Front Room Closet Done: Before & After

My holiday cooking series was a long one, so I'm starting off the new year with some remodeling updates. First up is the front room closet. Dan got it finished! I'll start with what the closet looked like when we first moved into the house.

Before. These first 2 photos were taken in 2009.

Before

Here it is now. 

Now I can easily access all that closet space, including the 32 cubic feet above the old closet shelf that was impossible to get to before.

Between the standard height sliding closet doors and the shelf above, I've got lots of storage space!

The track (from Amazon) is for glass cabinet doors, but works really well
 for the plywood doors Dan made. They slide easily on the plastic track.

The interior of the closet, I left open for now. I don't need a clothing rod or rack, but I need shelving for storage because I'm using the room as my weaving studio. Dan offered to make shelves, but I opted for stand-alone wire shelving units to allow for future closet refittings. The problem is that the ones I ordered from Amazon don't work, because the actual size of the shelves is one inch smaller in length and depth than the stated size. So my yarn and fiber totes (which would have fit the advertised size) didn't fit these. 

So what I'm showing you is Plan B, which is temporary until I can get two longer shelf units. 

 As you can see, I've already put the space to good use!

I put one of the shelving units in the center of the closet for now, for storing smaller items. On either side I've stacked the totes. As soon as I can I'm going to get two wider sets of shelves for them because it would be nicer to have each on it's own shelf. 

Even with the shelving set back, I'm really happy with the new closet. I do kinda wish the door stain was a lighter shade, but it's what we already had so it's what got used.

Next I'll show you how Dan finished off the wall to the left of the closet, which is the back of the masonry stove.

Front Room Closet Done: Before & After © 2026

 by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com

Front Room Closet: Decision About the Doors

I make a trip to the library once a week and on one of those recent trips I stopped by Lowes and Home Depot to see what they had on offer for closet doors. As I mentioned in my last closet post, I was hoping to find hollow core wood bypass doors, but alas, these apparently aren't popular nowadays. What both stores did have was a vast selection of bifold doors.

My reluctance toward the bifold doors is because they need unhindered space to open them. For two 36-inch width doors, that would be 18 inches of space out into the room. But space is a premium feature in this room and I'm not sure I want to give it up for bifold doors, especially against the outer wall, where I'd like to use the wall space. Lowes does carry sliding mirrored closet doors, but I really don't want to look at myself that much. Home Depot offers barn door kits, but sheesh, they are expensive. 

The other problem with finding doors is that the closet opening is almost 79 inches wide. The widest doors of 36 inches each would only cover 72 inches, and that would leave a gap of 7 inches. 

The solution? Dan decided to make the doors. He made the sliding doors for the chicken coop, old goat barn, new goat barn, and hay loft. The track is available separately, so why not?

He knocked out two doors for the front room closet in a couple of afternoons.

First of two barn style closet doors.

So that's done and they're ready to install after the door track is installed. 

There's still the question of how to finish them. At first I thought to paint them the same color that the walls will eventually be. But then we talked about staining them. That would certainly enhance the rustic look of the plywood, which would be perfect for the rustic farmhouse look I want in this room.

Anyway, that's done and I'm quite pleased with them.

Front Room Closet: Decision About the Doors © 2025

by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com

Greenhouse Door: Insulation, Hardware, & Steps

Continued from "Interior Greenhouse Door."

So now the gaps are filled in, we have a door knob, can lock the door, and we have steps! These are especially noteworthy, because the 2-inch oak planks were milled by Dan from a tree he cut down about six years ago.

He's had these lovely planks stored in his workshop, just waiting for the perfect project. This turned out to be itl

The soil beneath the steps will eventually be dug out when the floor is leveled. Then,we'll put down a layer of gravel. That may not be for awhile, but we have stairs! 

Still to go are trimming the door and painting the trim.

Greenhouse Door: Insulation, Hardware, & Steps 

© Feb 2024 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Interior Greenhouse Door

For some reason, we always end up replacing doors and windows during winter, including this one! I reckon it's because the season is slower, so there's more time for bigger jobs like that. It's certainly not because of the weather! Happily, we got a string of mild days for Dan to tear out one of the windows in my sewing room and replace it with a door. 

We discussed door placement options on this wall of windows: the middle window, perhaps? Or maybe the one on the end?

Considering how the room is set up, this end window near the exterior greenhouse door made the most sense. In the photo below, the new door will replace the window on the left, next to the old, obsolete chimney flue.

This will make it a straight shot from the living room, through my office, and then to the greenhouse. We haven't finished the walls in this end of the room, anticipating the installation of the door.

The first step was to remove the window. In the photo below you can see the old-fashioned cast iron window weights that were behind the window trim. They require space to raise and lower, hence these "wells" are never insulated. That's one of the reasons old houses are so energy inefficient!

Dan had the usual challenges of updating a 100-year-old-house, such as different size building materials (for example, 2x4s were larger back then) and puzzling DIY construction techniques.

That's been the challenge with everything we've done! But Dan always manages and got the door opening framed out in no time.

Then the leveling, squaring, shimming, and securing. Here's his progress so far.

Next will be insulating the gaps and then putting up and painting the trims. And, of course, building some stairs. 

I have to say that it's truly convenient to have this door installed! No more going out the back door and around the back of the house to get to the greenhouse. I didn't mind, of course, but this is so much nicer.

Next: Greenhouse Door: Insulation, Hardware, & Steps 

Interior Greenhouse Door © February 2024

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Greenhouse: First of Two Doors Hung

Once the walls were up in the greenhouse, Dan started on one of the doors. We have two doors planned: one from the greenhouse to the backyard, the other from the greenhouse into the house. 

In the photo above, the door opening is covered with the old panel gate. Dan covered it every night to keep strays out. A path on the left goes to the garden.

For the door, Dan chose a heavy-duty "full lite" exterior door. 

For logistical reasons, we decided that we didn't want it on hinges. So Dan installed it like a barn (sliding) door.

Preparing for the bottom track.

Preparing for the top track

Track installed

Door hung. Side note: Turkeys are extremely inquisitive. If allowed
out of his yard, Tommy follows us everywhere (mostly Dan).

How in the world am I going to keep that track cleared out?????

Door pull and lock still needed

So, hung but not done, with a lot of finishing work to do. Still, it's progress.

Greenhouse: First of Two Doors Hung © July 2023

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Sorting, Rearranging, & Clearing the Way For the Interior Greenhouse Door

Two of the items on our winter project list are:  

• Continue working on the greenhouse
• Tackling our two unfinished rooms, which have become catch-alls. The accumulation needs sorting, purging, and re-arranging before we eventually finish the rooms.

Although progress on the greenhouse is slower than Dan would like, because of the weather, I need to make some progress on those two rooms before spring planting beckons. My first goal is to clear one end of the sun room to install an interior greenhouse door. The greenhouse will have two doors, one from the greenhouse to the outdoors, and this one, to give us access to the greenhouse from the house.

This was the sun room when we first moved in.

May 2009 image from The Sun Room (My Studio)
The window on the left is where the door will go.

By the next month, I had set the room up to be my textile and fiber studio.

June 2009 image from Trial Set-Up For My Studio

Unfortunately, that didn't last long because we quickly started in on some major renovation projects and needed to clear out the rooms we were working on. We ended up taking the loom down, packing up my yarns and supplies, and using this room as storage. I eventually managed to carve out enough space for a comfortable office area.

2015 image from Evolution of a Room. I have a
different chair now, but the set-up is still the same.

It's been that way since. But to replace one of the windows with a door to the greenhouse, means everything must be moved out of the way. And that means I have to find a place to put it.

We always planned that once we got the interior of the house done, this room would become my studio again. (Our proposed floorplan is here). But it's a narrow room, 9.5 feet by 20 feet with one small closet. We'll need a clear path to the greenhouse door, which will further decrease the usable size of the room, and to be frank, my equipment, tools, and supplies need more room than that. Instead, I proposed eventually turning the front bedroom into my studio. It's large enough for my loom, spinning wheels, sewing machines, yarn and fabric stashes, plus a work table and my computer. 

Before I can do that, however, the room will have to be finished. We've already replaced the windows (one when we re-did the front porch, the other three years ago when we finished the exterior of the house). But we left the interior unfinished, so the framing and insulation are still exposed. That needs to be finished. And if we manage our masonry heater project this summer, the wall where the old fireplace was will create a lot of dusty work. But to do all of that means I have to rearrange my boxed up studio stuff to give Dan room to work. 

All of this has been a slow go for several reasons. One is because on nice days, I want to work outside.  Another is because I don't want to simply push boxes from one corner to another. I want to sort, reorganize, and discard stuff that isn't needed. I want to reduce the amount and clutter. Then too, every time we push boxes around, I lose track of things and can't find things I need, such as my needlework, knitting, and crochet tools. 

Why are we humans such pack rats? We do love our stuff. I don't consider myself materialistic, but if something appears to be useful, I want to hang on to it. Anybody else that way?

Sorting, Rearranging, & Clearing the Way For the Interior Greenhouse Door 

© February 2023 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Hayloft Doors (with Barn Quilt)

Hay Loft Doors (with Barn Quilt) © July 2018 

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Barn Quilt

Actually, I wasn't familiar with barn quilts until Mrs. Shoes mentioned them in a comment on my "A Cupola For the Goat Barn" post. Quilting was my very first fiber love, so of course I had to look it up. After seeing hundreds of photos of beautiful barn quilts, I knew I wanted one too.

Barn quilts aren't quilts in the traditional fabric sense; they are quilt patterns painted on barn doors or walls. Most of them are large and can be seen from a distance. I think they give a wonderfully decorative touch to a barn and apparently they have quite a following. There are barn quilt trails, tours, and books available around the country.

My first step was to decide on a pattern. I got out my 849 Traditional Patchwork Patterns (republished as Classic Quilt Blocks: 849 Inspiring Designs), and began to consider possibilities. My finished quilt was going to be 4x4 feet, so I wanted a pattern that was a multiple of four squares. To further narrow down the possibilities, I decided to choose a block pattern with a nature theme, something with leaves, trees, mountains, or birds.
 
I also wanted a pattern that would incorporate the X pattern on the milking room Dutch door. Those criteria narrowed my options, which helped a lot because I love all the patterns.  

I made a short list of possibilities, got out some graph paper and colored pencils, and played around with several that I thought might work well.

Delectable Mountains

Crow's Foot

Crow's Foot variation.
Are they trees or fish?

From looking at photos of dozens of real barn quilts, I observed two things. Since they are usually viewed from a distance, the pieces need to be large enough to see the pattern far away. Too small or too busy, and the pattern is indiscernible. It needs to be large enough to make visual sense from, say, the road.

Also I observed that there needs to be good contrast in the colors. If the colors are too close in value (same depth of lightness or darkness), then the pattern becomes hard to distinguish at a distance. The best examples of barn quilts uses good contrast in their colors and kept the block pattern simple.

That meant paint samples.

I bought quarts of yellow, blue, and green, but colors never look the same on large areas than they do on the sample cards. I wasn't entirely satisfied, so I did a little mixing on my own to explore more options.

Once the pattern and color decisions were made, I drew the pattern on my plywood and taped it off.

I'm using two 2x4 foot pieces of sanded plywood because the finished quilt will become part of the hay loft doors. It should be ready to hang soon. Looking forward to that!

Barn Quilt © June 2018 by Leigh 

at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Shortening the Barn Completion Checklist

The to-do list to finish the goat barn is gradually growing shorter. Progress is somewhat random, depending on weather and resource availability.

The second Dutch door is done.

The first one was the front entry to the milking room, this one is to where the goats will live.

The windows in the hayloft help a lot for light, but I wanted a light for winter evenings when it gets light so early.

Solar light for the hayloft

The solar light pictured above is a smaller version of the one that's in my current milking room. It has only one brightness setting instead of three, which is fine for the purpose.

The light's small solar panel.

You can also see the roof flashing in the above photo. That's another project Dan's been working on when it isn't raining.

Flashing (in progress)

Before we move the goats in we needed to fence the barn entryway.

For this we used goat and sheep stock panels, like we did for the hay feeder. They are higher in price than cattle panels, but the openings are smaller to keep baby goats in. That's a necessity!

In the milking and feed room I now have a workbench!

Shelves will go to the right.

Even with good progress the checklist of things to finish still seems endless, There are so many little things on the list, but they all take time! Even so, we are slowly getting closer to goat-moving-in day.

Shortening the Barn Completion Checklist © June 2018 

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/