FIFTIES&BEAUTIFUL

Have I ever told you how much I hate old flat doors? Especially the yellow ones we inherited with our house? Here’s a look at what the original ones were:

I realized I didn’t take any pictures of the actual door beforehand. But I’m sure we are all well aware of what a flat door looks like. Maybe not a yellow flat door, but hey, count your blessings. When we bought the house we just did a quick white paint job on everything yellow. Sadly, and pathetically enough, we actually didn’t completely paint them white, just enough so you saw “white” when you looked at them rather than yellow. We had just painted SO much and given birth to a baby and put in new flooring that we did the minimum. Then, I saw this on pinterest and died a little. Could I really have beautiful doors without the expensive cost? Well, yes. Yes I could.

So, as you can read on the other tutorial, you just use 1/4 in. plywood (I’m slowly starting to use that for EVERYTHING.) and slice it into long strips. We played around and drew on the door and did our own measurements based on what we liked, as you can see here:

So, so, so simple. Cut them down, nail them in (and nail them in GOOD. Don’t skimp) and you’re good to go! This isn’t really a tutorial, but more like just updating the world on the progress of our fixer upper, if you’re interested for more info on how to do this, let me know and I’ll write some more!

This is the first door with all the plywood on. You can see our incredible white paint job. Already I was excited. On to wood filler. Drying. Sanding. Caulking the insides. Drying. Then painting (yay!). I went a little crazy and decided do go black. I’ve always thought black doors were beyond gorgeous and finally had the guts to do it with these doors.

And best of all? New, unpainted hinges. You know you’re an adult when the most exciting thing about your week is new hinges.

Sorry about the lighting, it was at night. I just finished all the other doors in the hallway a few days ago. I’ll have to post an updated picture of the hallway soon!

Not bad for some plywood and paint!

Isn’t she a beauty?? Okay, a diamond in the rough, but she’s ours. And she will be beautiful one day, one day very far away when we are all done. So, here’s how she looked when we bought her. (Sorry the pictures were taken at night as a quick afterthought when we started working on the wallpaper and pulling out some of the nasty, old carpet.)

Here’s the family room (remember, 1500 square feet) it’s our only living space in the front of the house. Small, and it’s getting smaller everyday with our three kids that are crazy active. As you can see there’s the old carpet, that was a must to be ripped out before we lived there. And the awkward corner closet, we want to eventually close that off and open that up into our bathroom because our bathroom is on the other side of it. See the color of the door? That nasty yellow. Yeah, the trim and every single door in the house is that color. Yuck. P.S. There are corner windows everywhere in our home. I have a love/hate relationship with them.

On the other side of the family room is this awkward little space, with the door leading to our backyard. And an old bar area with shutters. I think the pictures speak for themselves.

Here is the dining room. Yup. And contrary to popular belief the floor is not real brick, it’s linoleum.

Down the hall

Inside the awkward bar area.

Our bedroom, with purple accents (yippee!). The carpet was in the front area, down the hall and in our room.

The hall bath.

The boys room. Just bask in it.

Tailer’s room. Probably the best looking room in the house.

And, drum roll please……the kitchen.

(It is super messy because I pulled everything out of the pantry after we had been living there a few weeks to start and paint the inside of the pantry, which didn’t get done, I had given birth a few days after we closed on the house, so, it is still unpainted 9 months later).