Home Improvement

Closet doors! (and other things…)

My life feels all sorts of crazy right now. I’ve been playing on a co-ed softball team that started in early April and taking an interior decorating class that started in May. Between my evening obligations, work and the holidays in between (birthdays, Mother’s and Father’s Day, weddings), I feel like I have lost all free time! That is hardly the case, but losing two evenings a week has made me surprisingly less productive. Instead of wanting to get things done in my free time, I want to relax… which is why our door project took from Mother’s Day to Father’s Day to complete!

Even though it took a little (OK, a lot) longer than it should have, I am still so happy we did it. And I am so glad it is finished! French doors versus sliding doors = biggest life improvement EVER.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

FinishedDoors

The doors were a pain to install. The hubby had many choice words during the process. MANY. We learned that we are not professional door hangers, nor do we really enjoy hanging doors. Unfortunately for him, we have another set of doors we need to hang… and I’d also like to replace all of our doors in our upstairs hallway eventually (they are plain, hollow boards with no design in them — boring!). We’ll see if he tries to veto that project haha.

We had to cut the doors down to size, re-glue in the bottoms, cut some more, hang, re-hang, move the hinges when the screws became too loose in the original holes… paint, re-hang, put on handles, put on a magnetic door latch…. yeah. Tedious stuff, folks.

Still, I am pleased as can be that they are finished and there are no more 1980s gold doors in my house anymore. The only remaining mirrored slider will live on in our bedroom, mainly because it’s the only full length mirror we have now. Plus, we probably don’t have enough room for French doors. Hopefully the hubby counts that as a win for himself.

Aside from the door project, I’ve been busy working on a bunch of other things. I’ll be sharing some fun tips from my interior decorating class after it ends this evening. We’ve made some furniture changes in our living room (finallyyyyy). Plus, I’ve been working on a fun graphic design project and have some exciting news in that realm.

Oh, and I made some jam from mulberries I didn’t know I had growing in my yard until last week! And it is delicious!!!! I’ll share that recipe later, too.

Enjoy your weeks!

Furniture

Refinished buffet/sideboard

Meet my buffet. Or sideboard. Whatever you want to call it.

I picked this baby up in a thrift store a few months ago on a Thirft Store Thursday excursion.

It needed some love, and while it took my awhile to give it the love it needed, I am happy to share that this beauty is beautiful again!

Buffet Before

The piece was in rough shape. It was missing the entire back, the hardware was dated (and in some cases, missing!), the casters were uneven and broken. But the bones were great. It is an all-wood piece, so I knew with the right care it could be transformed.

I worked on this piece over several months, so I was really bad at taking pictures. Here’s what I did to refinish this bad boy:

  1. New hardware: I ordered new black hardware for the front of the buffet. This included three drawer pulls for the faux drawer fronts and three hanging handles from the shuttered doors. Since this piece is older, the existing hardware was oddly sized, so I had to re-drill the holes to attach the new stuff. I went with black to pick up the black hinges on the front of the doors. It looks like this hardware has always been on this piece, which is nice.
  2. New casters: I didn’t want to replace the casters on this piece because the old ones were super cool and old. I actually am saving them, just in case I Can use them in the future. But only three of the four casters were useable — the fourth split in half so the entire buffet was wobbly and slanted. Not cool. So I grabbed four new casters, popped the old ones out and popped the new ones in.
  3. Spruced up bottom: I removed the bottom of the cabinet, cleaned it up and sprayed it black. When I put it back in place I also added another piece of wood underneath it for extra support.
  4. New backing: Can you tell what backing I used for this piece? It’s peg board! I wanted to use the pretty, cutout tin but it was hella expensive. Instead, I picked up a sheet up peg board at Habitat Restore, sprayed it black and cut it down to size. I screwed it onto the back to close up the buffet and give it a finished feel. The black peeks through at the top, again picking up the black in the hinges and the new hardware.
  5. Refinished the wood: I’ve talked about this product before and I’ll continue to use it because of the results I always get (This is not a sponsored post — I just love this stuff!) I used Howards Restor-A-Finish to bring the wood back to life. This stuff gets rid of light surface scratches, colors in deeper scratches so they aren’t as noticeable and just gives wood a beautiful sheen. I did the Restor-A-Finish once when I got the piece a few months ago, and again yesterday. The results are stunning, especially on the scratched up side. I followed this by a waxing with the Howards Feed-N-Wax.

Ready for the finished version?

Buffet After

BAM!

That scratched up side? Well, it is scratched up no more.

Buffet Side refinished

The peg board? Thoughts?  I was skeptical, but I really like it. I like that it is black, versus a shiny, silver tin. I think it goes better with the piece overall. Win!

Buffet Top Detail

And look, a back! Woohoo! It’s amazing what not being able to see through a piece of furniture does for the overall look of said piece of furniture.

Buffet After open

I’m glad I’m done with this buffet. It is great to be able to get it out of my craft room and out there for the world to see (dramatic much?)!

Thanks for stopping by to see the transformation today. Happy weekend!