Saturday, November 5, 2011

So I finally did one of the millions of things that inspired me on Pinterest.

Grand Design Co. via Pinterest
I repinned this door headboard from Grand Design Co two weeks ago, and have not been able to get it out of my head ever since.

prologue
WD and I have been married for 588 days, and 587 of those nights were spent without a headboard on our bed. There have been great plans for a few headboards in the past 84 weeks (upholstered with purple silk, Ikea, or a re-painted yard sale find), but because I am cheap thrifty, nothing I have found has met all my requirements. 
HEADBOARD REQUIREMENTS:
  • stylish: reflects our personal style
  • doesn't look like every other headboard on the block
  • costs less than $50 for the total project
Thus the Reclaimed Door Headboard was the trifecta. 


so it began
Last Saturday, before the Auburn Game, WD and I loaded up the SUV and headed out to my favorite shopping place in Opelika (yes even better than Target and TJMaxx), Ressurect and Angel's Antiques. Angel's is an antique and flea mall in an old Wal- Mart building. The Pioneer Woman Paint by numbers, and the two big ones in my living room were found there, along with many of my Christmas treasures you will meet soon. 
Resurrect Antiques is next door and is a well curated collection of antique furniture, reclaimed materials, jewelry, and other unique finds. It's like Anthropologie in the country. Because Resurrect always has a porch full of reclaimed items, I knew they would have doors.  
Resurrect Antiques
In the piles of old house treasures I found my door for $40. 
It used to be on a bathroom door, intact sign on the other side. This was funny until we got in the car. Once we were closed in the SUV, I realized that my old door smelled like an abandoned rest stop bathroom. GAG! So a quick stop at the home improvement store for some Kilz to handle any gross smells, stains, & lead paint.
I selected the oil based because it seemed tougher to me, and I really wanted to seal in the stink. There is a little law about painting with water based paints over oil based paints, but as you will see later I broke that law. (allegedly it is fine to paint over water-based/acrylic/latex paint with oil- based, but you shouldn't put water-based/ acrylic/ latex over the oil- based paint. Very advisable to obey this law when painting trim) Oil- based paint takes a LONG time to dry and has A VERY STRONG ODOR. 

Usually when refinishing antiques I would recommend sanding first. I didn't sand the door first because I was pretty sure it was painted with lead paint before. I know disturbing lead paint by stripping or sanding it can be dangerous to my health, and my ground water. Houses and things painted before 1978 often have lead paint on them somewhere. This is usually not dangerous unless you disturb it and ingest it somehow. 
Lead Paint Cracks
I am pretty sure someone told me once seeing the cracking pattern above is typical of lead paint... this may or may not be true. If you are pretty sure there is no scary lead paint on your old door you can sand if it would make you feel better: pretty smooth surface. 

Lay your door across two saw horses... WD says please put newspaper down to protect the driveway from primer drips. lesson 1:make sure to start your project in a location that will be safe from the weather for a few days. Remove all hardware from the door. NEXT get out the brush and crack open the Kilz. Stir, stir, stir, until it is nice and even. 

Starting on the side you want to go against the wall, prime away, sealing in the stink and hopefully lead paint. Once my door was painted on one side I allowed it to dry a few hours and flipped it, even though it wasn't completely dry. I knew any nicks from the horses at that point would face the wall. You can let it dry a full 24 hours if you want. I'm just impatient. 
Prime the other side thoroughly too. Don't forget the edges and any holes. Since I started this process behind our cars on the driveway, and it was clouding up outside, I had to move them while the paint was still wet. lesson 1 learned.

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW


Pin It