If the doors are exposed to the elements, the most important issue regardless of whether you trim it out with wood, or stucco patch to match the existing, is that it is properly flashed/sealed behind it all before covering it up. I'll be installing a window in a stucco exterior wall in a few days and I asked how the homeowner wanted it finished, they chose to match up the stucco. A trick I've learned since matching the color coat is difficult at best on a project like this for many reasons, is to base coat the color coat,(typically white), and match the texture. Once that has cured/dried, take a piece of the original stucco color coat down and have some acrylic latex exterior paint matched up to the original stucco color and feather it in around the patched area. It's typically not a good idea to paint over traditional stucco concerning large areas, but using acrylic for small patched areas isn't going to hurt. Again the most important aspect of the project being flashing/sealing behind not interrupting the drainage plane.

Hi johnliu. We just did what you are talking about. Our kitchen is so tiny (11' x 9') that we had to find every inch of available space. One of our walls is between the kitchen and a staircase; it's a standard wall made with 2 x 4s. My husband opened up the wall and devised sets of shelves sized to accept Avsikt glass doors from Ikea. The shelves themselves are wood. There will be six of these "cabinets" altogether, three lowers and three uppers. Picture six Avsikt glass doors nestled into a wall. The back side of the wall (the stairside wall) will be sheetrocked. The shelves are not quite finished and have no doors yet, but so far, I love them. They are 5" deep. I'm using them right now to store my glass spice jars at comfortable eye level. The jars are all the same size and have simple labels, so I hope they will look OK behind glass. The shallow width is also becoming useful for other tiny items that hog cabinet space -- short jars of organic honey, cans of tomato paste and roasted peppers, bags of sundried tomatoes, little boxes of tea, anchovies, and boxes of sugar-free Jello. The lower set of shelves holds my 21 old glass mayo jars full of dried goods -- beans, lentils, shitake mushrooms, popcorn, elbow macaroni, raisins, and other items bought in bulk from our local co-op. These jars are all the same size too, they all have white plastic lids, and the contents are sort of colorful, so I hope they won't look too bad either once they get their glass doors. I don't plan to illuminate these shelves; visually, it would be too noisy for my contemporary kitchen. There's a lot of glass stored inside and I have quarry tiles for flooring, so I'll have to be extremely careful not to drop anything. No glass stands a chance against quarry tile. Your idea sounds very workable, and what's more, I think you'll love how it will work for you. Cheers, rc

Sandra--Thanks for the response. I went with black only because the shutters and shutter dogs were all black and I thought it would match and look good. My wife would prefer another color but we couldn't agree on one. Do you see a color that would jump out to you? We had trouble blending it with the red brick, black shutters, etc.. Thanks!

Well...there is really no good way to leave off the base trim for a wall where a barn door is located is there? Think about it. You have a wall with base trim and suddenly the trim just stops at the point where the door is located when open? And what does it look like when the door is closed? And if you leave the base trim off the entire wall how do you think the drywallers will install the gypsum board or other wall material in order to have it flush and neat with the flooring? A baseboard trim covers a lot of workmanship sins... And how long do you think the gypsum board without a base trim will last after being hit daily with a vacuum cleaner, wet mop, broom and Rover pawing and chewing the bottom of the gypsum board along the floor? So it's really impractical (and unattractive) to not have a base trim board or other base material. And the thickness of the base trim, plus a little stand-off dimension, is as close to the wall as the barn door can be installed isn't it? Thus, if you don't want trim at the jambs and head of the opening there will be a sizable gap between the wall surface and the barn door. Simple.