Worst. Idea. Ever.

A bathroom needs a swing door, or a pocket door. Never ever a barn door.

Can we see a photo of the rest of the space? Is there a reason why you can't use a regular door? We live in an area where the builders made stupid arched master bath alcoves with no doors. And it is easier to add a sliding door to them than to reframe the wall.

But, in general, barn doors look out of place in the average home.

the opening isn't the right height for a regular door and a pocket door would require some fairly aggressive carpentry.

I see pics online of barn doors on bathrooms. here's one

There are lots of photos online . That doesn't mean that the application is a good idea for your space :) That's why I asked for a photo of the space.

It might be more appropriate to do a door with a less aggressive finish and hardware. But we don't know without photos. You don't want a door to be the most prominent design element in the room.

I don't have a photo right now.......maybe can take one later. We have new tile shower and new drywall. Husband says both would be impacted by a pocket door. If we had wanted a pocket door, the time for that would have been before we put in the walk-in tile shower and had the painter/carpenter finish off the top of the doorway. The room had no door when we bought the house - just an opening into the MBR and a door on the toilet room.

So, even though you don't like the barn door idea, I guess if we are going with that, the smooth (not handscraped) one that is close to the wall color would be best.

thank you :)

Sophie hates barn doors because they are trendy. I think they can look fine in the right space. If you have beams in the room that matched the door finish or floor that matched the door finish, it might work.

Your idea to match the wall color is a good one and it would be good to get hardware that matches the wall color. There are also nice transitional style doors with frosted glass that might work. It all depends on your space.

we could possibly change the HW to a nickel or silver color so it would be quieter and blend more with other elements in the room

Although I like the look of barn doors, I think the privacy of a bathroom demands a door that closes securely.

I think we have no idea since you do not post pics how do you expect us to help.IMO both those doors would be way to rustic for my bedroom

It's not just that barn doors in a house are trendy, and can look really affected since most homes aren't barn-ish. And it's also not cause I think they are now teetering on the brink of jumping the shark. That is subjective. The real issue with barn doors as bathroom doors are the lack of privacy, the lack of containment of smells, and the really loud noise they make opening and closing. Your partner will not be happy every time you might need to use the bathroom during the night, and you will feel the same about him/her. They're so loud in fact, that children in other bedrooms may be wakened when you slide them open and closed. Don't be fooled by a contractor's promise of silent ball bearings, etc. Nope. You got a big ol' heavy door hanging from a rail that it has to slide on. It's noisy.

thank you. I appreciate everyone's input but some can be a bit tough (first one mostly)

Sophie is Sophie, and yes, tough, but rarely is she wrong. As you have a door to the "throne room", why do you need a door at all? And if you do decide to use a sliding door, why not a door with frosted glass, or an art pattern? Something a bit more elegant, and decorative.

D_gw - since you are yelling in CAPS, I DID READ IT! I stand by what I said that the look is affected, and that it's noisy, regardless of separate toilet room.

Also I don't understand why the opening isn't the right height for a regular door. You can get an interior door cut to any size you want.

two reasons for door - one, the shower is open so it would be cold in there w/o a door and secondly for privacy

there was never a door there

here is pic not of my shower of of a somewhat similar one with no door and the wall not going all the way up

The only objection I would have is: will this door open and close QUICKLY in an emergency? When I have to go, I can’t waist a second struggling for access.

I think the only time it would be totally closed would be either when we're showering or when we're sleeping. hopefully those types of emergencies don't happen often

We never close the doors between our bedroom and master bath. NEVER. We close our bedroom door. Is privacy really an issue in a master suite? My husband and I share the bed, the closet, the bath, and occasionally the shower! ;) If privacy is desired in the master, I see no problem with having a sliding door. Some people like the look of a sliding door, some people don't. - Mary, I think the sliding door in sandstone would look great in your bedroom. :)

We have a sliding barn door going into our master bath and it’s honestly no problem, our house is evocative of a barn so the style fits and we got rubber rollers so it’s very quiet.

can you explain more about the rubber rollers? did you change what came with the doors? thank you

We have a barn door on our master bath too. Our house is farmhouse style, and the wall that it sits on is tall and blank so a regular door looks dinky. We love the barn door! No they’re not for everyone but neither is anything in design. If everyone likes the same things, how boring would that be?! Anyway, it sounds like some people might want to visit their doctors based off their frequent emergency bathroom trips...

Mary, we just installed a barn door in our kitchen between the family room and kitchen. (I am going to yell). IT IS NOT NOISY ONE LITTLE BIT AND IT GLIDES OPEN AND DOESN'T HESITATE WHEN OPENING)!!! I don't know what barn doors the others have seen. Our door came from Lowe's and WE LOVE IT!!! It goes perfect in our little home. It's our favorite thing that we have done in our little house. Feel free to ask me any questions you may have. My theory is "it's YOUR home and make it like you want it to be". The door in our home is cuter than I imagined it would be.

as far as being trendy and as someone said maybe being ready to jump the shark, we tried to be timeless when we remodeled this home. But it's hard to be timeless with every single element, esp if your house is a ranch style as opposed to an old cottage or mission style or something like that which lends itself to more traditional things. And when you're remodeling, not building, you're limited too. Our house already had a fireplace which we refaced. So we couldn't build a real granite fireplace; we refaced in slate.

Simplify, thank you. I do have a question. When shopping at Lowes, we noted that some of the doors say "soft close" on the box and others don't. We don't want the door banging around. Is yours soft close?

I think the reason some don’t like barn doors for bathrooms is the lack of sound proofing, since they don’t fit into a casing. But since you have a door on your toilet room within the bathroom, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Hi Mary. Yes, ours is the soft close and it is wonderful. Works like a dream and it is very quiet. It is soft close in both directions, I think they have many styles of doors available even if you have to order them. Our Lowe's didn't stock all of the doors they offered so just keep in mind that they have other doors in case you have ideas for something you can't see in your store. Ours was a stocked one, a typical barn door in white. We LOVE it! We are thinking of another one for the office with windows in it. Not sure though. Thinking two may be overkill in our small farmhouse style home. I would love to see what you end up with. Houses and decorating is my passion and I can never get enough of it. Good luck with your decision.

A sliding door does not have to be a barn door. You can have any style of door you want on sliding hardware.

Bottom line, if you love the look, use it! I suggest a glass inset barn door, because you can never have too much light.

There's no sound deadening and the barn door thing is way overdone.

Soft open and close is better but also know it slows closing the door.

From someone who has lived with one some considerations are they take time to close and probably won't make sense till you use it and they don't sit flush with the wall so you can see in through the gaps depending on placement. If you have mirrors or windows at the right angle you can see right in.

Nothing like using the facilities and find out your kids have been looking at you laughing the entire time.

I hate them but I will tell you there isn't a woman who doesn't see it that goes on for twenty minutes about it. Men look at it and say why?

Make sure your wall has the proper blocking to install properly. They come in handy if your situation can only use one and if you don't like it just take it off patch and paint and its gone. Not the end of the world.

If your trim is done correctly there should be no gaps. Good install is key.

Mary, I have a barn door on my master bathroom and it works fine. There's always a whoop-de-doo on Houzz when barn doors comes up. It's not the most current application and many can't abide by that but it's a practical application in some circumstances. You have the best scenario in that your toilet is separated by a door. Many are concerned about the "noise" that barn doors can leak. Personally, I think if my spouse made so much noise that I wanted a vault door on the toilet, I'd reconsider our diet and not worry so much about barn doors!

Have it installed by a pro and it'll be super close to the wall and it'll work best!

And to answer your question, kinda hard without a photo but I'd error against trying to matchy match two painted surfaces so close together and instead have them coordinate but differ.

We have a barn door to our master bath with toilet placement worst possible place (directly to the right of the door) and our install was not as tight to the wall as it could have been but, even so, we like it a lot. The way our closet doors flanked the bathroom door, it was Doorlandia over there. Our door was a pretty basic one from HD that we painted. It's not "silent," but it's not disturbing at all. Definitely not something anyone would hear from outside the room. I like the style of the first one of your pictures.

Joe, thank you for your comments. As far as color, I think white would look too big. The color of the first door I posted is same tone as walls (warm grey) but different texture and depth. I think I prefer that as it would stand out as much as white or the darker handscraped one.

Hi Mary,

We have a barn door for our bathroom and LOVE it, provides so much extra space as our bathroom is tiny. The twentysomethings love it, we just had a realtor in our house yesterday who loved it, (we're in NYC) it's not going out of style, only the old farts say that.

Speaking of...we have zero problems with noise or smell with our barn door. Anyone who's $&IT is so bad that they can't have a barn door has bigger problems to deal with.

We got ours from Lowes per a gift card, hubs easily installed it, soft close, etc.

Mary, if it differs in texture and depth of color, it sounds different enough to work and since you don't seem to want it to really stand out so it sounds like you found your choice. It's certainly a very nice neutral on its own.

Janie, OMG, I almost spit up my tea!

A previous poster alluded to this; use barn door hardware with a door style that matches the rest of your homes doors. We did this for our kitchen pantry bard door hardware with a slab door this is exactly like the rest of our doors.

Our pantry door you can see the basement door in the right side of the photo.

Ok, I just have to throw my two cents in. We have a beautiful house, IMO and there is no door between our master bath and the bedroom, we do have a separate toilet area with a door. I am a VERY light sleeper and have never been disturbed by my husband using the facility at night, no matter the time. Also, the "odor" is not a problem at all, after all it is a toilet and even regular doors will let out some odors, they do not seal tight, maybe a good can of Lysol, lol. Why would the barn door need to be closed at night anyway, there is a door on the toilet area??? As far as seeing into the area, I am married and we have seen each other, on occasion, lol. Someone mentioned their kids, our children would never just come into our bedroom without asking first, especially if the main door was closed, they would knock first. I would not worry about "trends", I think worrying about them is futile as there will always be things that are in or out, if you like/love something, go for it. To many people worry about trends, I say go for what you love. It sounds like you have a lovely home and are doing your homework. Do what you and hubby love and then sit back and enjoy.

thanks sharon.....we don't have a door on our shower so I think the room would be cold w/o a door....for now, we're using the other bath for showering

@sophie wheeler You would hate our bathroom then! We are remodeling our master bedroom/bath and there was no way to have a swinging door OR a pocket door, so we went with barn doors. This is not a bathroom anyone else will use, so it doesn't matter if it locks or not. We have a hers and his bathroom with a shared shower between, so there will be TWO sliding barn doors! lol I will update with a photo once we are done