Review on 8Ft Easy-Mount Brushed Nickel Steel Bypass Double Sliding Barn Door Hardware Kit With One-Piece Bracket For DIYHD Projects by Brad Bryant

I bought this hardware because my father is 91 and was having a lot of trouble getting into his bathroom with his walker with the regular door. After working with an Occupational Therapist we decided to remove the door which helped tremendously. After a lot of thought I chose to put up 2 small doors that meet in the middle so he could have privacy and it would still look nice. I thought this would be a relatively straightforward project. Boy, was I wrong!First and Foremost: This is NOT a project for anyone without reasonably extensive knowledge and understanding of building and engineering. While the hardware is VERY well made and beautiful to look at (once it's up) getting this thing up and working was the devil for us.I'm reasonably well versed at figuring out half-assed directions. I've done a LOT of DIY renovations and worked with a LOT of "pictures-only" directions. But this project tested my abilities to the max. I have a friend who is an engineer and genius when it comes to this kind of thing and he's the only reason I didn't throw the whole thing out the window.Admittedly my walls didn't help. Only 3 of the holes (spaced for the standard 16" studs) on the track actually lined up with a stud (Note: When doors are put in, their studs are often NOT on a 16" spacing from the regular studs). Thankfully my friend of mine has the tooling machinery to drill hard metal AND the knowledge of how to jerry-rig things. He drilled a new hole where the one remaining stud was so we could at least get 4 of the 5 supporting bolts in. Problem #1 solved after several extra hours of drilling.One thing I would say would help a LOT would be for the manufacturer to make the holes for the bolts more "slotted" (see photos) to help with adjusting to get everything level and balanced. Not all of us have the abilities of an engineer to get everything within a millimeter of where the holes should be. I screwed up one set of holes on one door by 3mm and it really threw things off. So my friend made all the holes more like slots so we could adjust everything once we saw how it balanced out on the wall (which didn't help as it's not straight). We then used washers to cover the slots. Problem #2 solved.Another issue was that the bolts on the back of the door that hold the roller hardware in place were WAAAY projected out too far to work with the door trim. I elected to not pull the trim because it would have meant completely redoing the chair rail that runs along the wall. And also, if we sell in future the new people may want to put the regular door back on. So we had to countersink the bolts (no mention of this potential issue in the instructions) and then cut the bolts to adjust for the 1/2" countersink. Problem #3 solved.Just to add to the fun, we went to put the End-stops on and the damn bolt that holds the rail to the wall is EXACTLY where the stop needs to go. And there's nothing we can do about that tho I'm still chewing on possible solutions.Also, you can't put the bottom guide in unless you have a router and know how to use it. See photo.And finally, having paid for the "soft closing" mechanism, we couldn't use it because we couldn't put it where we needed it for the 2-door configuration. It's only designed for a single door. It would be nice to have several screw-holes for the soft close mechanism so it could be adjusted for different sized doors. Also, having stared at the instructions for the hardware that goes on the door to activate the mechanism, I still have NO idea what the little circular thing is for or where it would have gone. Even my engineer friend wasn't 100% sure exactly what it's purpose was.This project fought us every step of the way. Few people have "perfect" walls or the knowledge to make out drawing that, while well done, are complicated and not 100% understandable in several places. Because it's in a hall the photo sadly doesn't do it justice. I'm including a lot of photos of the issues we dealt with. I hope the manufacturer will take some of these things into consideration because a few tweaks to the hardware and a better set of instructions would go a LONG way to making this a much easier project even if you have to bring in a builder. Time is money and no one wants to pay a builder for 3-5 hr's of extra work to drill metal and stare at instructions that were difficult to decipher at times.So - I'd give this 5 stars if these things were addressed. I LOVE how it looks. And all the struggle was worth it to make it easier for my father to access his bathroom. But I could have done without the hours of frustration and the lost time that it took to make all the adaptations.