Fun with Doors

I have to admit it. I have a thing for architecture. I really like the details found in things like hardware, iron fencing, doors, gingerbread and just the general shapes found in turn of the century homes. I love to wander places like Ray's Trading Post on Hwy 116 to see what treasures have been reclaimed from crumbling old homes.

My living room is quite small and when I was spending a lot of time sitting on the couch nursing a baby, I started to feel a lot claustrophobic. We have a door on almost every passageway. These doors work great for temperature control and energy savings. But, again, they can really make a girl feel closed in. So, for my birthday one year, Jonathan bought me a door full of little windows for the living room. It's great. I love it. It allows us to keep the heat in the room while still being able to see out and about. This left me with a door. One lone door who's 16 layers of paint I began to strip. Then I realized, I had nowhere to use it. Every other doorway in the house already has a door.

hmmm....you know what I don't have? A proper bed or headboard. I am always eyeing the king sized reproductions in Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, and the like. I love the simple rectangle shapes I see in some of the brass or iron beds. I decided to turn that unused door into a headboard. I coated it many times with polyurethane to lock in the lead paint-wouldn't want lead paint sprinkling onto our heads all night! I added 3 very small eye hooks to the back of the door and secured it to the wall. Behind the mattress, it rests on a few pieces of plywood. Just a little something to support it in the event there's a shake-up. I used only the little hooks because I wanted the door to be able to return to the house someday, if it was needed. I wanted to use it without stealing it from it's original place.
I really love it. It looks like it belongs and is still just a tiny bit quirky too.


Laying in bed one morning, it occurred to me that I could use doors for my new planter boxes. I'm always thinking of my Santa Cruz friend, Anders Olsen, who used old signs from the University to make his raised beds. It was a great use of tossed away items and looked great too. So, off I went to the county dump. We've got this nifty and thrifty area we call Recycle Town. I bought 4 doors for $20. I plan to give them a good coat of lead abating paint so I'm not leaching anything yucky into my soil and then I'm going to screw on some short sides and fill them up with soil and compost. They'll degrade just like any other wood would but they'll be cute in the meantime. Plus, they cost me a heck of a lot less than sheets of plywood from Lowes.