within 4 minutes). Quickly apply the putty to your surface. If not applied right away, the putty will dry quickly and become unusable. It seemed to dry even faster in cold air.
I also went ahead and cleaned the glass of all the old paint residue using a knife and scraper.
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Paint the Doors
The next step was to paint the doors and since they likely haven’t been painted for years, I stared with a primer
Once the primer was on, I went ahead with our signature door color: Satin Black by Behr. The doors ended up taking 3 coats of paint for full coverage and in some places still needed to be touched up.
Some paint did seep under the tape so I went back through and cleaned up the edges again with a knife. Then I re-taped them to prep the glass for the final paint job.
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Making Mirror
Now comes the best part of the DIY mirror barn doors – actually making the mirror! For that I used Rust-omleum Mirror Effect spray paint. Yes, you read that correctly, I’m spray painting mirror.
Originally I thought I was going to have to remove the glass and somehow install mirror in its place. I had no idea how to go about this and was so excited to find this paint as an alternative solution
Now there are some really important things to note about use this spray paint.
- The glass needs to be SPOTLESS. Any smudge, finger print or speck of dust or paint will there permanently if you do not wipe the glass down sufficiently.
- To get the mirror effect I ended up needing to do 7 coats. Each coat was very light to avoid paint lines. All in all I used 4 cans of the spray paint for the doors.
- Like all paint, this can still chip so it’s good to protect your paint job after completion to avoid chips or nicks in the future.
The big reveal comes at the end! When you’re spraying your paint its really important to remember that the side that your spray should be the BACK of your project. Once dry, flip the doors over and you have this beautiful mirror on the other side!
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Install the DIY Mirror Barn Doors
Finally came installation day! I got this barndoor kit off of amazon and followed the instructions to install. If you remember from last week, we have the header built into the wall already. Otherwise I would have to install that first.
I used a lazer level to make sure everything was level, but ultimately it was just a long arm workout using the socket wrench to lock everything in place. Check out the video above to learn how to install the barn doors and how to pick the right bit size and socket wrench.
The final step was to install my rollers and handles to the door. For this I drilled holes into the door and then used my socket wrench to secure the hardware in place.
These doors turned out exactly as I had hoped and we absolutely love them! They’re the perfect addition to our closet. Check out the final product!
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This is so cool! Question- what does it look like from the ‘back’? thinking of doing this master to bathroom but looking for a door that doesn’t leak light. Thank you!
I’m not going to lie it doesn’t look great, but its our closet so for us it doesn’t matter. It will leak light through in the areas where the paint isn’t as thick. I could see it working if you cover black spray paint on the back over the mirror paint after its dry?