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/
