The Geiszlers

The basics of this project are I have a pole barn at my rental (my old house/farm) that I needed to add doors to. I rented out the entire property and house except the pole barn. The pole barn is made up of 9- 6"x6" posts that are buried in the ground and a roof that is bolted on. The overall dimensions of the pole barn are 30ft wide by 25ft deep and it's 8ft tall for the lowest clearance point.  I looked at having overhead (garage) doors installed or commercial roll up doors installed. Both were quite expensive (around $2000 for the

garage doors, the cheaper option.)

I opted to build my own doors with my dad's assistance. Since I can't use sliders that just move the doors in front of a unopened space on the left and right of the front (some pole barns are designed that way) my options included having the doors go around the outside or the inside on rails, bi-folding to the outside or inside, or folding in the center of the panels making it an accordion door.

I chose to make accordion styled doors where there will be 2 doors per opening and each door will have 2 panels because it maximized the door opening without taking up too much of depth to the inside or the outside of the pole building. Also we live in a temperate climate (so it's unlikely I would have much snow to shovel by hand to get my equipment out especially since it will only stick a few inches past the overhang.) I also didn't want rails rounding the corner inside or outside, which would be a lot of lost space in the corners and also wouldn't allow me to hang things on the wall (either on the inside or outside depending on the choice.) Now on to the project.

Here's the before picture from the front.

Here's the after picture from the front, only showing a little over one stall compared to before picture.