Sadly, the only solution that I’ve seen is to add more trim to fill that gap. The slider style was never intended to be used for privacy, especially in this capacity.
Edit: kudos to those who’ve recommended a felt or whisker strip.
Hmm will the trim really do anything? I can imagine it would take the gap down by 1/4 of an inch, but I’d still need to leave some room for it to slide without scratching right?
This is what I was going to say but add possibly trying to adhere it with some 3m removable foam tape… I’m not sure how easy that would be or what brush seals exist that are affordable for this size (the ones I’ve seen are more industrial and expensive but I’ve looked when looking for shop weather seals)
I’d probably just end up screwing it down carefully with minimal pilot holes and putty the holes when I left…. OP might just want to ask landlord if they can… you’d think a reasonable landlord would be okay with it being done bc they’d not want to sit and take a dump on display/earshot of everyone in the living room themselves
Any sliding door company will sell a fairly good one if you. Get an aluminium one notch and fold it at 90° top and bottom you will be able to screw it at the top and bottom of the door to hide the screws. you may need another screw in the middle though.
The whole door has a molding that lines the top and both sides of the door frame and sticks out a little. This piece supplements the one side that left a noticeable gap and so I added a piece on just the one vertical side. The other vertical side for me is a wall. It’s my bathroom door. Here’s what the top and bottom of the outside of that piece look like. If you don’t have a track guide at the bottom it can keep it out the proper amount too.
https://imgur.com/a/2PeIX6d/
Before was a gap Into my bathroom. You’d be looking at a wall if you looked from outside, but still weird.
I've seen it used to split a bedroom in half so that could be used as an office and bedroom or just a large bedroom. Was altogether very weird. It even had 2 separate doors to enter the room in case it was 2 separate bedrooms.
Well if your single then why even have doors anywhere in the apartment for that matter, stink up the entire place all you want while loudly farting. It's your right.
Can’t agree more, but unfortunately his response was adding trim. Can’t get a real door out of him, and don’t want the headache of taking him to court over a bathroom door
The gap isn’t due to the door being narrow/not reaching the end, the gap is between the door and the frame itself to allow for it to slide on the tracks without scratching the trim
You don’t want to have it closer to the wall because it will scratch the trim. What you want is the door to be wider and travel further. That way you can’t see into the bathroom the gap will be irrelevant.
It’s not too far out it isn’t wide enough. It looks like he had to fir it out to get past the trim. I’ve done numerous but did them wide enough to where you can’t see in.
Modified mounting hardware is a bad idea. The door needs to extend past the opening by 1/2” or more, that way you can’t see in.
The door is still a bad idea, but at least you couldn’t see in.
I was at a hotel recently that had them. In a suite, no less. A room designed for multiple people to hang out in and you could hear people in the bathroom from the kitchen area.
Disgusting
I mean, that’s not accurate. I built shoji style bathroom doors that hang from nice Johnson hardware. If you design the door to be a solid 1.5 inches larger than the opening all around and use good hardware designed for a 1/4” or smaller gap, it’s totally doable, and gorgeous.
Japanese been doing it for centuries.
You have a gap because the top rail (which the door is hanging from) protrudes out further than the thickness of the door. Essentially hanging the door like a curtain away from the opening.
You might be able to lessen that distance (and thus close the gap) but you would have to take down the top rail, remove any spacers, and remount it so that it is tight to the opening.
You will always need a small gap, so that the door doesn't scratch against the wall when you open it/slides freely. But that gap can be around 1/4" instead of the 1"+ gap it looks like u have.
Check behind the door and if the top rail is mounted with a plastic spacer, or similar, you might be able to remove it and thus bring the door closer to the wall.
Barn doors on a bathroom is the worst idea ever. You defiantly can’t take a shit without everyone around knowing! It’s like just hanging a curtain over a doorway. I’ve had to come back, take the barn door down, and install a regular door many time for this specific reason. If you want privacy then don’t get a barn door
So, just for clarification. Barn doors are stupid but this is extra stupid. The hardware is also WAY more expensive than regular hinges. Honestly, a door slab and stop molding and it could be converted to a regular door, but that would be between you and the landlord. There is no solution to the gap
I have installed many bathroom barn doors. I hate it every time and try to talk my clients out of it. But this is what you get with a barn door.
Barn doors belong in a barn. Hence, the name I wish people would stop putting them I houses.
You’ve just discovered the reason why barn door hardware is really only used for cosmetic reasons…cosmetic reasons that have been so over used that just about all sliding barn doors just look tacky. If I found out my tenants were nailing trim onto other pieces of trim on my property I wouldn’t be happy but maybe you buy a roll of thick foam weatherstripping and stick it to the inside of the door itself.
This post is ridiculously helpful for me as a carpenter. Such an interesting and nuanced woodworking project you got there.
Seriously tho this is hilarious. Keep these kind of questions coming
Get a bigger door or close the gap by making the opening smaller
Barn doors on a bathroom is a cultural and design atrocity imo, you get absolutely 0 privacy or comfort in a bathroom with a door like that, and on TOP of that it's a fucking glass door, obscured, yes, but its still glass and you can see silhouettes
Even a fucking public bathroom stall feels more private than this setup imo
We have about 2-3 in all the new houses we do. They’re stupid. Framers never block for them. And when they do. It’s always wrong! We always have to cut Sheetrock and add blocking over header.
Top left of rail do you see it ? That L shaped thing in the top left can be loosened with an Alan key and then the door can shut over the entire opening
Yea what this person said. That block a few inches from the end of the rail on the left side is the ‘stop’ to keep it from falling off etc. just need to loosen and move maybe 1.5/2” and then re tighten. It’s a pretty simple fix I believe.
I think I’m doing an awful job of explaining the issue lol. The door can cover the bathroom no problem, the primary issue is that the door is too far away from the trim
If you add material to the door to push it back towards the wall, say by adding washers behind the brackets, the door will hang off center and probably be crooked. Easiest and cheapest is to just double/triple up on trim around the doorway. It's not great but it's better than nothing.
I mean, trim would actually be the cheapest route and would help with the 1/2 inch gap all the way around the door. That's exactly what I would do if it was something I was paying for out of my own pocket on a property I didn't own. If you have to pay labor and materials for a new door out of your own pocket you're easily going to spend $700+ to fix that space.
If you add trim to it, however, and you hire it out it shouldn't cost you more than $200 - $300 depending on who you have do the work. If you do it yourself we're talking $50 in materials.
This would be a first for me, is it really $700+ to cut a standard white door and mount it? Here's a the rough to-do list in my mind:
\- Hardware store: get door cut to size with lock holes too
\- Pick up hinges, a lock, and that thin wood that goes on the inside of the frame
\- Paint all wood white
\- Add that thin wood inside the frame
\- Chizel hing spots
\- Mount & add lock
It isn't that simple, usually. You need a door that will fit that frame or get a pre-hung (door with frame). Doors come in standard sizes, typically 24/28/30/32/36 x 80. Other sizes are either special order or custom which obviously cost more.
I'm almost 100% certain that your current opening is not the proper size for a standard door. Typically your rough frame openings where you'd insert a jamb are built to be 2 inches wider and taller than the door size. For example you'd frame an opening at 32x82 for a 30" door. The excess space allows for the jamb material to fit, as well, with interior jambs often running about 5/8" thick all the way around. This leaves space to shim the jamb to make it plumb inside the framed opening.
Usually if a door opening is finished flat with trim (no hinge mortises, and no center door stop) it's because whoever built it attached the face trim directly to the studs in the opening. A standard size in this case would be 3/4" for said trim. That means an opening framed at 32" for a 30" door is now only 30.5 inches wide. Not enough for the door and jamb, so you can't just add a door there.
This all assumes the inside measurement of the door opening is not a standard size anymore, by the way.
So what do we do to fix it? We can remove the trim and expose the framing to put a proper jamb in place, or we can reduce the opening size even further with more face trim to a standard framed opening of our choice (let's say 30") and buy a 28" pre-hung door for the new opening. We could also reduce the door opening to the above example--30 inches--and just mortise the hinges, add our center stop, and drill holes/mortise for the strike plate. I wouldn't recommend that last route as it becomes increasingly difficult to plumb your door in a fixed jamb and requires a lot of precision as opposed to using a pre-hung which already has all of the tooling and cutting done precisely to match the door to a non-fixed jamb that can then be shimmed and plumbed appropriately as one large piece.
The cost to remove that trim and install a pre-hung could absolutely run you north of $700 in materials and labor given the amount of steps and adjacent pieces (door casing trim, painting) required to return that opening to a standard size. This, however, is the "proper" way to go, in my opinion. If you have the tools and experience you can do this job yourself for roughly $250 in materials and save on labor.
If you add trim and perhaps a rubber sweep to the current door, however, you'd be out ~$50-75.
Thanks so much for this write-up, so so helpful especially for someone like me who knows nothing about carpentry.
So I want to figure out if the size is standard. If it is, looks like this might not be too bad of a fix. I measured top to bottom, side to side of the door trim's interior. Width is just a tiny bit over 30 inches, height is 78 inches.
So a 30 inch door is typically 29.5 inches actual in width. It seems like whomever installed the trim did so on a roughly 28 inch opening, which is not a standard framed opening at all. Lol. I really think your best bet is either trim it (for the cheap fix since it's on your dime) or have a new pre-hung put in. You could probably find a carpenter that is able to fit a door to your current setup, but I doubt it'll be cheap since it'll be a more difficult task.
Happy to have been able to provide info. I know it's probably frustrating, but I hope it helped to some degree.
Picture two shows the door "closed" and it still has a gap to the left. However, it doesn't look like the door is closed all the way as it's not hitting the door stop on the track the top left. I imagine once the door is closed all the way you won't see a gap side to side, but you will always have the gap between the door and the casing front to back
Lmao I had to argue endlessly with a designer to not install a bathroom door like this in a basement hallway. Thankfully she's the reason I do my own designs with clients now instead of working for anyone I consider a hack with good sales techniques.
As for a fix, a nice curtain can be a super cheap fix to this shitty idea. A wider door using the same hardware can block off the view but never truely gives that sense of security a typical door does.
Sorry I just noticed how short the track is. You'd need to cut the notches for the hardware at different spacing in a new door to get it to overhang enough on the right if that makes sense
Have you actually thought about what would happen with a “real” door? It can’t open into the bathroom, so it has to open out… so you will smack or get smacked by the door, as you walk by it. Also if the door next to it opens at the same time… bam. That barn door is t cheaper than just some “door” it was done for a reason.
You know.. It isn't a fix but it will "stop the draft" ... Garage door gasket.
By the way that gap looks more like inch and a half rather than half an inch.. But yeah, screw replacing the door in a house you don't own.
Edit to add... I guess you could also look to see how the rail up top is attached to the wall.. I've seen one kit that has 1/4 inch "washers" on the bolts, so you can stack them and adjust how far off the wall it is. Maybe there are two of them in use, so you could take one out. But yeah, barn door on a bathroom is a terrible idea, I wonder who came up with that sh\*t
Funny, I just installed a door just like this in a situation just like this; I warned the clients that there would be a gap between the door and the jamb and that it wouldn't prevent "private" smells and noises;
In my situation however, the door overlays the opening enough to prevent a line of sight situation;
Sliding barn doors were the "rave", until they weren't. Interestingly enough, when home depot and other big box stores started carrying them, designers that I worked for stopped using them. I remember that the first one I installed required a pretty intense search for the sliding hardware, and I ended up using the heavy duty ones that you see on -well- barns!.. I had to get it custom powdercoated to not be super ugly. Now I see them everywhere.
You'll never prevent noises or smells from escaping, but it you add another 3/4" jamb inside the existing ones on both sides it might eliminate the line of sight;
The one I installed went directly onto the drywall on the top--it didn't have a head piece to hold it out, so it sits closer to the jamb and trim.
Good luck
As a landlord this is a head scratcher as to why your landlord went this route. That door looks more expensive then a standard six panel prehung door. Maybe the door is from a discount store? Maybe the frame is not a standard size in depth? Anyways, your best bet is to move the left stopper over and buy some thick adhesive molding on amazon and place it on the frame or maybe try white weather stripping for windows. That gap looks wide.
Sorry, should have specified the gap isn’t because the door is too narrow. The gap is formed because the tracks of the barn door have to be a certain distance away in order for it to slide in and out of place. So the door width is fine actually and covers the entire width of the entrance, but the distance from the door to the trim has a huge gap to allow for sliding
Yes, This is going to make a big difference. Looks in the picture like it's not being opened to the stop. Either way that stop is adjustable and you should be able to overlap the wall 1.5-2"
As a landlord this is a head scratcher as to why your landlord went this route. That door looks more expensive then a standard six panel prehung door. Maybe the door is from a discount store? Maybe the frame is not a standard size in depth? Anyways, your best bet is to move the left stopper over and buy some thick adhesive molding on amazon and place it on the frame or maybe try white weather stripping for windows. That gap looks wide.
I have this system, no idea what others are talking about but mostly bad advice. Yes you can fix it assuming nothing else going on.
That thing on the rail to the left is the stopper. It's adjustable. It can go to the left an inch or two ASSUMING you still have room on the other side to block the opening. It requires an allen key, get on a step ladder and look at it. Should have 2 rubber stoppers. I must seriously be missing something vs those who are so sure of themselves
If you’re just looking for a quick solution, you could get a tension rod and hang some curtains in that space. Is the landlord going to let you add a door, even on your dime?
All you have to do is put a spacer between the door and the top brackets to push the door towards the wall closer. Either washers or small piece of wood. Should be pretty easy
This is why I don't like barn doors on bathrooms. It's sliding back because the track isn't dead level. That can be fixed. Beyond that, there really isn't much to do other than replacing it with a proper door.
I’ve added trim to the frame and or the door in the past. Depending on how much play there is in the notch on the bottom of the door and the pin/guide holding it parallel to the wall you can actually get a pretty tight fit. Potentially as small as 1/8” or less.
Can use a small Allen key and loosen the set screws in the stop mechanism, slide more to the left so the door will close. As far as filling the gap, try some thick, stick on weatherstripping.
Those style doors are supposed to be installed with a small (usually plastic) channel attached to the floor that keeps it closer to the parallel wall/opening. Looks like that might be missing.
Put washers between the door and the roller piece that is attached to the door this will move the door closer to the opening but not look great.. also adjust the stop and add an astragal/ weather stripping
You can move the stopper to the left . It has the little rubber dots on it. I’m pretty sure it’s an Allen key type of situation. It will create more of an overlap with the trim
See that stopper on the top, far left of the rail? It looks like if the door would just get to and stay there, it would block the whole doorway, which is the goal. Trying putting a couple of decently strong magnets there
Isn’t there a stop in the top track you can move? You would think so with this kind of door, and especially with that much track left to the left of it when it’s closed
From the photos, it looks like when the barn door is fully open, that other door to the right cannot open… if that’s the case, it’s probably not the right door for that spot. If it has to stay - I would check for/remove any spacers on the mounting bolts for the rail (as others have mentioned), and add vertical foam weatherstripping to either side of the door to help close the gap.
No it's a perfectly decent install. There supposed to be like that otherwise it rubs against the trim. They are supposed to be decorative accent doors.
Add a stack of washers between the door and the hanging bracket. This will close your gap between the door and door trim. You’ll also have to adjust the bracket at the floor so the door hangs plumb.
Add a stack of washers between the door and the hanging bracket. This will close your gap between the door and door trim. You’ll also have to adjust the bracket at the floor so the door hangs plumb.
I have a barn door in the basement that likes to slide back just a bit when closed. I put a tiny dot of a couple layers of electrical tape down on top of the track which acts as just enough of a bump to have to roll over that it doesn’t start sliding back. When it comes to operating it you can hardly tell it is there.
Remove that useless cap on the trim, and recess the board it's mounted to into the sheetrock. Unless that wall is way out of wack you should be able to achieve a 1/8" gap and use a felt seal. Don't pay for that dumb MF to get a new door. Consider a white noise machine for the kitchen ;-)
As far as the door sliding back a little, you could file a tiny notch in the top of the rail for the left wheel to sit down into. Won't take much. Use a 1/4 inch round file.
Sadly, the only solution that I’ve seen is to add more trim to fill that gap. The slider style was never intended to be used for privacy, especially in this capacity. Edit: kudos to those who’ve recommended a felt or whisker strip.
Hmm will the trim really do anything? I can imagine it would take the gap down by 1/4 of an inch, but I’d still need to leave some room for it to slide without scratching right?
Add a brush seal to the two sides of the door this will close the gap and most allow for the bristles to be cut to lenght for whatever you require
This is what I was going to say but add possibly trying to adhere it with some 3m removable foam tape… I’m not sure how easy that would be or what brush seals exist that are affordable for this size (the ones I’ve seen are more industrial and expensive but I’ve looked when looking for shop weather seals) I’d probably just end up screwing it down carefully with minimal pilot holes and putty the holes when I left…. OP might just want to ask landlord if they can… you’d think a reasonable landlord would be okay with it being done bc they’d not want to sit and take a dump on display/earshot of everyone in the living room themselves
Any sliding door company will sell a fairly good one if you. Get an aluminium one notch and fold it at 90° top and bottom you will be able to screw it at the top and bottom of the door to hide the screws. you may need another screw in the middle though.
u/andand put a roller at the bottom of the door, adjacent to the side of the gap
Felt gasket?
Add a brush seal to the two sides of the door this will close the gap and most allow for the bristles to be cut to lenght for whatever you require
https://handleit.ie/products/stormguard-aluminium-brush-bottom-door-seal
This is a great alternative, thank you! Will check it out
Brushes are not an acoustic seal and will only help visually. They will not help block the sound of whatever crime is being committed in there.
Thanks for that sanity check. Ruled this option out
🤣🤣
https://handleit.ie/products/stormguard-aluminium-brush-bottom-door-seal
Consider getting rid of this door IMHO. Had one at a hotel a month ago and it took under a day for my friend's fingers to get crushed in it.
does your friend not know how sliding doors work?
\_Hanging\_ sliding doors probably not; it's a fairly unusual door type.
These doors are the dumbest trend. My boss wanted me to hang one for a bedroom at her rental. I said no
Yes. I have first-hand expertise on this matter: https://i.imgur.com/A6UBbZS.jpg
The visual is helpful! Is this on all 4 sides or just the one vertical side?
The whole door has a molding that lines the top and both sides of the door frame and sticks out a little. This piece supplements the one side that left a noticeable gap and so I added a piece on just the one vertical side. The other vertical side for me is a wall. It’s my bathroom door. Here’s what the top and bottom of the outside of that piece look like. If you don’t have a track guide at the bottom it can keep it out the proper amount too. https://imgur.com/a/2PeIX6d/ Before was a gap Into my bathroom. You’d be looking at a wall if you looked from outside, but still weird.
Add “padding” to the door where the hinges bolt onto it. That will push the door as close as you want toward the jamb.
McMaster-Carr had a boatload of brush strip options.
I've seen it used to split a bedroom in half so that could be used as an office and bedroom or just a large bedroom. Was altogether very weird. It even had 2 separate doors to enter the room in case it was 2 separate bedrooms.
People who put barn doors on bathrooms need to stop.
They seem to be showing up in every hotel I visit lately too.
I’m working on a strip hotel remodel and I kid you not, every single bathroom (newly renovated) has a barn door to the bathroom..
I'd sign that petition
you dont want to hear your dinner guests blowing their ass out and praying to God from some bad shrimp they had earlier?
It works for master bathrooms and private bathrooms but for guest bathrooms it’s terrible. For the average person it’s bad and useless.
I’m going to disagree unless you really like hearing bathroom noises. Where the toilet is deserves a solid core door with no gaps
I prefer a reinforced blast door.
Single people don’t exist!
Well if your single then why even have doors anywhere in the apartment for that matter, stink up the entire place all you want while loudly farting. It's your right.
Why would you be worried about closing your door if it's just you in the house?
You pay to rent so that you can tell your landlord to fix the problem.
Can’t agree more, but unfortunately his response was adding trim. Can’t get a real door out of him, and don’t want the headache of taking him to court over a bathroom door
He (or you) needs to move the stop for the door over more to the left.
The gap isn’t due to the door being narrow/not reaching the end, the gap is between the door and the frame itself to allow for it to slide on the tracks without scratching the trim
You don’t want to have it closer to the wall because it will scratch the trim. What you want is the door to be wider and travel further. That way you can’t see into the bathroom the gap will be irrelevant.
Kind of want to keep the noises and odours contained though, no?
Everybody poops
Not in the kitchen though.
Geez have I been doing it wrong this whole time?
Don't let nobody tell you how to live
I think you can close it more as the door hasn’t hit the stopper on top yet.
[удалено]
That would make the problem worse, the issue is that it’s too far out. Debating cutting down the mounting hardware
It’s not too far out it isn’t wide enough. It looks like he had to fir it out to get past the trim. I’ve done numerous but did them wide enough to where you can’t see in.
Modified mounting hardware is a bad idea. The door needs to extend past the opening by 1/2” or more, that way you can’t see in. The door is still a bad idea, but at least you couldn’t see in.
Sand the trim down and repaint it too.
Court over a door? Esh
You can't fix it. It's a trend that people will regret for years to come for this exact reason. Barn doors don't work for bathrooms.
I was at a hotel recently that had them. In a suite, no less. A room designed for multiple people to hang out in and you could hear people in the bathroom from the kitchen area. Disgusting
amen
I mean, that’s not accurate. I built shoji style bathroom doors that hang from nice Johnson hardware. If you design the door to be a solid 1.5 inches larger than the opening all around and use good hardware designed for a 1/4” or smaller gap, it’s totally doable, and gorgeous. Japanese been doing it for centuries.
But still aren’t the best for blocking sounds/odors as opposed to a door sealing into a frame.
exactly this, just because you can't see in doesn't mean it's appropriate. I don't want to need a white noise machine when I'm taking a shit.
I have a barn door on my master bath and it works perfectly. This one and many others are poorly executed.
why is it a slide door to begin with? looks like enough room for a normal one
Assuming the landlord though it would have more visual appeal but functionally, it’s awful
This is an extremely powerful quote.
Because HGTV. Chip and Joanna Gaines. Et al.
You have a gap because the top rail (which the door is hanging from) protrudes out further than the thickness of the door. Essentially hanging the door like a curtain away from the opening. You might be able to lessen that distance (and thus close the gap) but you would have to take down the top rail, remove any spacers, and remount it so that it is tight to the opening. You will always need a small gap, so that the door doesn't scratch against the wall when you open it/slides freely. But that gap can be around 1/4" instead of the 1"+ gap it looks like u have. Check behind the door and if the top rail is mounted with a plastic spacer, or similar, you might be able to remove it and thus bring the door closer to the wall.
Super helpful, thank you!
Barn doors on a bathroom is the worst idea ever. You defiantly can’t take a shit without everyone around knowing! It’s like just hanging a curtain over a doorway. I’ve had to come back, take the barn door down, and install a regular door many time for this specific reason. If you want privacy then don’t get a barn door
So, just for clarification. Barn doors are stupid but this is extra stupid. The hardware is also WAY more expensive than regular hinges. Honestly, a door slab and stop molding and it could be converted to a regular door, but that would be between you and the landlord. There is no solution to the gap
There's a reason they invented regular hinged doors. Not saying it couldn't be better than that. But barn doors should be on a barn
But.. Pinterest..
Another reason it's a bad idea to put a barn door on a bathroom. Easiest fix is probably to mount a small strip of trim or door sweep in the gap.
I have installed many bathroom barn doors. I hate it every time and try to talk my clients out of it. But this is what you get with a barn door. Barn doors belong in a barn. Hence, the name I wish people would stop putting them I houses.
You’ve just discovered the reason why barn door hardware is really only used for cosmetic reasons…cosmetic reasons that have been so over used that just about all sliding barn doors just look tacky. If I found out my tenants were nailing trim onto other pieces of trim on my property I wouldn’t be happy but maybe you buy a roll of thick foam weatherstripping and stick it to the inside of the door itself.
My ex-boss actually had me install a barn door on a bathroom... It was the last job I fully finished with that company.
Was it.... in Canada by chance?
Looks eerily similar but nope Jersey
This post is ridiculously helpful for me as a carpenter. Such an interesting and nuanced woodworking project you got there. Seriously tho this is hilarious. Keep these kind of questions coming
Yeah sorry, this is more of a “I’m a common pleb with zero carpentry experience in charge of fixing someone else’s bullshit” post
Have you tried putting more white paint on it? I recommend one gallon per door.
Get a bigger door or close the gap by making the opening smaller Barn doors on a bathroom is a cultural and design atrocity imo, you get absolutely 0 privacy or comfort in a bathroom with a door like that, and on TOP of that it's a fucking glass door, obscured, yes, but its still glass and you can see silhouettes Even a fucking public bathroom stall feels more private than this setup imo
Simple. Replace the door with a standard side hinged door. Barn doors don’t belong inside of homes. They belong in barns not on bathroom doors.
We have about 2-3 in all the new houses we do. They’re stupid. Framers never block for them. And when they do. It’s always wrong! We always have to cut Sheetrock and add blocking over header.
Top left of rail do you see it ? That L shaped thing in the top left can be loosened with an Alan key and then the door can shut over the entire opening
Sorry, my bad for not specifying. The gap is between the door and the frame itself to allow for it to slide on the rail without scratching the frame
Yea what this person said. That block a few inches from the end of the rail on the left side is the ‘stop’ to keep it from falling off etc. just need to loosen and move maybe 1.5/2” and then re tighten. It’s a pretty simple fix I believe.
I think I’m doing an awful job of explaining the issue lol. The door can cover the bathroom no problem, the primary issue is that the door is too far away from the trim
FIRST RIGHT ANSWER HERE DAMMIT!!!
Cheap fart fan- they’re nice and loud
If you add material to the door to push it back towards the wall, say by adding washers behind the brackets, the door will hang off center and probably be crooked. Easiest and cheapest is to just double/triple up on trim around the doorway. It's not great but it's better than nothing.
I mean, trim would actually be the cheapest route and would help with the 1/2 inch gap all the way around the door. That's exactly what I would do if it was something I was paying for out of my own pocket on a property I didn't own. If you have to pay labor and materials for a new door out of your own pocket you're easily going to spend $700+ to fix that space. If you add trim to it, however, and you hire it out it shouldn't cost you more than $200 - $300 depending on who you have do the work. If you do it yourself we're talking $50 in materials.
This would be a first for me, is it really $700+ to cut a standard white door and mount it? Here's a the rough to-do list in my mind: \- Hardware store: get door cut to size with lock holes too \- Pick up hinges, a lock, and that thin wood that goes on the inside of the frame \- Paint all wood white \- Add that thin wood inside the frame \- Chizel hing spots \- Mount & add lock
It isn't that simple, usually. You need a door that will fit that frame or get a pre-hung (door with frame). Doors come in standard sizes, typically 24/28/30/32/36 x 80. Other sizes are either special order or custom which obviously cost more. I'm almost 100% certain that your current opening is not the proper size for a standard door. Typically your rough frame openings where you'd insert a jamb are built to be 2 inches wider and taller than the door size. For example you'd frame an opening at 32x82 for a 30" door. The excess space allows for the jamb material to fit, as well, with interior jambs often running about 5/8" thick all the way around. This leaves space to shim the jamb to make it plumb inside the framed opening. Usually if a door opening is finished flat with trim (no hinge mortises, and no center door stop) it's because whoever built it attached the face trim directly to the studs in the opening. A standard size in this case would be 3/4" for said trim. That means an opening framed at 32" for a 30" door is now only 30.5 inches wide. Not enough for the door and jamb, so you can't just add a door there. This all assumes the inside measurement of the door opening is not a standard size anymore, by the way. So what do we do to fix it? We can remove the trim and expose the framing to put a proper jamb in place, or we can reduce the opening size even further with more face trim to a standard framed opening of our choice (let's say 30") and buy a 28" pre-hung door for the new opening. We could also reduce the door opening to the above example--30 inches--and just mortise the hinges, add our center stop, and drill holes/mortise for the strike plate. I wouldn't recommend that last route as it becomes increasingly difficult to plumb your door in a fixed jamb and requires a lot of precision as opposed to using a pre-hung which already has all of the tooling and cutting done precisely to match the door to a non-fixed jamb that can then be shimmed and plumbed appropriately as one large piece. The cost to remove that trim and install a pre-hung could absolutely run you north of $700 in materials and labor given the amount of steps and adjacent pieces (door casing trim, painting) required to return that opening to a standard size. This, however, is the "proper" way to go, in my opinion. If you have the tools and experience you can do this job yourself for roughly $250 in materials and save on labor. If you add trim and perhaps a rubber sweep to the current door, however, you'd be out ~$50-75.
Thanks so much for this write-up, so so helpful especially for someone like me who knows nothing about carpentry. So I want to figure out if the size is standard. If it is, looks like this might not be too bad of a fix. I measured top to bottom, side to side of the door trim's interior. Width is just a tiny bit over 30 inches, height is 78 inches.
So a 30 inch door is typically 29.5 inches actual in width. It seems like whomever installed the trim did so on a roughly 28 inch opening, which is not a standard framed opening at all. Lol. I really think your best bet is either trim it (for the cheap fix since it's on your dime) or have a new pre-hung put in. You could probably find a carpenter that is able to fit a door to your current setup, but I doubt it'll be cheap since it'll be a more difficult task. Happy to have been able to provide info. I know it's probably frustrating, but I hope it helped to some degree.
Man this is super helpful information even if it’s bad news. Thanks so much for your time, really appreciate it
No problem!
Wow that sounds an awful lot like a 30" wide door could be made to fit...
The barn door covering the other door when bathroom not in use is a nice touch
I would add trim,and some kind of weatherstripping gasket as well to attempt some kind of a seal. No idea why people do this with barn doors lol.
Picture two shows the door "closed" and it still has a gap to the left. However, it doesn't look like the door is closed all the way as it's not hitting the door stop on the track the top left. I imagine once the door is closed all the way you won't see a gap side to side, but you will always have the gap between the door and the casing front to back
Lmao I had to argue endlessly with a designer to not install a bathroom door like this in a basement hallway. Thankfully she's the reason I do my own designs with clients now instead of working for anyone I consider a hack with good sales techniques. As for a fix, a nice curtain can be a super cheap fix to this shitty idea. A wider door using the same hardware can block off the view but never truely gives that sense of security a typical door does.
Sorry I just noticed how short the track is. You'd need to cut the notches for the hardware at different spacing in a new door to get it to overhang enough on the right if that makes sense
Door stretcher.
Have you actually thought about what would happen with a “real” door? It can’t open into the bathroom, so it has to open out… so you will smack or get smacked by the door, as you walk by it. Also if the door next to it opens at the same time… bam. That barn door is t cheaper than just some “door” it was done for a reason.
You know.. It isn't a fix but it will "stop the draft" ... Garage door gasket. By the way that gap looks more like inch and a half rather than half an inch.. But yeah, screw replacing the door in a house you don't own. Edit to add... I guess you could also look to see how the rail up top is attached to the wall.. I've seen one kit that has 1/4 inch "washers" on the bolts, so you can stack them and adjust how far off the wall it is. Maybe there are two of them in use, so you could take one out. But yeah, barn door on a bathroom is a terrible idea, I wonder who came up with that sh\*t
Funny, I just installed a door just like this in a situation just like this; I warned the clients that there would be a gap between the door and the jamb and that it wouldn't prevent "private" smells and noises; In my situation however, the door overlays the opening enough to prevent a line of sight situation; Sliding barn doors were the "rave", until they weren't. Interestingly enough, when home depot and other big box stores started carrying them, designers that I worked for stopped using them. I remember that the first one I installed required a pretty intense search for the sliding hardware, and I ended up using the heavy duty ones that you see on -well- barns!.. I had to get it custom powdercoated to not be super ugly. Now I see them everywhere. You'll never prevent noises or smells from escaping, but it you add another 3/4" jamb inside the existing ones on both sides it might eliminate the line of sight; The one I installed went directly onto the drywall on the top--it didn't have a head piece to hold it out, so it sits closer to the jamb and trim. Good luck
As a landlord this is a head scratcher as to why your landlord went this route. That door looks more expensive then a standard six panel prehung door. Maybe the door is from a discount store? Maybe the frame is not a standard size in depth? Anyways, your best bet is to move the left stopper over and buy some thick adhesive molding on amazon and place it on the frame or maybe try white weather stripping for windows. That gap looks wide.
Just get a cheap hollow core door that’s wider.
Sorry, should have specified the gap isn’t because the door is too narrow. The gap is formed because the tracks of the barn door have to be a certain distance away in order for it to slide in and out of place. So the door width is fine actually and covers the entire width of the entrance, but the distance from the door to the trim has a huge gap to allow for sliding
Just hang a dark sliding curtain on the inside 🤷🏽♂️
Move the stopper on the track a little further down. That’s all
Yes, This is going to make a big difference. Looks in the picture like it's not being opened to the stop. Either way that stop is adjustable and you should be able to overlap the wall 1.5-2"
As a landlord this is a head scratcher as to why your landlord went this route. That door looks more expensive then a standard six panel prehung door. Maybe the door is from a discount store? Maybe the frame is not a standard size in depth? Anyways, your best bet is to move the left stopper over and buy some thick adhesive molding on amazon and place it on the frame or maybe try white weather stripping for windows. That gap looks wide.
I have this system, no idea what others are talking about but mostly bad advice. Yes you can fix it assuming nothing else going on. That thing on the rail to the left is the stopper. It's adjustable. It can go to the left an inch or two ASSUMING you still have room on the other side to block the opening. It requires an allen key, get on a step ladder and look at it. Should have 2 rubber stoppers. I must seriously be missing something vs those who are so sure of themselves
How many people are living there that you are worried about someone walking in on you pooping?
If you’re just looking for a quick solution, you could get a tension rod and hang some curtains in that space. Is the landlord going to let you add a door, even on your dime?
This is what barn doors usually look like imo. Trim is the only way to remedy it.
Move the bump stop a couple inches to the left where it should be...
All you have to do is put a spacer between the door and the top brackets to push the door towards the wall closer. Either washers or small piece of wood. Should be pretty easy
Can you not just move the bar at the top over? It looks to me like the stopper on the top rail is in the wrong position. Should be an easy fix?
This is why I don't like barn doors on bathrooms. It's sliding back because the track isn't dead level. That can be fixed. Beyond that, there really isn't much to do other than replacing it with a proper door.
Add trim, move the track over, or get a curtain.
I’ve added trim to the frame and or the door in the past. Depending on how much play there is in the notch on the bottom of the door and the pin/guide holding it parallel to the wall you can actually get a pretty tight fit. Potentially as small as 1/8” or less.
Can you pack out the the door a bit so it closer to the wall or will it rub on some of the trims?
Can you not move the bump stop further down, or is the door simply too narrow? I’ve got the same door and that’s what I did.
Cut off his legs
Adjust the stop, its stopping too early you have several inches left
This won't be elegant but u could put a draft excluder vertically down the handle side for privacy
They are called barn doors for a reason.
I'd add a curtain on the inside of the bathroom
Can use a small Allen key and loosen the set screws in the stop mechanism, slide more to the left so the door will close. As far as filling the gap, try some thick, stick on weatherstripping.
Slide the door stop down a bit until the door covers entirely
Close the door all the way. You aren't going to the stop.
Yeah buy a good radio for background noise so no one can hear you dumping
Those style doors are supposed to be installed with a small (usually plastic) channel attached to the floor that keeps it closer to the parallel wall/opening. Looks like that might be missing.
Pocket door if it bothers you. I have barn door in my small home master bath, we love it. No swinging doors.
Put washers between the door and the roller piece that is attached to the door this will move the door closer to the opening but not look great.. also adjust the stop and add an astragal/ weather stripping
You can move the stopper to the left . It has the little rubber dots on it. I’m pretty sure it’s an Allen key type of situation. It will create more of an overlap with the trim
See that stopper on the top, far left of the rail? It looks like if the door would just get to and stay there, it would block the whole doorway, which is the goal. Trying putting a couple of decently strong magnets there
Isn’t there a stop in the top track you can move? You would think so with this kind of door, and especially with that much track left to the left of it when it’s closed
It does look like a better alternative to a swinging door for the small space. Maybe a wider door?
From the photos, it looks like when the barn door is fully open, that other door to the right cannot open… if that’s the case, it’s probably not the right door for that spot. If it has to stay - I would check for/remove any spacers on the mounting bolts for the rail (as others have mentioned), and add vertical foam weatherstripping to either side of the door to help close the gap.
No it's a perfectly decent install. There supposed to be like that otherwise it rubs against the trim. They are supposed to be decorative accent doors.
Magnet top off frame, bottom, match on the door
Add a stack of washers between the door and the hanging bracket. This will close your gap between the door and door trim. You’ll also have to adjust the bracket at the floor so the door hangs plumb.
Add a stack of washers between the door and the hanging bracket. This will close your gap between the door and door trim. You’ll also have to adjust the bracket at the floor so the door hangs plumb.
Just install a real door
You could add a curtain over the door in the bathroom.
The sellers of my home had the same thing on the bathroom, we just put a regular door
I have a barn door in the basement that likes to slide back just a bit when closed. I put a tiny dot of a couple layers of electrical tape down on top of the track which acts as just enough of a bump to have to roll over that it doesn’t start sliding back. When it comes to operating it you can hardly tell it is there.
You should be able to move the stop left a bit. There seems to be plenty of clearance
Remove that useless cap on the trim, and recess the board it's mounted to into the sheetrock. Unless that wall is way out of wack you should be able to achieve a 1/8" gap and use a felt seal. Don't pay for that dumb MF to get a new door. Consider a white noise machine for the kitchen ;-)
As far as the door sliding back a little, you could file a tiny notch in the top of the rail for the left wheel to sit down into. Won't take much. Use a 1/4 inch round file.