I agree with what Mark said (excepting the smell). Depending on your set-up, you might consider a pretty, moveable screen. It can sit flush to the wall and be decorative when you don't need it to hide the office space.

If you dont have anything better to put on your walls I guess.

Only someone with limited decorating ability would discount the beauty of the well executed installation of beautiful barn doors. Everything about ours are perfect. There isn’t any problem with their form or function. I would be glad to send you the link to the folks in NYC that we purchased from. Very inexpensive hardware and we used our 1910 French doors as the repurposed barn doors!

They keep the cows in. But not the goats. Goats know how to open them.

I need all the available wall space I can get for art. If that's not an issue for, and you like the look, why not?

I love my barn doors for my office. They are mainly to keep the dogs out. Definitely do nothing to block noise. And I like sliding them, but I’m kind of a nerd soooo yeah.

The well executed installation of beautiful barn doors:

I love ours. We have two sets in our vacation home - one closing off the utility area of our finished basement and another on a wide bedroom closet. The closing mechanisms seem much more sturdy and stable than those we’ve had on pocket doors or bifolds. Never had an issue with coming off the tracks. Plus I love the look!

We put a double one in a previous house to replace bifold pantry doorsthat kept coming off track and they worked very well for that. This house we put another double set in to make it possible to replace a odd looking french doors set into an arched opening.

There was a double light switch that would be covered when the doors would be opened which would be most of the time. originally I was going to just flip it to the other side of the wall but since we occasionally use this room as a guest room the lights couldnt be turned on and off from inside the room when the doors were closed. We solved this by removing switches from box and replacing with a sender unit that was received by a glue on battery powered switch we put on another wall.

Since you are new build you can just have light switches wired either facing the other side of wall or on a different wall. Both situations where we used the barn doors they seemed the best solution to a problem. They take up wall space, cover switches and outlets and are not the tightest soundwise so you have to decide if they work best for your situation.

Only if you live in a barn …. i have no idea why they ever became a trend. Maybe HGTV? (I’m just guessing since I don’t watch it).

Love our barn doors. We have a few throughout the house. Great for places where you don't want doors to swing out into a walk path or small space. We have one in the kitchen for the pantry door, a set in the hallway for the coat closet, and another in the guest bath for a linen closet.

Consider French doors. They would look more tradtional, refined, and take up less space. You can keep them opened or closed.

Or pocket doors. You say they will be open most of the time and closed only to hide the view, so pocket doors would allow you to have art or furniture at the walls, and make it easier to paint the walls some day.

Never liked barn doors even when they were "in" about 7-10 years ago. I'd add to the cons mentioned in above comments that barn doors make noise as they slide open and closed. Then there's their bulk in a room, and the whole idea that there is a barn door inside someone's suburban home. They often look incongruous in a home that is 100 miles from any barn, and the home is brand new. An affected look. Just my $.02.

I agree with @kculbers that french doors are a good fit for a home office.

@User - I don't see how yours are barn doors other than they are on a sliding track. There is no barn on earth that has doors that look like that.

What if they are the same door but called something else? Like rod doors, or gliding doors? Is the objection to the name suggesting something other than a house? There are houses with gambrel roofs that probably would not pass muster of they were called barn roofs. (Yes, I know, dinner people don't like them anyway.)

We recently stayed in a hotel that had a door gliding on a rod, to separate the bedroom/sitting area from the entry by the door that also has the closet and bathroom. Nice. There wasn't room for a swing door. A pocket door would have worked but I swear some people are clueless and would not realize it was there (personal experience). The gliding door didn't look like a barn at all. It did, however, take up space between the bed and the wall, making it hard to reach the thermostat.

What's in a name? that which we call a barn door

By any other name would smell as foul.

But even the foulest smell finds its home,

for thou fallest prey to pretentious trend.

For be it useless not in few mind.

They're great if you're into trendy items that were trendy 5 years ago.

Are the things circled in the images below of any importance? Because of their position in relationship of the barn doors, I would consider them hazards (fire, air quality) and would encourage those to take measures to protect occupants of those houses where these hazards exist.

Mark...I think after FOUR posts here we get it.

I agree, you would think only one would do it; but I am someone with limited decorating ability.

We love our barn doors trendy or not! They are our pantry doors. If we had used any other type of door there wouldn't be enough room to sit on that side of the island. Also my husband built the doors and the sliding hardware and saved us a ton of money. We built the house in 2018 if that matters.

I'm not sure why a pocket door would be a thumbs up to slide over our laundry entry but not this barn door. Our actual barn does not have sliding doors. It has electrical garage doors on either end. Hmmm, if your door names have to match the building, does that make our horses cars?

We found our door at an architectural salvage place 18 years ago. It does indeed block sound - the sucker is solid and runs up against a wall when closed. Repurposing is great if you're into not throwing servicable items away because they were trendy five years ago but not now.

It’s YOUR home, if you like barn doors, put them in!

I second the suggestion of pocket doors. We have them all over the house and love them.

If your goal is only to shield visitor’s eyes from clutter and you like the look of them, why not? I have lived in a home with barn doors and it’s true they don’t do much for keeping out sounds or smells, but that doesn’t sound like an issue for you.

Personally I would prefer pocket doors.

They don't really stop sound transmission much, because unless you have recessed baseboard or you have extra blocking along the jamb, these doors will sit about an inch from the wall. For occasionally opened and closed doors I would probably do a pocket door, but then you also have to be careful about switch and outlet location and plumbing and HVAC location, nothing can go through the pocket. (You could make the wall thicker to hold switches and outlets.

Then you have to make sure people know what they are doing with pocket doors and construction. I know someone who put pocket doors between every room in a small apartment (it was a couple who didn't need a ton of privacy from each other so swing doors and locks were not necessary). And ever single one of the pocket doors was nailed into the pocket by the trim carpenters who weren't paying attention to what was going on in the wall. This also happened to the single pocket door in one of the offices work in.

I am into pocket doors as well …mainly because i have them in openings that i rarely close..and i don’t want “barn” doors to dictate/define my decor

The problem with barn doors is that when they are open they block the walls from any useful purpose--any. useful. purpose.

And the doors tend to be open much more than closed.

My suggestion is to forget barn doors if the adjacent walls have any value or purpose whatsoever. That includes art, wall hangings, switches, controls, supply ducts or return vents, lighting, or if that's where you hitch your horses.

Sorry.

We used a barn door to close off my husband’s office at the end of a hallway with a step down…enough privacy for our purposes and for the occasional guest who ends up on the sleeper sofa. And truly, no other option.

Barn doors are a trend. They are already passé. If you want the same function install pocket doors. If you want light, use doors with glass and transoms will provide additional light.

Myself, every time I see a barn door and the hardware, I think to myself "That's another project to get rid of."

For all the derogatory comments- would you speak that way in person to a client or friend? The insults and rudeness on Houzz are too much.

For heavens sake, they're a form of sliding door. The posts that address OP's question address function or illustrate use. Would you tell someone they can install indoor window shutters "only if you live on a plantation"?

Sliding Doors have been recorded as early as first century CE in Roman houses as evidence in archeological finds in Pompeii. These doors hung from the ceiling. This allowed the doors to move easily. These doors required little to no space to open widely. They saved big space in homes. They used this functionality to create the patio doors we know today. ... It was speculated by historians these doors were fashioned after Japanese doors called Shoji–a sliding translucent door hung by a wood frame.

https://conservationctx.com/2019/01/25/the-origin-of-sliding-glass-doors/#:~:text=Sliding%20Doors%20have%20been%20recorded,doors%20hung%20from%20the%20ceiling.&text=It%20was%20speculated%20by%20historians,hung%20by%20a%20wood%20frame.

I’d also like to add that barn doors don’t have to look like they came off a barn! Mine are very modern with glass to let light in. And they are closed all the time except when I go in and out of my office. They aren’t in the way and don’t cover up anything except the intended doorway. Agree that “sliding doors” is a more appropriate term.

My dad loves his. It goes behind a tall dresser, so doesn’t render that wall useless. At first, I tried to talk him out of it, thinking he would get tired of it, but it’s really turned out to be functional and easy to use. It slides easily on the track and isn’t flimsy or get out of control. :D

My DH and I stayed at a guest cottage on a ranch, there was a sliding door to the bathroom. It looked very cool.

If you want one, go for it. I‘d just be conscious of light switches, yes. Some have enough clearance that you could hang art behind it, for when it’s pulled shut.

Example (sorry, I don’t know the source):