DIY Barn Wood Doors with stain and Annie Sloane Paint

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Take a look at this simple and beautiful way to create a barn wood look on a new oak door. We are finishing our basement with a cabin theme, and I needed a treatment on these doors to match the beautiful custom dry bar and bathroom vanity made out of barn wood.

I found a deal on solid 6-panel oak doors, and Hubs spent a long time hanging these. We needed 5 doors total, 3 different sizes, and some were “right hand” while others were “left hand.” We looked at many YouTube videos to figure out how to hang these things, and wouldn’t you know, one of the “plugs” in the handle (the one in the picture above, in fact), got stuck while Hubs was inside the room, locking him in. He had to climb out the fire escape egress window inside this room, and come back in the front door. That’s dedication.

The first step in the process was to brush on Annie Sloane Chalk Paint in Coco. I did this very roughly, leaving some places lighter than others. This picture has a bit of a glare, but you can see how some spots are heavier than others. I wanted the grain of the wood to still show through lightly. I did this on both sides of the doors, and let it dry overnight.

Next, I mixed up equal parts of Minwax Weathered Oak stain and Provincial stain, brushing it on, full coverage. To avoid drippage, I put a piece of plastic tarp under the door while I worked. I didn’t have to worry too much about the floor because we are going to cover this concrete. If this floor would have been already finished, I might have done this treatment out in the garage before hanging the doors, but it was a lot easier to be able to see what it would look like when hung.

After letting the stain set for about 10 minutes I wiped it down with a cloth, and the result is what you see above. The Coco paint helped it look weathered and “old.” The grain still showed through, but it was definitely softened by the paint underneath the stain.

Next, I took my pot of Annie Sloane Graphite paint and dry-brushed (just adding barely any paint to the brush for a light touch) it on. I used a very light touch, and if I got too much on, I lightly sanded it with a sanding sponge. Be careful with the sanding, you don’t want to rub the stain underneath off. AHHHHH yes, this had the look I was going for. If I were to do it again, I might use a steel wool pad to put on the graphite, in the hopes of eliminating some of the obvious brush strokes you can see above, but I still love it this way.

The final step was to add two coats of Minwax Satin Poly. I used a large brush, just a cheap one, because I just throw away brushes that I use for poly. I sanded lightly with a sanding sponge in between coats, and let the first coat dry overnight. That’s it!

I’m still deciding what to do for the door jambs and the trim. I’m thinking white, because I don’t know how I could match the vinyl wood-look tile flooring we selected and the barn wood furniture and window ledges. And frankly, we’ve never done trim before, so I’m not that confident in my ability to make stained trim look good without the substantial use of caulk to fix all errors 🙂 Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading today, I hope you find a use for this easy technique!