Don't Slam the Door!

The humble beginnings of a door.

(Don't you love my workshop - the front porch!)

When my brother and his family came to visit, my girls very generously offered the use of their room to Uncle Chris and Aunt Dorothy. The problem? The previous week their door was broken. For those of you who don't know, we are renovating a house. An old Victorian farmhouse with a lot of potential, but LOTS of ugly layers covering that potential. Their door was one of those ugly things. For some reason, all the original doors in the upstairs had been replaced by the cheapest of hollow core doors from the 70's. Previous to us living here, the house had been divided into an upstairs and downstairs apartment. They were the typical tenants, so the door was barely hanging on when we moved in. So, if you see bits of ugliness, or even REALLY ugly backgrounds, please know that I don't think that it looks nice and that it will hopefully change sooner rather than later. Enough about that and onto the door. . .

So, we needed a door for the girls' room. Well, the doorway is fairly narrow and very short for a door, and since I hadn't found one to work in the spot and time had run out, I decided just to make one.


This is the first side before paint. I wish I had thought to take more pictures of the process, but I kind of forgot until the middle of the project. Sorry! This blogging thing is still really new to me, so I am not in the habit of taking pictures of everything yet.

This is what I did. I began with a piece of 3/4" plywood. I traced the remains of the hollow core door onto the plywood and cut that out. Next, I took 1 x 3 boards and cut two of them the height of the door. Then I took 1 x 6 boards and cut three of those the width of the door minus the width of the two 1 x 3 boards. In case you ever decide to make a door yourself, or pretty much do any carpentry work, be aware that a 1 x 3 board is not actually 1" by 3". It is something more like 3/4" by 2 1/4". I used liquid nails and screws to attach these boards. Then I cut pieces of beadboard paneling to fit in the resulting rectangles. If you notice, the middle 1 x 6 board is not placed in the middle of the door vertically, but I just put it where I though it looked best. After attaching the beadboard with liquid nails, I then cut a very small molding piece to edge out around the beadboard. I used my husband's miter saw, which made it super easy. Yes, I said that my husband lets me use his tools - how cool is he?


Here is a picture of the door on its side. I used some wood putty to fill in around the knot holes. Well, originally, my plan had been to make both sides of the door identical, but at this point, as often happens with projects, I realized that I needed to improvise. The reason was that the thickness of the door couldn't support another set of 3/4" board on the other side. So, I had an idea. We had been wanting a long mirror for the girls, and I had thought of hanging it on the back side of their door. So, why not make it a permanent part of the door?


I quickly drove to Family Dollar. We live in a really rural little town, so we have the choice of the Family Dollar in the next town to the east, the Dollar General in the next town to the west, or a hardware store a bit further away. So, I bought one of these cheap mirrors, which are really skinny by the way.


So I took off the plastic frame thingy and the cardboard backing. Then I used liquid nails to apply the mirror to the door. Have you figured out yet that I have a thing for liquid nails? If you want to build anything, you really should get some.



So, I used some of this really wide molding left over from a previous project. This molding is intended to be the baseboard molding you use with beadboard paneling, so it has a little space notched out that was perfect for allowing the molding to overlap the edges of the mirror a bit.



And I ate dinner on top of the door while I was working on it.



This is what it looked like after I attached the molding with screws and - guess what? - liquid nails. It may seem that I am being paid to advertise here, but I really just like the stuff that much. If you look closely, you can see I puttied over the screws. I also had to putty a LOT on the plywood on this side. It wasn't a very good grade of plywood, so there were lots of pits that all needed putty in order to look nice after being painted. This is the last picture I have of this side. I primed and painted it all white. You can't tell it so well in the picture, but there is more space at the top of the mirror than the bottom. I have bought a wood applique to put over the mirror, and once I have final pictures of the door in its place, you can see that.



Well here is the beadboard side, all primed and painted. This is the door just leaning against the wall before I took it upstairs. You can see where the wallpaper is starting to come off the walls, but that is another project!

We got the door on hinges and hanging up, but I have yet to choose a knob for the door. I thought about a glass knob, or maybe some other type of vintage door knob. Anyway, once I choose that and put it on the door, I will show you an update. I am really proud that I made a door - it had never even occurred to me before how to go about making one. Now that I know how simple it is (at least my homemade version), you can bet you will be seeing more of them!

Hello again!

Well, I just ventured off the planet for about a month, but now I have returned. Although to say that I have returned to normalcy would be too great a statement. =-) I have enjoyed several weeks of visitors - my brother and his family with their 5 kids came to visit. Then I also had a fun surprise in having my parents and youngest brother also visit. Since then, I have been busy trying to finish up all the requirements for homeschooling in Pennsylvania, which has some of the more strenuous requirements for homeschooling among the states. As such, I plan a week at the end of the school year just for preparing the paperwork and all that is required - so, I am almost done! I have been busy with some projects around the house, and hopefully I will show you some of that this week.

Time goes by so quickly. Today, Annesley (the baby) was on a blanket on the floor, and Charis (my 7 yr. old) needed some help with a math problem. Well, in the three minutes I was gone to help Charis, Annesley rolled over for the first time - and even though there are nine people in this house, no one was there to see her! Can you believe it? I stay home with my kids just so I don't miss these things, and I missed it. Can't help laughing at that.

Well, I wanted to let you know about a great blog that I just found today. One of the blogs I like to follow is Susan's at http://www.joyfulmomofmany.com/, which I really enjoy. So, she recommended this blog - and I am so glad that she did. It is called Like Mother, Like Daughter at http://ourmothersdaughters.blogspot.com/. This is a blog by a mother, grandmother, and daughters. It is such an encouraging blog for mothers (especially with lots of kiddos like me) and for keepers of the home. The theme of the blog is "Happy at Home" and there are lots of posts dealing with different aspects of home life. Anyway, so glad to have found it and so happy to share it!

Well, hopefully in the next few days I will show you some pics of what I have been up to!

Done with Splinters!

Splinters: Beware!



You may wonder what in the world this picture has to do with splinters. So I'll tell you. This was the beginning of the end for the splinters. But to tell this tale, I must start at the very beginning. You didn't know there could be more than one beginning, did you?

As we began our renovations, one of the first things we did was to pull up the old flooring. When we bought our house, the downstairs was an interesting patchwork of industrial carpeting and shag carpeting that was early 80's vintage. It was all stained, stinky, and very, very ugly. So, we pulled it all up. That was a fairly easy job, except for the kitchen which had quite a few layers of linoleum and even a very primitive type of oil cloth linoleum, which I never even knew existed before. My wonderful children helped us pull literally more than a thousand nails and staples out of the floor, because each layer of previous flooring had been very liberally nailed and stapled. All that to get to the original oak wood floors. Well, we had done this months ago, not thinking ahead to what lay in store - the dreadful, dastardly SPLINTERS!!! I won't show any photos, but my children suffered frequent attacks by these evil splinters. So, when it is time to get rid of such horrors, who you gonna call? No, not the Ghostbusters. Your resident Amish man. And that was the beginning of the end. Now, for the rest of the story.

We called on our Amish friend to replace the planks that needed to be replaced so that we could go about refinishing the floor. I tried to sneak a picture of him working, but none of them worked out, and after seeing how Amish act in the movies, I was afraid to ask him if I could take his picture. =-) So, I took a picture of his Amish hat and his lunch cooler where he was working on the porch. I waited until he was in the house putting down a plank to swoop in for that picture. Anyway, onto the floor.

So, after he replaced the planks, then Benn used hickory sticks to fill in where knot holes had fallen through, and it was time to sand. You can see in these pictures the condition of the floor at this point. In every room, at one point, the wood floors had been painted, but only around the rugs that obviously had once been in the middle of each room. What a lovely thing to do! What you can't see in the pictures is how rough the wood was and how many splinters were secretly waiting to attack.



So, our mission was clear. We rented a sander and began sanding on Saturday morning, hoping to put the first layer of finish on the floor on Saturday night. Here you can see my sweetie sanding the floors on Saturday.


And here you can see him sanding the floors on Sunday.


And here you can see him sand the floors on Monday.

Maybe it took so long to get it done because he is always sanding the same spot? Really, I probably sanded as much as he did, and it really did take three days, almost the whole of each day, to get those floors sanded. The lovely paint around the perimeter of the room was truly villainous. We spent hours trying to sand it down. Then we pulled out stripper, and did several layers of that. Then we pulled out a power scraper and I sat and scooted around the floor, trying to scrape the paint off the floor. Finally, we called it good and decided we were finished sanding. This whole sanding fiasco was like a wake-up call that I am no spring chicken! I am sure the fact that I just had a C-section 3 months ago played into it, but I was barely walking when it was all over. I have since recovered, thank the Lord! So, finally on Monday evening, I began to apply the first coat of finish.

We decided to use a product called Waterlox on the floors. Janice, from Canadian Cottage, had a post on her blog about her beautiful kitchen. You can see that post here, and while you are there, you should check out the rest of her house. I love her style, and I especially love that she does it all on a budget! When I saw the rich color and finish of her floors, I had to email her to see how she had finished her floors. She was so kind to respond so quickly with the information, and when she said that she used Waterlox on her floors and that she had lived with it for more than two years and was still very pleased with that finish, I decided that was what I wanted to use on mine.

Here you can see me in my really cute super-renovator rags. =-)


You can see here what the floor looked like as I was applying the finish. It was really easy to apply, pretty much like mopping, which I discovered is a difficult motion post- C-section.


So, once again, the splinters threatened to defeat us. When I looked on the Waterlox website to find where to buy it, there were two places about 45 min. away from us, but in opposite directions. So, early Saturday morning, when I left to pick it up, I decided to go to the store to the south. When I got there, I found out that the store had recently been bought out and no longer carried Waterlox. So, then I had to drive home, then 45 min. to the north to the second store. By the way, I did call first this time to be sure they had some. When I got there, I found out that because of VOC laws, they no longer carried the gallon size, only quarts. And, they only had 5 quarts in stock - which was only enough for about the first coat. So, I bought all they had and headed home, thinking that at least we could get a first coat on, and then drive to Rochester, about 2 hours away, to get some more. Unfortunately, because the wood had been untreated for so long, the first coat ended up requiring 7 quarts. You can do the math. So, on Wednesday, we headed to Rochester, where we purchased plenty to finish the floors. You can't keep a good man down.

So, after 5 coats of finish, this is what we ended up with:


Here you can see one of the knot hole replacements:


Even now, the splinters threaten. lol I had taken several pictures of the finished floor, but can only get these two to upload from my camera.

So, be gone, you pesky splinters! Wherever evil lurks, never fear, the super-renovators of 126 North East Street are here!

Why does this post read like a comic book?

Double Feature

Mom, You are so lucky! You get a double feature this week! I had too many things to show you to put it all in one post, so you get two! First of all, look at these lovely wild flowers Rachel picked for me. If you look closely, you will see that the leaves on the plant are shaped like hearts! Kind of a love note from God, reminding us through His creation that He loves us. Hidden and waiting for us to find it, a little surprise message for us.


And a few pictures of Annesley, so you can see how she is growing and changing. Here is a picture with Elijah Grant holding her.


Here is one by herself. Isn't she pretty?


And these are the new chickies we got this week. Unfortunately, three of them haven't made it, which brought some tears, especially as one of them had been the "favorite" that they named Peeper. But you can see how cute they are! Hard not to become attached.


And no, I don't hold them. Still don't care much for touching animals. But I do enjoy watching them.


And here are a few pictures of the flower bed I put in around the bay window. They are blooming now - I have managed not to kill them!



And since it is so nice outside, I have really enjoyed opening the windows and having that wonderful aroma fill the house. I have daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths (which are the ones that smell best). It is nice to have that smell to cover over the smell of the manure the farmer keeps spreading in his field out back. =-(



Benn took the kids camping in the backyard on Friday night. It was such nice weather for it, but you can imagine Daddy really enjoyed sleeping in his bed the next night!




And, isn't this attractive?


Benn decided he had finally had enough of looking at this ugly thing and it was time to go. Yea for me!


So, he enlisted Josiah and Grey to help him. Look at my boys working hard together!


Grey helping with his strong muscles.


Wish I'd gotten a better picture of Josiah, but had to include a picture of him doing hard "man's work" with his daddy.

And . . .



It's outta here. . . (cheers, applause, clapping, yahooing)



We hung a picture over the hole from the chimney pipe, which we stuffed over first, to cover up the ugly hole until we replace that wall.

And, when we went upstairs to go to bed last night, this is what we found:



He was really sleeping there like this!



Isn't he cute? Just glad he didn't get hurt. Oh for the days when I could sleep just anywhere. . . Did those days ever exist for me?

You want a GREY cabinet?!?!?

All right Mom, time to show you another project that I have done. This is a small buffet that I have painted in preparation for this to become the sink cabinet for our downstairs bathroom. It is looking much better than when I started!

OK, so here are a few pics of where we started. I found this small buffet in the barn across the street. I DID ask permission to have it before I just took it. Actually, I asked if I could buy it for $20, but John said I could just have it. So yippee! free cabinet!!! Anyway, you can see it was in pretty rough shape, but it wasn't wobbly or anything, just some of the veneer was coming off, some of the decorative parts chipped off, and REALLY dirty. Sounds perfect to me!


I thought I had taken some pictures in the middle of the process, but now I can't seem to find them. Anyway, I began with a coat of primer. Rachel and Elisabeth couldn't believe that I wouldn't leave it white. They were incredulous that I would really want to paint this cabinet grey. I just figured that at their ages of 10 and 9, they really didn't know yet what was good style, and stuck with the grey. So, this picture is of the cabinet painted with the grey paint. I put the grey paint on it after the kids went to bed, and when Elisabeth woke up the next morning and saw the cabinet, she decided the grey wasn't so bad after all. But I wasn't finished yet! I still wanted to antique it and give it several really good coats of polycrylic to protect it from the water when it becomes a sink cabinet.


So, this is how it turned out. The trash can in the background is so lovely. (sigh) I still need to get knobs for it, but that will have to wait until I pick them out. Well, Elisabeth decided it was OK with the antiquing, but it made it look OLD, and she wasn't sure why I would want that! She preferred the solid grey, but it's mama's cabinet, so it is antiqued.



Here are a few close-up pictures, so you can see the pretty details of the cabinet. Some people might not like the imperfections in this cabinet, but those tend to be my favorite parts, especially the one above with the chipped decorative molding and the rough wood on the side of it.




So this my cabinet!


Here is a fun picture of the kids from this week:

The kids were playing in the sandbox while I was reading to them for school, and they made a mound of sand and then picked tons of dandelions and stuck them into the sand, making a lovely yellow mountain. Really, when you get that many dandelions right next to each other, it is truly a brilliant, golden yellow. What a lovely color God has made! I love times like these when the kids are all playing together so happily, and to enjoy a good story - The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom - makes it all the better! I should have gotten a picture of Annesley laying on the blanket beside me while I was reading - maybe I will think of that next time.


This was a picture from Charis's birthday - she got a bike! Thought you'd really appreciate that, Mom.


Brotherly love!


What a cutie pie! Makes me smile. =-)

I am linking this post to the blog Beneath My Heart, if I can figure out how to do it. ;-)


I am also linking this post to Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday.





I am also linking this to Frugal & Fabulous: