The Little Things: Door Updates

Since we bought our place two years ago, we have been slowly but surely bringing it into the modern world. We know that this isn't our forever home and also that my part-time job of hoping a rich stranger will feel sorry for me and hand us wads of cash has not been particularly lucrative. So we have had to work with what we have. You would not believe how quickly things that, in a spoiled way, you had previously thought were sort of a given, such as baseboards and light-switches, add up. So instead of buying replacements, we have done some DIY upgrades that we've been really pleased with.

One of these upgrades was our doors. We had the standard brown builder doors that you find in most homes built in the 80's. They were so blah that I wanted to fall asleep looking at them and they were really bringing down the style that I was trying to achieve in our home. What we ended up doing was gluing trim on them to make them look more current and then we gave them a fresh new coat of white paint. I (very badly...I was excited and have no patience) spray painted the door knobs black for some extra drama. What a difference! Our house instantly looked less dated.



One of my next biggest "ews" were our mirrored closet doors in the master. Nobody wants to have to see full-body views of themselves eating Ben and Jerry's that often, ok? Besides that, in the picture I had in my mind of my future bedroom, the mirrored doors stuck out like a granny in Forever 21. Sadly, new doors were not in the budget and frankly did not seem worth it in the big scheme of all I hope to eventually do to this house. I realized that the biggest problem was the really bad finish on the doors and that I could deal with the actual mirror part.



So I recruited my husband and brother to carry them down to the garage. They are much heavier than you'd think and those two practically gave me a heart attack with their lack of concern for my helpful "WATCH IT! BE CAREFUL! YOU KNOW THERE'S A WALL THERE, RIGHT?!" comments. Once they were in the garage, Matt put the doors up on a sawhorse and we got to work on the most essential part of the process - taping and covering the mirrors. This must be done well or your project is a bust.



Next, we spray-painted them with a primer and then a few coats of white paint. Ok, actually Matt did that. I'm realizing that his resistance to these projects is because he's probably catching on to the fact that he's really doing most of the work. I'm pregnant, ok! At any rate, we bribed my brother with beer to come back over and help move the doors back up. Ta-da! Instant update!

Now to get rid of that horrid carpet....I can already hear Matt sighing and saying, "No, Tara" in my mind but don't worry. I'm distracted by another project for the time being. This is the project where I purge our master of two out of four mirror closet doors that did not get painted, leaving a wide open space to create a baby nook AND creating the opportunity to re-do our entire bedroom. Updates to come!