Drab To Fab Pantry Door

I had recently been thinking about what to do with my pantry door. I felt like it needed something. Using the word "Pantry" in vinyl letters came to mind but I've been using a lot of words around here and thought it was time for something else.


Here is the door I am talking about. It was a flat front, plain, wood door and we had already added trim and painted it white. But it still needed something....




The basement door on the other side of the room already had a chalkboard on it so I didn't want to do that.....

Then I saw Linda's post about doors and the wheels started turning. I have seen those doors before in Country Home but forgot all about them! http://www.countryhome.com/
http://restyledhome.blogspot.com/2009/03/no-ordinary-door.html

I love the look and started looking for damask wallpaper online. Hmmmmmm....$30-$100 a roll for wallpaper and I only needed a small piece. I'm too cheap...errr....frugal and thrifty for that. Then I remembered I had a stencil sitting around here and leftover paint in the basement. So off we go! Here it is with a coat of the wall color on it.

This particular stencil I used is two pieces. You do the first part and then overlap the second one on top after the first has dried. I tried to think about how a wallpaper repeat would look and attempted to space it properly. Please don't show up at my door with a measuring tape and a level. I don't want to know how uneven it really is!

If you are stenciling on cured paint, you can use stencil adhesive and painters tape to hold it in place. Since I'm really impatient and wanted to do this all the same day, I didn't use much so as not to mess up the freshly painted surface.

My old stool came in handy when I was stenciling the top of the door. That way I didn't have to let go of the stencil when I reloaded on paint.

At this point my stencil was looking a bit funny. Look at this one eyed alien. Do you see his arms and legs? "Take me to your leader!!!"

Don't be afraid to change your stencil if it isn't exactly what you want. I decided to block off the flower dots with painters tape. Again, be sure to tape both sides so the sticky side doesn't pull your paint off.

Here is the first layer all done. At this point my arms were tired and I was thinking it looked fine without the second stencil. Then I realized I would have to live with all the little aliens staring at me with their one eye so I continued on.

A few hours later and here it is all done!

I'm really pleased with the look and best of all, it was free! The whole thing took me about 5 hours. Some tips for this project:

~ Wash your hands frequently. There were a couple times I put my paint smeared fingers where the stencil wasn't going and had to quick wash it off.

~ Don't worry about the edges too much. It wasn't easy to bend the stencil into the corners so I did the best I could. If you look closely, the pattern doesn't go exactly to where it meets the trim but that's okay!

~ Start in the middle and work your way out.

~ And of course, have fun with it! I put on some music and even let my 3 year old help. Some of the paint is a little smudgy but when it comes to home projects, I'm okay with "good enough."

Now that door handle is glaring at me. I may have to use the money I saved on wallpaper on some new, pretty doorknobs. :)

Well That Was Fun

It's a rainy day outside but all sunshine in here. What a wonderful weekend we had. My husband and I celebrated our 9th anniversary this weekend. My amazing parents took all three kids overnight and my honey and I went to dinner on Friday night. Saturday we got right up and spent the day antiquing! I was so mad at myself that I left the house without my camera. With this blogging, I need to keep it in my purse.

The first place we went was to a local preservation society. They are a non-profit group that saves parts from homes that will be demolished or gutted. The warehouse is full of mouldings, doorknobs, doors, windows, even radiators and sinks. That's where I finally found the skeleton key I've been wanting. I just needed one to frame and had difficulty finding one.

After that we headed over to my favorite antique store. It's a small shop but she always has amazing little tables and lots of great dishware, old linens, etc. Remember the new (to me) milk glass pattern I was looking for? I have my first piece. Sitting on a lower shelf, almost hidden from view sat these candlesticks. I was so excited! The best part was that they were only $9.00. The reason I didn't come home with anything from the other antique store where I first spotted it was the price tag.

I also left with this sweet little jar.

While we were out I bought the supplies to make a spring banner for my hutch. I plan on doing that this week. A couple other Easter touches also made their way into my cart this weekend.

It really was a lovely weekend. I'm even welcoming the dreary rain as it is a sign of all the wonderful things to come this spring.

I hope you all are having a great start to your week. I've had a lot of questions on my Everything Room post. I'm going to answer them all in a separate post. I can't tell you how much I appreciated all the sweet comments. It puts such a smile on my face to read your words and to visit you all. I gain such inspiration from all of you so thank you!
Have a wonderful day!

Everything Room Reveal...Finally Done!

Hi everyone! I know many of you saw this post already but I thought I would include it for Met Monday since there is a lot of Before and After material here. :) Be sure to visit Susan at Between Naps On The Porch for more amazing before and afters! Just click the butterfly in my sidebar to take you there.

Errr...really, really close to done! I'm so impatient that I wanted to post photos even though I don't have all the sewing done. I still need to make pillows for the chair but it's going to be a busy weekend and I'm not sure when I'll get to it. In the meantime, I can at least show you the room!! Oh and the door. Almost forgot about that. We need to replace the exterior door but that won't happen until the weather warms up.



Let me start from the beginning. When we first bought this house, the room was painted gold by a previous owner. It was a small room at the back of the house and we really didn't know what to do with it. It seemed like a waste of space at the time. So many doorways and it was a pass through to outside. We put a TV in here for the kids, toys and our computer. Another thing that bothered us about this room was that it was an addition. Although we were thankful for the extra space it provided, no attention was given to make it match the rest of our 1920's home in any way.



After a while I really wanted to at least change the gold. I figured it would be a long while until we worked on this room so I gave it a fresh coat of cream paint to lighten it up. We also received a free chair from my parents so the room was rearranged to accomodate it. Not the prettiest chair but you heard me say FREE right? Somehow we found ourselves drawn to this room. The room we didn't know what to do with became the place everyone wanted to be. It's right off the kitchen, and is very cozy so we would find ourselves back here often with the kids reading stories or watching Scooby Doo. I took these pictures after the carpet was already up. Thanks to Ella (see this post here ) this room was moved to the front of the line.

I began searching for inspiration.

I liked what they did with the walls in this mudroom. It had me thinking some sort of wainscotting was in order for our room to give it charm.

And the wallpaper in this room made my heart skip a beat. I love wallpaper and I really liked how the dark walls were a contrast with the all white cabinetry.

If you would like to see all past posts about this room, click
Here

Now on to the fun part! I'm so happy to say the room turned out to be just what I wanted. And more importantly, on a budget!

The cabinet here I already had and just painted it white. The lamp was a clearance find. I glued on some trim to the lampshade to make it more fun.

View from the kitchen....

Random cuteness.

The silver platter was a thrift store find. Perfect for tossing phones, wallets, etc. down when we come in the door.

I threw the fabric on the chair so you can see what I'll be sewing....one of these days. I used a loose fit slipcover on the free chair so it would blend in with the room. Okay okay, it's not an actual slipcover, it's a painting dropcloth. But hey, it was cheap and it's washable!

The corkboard and shelf were sitting in my basement. A coat of paint for the shelf and some burlap to cover the corkboard and I was all set.

The milkglass sconce was an Ebay find. Of course, since it was milkglass, it was love at first sight!The color on the floor would not have been my first choice in laminate but it was another freebie! My parents are installing hardwood in their home and offered us the old floor. We jumped on it!

The baskets are great for end-of-the-day toy cleanup. I just toss all the stuff in that is on the floor. Also great for last minute cleanups when company is coming. The white TV makes me giddy. Seriously. I liked how it blended in with the wall behind it and doesn't stand out so much. Plus, the dust hardly shows so I don't have to clean it as often. Score! At first I wasn't sure about the wallpaper as it has a metallic sheen to it. I contemplated taking it back but I'm so glad I didn't. Now that it's up, I really love it. My hubby did the wood trim himself. It was slats of poplar we found at Lowes and they went up easily!


Another view of my *cough*, slipcover, *ahem.*I did my best to blend the hideous air conditioner in the room as best I could. It isn't the prettiest thing but there are some things (like staying cool) that have to come before design!







Here is a close up of the skirt I made for this table. It was a sewing table that I grabbed a few years back from the side of the road. It got a fresh coat of white paint and I made a pleated skirt for the bottom. It's attached with velcro so it can easily come off when needed to throw in the wash.Thanks for taking the tour of my room! I'm so glad this is done. Next up...our bedroom!

Edited to add: Hi everyone. If you are new to my blog, welcome! I'm so glad you came for a visit. I've had some questions about paint colors and so I thought I would link the updates since I posted this.

Here are the links for sources and the pillows I made for the room:

http://fromhousetocozyhome.blogspot.com/2009/03/pillow-love.html

http://fromhousetocozyhome.blogspot.com/2009/03/everything-room-details.html