Old is the New Must Have!

Recycling…

My newest hobby seems to be recycling. I have found a passion in finding old things at treasure stores (i.e. flea markets and junk stores) and transforming them into something I find beautiful. I have taken something really simple, such as an old window and painted a sort of family tree on it as seen here:

 

And…from the inspiration of pics like this from Pinterest: 

I have taken a very old screen door and transformed it into my pantry door. I thought I would post the step by step instructions in case you might like to do the same! It was such fun but I must say I couldn't have done it without some brainstorming with my son and my awesome husband who provided the grunt work! J 

In the red one you can see inside the pantry but since I didn’t want people to see inside my laundry room we came up with a shelf box that would appear to be a pantry but really just allow me to display some of my “treasures.” And  the bottom of my door was inspired by the white door.

I just absolutely LOVE the transformation! What do you think???

Here is how it was done...

The first step was to remove the old screen. It was rusty and in no condition to be in my kitchen. To do that we just carefully took the back off of the screen and took all the nails out that held the screen in place.  

Next I sanded off most of the old paint. I left some of it to give it an aged look. 

Then I painted it all brown (for depth of color) with some old paint I had lying around....

and finally I whitewashed it using a watered down version of the same paint we had used for the kitchen remodel. 

 I found some really cool trim board at my local Home Depot (on clearance!!!!) and attached it to the front top of the door with frame fasteners.

Then we added some new screen. 

To give the front of the door some interests, I added the little medallion piece that I found at Lowe’s.  

For the bottom of the door I painted boards with chalkboard paint, attached them and re-trimmed the bottom of the door so that it would look complete even from the backside!

 While I was working on the door my trusty sidekick (husband) was working on the “pantry” box. He basically created a bookshelf and I painted it with the same process I used for the door. 

After it was dry, he attached bead board we had left over from the kitchen remodel. 

 We attached the shelf/box to the screen door with a piano hinge. It stays closed with a couple of hasp closures.

 Finally I couldn't leave well enough alone so I decided I wanted to create a magnetic board for the back of the box so that I could put all of my collection of travel magnets on it. Let me tell you that coming up with a piece of metal to help me accomplish my vision was not easy but thanks to Pinterest (again) I found an oil drip pan at Wal-Mart fit my needs perfectly.

 

After cutting off the sides (with kitchen shears of all things) my husband nailed to to the box.

FINALLY, I Mod-Podged the entire back side with scrapbook paper, attached some lettering, and VOILA, the magnetic board was complete and so was my door!!!

 

Now I am working on finding just the right items for inside the display box. But that just gives me a great reason to go harvesting! I am thinking that this is that perfect weekend to go…