Entryway Part 1; Tongue and Groove with Coat Hooks

My husband went to put some peelings in the compost bin recently and found four little eyes staring out at him 🥰…

Of course they came to live with us. They’re adorabubble. However, they bring to life the meaning of Phoebe’s lyrical genius…

Don’t tell me that she’s not up there with Tolstoy for communicating the mysteries of redemptive suffering; not after I’ve lived with these babies.

They’ve just had their first vaccinations and the desire to get them out and about to do their business has become imperative. However, our back door is predominantly glass. Where to place a cat flap?

I’d bought one for our small dog to go in the will be kitchen, but living on a hill means that it’s very windy where we are. I’ve got an idea for how to counteract the wind howling through the flap, but it’s going to be a next year thing.

Furthermore, the fact that we won’t be using the room next to the kitchen until it’s decorated and a form of heating is put in next year, means that we will need to keep the doors into that area closed throughout winter. That hindrance won’t be conducive to encouraging the little kitty cats to use outside as their litter tray.

I’d already been thinking of ways to deal with the cold emanating from the glass door in the main part of the house. It made maintaining the heat in the hallway a challenge last year I can tell you. A draft excluder had gone some way to helping the situation, but it’s still a challenge.

I’d been talking to my husband about how to solve it and suggested having another internal door, perhaps a front door, just after the one into the living room. At the moment that passage way cuts under the stairs into the current small kitchen. The reconfiguration would mean that we could treat this newly sectioned off area as a mini boot room / porch way.

As we intend to use the current kitchen as a playroom when we transfer over this would have additional benefits. It would be a little area where coats, bags, shoes can be neatly put away as the children go in and out.

I know.

You’re laughing at my naivety aren’t you?

Neatly put away 😏.

The idea has been given a new lease of life with the cat situation. There may not be an opportunity for a cat flap in the current glass door, but surely I could have one in this more interior door and leave the glass one open during the day?

It’s a start to a solution anyway.

I’m still continuing with the will be kitchen where, surprise, surprise, I’m facing another, newly discovered challenge. Yet when that gets too much for me I’ve start work on this little area.

As you can see the wall had already be stripped. There had been brown, carpeted walls here. Mmmm…

There’s probably a logical reading for that to do with heat or something, but – as you can imagine – it created a very gloomy atmosphere. One day I got so fed up with it I started to wrench it from the walls. Even the bare walls was better, although I found a few nasty surprises underneath.

I loved the look of the tongue and groove I’d used in the kitchen and decided I’d do it again in this little section.

I bought just one pack of tongue and groove and cut in line with the door frame, gluing the pieces straight to the wall. When it got to the corner I didn’t cut a piece to fit, as I’d only bought the one pack and knew I’d only just cover the two walls I wanted to start with, so I finished it with some left over wood moulding and a 1/4 round.

There was a gap between the lengths I’d cut and the underneath of the doorway (I don’t know why I ended them there 😣) ans I used various off cuts of wood mouldings to fill this gap, but also to extend the section up so when I had a plinth running around the area it could smoothly continue around in the section above the door.

Here you can see I used a wood cornice topped off with a quarter round – extending under the door frame – a piece of beaded trim, the the plinth.

None of these are perfect fits, but I intend to paint it white to ensure that it’s bright, so I can just smooth acrylic into the gaps.

On the second wall I cut one length of tongue and groove to fit up to the door frame where I intended the plinth to take over.

Then I started to use the cut offs to continue right up until the final length when I used another full piece. I did this because I wanted to use this panel somewhere (it’s the odd door left from the buffet I broke down whilst working on the will be kitchen) and as I was short on tongue and groove doing it like this meant I just had enough.

I intended to have two horizontals of plinth as I wanted two rows of hooks to hang coats on. I intended making this plinth work for me though. The carved door is very well made and very heavy, so I une it in place. Then using lengths of wood I glued with the strongest glue I could find I built up the area so that in effect the panel could rest on it.

If you want to do something similar I think it’s important to note I didn’t let it rest on this wood yet, I allowed the glue to set for a couple of hours first. Then I continued to encase the cupboard door with the other parts of wood.

I topped this side with another plinth and a quarter round to both sides as there was a small gap on the door side. I let this adhere for an hour then I got to work caulking both sections.

This took a day, just fitting it around other things. it certainly isn’t a time intensive project so far. However, to be able to put a door in this section I needed to extended the side of the under stairs area. That proved a little more tricky.

Here it all is with the first coat of paint. I’ll update you on the second part soon.