Your Barn Door's Open, Dummy!

Interior barn door

If someone around Antisocial Network HQ wanted advice on Chinese cooking, we'd be a lot more likely to reject unsolicited advice written by Mohammed Said than that written by Lee Ling; wouldn't you? Ditto with information about raising llamas written by an Oklahoma rancher instead of something penned by a Manhattan apartment-dweller. In truth, you want your advice and information to come first-hand from someone who actually knows something about the topic, as opposed to someone who had to look it up. Right? No wonder no one trusts eHow.com articles, if they let the likes of Michelle Raphael (pretend to) explain "How to Build Rolling Barn Doors"¹ at HomeSteady.com. Maybe if she'd ever even seen a barn door...

OK, that's not fair: most people have seen a barn door, but that doesn't mean they can make one: Raphael clearly falls into the category of "those who can't do"; though in this case, she doesn't fall into the "those who can't do, teach," category. Oh, she gets the idea and utility of barn doors right – you'd have to be pretty disconnected from reality to not be able to reword that bit of advice – but when it comes to actually constructing a barn door? No way, Michelle...

We said "No way" because it's pretty clear from Michelle's instructions that she's quite unfamiliar with carpentry, carpenter's tools, and, for that matter, lumber. Let's start with her discussions of dimensional lumber. Although she starts by telling you to "Cut the 2-by-4 boards," she slips up when she gets to the siding: she calls that material "cut 4-by-1 boards." Sure, those hyphens meet the all-holy AP style, but no one who uses lumber would call it a "2-by-4 board"; and likewise no one but a total rookie would state the width of dimensional lumber first: they're 1-by-4s, idiot.

Michelle wants her readers to start by building a 2 x 4 frame before cladding it:

"Lay out the frame pieces on a flat, solid surface. Check if the pieces are even with a carpenter’s level."

Huh? Why would the builder care if the frame is "even" using a level? He or she wouldn't, but it certainly needs to be checked to see if it's square by using a framing square (not in her list of "things you'll need"). Once you've built and clad the door, you're ready to add the hardware. That's when Raphael tells you to "Lay the sliding door track at the top of the door frame. The track should be positioned on the back side of the barn door. Mark where the tracks will be attached. Use a carpenter’s level to make sure that the mark is straight. Screw the metal track onto the frame. Arrange the track wheels at the bottom of the frame and mark their placement. Screw the track wheels to the bottom of the frame."

See her problem there? We did: barn doors don't have wheels on "the bottom of the frame." The wheels ride in the track from which the door hangs. Idiot! Michelle finishes off her instructions by informing her readers to

"Attach the other sliding door track to the barn wall... nail or screw the tracks to the barn walls."

We certainly hope that the article she cribbed from (which, by the way, she doesn't reference) told builders to bolt the hanger track to the barn door header (or attach it with lag screws) -- but Michelle wouldn't know those "insignificant" details.

Another day, another "professional journalist" with a BA in PolySci and experience in computers, caught holding forth on construction techniques. It's no wonder we can harvest dozens of Dumbass of the Day candidates like Raphael, just by surfing around the Internet. Feh. The thing we found most interesting about this article by the way, is that "barn doors" are, increasingly, found inside; and that's very likely the topic this Dumbass was supposed to address!

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_6321110_build-rolling-barn-doors.html

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