our .sweet. door

I fell in love with this re-purposed door from http://thepleatedpoppy.com/ .  I spent a couple days admiring it, and decided it was something I wanted to try.
Initially, I thought I may happen to "just stumble upon" an old door somewhere.  I know a local antique mall in town that sells them, but I wanted to try and keep my costs down.  If I happened to find one at a garage sale would I be able to get it home if my husband was at work?  Basically, it came down to patience...or lack of...I was excited to start this project and I didn't want to wait.

Here is the sweet door hung horizontally in her bathroom. 

I have a friend who owns Southbarn Antiques here in town.  He was willing to let me come out and look at his old doors.  Did I forget to mention he has over 150?  How do you choose?  I needed a door with glass at the top so it could sit vertically.  I ended up coming home with a very old, worn, 3 pane door.  It needed lots of TLC.     

This face plate was on the back of the door.  I couldn't wait to see it on the front!



I must say, this was .a lot. of work.  Thankfully, my husband was .a lot. of help.  We started by using a stripper, which removed about 3 layers of old paint.  We later found out we had about 3 more layers to go.  It took a few hours to apply and re-apply the stripper (it was sooo humid, it took extra time to dry).  Finally, after lots of scraping we were down to just wood on the front and back.  We applied a generous coat of mineral spirits to both sides of the door to stop the "stripping" action.  

Ready for primer

We primed both sides of the door.  My husband cut and added molding to take our 3 pane window to a 6 pane window.  I really wanted more than 3 panels to display photos.

I chose Spring Garden (9B-4, Pittsburgh Paints) as my paint color.  We painted, sanded, and outlined the window panes with a dark Teal green.  My husband found a box of glass doorknobs that his grandparents had given him.  The face plate from the back, and glass knob didn't fit perfectly, so I added an outline of Teal paint.

 

I used a different scrapbook paper in each pane of glass.  You could also use fabric mounted over cardboard as http://thepleatedpoppy.com/ did.            



Our .sweet. door.



Your door becomes .sweet. when your pictures are in it.

Doors can be used for so much.  I have seen beautiful headboards come from refurbished doors.  I wanted to share this photo with you.  What a neat use of this door... heather

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