Converting Dining Room into Home Office / Den / Formal Dining

[toyotafan]

We use our dining room like once per year to eat in, so really it's just a nice rectangular room that's unused! So I want to add french doors and frame a wall around it and then add a barn door to cover the walk-through to the kitchen.

I've got a post up on craigslist and I've gotten bids up to $3000!!!! For someone who knows what they're doing, this is a 5 job at best onsite. I have done things like this before and the only thing that gives me pause is the fact that I really have other things that I can do with my time.

ADDING FRENCH DOORS & A BARN DOOR

We want to transform our dining room into a home office by adding French doors to the big opening and a sliding "barn" door to the small opening.

Looking for experienced person here who doesn't mind if I take pictures and/or video to post on my websites and YouTube channel. You get free exposure on YouTube channel that has over 2 million video views.

FRENCH DOORS
- Looking at pre-hung 48" pine unit from Lowe's.
- Overall opening is roughly 77" wide and 96" tall, so you need to frame in a new wall here to roughly center these doors.
- Add drywall, mud and tape of course.
- Also add the molding and casing.
- I'll do the painting unless you want to bid on that for a larger painting project we're doing.

SLIDING BARN DOOR
- The opening for the sliding door is 37" x 82" and is just a walk-through opening.

OPTION 1
- A door slightly larger than the current opening will either have to be constructed (most likely) or purchased.
- 40" x 84" would work.
- Add barn door hardware and simple casing on door-side to soundproof and it's done.

OPTION 2
- I'm entertaining the idea of adding a simple door frame and casing to save a lot of money on a smaller 36" x 84" door.
- This would mean building a simple 1"x4" wood door frame (right?)
- That would reduce the gap from 37" wide to 35" so that a 36" door would fit properly.
- Casing needs to be added on both sides for this option.

TIMELINE
- Looking to get this done asap.
- Framing in the wall shouldn't take very long except for a little bit of demo / decision making for the trim molding on the floor.
- I'm pretty confident the doors are in stock or are quick order through Lowe's.

 

[toyotafan]

Here's day 1 ...

 

[toyotafan]

2x4s weren't acclimated to the room properly and ended up warping just a bit, so one of the wall extensions i built is really about 1/8th off an inch off over 10 inches. I had planned a 6 inch casing system so I'm not concerned, but in afraid it's going to look funny, I dunno.

 

[toyotafan]

Here is the pre-painting condition of the be doors from the outside, I'm more concerned with the inside wall extension though.

 

[tbplus10]

Progress finally, whats the story with not letting the wood aclimate?
You waited this long to do the job, you may as well do it right.
Are you planning on closing off the kitchen access?

 

[toyotafan]

Just drove down and got a 12" wide mud knife and another gallon of ready mix and cut it with water be make pancake like constituency. Took another coat of mud but it's now flat and ready to texture and paint tomorrow.

 

[toyotafan]

Sliding barn door hardware over to the kitchen area. Custom order door so it will be open for a couple of weeks.

 

[steponthepedal]

The remodelling is looking good so far. You are really talented!

 

[toyotafan]

Had two different doors that I bought and took back for the sliding barn-door, but they're just not big enough so guess I have to get a much larger door than I was hoping to buy and will have to get or make a 40x82 door to fit into this location, otherwise it's not going to block out the sound from the kitchen.

 

[toyotafan]

Also, getting new carpet put in tomorrow for the rest of the house. This has been LONG LONG LONG overdue, but we're finally doing it and will hopefully just have one day of having to move stuff around the house, clean out the closets, etc.

 

[Smileyone]

Now see, I'd have put a stained glass topper in that space above those French doors, for accent and to allow some light to flow. also, because "drywalling" is not fun.

 

[toyotafan]

couldn't find a window that would fit into that space.

 

[jazz]

It looks good. Is the door knob on your front door going to take out a window pane on interior door or is that base already covered... I dealt with a similar situation 20 years ago and I installed pocket doors. I used two vintage doors to convert dining room into bedroom.
Again,,nice job, better you than me!

 

[toyotafan]

No the knob lines up with wood on the door. I've got an additional coat of paint to add to the new office wall but otherwise the project is nearly done.

 

[Smileyone]

couldn't find a window that would fit into that space.

There's a stained glass class at almost every Jr. college I've ever seen. You could commission one from a top student, and help their edu. too. not to mention aid in the finances, for them/get it cheaper for you. Worth a thought.

 

[toyotafan]

The texture came out terrible in the inside of the wall, so bad in fact that I asked for some additional help and I found a guy who is an expert at drywall and hopper-based texture (which I didn't have) so we're going to barter. He's going to re-do the texture on the wall and paint (and paint the kid's bedrooms) and I'm going to build him a website for his painting business.

 

[toyotafan]

I'm about to update this thread again once I get my phone to work!

 

[toyotafan]

Ended up this week moving my extremely heavy 200 pound hardwood bookshelf from the spare room that used to be the office into the new office and lifted it up so it's now the talk is about 7 feet in the air. Believe me, that was an exercise in "i'm not as young as I once was." It was very difficult to do.

Then I move the desk around had a spare table moved in here and am now bringing all of the Clutter from the entire house in here so I can finally get everything organized in the entire house. Just thought some people might like to see even though it's not finished what the home office now looks like.

 

[toyotafan]

The goal is to get rid of most of the clutter, get those black speakers out of the last picture and get another chair at that table so the kids can do homework maybe.

On the shelves is a luminescent paint project that I'm going to be a part of. Have to move that stuff to the garage when I get a chance.

All of these books ... most of them bought in the 90's and early 2000's ... don't read much in the form of a book anymore, lol.

Just clutter to get rid of. Have to keep at it.

 

[toyotafan]

Progress finally, whats the story with not letting the wood aclimate?
You waited this long to do the job, you may as well do it right.
Are you planning on closing off the kitchen access?

Here's a picture of the kitchen access now. It's a hacked-together barn door made from a pine 36" six-panel door plus a couple of 2x2 select pine pieces on each end and scrap 2x2 pine pieces glued together to make the footer.