Barn Door Hidden TV Cabinet

One of the things we wanted in our new mid century modern sunroom was a big screen TV. But we didn’t want it to be the main focal point on the wall. So my husband built a DIY barn door hidden TV cabinet to hide the TV when not in use.

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My husband built this entire hidden TV cabinet himself. I helped a little as needed. He even came up with the idea to have a hidden light feature as well. Below is a list of similar hardware on Amazon like what we purchased from Home Depot for our project.

The TV we purchased at Walmart is a 50″ Roku Smart TV. We also purchased the recommended TV wall mount for this size TV. This type of TV are great to buy these days because you can stream so many different channels and programs without adding more cable service boxes in the house. At least for our house it is.

To create the sliding barn doors – in a modern style of course – we started with a closet door hardware set by Everbilt that was for sliding closet doors. These were sturdy and definitely much less expensive than a barn door kit. We purchased ours from Home Depot but the link is for a similar product on Amazon.

Since we intended to hide the hardware for the cabinet anyway, the use of closet sliding door hardware was better than the larger barn door hardware for our project.

To hide the closet sliding door hardware, a frame needed to be built around it.

First, my husband took measurements of the sliding door hardware and the wall to to find the middle of the wall, and the middle of the hardware bar, to know exactly where to build the box frame.

The box frame is built with deck rail brackets and 2 x 4s. Then the entire hardware frame is concealed behind a constructed box of 1 x 4s built around it.

The hardware frame was installed on the wall using deck rail brackets and two short 7 inch 2 x 4s drilled in place to each side and above the TV.

The depth of these side wood pieces were cut to cover the depth of the TV we purchased. This cut piece will be different for what style or brand of TV you have to cover.

Another 2 x 4 was screwed in place the length between the shorter boards that also had the sliding closet door bar attached underneath it. This 2 x 4 was attached to the two shorter boards to create the box frame.

Below is a view of the the assembled wood and hardware from the bottom of the constructed frame and with the 1 x 4 box built around it.

Then it was time to make the custom doors.

For the doors, he used a 1/2 inch MDF board.

Originally, the idea was to cover the sliding barn doors with the atomic style posters we ordered from Etsy. However, I didn’t want to take a chance of damaging the posters – and the doors – so instead we left the doors plain.

The MDF was cut down for two smaller boards to fit over the width and height of the TV. Again, the size was determined by what we needed to cover the size of our TV. Our doors were cut at 36 inches high by 22 inches wide.

As a decorative accent on the doors, he cut the remaining MDF board in 2 inch strips to create the modern decorative trim all around the face of the doors.

Again, The size of our barn doors was determined by the size of the TV we were trying to hide. So your version of this project will have different sized doors.

The top trim piece does not go all the way up to the top of the cut board. The hardware to hang the door in the closet sliding hardware will be installed at the top of the each board. This will be hidden beneath the 1 x 4 trim pieces installed over the 2 x 4s frame and will not show. So one piece of the trim is glued on lower than the others so that the installed door looks good when hung on the sliding door hardware.

All of the trim pieces were attached to the MDF board with wood glue.

Below is the interior view of the barn door hardware that is attached to the top of the door and inserted in the closet sliding door hardware.

The doors and the box frame were all painted in the same paint used on the exterior of our home, and the two existing walls of the sunroom.

I honestly don’t know what brand or name the color of our house is because the paint is left over from when the tree damage was repaired on our house a few years ago. The construction crew just had it mixed up to match the existing exterior color at the time. We have a large 5 gallon bucket of paint leftover so we used it to save time and money.

We hope to repaint the house next year or have vinyl installed so the actual color of the exterior of our house is not a big issue for us right now. Just another project to add to the list. But it will change the look of this room when it is done.

My husband also installed a special remote controlled LED tape light at the top of the cabinet frame that is hidden by the 1 x 4 trim boards.

With the barn doors closed, you can’t see the TV or the light strip at all. And since it is painted the same color as the wall, the cabinet is not the prominent feature on the wall, especially once the furniture is in place and the artwork hung.

The final step was to install a wall mounted cord cover to hide the cords for the TV and the light tape. This was also painted to match the wall color. It blends in with the wall details.

But what about the Tape lights?

When I first revealed our mid century modern sunroom I couldn’t show the light feature because our dog, Recon, chewed up the remote.

After contacting the company for the tape light and receiving a replacement remote, I can now show the light feature of the TV cabinet.

With this light tape, you can change the color and dim the lights.

We are enjoying watching TV in this room and the effects of the LED light tape so much already. In fact we are really enjoying our new room every day.

Hugs,