{go to Part One - Space & Paint}{go to Part Two - Furniture}
My home is not a home of pretty doors - it is a home of functional, cheap doors, most of which are hollow core {hollow bore if you ask me!}.
The door to my writing room is no exception. Yawn.
During the process of planning and painting, I mentioned to my sister that I was looking for a pretty door knob.
"Like an old glass one?" she asked.
Exactly like an old glass one!
And it just so happened that she had one lying around her house, taken off a door they removed once upon a time. And it just so happened that she was willing to part with it for the whopping price of a cup of hot chocolate.
It was DIRTY! Like a century of grime and grossness. Like one hundred years of dead skin cells. This thing was a crime scene!
My first step was disassembling it and giving it a good cleaning. Which did nothing, as you can see in the photo's above.
Remembering that my other sister used to clean her flute with toothpaste, I grabbed a near-empty tube and set to work, smearing it all over the dirty surfaces and then rubbing it off with a rag.
This took a lot of the thick build-up off. I followed that up with some aggressive sanding and then repeated the toothpaste step for a finishing shine.
Weird? I know. But it worked!
Because I wasn't putting this knob on a good, thick, solid door, I was unable to use the internal mechanism that allows it to lock so when I first attached it and saw that white door paint shining through the lock opening I thought - LAME! So I undid the bottom screw, twisted the plate to the side and drew a black box with a sharpie. Maybe it's not 'the right' solution but it's good enough for me!
It's such an improvement from the plain-old-jane kind of knob that was there before. Like a little piece of jewellery for my door!
I also went one step further and attached an old window to the door. In theory it was a good idea. In reality, I really kind of hate it. I'm not even sure why. Maybe it's the scale. Maybe because it just looks like I attached a window to a cheap door. But I'm kind of stuck with it now. If I take it down I'll be staring at four holes in my door. I figure the window is the lesser evil.
So my new mission is to find a lovely paneled number that will fit the door hole to which I can still attach my pretty glass knob - perhaps with it's full fittings. I've been keeping my eyes open.
Small changes make a difference! From painting one wall to changing a doorknob! The possibilities are huge.
{p.s. November is National Novel Writer's Month and I have joined a global community of crazies who have made a commitment to write every day with a goal of 50,000 words between November 1 and 30. Come on over here if you're interested in seeing how I'm doing...}
The door to my writing room is no exception. Yawn.
During the process of planning and painting, I mentioned to my sister that I was looking for a pretty door knob.
"Like an old glass one?" she asked.
Exactly like an old glass one!
And it just so happened that she had one lying around her house, taken off a door they removed once upon a time. And it just so happened that she was willing to part with it for the whopping price of a cup of hot chocolate.
Just traded a cup of hot chocolate for this gorgeous vintage door knob. I think I got the better end #ThriftBlitz pic.twitter.com/mQQcF3jEPR
— Alanna Rusnak (@alannarusnak) October 20, 2014
My first step was disassembling it and giving it a good cleaning. Which did nothing, as you can see in the photo's above.
Remembering that my other sister used to clean her flute with toothpaste, I grabbed a near-empty tube and set to work, smearing it all over the dirty surfaces and then rubbing it off with a rag.
This took a lot of the thick build-up off. I followed that up with some aggressive sanding and then repeated the toothpaste step for a finishing shine.Weird? I know. But it worked!
Because I wasn't putting this knob on a good, thick, solid door, I was unable to use the internal mechanism that allows it to lock so when I first attached it and saw that white door paint shining through the lock opening I thought - LAME! So I undid the bottom screw, twisted the plate to the side and drew a black box with a sharpie. Maybe it's not 'the right' solution but it's good enough for me!
It's such an improvement from the plain-old-jane kind of knob that was there before. Like a little piece of jewellery for my door!
I also went one step further and attached an old window to the door. In theory it was a good idea. In reality, I really kind of hate it. I'm not even sure why. Maybe it's the scale. Maybe because it just looks like I attached a window to a cheap door. But I'm kind of stuck with it now. If I take it down I'll be staring at four holes in my door. I figure the window is the lesser evil.
So my new mission is to find a lovely paneled number that will fit the door hole to which I can still attach my pretty glass knob - perhaps with it's full fittings. I've been keeping my eyes open.
Small changes make a difference! From painting one wall to changing a doorknob! The possibilities are huge.
{p.s. November is National Novel Writer's Month and I have joined a global community of crazies who have made a commitment to write every day with a goal of 50,000 words between November 1 and 30. Come on over here if you're interested in seeing how I'm doing...}
Lovely!
ReplyDeleteAnd isn't that what sharpies are for?
Of course that's what sharpies are for - simple solutions that allow me to colour outside the lines!
Delete