We were helping with demo for a local organization who had just purchased a SWEET new property.

Walls came down

Lots of debris hauled out

A few doors were leftover

DOORS???

I love an old door

Who am I kidding, I love old stuff

Dirty

Half rotten

Layers and layers of disgusting paint

The ugliest hardware

I didn’t care and they let me bring the old door home instead of throwing it in the dumpster

What am I doing with it??

At the time…….I had absolutely no idea

I knew I wanted to see what the original wood looked like

Would I find pretty?  Maybe with a beautiful grain that I could just polish up with some polyurethane and add a new knob?

The frame of the door was really pretty and I got super excited. But the inserts had been patched and replaced with some of  the ugliest of plywood. 

When that happens, there is little choice but to either paint the wood or create some kind of treatment to make it all match

It was a dirty, super dirty job. I would be chatting with someone and they would ask what I was working on. 

The dumb door would be my usual answer.

And most days, it would still be the same answer.

While one project at a time is not my mantra, I kept coming back to the ugly door. It would not beat me and I knew it had beauty deep down under all the gunk 

Steve helped me find wood that would match the original frame that could be inserted into the inserts so that whatever treatment I decided on, the woods would at least match. 

I finally decided on a white wash kind of treatment. It began by painting the entire door with a watered down white paint. It was brushed on and wiped off quickly. It saturated the wood just enough to give a glazy white appearance. 

Then coat after coat of stain was brushed on and wiped off until I got the exact shade I was looking for. 

This WAS the finished door right before it went to it’s new home 

The door was carried upstairs to be installed

It was held up to the door frame and ………

It was too short.

So much for my expert measuring

Down the stairs

Back to the garage where a piece of wood was attached to give it the extra length it needed

More paint

More stain

More sealer

While I do not love the spray on the window (necessary since it’s on a bathroom) I do love that it looks like an old door that you might have seen years and years ago, which fits our house perfectly.

The new/old door currently lives in Naked Girls Room. If you don’t know that story of the room I have shared the link here: https://abandonedocala.com/2016/12/21/naked-girls-room/ and here: https://abandonedocala.com/2017/12/14/naked-girls-room-update/