Old Door Becomes Message Board

Last weekend on Facebook a hint may have been “leaked” about a new project involving a door.  Well, after just a couple of glitches it is finally done and installed!

I kind of have a thing for doors {notice what’s hanging in the background behind the sofa}…and windows…and other architectural “stuff” if I can get my hands on it.  Thanks to Craig and his list we picked up 3 doors and 4 windows a couple of months ago and they’ve been sitting in the garage waiting to be re-purposed.  When I saw this 24-inch door {it was probably on an interior closet or pantry originally} I knew I wanted to paint the center panel with chalkboard paint and had a feeling it would be the perfect fit for the side of our pantry cabinet.  As you can see our cabinets are pretty blah builder-grade oak and only the doors and fronts are wood, so the side of the pantry cabinet was boasting a big ol’ strip of fake wood grain coated mdf…yeah, I know – stylish!

We really had to do very little to the door except remove the old hinges and give it a wipe down.  BUT of course I decided it needed to look older, so I attacked it with a power sander.  I focused on the areas that naturally might wear and also on places where the paint was already chipped or peeling. Who knew there was a layer of eggshell beige paint under that white?

Next I took some left over java glaze {equal parts glaze and java paint} and painted in on just on the parts where the wood was showing, then carefully wiped off the excess with a wet rag.  After that dried we added 2 coats of satin polyurethane {just the white bits}.  Then came the glitch #1.  When hubby remove the painter’s tape he had used to keep the poly off the center panel it pulled the paint off clear to the bare wood, which was really a blessing in disguise because we had been considering painting the chalkboard paint right over the old paint.  So, we scraped off all the old paint from the center panel – sanded – primed {just one coat} – then 3 coats of chalkboard paint. Glitch #2 – hubby used a brush for the first coat, it didn’t look great.  I asked him to use a small roller on the second coat – he used a small, fluffy, nappy one he already had…tooooooooo much texture.  So, we did a third coat with a sponge roller.

The chalkboard paint needed 24 hours after each coat – LESSON…IN…PATIENCE

But, it’s done now and I like it!  We notched out the baseboard to make it fit flush against the wall and attached it with screws through the inside of the pantry cabinet. Now hubby wants us to refinish the cabinets to match it.  {I’m not doing that until we can afford new countertops, but I’d really like to knock out that partial wall and redo the kitchen altogether!}

Here’s the best straight-on shot I could get.

Have a beautiful weekend! {And start a crazy project, why dontcha?}