Vintage Pantry Door project

Hi all! Gosh, this week has just been another busy one! I haven't had time to make anything this week. At least anything out of paper and ink. ;) However, I have been really enjoying painting and antiquing this vintage door that I picked up last week. My dear friend Wendy and I had a fun day scouring a couple salvage places. First, we checked out the downtown Habitat for Humanity ReStore. I actually really love that place, I have gotten a lot of cool things there throughout the years, including the salvage door that I turned into a headboard for our bed. We also hit another cool place that neither of us had been to before Architectural Salvage, which was SO awesome! I picked out a vintage window there and some hardware to put on my door.

When it comes to the style in my house, I feel like the below photo hits the nail on the head, this is not my house, but I have similar tile in my kitchen, similar wall color, and similar color and style of furniture and cabinetry in there as well (but no pretty granite counters, boo!) I have a pretty modern home, but those touches of rustic and vintage are just my thing, love that!

I have always loved vintage things. I'm giving a tour of my studio in a few weeks over at Craft Storage Ideas, and you will see ALL kinds of vintage goodness in there! I have always wanted another vintage door, and since I love them so much, I picked up this one when Wendy and I were at the ReStore that day. 20$ and it was already my favorite color. I had no clue what I'd use it for, but I just liked it, and figured I'd come up with something creative, like maybe using it to hang photos on, or the boys artwork. When I got home, I brought it inside (sure is heavy, since it's solid wood, I LOVE that!) It wasn't the right size to go either of the places where I'd though I could rest it in a corner. I carried into the kitchen, leaned it up against the pantry, and..... IT WAS JUST THE RIGHT SIZE! Ok, my husband would tell you, it wasn't *exactly* the right size.... he had to shave off a little off one side and off the top to make it fit just right. He also had to re-drill the doorknob holes, and the hole where the latchy part goes. And he did all that without complaining, even though I can *guarantee* you, he would have much preferred to leave up the original pantry door. ;) He's a good man, he is! I didn't get a photo of the original door before we took it down, but it looks just like this. And here's the decor around it before also... (and my messy pantry sans door!)

Ok onto painting and fixing up this door. I loved the original color and wanted to keep it, but I also had to sand down a bare spot where there was no paint since my husband had to install the new hardware, which was a different size. Here's a pic after one sanding.

I didn't want to repaint the whole thing, and I did want the original paint to show through. I found a craft paint in my stash that was really close, I knew I could work it out since I'd be doing multiple layers, etc. So here's the finishes I used, plus also some white paint and some of my wall color paint.

Nice that I did NOT have to buy a quart (or gallon) of "regular" paint, since it would have cost a lot more than 3 little bottles of craft paint! Love how the sanding began to expose the wood and the paint underneath. I wore a mask, and you should too, if you're sanding something older, you never know if it's lead paint you might be sanding off! 

You can see here, how I sanded where the handle had been into more of an "organic" shape. It was originally a perfect little rectangle with no paint, I knew I'd be able to blend this better. I filled the original hole with 3 small pieces of dowel and some caulk.

Then the first coat of white, dry brushed on, and blended well with the dry brush.

Then blending in some blue craft paint...

See how that bare spot is getting camouflaged? :) A few more layers like this, some blue, one white, and one tan, and I did this all over the door in different places. I either used a really dry brush and blended really good or I put on more paint and then wiped with a wet paper towel, to keep the layers really fine and soft. Then we have this:

This next pic really shows the two blues, the tan, and the exposed wood well.

Finally I added antiquing glaze to all the edges and wiped off. Touched up with a bit more blue and:

:) happy face :)

The backside of the door was actually tan, very very close to my wall color, so on that side, I mostly used tan, and just a little bit of the blue and antiquing medium. This is the inside of the door.

I spray painted all the hardware I was reusing from brass to antique bronze:

I have a lot of denim, cobalt and navy in my kitchen, but not much of this lighter blue, so I changed up the wall decor just a bit by switching one cross out with a little canvas from my living room, and I took down one plaque and added this cute hook from Hobby Lobby. I'll be adding touches of this lighter blue here and there around the room. When I was there a new clock just jumped right into my cart, too! heehee ;)

and here's some shots of the antique knob.

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Don't know if you are into vintage or not, but I'm really happy with this! Really makes my kitchen sing :) Hope you are having a great week! 

xo, Noelle