door

Repurposing a Buffet Top – Part 1

When we first moved to France I bought this buffet in a brocante.

We had to furnish a rather large rental home and so I bought inexpensive furniture. As we moved it into the new house it didn’t take the strain and there was some breakage. The carved top was still in good order and that will go in another project. In the meantime I’ve used one of the shelves in the hallway…

and one in the toilet/utility….

So in terms of the top of the buffet I was left with this,…

I unscrewed the parts that held the lower shelf and I plan to use that in a project too. Then I seperated the top into two parts with a circular saw.

I’d never used one before and I was so nervous doing it. All seemed to be going well and the two areas were divided – great! Then I moved the parts from the workmate I’d been using and found that I’d sawn a load of the bench off too.

Anyway, the method differs to this doorway in that I just screwed the wood straight onto the walls using the same raw plugs and long screws as before. I then added some quarter rounds as before, but this time to the top and bottom of the boards to cover up the cut edges and give it some extra definition.

I also added some additional wood carvings to run beside the door frame.

This is a part one as I’m going to add a central wood carved moulding, but I went ahead with the project because when I finished the other door moulding and came through to the sitting room I found this waiting for me….

So I figured I’d get on and do this and then I have one of my jobs off my New Years list.

Bare in mind that they need caulking and the additional wood carving to be added (hence the waiting for the caulking), but in the meantime there’s this…..

And this….

My hubby was uncertain of my efforts when they weren’t painted, but after their coats of paint he was pleased. Especially when you consider that this cost about 10€, including the wood carvings and paint.

Do you recycle old furniture parts? I’ll be posting a lot more of this kind of stuff this year as I have many things I want to move from my ‘junk’ pile to make our home a little bit of heaven.

If you do have any recycled projects add a link in the comments below – I’d love to pop over and take a look!

12 Posts of Christmas; Sliding and Hidden Doors

This old house has a mixture of beautifully panelled, traditional doors and plain modern ones. Obviously I want to keep the traditional, but what to do with the newer additions?

I’ve come across these images of doors that have been hidden within paneling and as I want to panel lots of rooms where these doors exist that’s a good option.

I also need to add doors and I’ve come up with these; an American style French Country take on barn doors.

Oh, and I need a door into the kitchen and fell in love with these.

It’s Epiphany here, so festivities continue but the decorations come down tomorrow. How was your Christmas?

Door with repurposed details

For a long time now I’ve been thinking about changing the door on the spare room, but we have so much to do before Christmas that the cost was prohibitive. That and the fact that I don’t know how to hang a door myself. I’m willing to give most things a go, but sometimes when you have a long list of jobs to do another skill to learn can just be too much.

Then, as I started to put together the very room that the door was needed, we came across a bit of a hitch. The wardrobe that we’d brought with us from the house we rented when we first arrived in France seemed to have warped. There was much to admire about this wardrobe, and I knew I could use lots of it’s parts for projects around the house. So a new wardrobe was bought and I set about repurposing what we had.

Back to the door. The rose detailed side panels on the wardrobe were perfect as central panels on the door. However they were a bit narrow, so I decided to add some corner moldings and some half rounds to finish it off.

This is a photo of my planning out where everything would go. The gold finger plate is one I already had; it was the only one I’ve managed to find with a space for the key hole.

You can see below that I’d changed the lock on the door as there was never a working key there. You can see the mechanism that you just change over. The man at my local quincaillerie checked that it was an exact match for me; so now there’s a working lock and key.

I glued and nailed the central panel, wood moldings and half rounds in place. Then I painted it all white before screwing the finger plate in place.

I already had this beautiful cut glass door knob. I’m so pleased with the results. I only spent 11€ on this, however I obviously had the finger plate and door knob as well as the wooden fixtures that I’d already bought.

The door hardware came from eBay; I just put in “ancienne poignée de porte” and “plaques dés doigtés” for the finger plates.

Here it is before….

….and here it is hung back in place.

As you can see the original stain on the wood panel has bled a little, so I’ll be adding another coat of sealant primer and then finishing the paint work again. I was just so excited to have a door more in keeping with the room that I thought I’d share now.

I’d love to hear what you think and what items you’ve repurposed around your home. It would be great if you hit the subscribe button for future projects and leave a comment in the box.

Little Details

Just the door – don’t look at what’s around it (ha).

The bedroom is still a strong yellow, but I’m planning to have decorative paneling half way up the wall in this dusky pink and toning down the yellow above. But after we broke through the doorway I couldn’t resist painting the door after I did added this glad she door handle.

If you look at the other post you’ll see the door had wall paper on the paneling which actually had a fabric like mesh underneath. The only way I could completely remove it was with a heat gun – the kind you use to strip paint.

The top panel felt funny as I was working and then when I heard a cracking sound I realised why – it was a window. The other side of the door is padded and I didn’t have a clue.

I carried on carefully working round the broken glass anyway as I remembered I had this ‘Josette’ window film from Laura Ashley tucked away. You can see in the next image the cracked glass which the film is now holding together.

The finger plate is an original, mirrored Art Deco piece and I got it from eBay along with the vintage glass handle.

I haven’t taken the other side of the door off yet so the panelling is behind the glass. It will eventually lead to a walk in wardrobe and then a bathroom if we’re able to get the plumbing in place. That’s going to take a little while yet though. In the meantime I’m loving the little vintage pieces.

What do you think?