[Shop-talk] Making a door thinner

[Jim Stone]

I am installing a barn door in my recently remodeled house and have come up with a problem I would like the group’s help with.  I need to put up a pair of 8’ x 30" barn doors, one of which will slide in next to a tall kitchen cabinet.  So, not exactly a pocket door, but it needs to fit into a pocket.  When we designed/installed the kitchen cabinets we planned the cabinets for a 1 3/8” - 1 1/2” door, which I planned to make out of tongue and groove boards or possibly shiplap.  However, my wife has lately decided that she doesn’t like the look of the board door and wants to try something different.  I wanted to install something temporary while she shops and decides and we went to Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore yesterday to see if they had anything that would cheaply do the trick, at least for the holidays.  To our surprise, they had a pair of new, really nice, 8x30 shaker style doors for $50 each that would look really good in the house.  They are solid wood, I think poplar, and the only problem is that they are 1 3/4” thick.  I bought them anyway, figuring I could always donate them back if there wasn’t a good way to make them work. 

There is a possibility that I might be able to make the doors work by tweaking the barn door hardware, as the opening is about 1 5/8”.  I will try that, but doubt the wall tolerances are that precise.  It it doesn’t work, my only option - besides re-donating the doors - is to try to narrow the doors a bit.  This should be possible, since the stiles and rails are 4” and 8”, respectively, so I am not talking about narrowing the entire width of the door.  
(For what it is worth, I should add here that while the doors are currently 8x30, I need to tweak that a bit to make the match the cabinets and door opening and will be cutting them down to about 84” x 29”.  

I currently have a good bench top planer that I can’t see anyway to use, and a cheap HF hand planer that might work.  But, of course, I would be happy to buy a new one or another tool that would do the job.  We are probably looking at more than $1000 for a pair of 8’ doors that make my wife happy, so there is lots of room in the budget for a new tool.  So, what does the group think?  Can I safely take about 1/8” off each face of these doors.  Is an electric hand planer my best option, or is there another way?  They will be painted in the end, so I can fill in any random gouges, but they do have to be smooth and even.

As always, thanks for any advice and Happy Holidays to all!

Jim
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