Extra door turns into a headboard

We have some doors lying around in our basement. They live in what I call the 

"treasure pile". 

Treasure pile with 3 doors and 1 door frame

Treasure pile #2
3 more doors :)

Half of Treasure pile #3....couldn't fit the rest into the photo!
Not pictured -
one more door in its own Treasure pile #4

Most folks would call it a garbage pile. If they were being generous they might call it a scrap pile. To me- TREASURE! There are all sorts of projects just waiting to be done with our old doors, windows & pieces of wood. They all hold bits of our home's history - which is probably why I want to hold on to them. Or maybe because I am my father's daughter & I hate to throw anything away......could be a combination of the two!

This post (which I found on Pinterest; no one is shocked by that) sparked my interest since we have a glut of cool old doors. I love when I find tutorials for DIY projects that seem do-able. Projects that don't require a shit ton of tools or equipment that I don't have, or have a bazillion steps so I know I'll never motivate to complete them. This project seemed like a pretty good fit for my low level skills! Having my Dad participate was incredibly helpful too - working on projects with my Dad is like sleeping with my baby blanket & teddy bear (who is named Teddy): I don't NEED to do have those things to sleep, but having them makes sleep SO much easier. Same goes for any DIY project I've tackled thus far. I don't bite off too terribly much - so I am fairly confident I could do them on my own; but having Dad come to help makes the entire process not just more enjoyable but quicker & easier too.

I started by washing the door with what I imagine to be a horribly toxic substance called TSP (Tri Sodium Phosphate). 

See the difference the TSP made on the sunporch walls?

Happily scrubbing away.....

It was recommended to me by a woman who does a lot of home painting projects for her interior decorating clients; so I knew I could trust that it would work. If you caught me washing our sunporch walls you would've noticed I was using the same product for that job. It cuts through grease/grim/dirt/smoke with ease. Between the door & the sunporch walls I had all 4 of those nasty substances!

I forgot to take a "before" washing photo - hence showing the
power of TSP above!

Next I had a pretty good time making a "custom" paint color. By custom I mean I dumped a whole bunch of leftover samples of blue paint into my tray & mixed well. We spent a stupid amount of money on paint samples for the house; so I figured I may as well get some mileage out of them!!

Mix mix mix!

I like how the colors swirled together

I taped the plate on the door so I wouldn't paint over it. I think it is pretty & reinforces the fact that we recycled a door into a headboard in our 2nd guest bedroom!

Then I painted the door; two coats to make sure the color was as rich as possible - but I didn't bother to paint or wash (as I sadly discovered when we put the headboard on the frame) the back of the door. I figured no one would see it which is true- though I could've washed it for God's sake. Its pretty gnarly back there.

Dad & I had some purchasing issues for the bolts that would connect the door to the 2x6s that hold the door up (they also connect the metal bed frame to the 2x6s). Dad went to the hardware store once & I went no less than 3 times before we finally had the right bolts. Oops. What a giant waste of time!!

Once we had the materials we finished the project really quickly- probably only an hour or so to get everything measured (to be sure we had the door centered) and connected!

Using our TV box to protect the mattress,
Dad is lining up the 2nd 2x6 support. We
bolted both supports to the metal frame
near the floor before moving up and bolting
the headboard to the 2x6s

No yet secured - notice the scrap wood between the door
and the TV box? We're making progress though!

We love the new bed! I still need to touch up the paint near the plate & also paint the
 2x6 where it is visible; but that will happen another day :)

Hope you enjoyed this project as much as I did! We are really quite pleased with the final product! We have also had our first overnight guests (my sister & niece) so the bed was tested & worked! Special shout out to my Mom who gave us the pretty coral pillows and my sister who gave us the Euro sham cases!  It takes a village to decorate a guest room!

Update February, 2017:
Dad helped put the finishing touches on this project this week! I am so thankful that Dad has a bazillion tools & knows how to use them & is willing to teach me!

I have wanted to add lights mounted on the door headboard since we started the project.....but the lights, cords, switches, etc sat in boxes under my desk (which lives in this guest bedroom) for 7 months before I admitted defeat and finally asked Dad if he could spearhead this part of the project. I bought wall mounted fixtures that are intended to be hardwired into building power; but I wanted to add switches & cords so the lights can function like a reading light/bedside lamp.

I didn't take any photos during the project, but here is the final result:

Yipee! Lights are on the headboard!

I am THRILLED! Finished just in time to have friends visit for President's Day Weekend!!

Paint colors; Inside & Outside

So so so so many choices!
From left to right:
1st floor man cave
1st floor main area (none of these worked)
2nd floor office
Exterior

Exterior options

Chris painting (from left to right) exterior options
number 1-7

We took our favorite exterior options (#2 &
#3) and painted them around the house!
In the sun & shade, plus on the old &
new siding!
We chose #3 - shown on the right here!

Some of our first efforts on the 1st floor color.
We wanted a light gray....darker than the white trim but
lighter than our cabinets. Harder to find than you'd
imagine! This includes living room, dining room,
 hall bathroom, kitchen, family room and our master bedroom!
I struggled mightily with this choice!

2nd floor color options - we wanted an off white that would
show off the trim but not be too bold. This paint is for
the foyer, front stairwell, upstairs hallway, guest rooms &
the hall bathroom. Bottom row center is the winner!

Gray, gray, gray.
I painted lots of color options on this wall
in the kitchen! We wanted to be as sure as possible we were
making the right choice! We went with the color on the lower
left (its repeated on both sides of the door).

We are rocking the man cave like it is
a transplant from our condo! It will be painted
brown & have virtually the same furniture :)

The winning man cave color is on the right.
The one on the left looks too much like a dirty diaper :(

Chris showing off the office window with the color
options. The darkest one won here :) Its in the center

I DIYed the basement laundry area wall....because it is in
the basement & it doesn't matter! The middle color won!

I wanted to go bold & fun. One might think this is too
dark of a color for a basement; I went high gloss to
bounce the light around the room. Our basement has some
above grade windows which give it some natural light,
which helps!

In case you care to buy any of these colors, we used all Benjamin Moore paints. Here is a list of what we bought & where we're using it:

Exterior: Deep Royal

1st Floor + Master Bedroom: Whitestone at 50% strength

2nd Floor + Foyer/Stairwell: China White

Man Cave: Whitall Brown

Office: Van Deusen Blue

Laundry Area: Old Navy

Drywall! Drywall! It is EVERYWHERE!

Rewind to Tuesday. We passed our insulation inspection in the afternoon & our contractor confirmed the drywallers to start Wednesday. Jump to Friday afternoon. The drywallers have hung drywall throughout our entire house! The entire 1st & 2nd floors & a bit of the basement; all in 3 work days! There were speed demons! We have been waiting since mid-December for another big "oh my goodness" moment. We hadn't seen a dramatic change since the framers built the start of the side & back porches and framed the new floor plan inside. The months in between have been spent filling the space between the studs those framers installed. Electrical, plumbing, HVAC and finally insulation all needed to happen before we got another dose of drama. Good drama I should specify. Well, here it is, in pictures; the work of the wild men drywall crew. Starting tomorrow they will tape & sand the whole beast! Stay turned for photos of that.

It may not look like much, but to come into the house &
see these first glimpses of drywall made me act like a
fool! I was jumping up & down, clapping my hands &
squealing. I think the drywall guys thought I was insane.

View of the kitchen into the dining room.

View the opposite way - from the dining room
back into the kitchen

There were stacks of drywall everywhere
on Wednesday. This is the view from our
bedroom up the hallway to the front of the
house.

View up the stairs to the outside wall of
Chris' office

More photos - can you tell how excited this stage made me??

Chris loving his new office drywall!

Chris admiring the mess & drywall in the 2nd
bedroom

I am profoundly excited about the kitchen,
even partially drywalled!

Don't mind the mess- check out the drywall! Also note the
yellow walls are holdovers from our plaster days! We kept
5-10% of the plaster walls.

The stairs are starting to look legit! Except
for the whole not having a banister for
the landing.........details.

I hadn't played with the panoramic feature on my phone in awhile - drywall inspired me to take one of the kitchen and
family room. 

I continue to be unreasonably excited about the
basement laundry area; which got drywall too!

Our bedroom is starting to take shape!

Update March 25, 2016:

This is just too funny not to add:

The drywallers rocking their stilts to get the mud on the tops
of the walls & the ceilings

Just another day at the Grant St circus!

Marking Our Territory & Basement Progress

When opportunity knocks.......you put your initials in the concrete of your new (old) house!

One of our plumbers, Julio, was working in the basement at the house late in February. I was chatting with him while checking out the freshly poured concrete that filled in the trench that had been there since early in January. I was quite pleased to say goodbye to the trench; it was disgusting & made the house feel like a total mess. 

The trench is now filled in! Yippee!

Julio mentioned that my Dad had asked him if he could write his name in the wet concrete & I laughed and told him my Dad would absolutely do that, but I was pleased Julio put him off. Thanks Dad for inadvertently giving me the idea to put our names in the freshly poured concrete!

This is the wall where the laundry machines will go. Our
laundry sink will be on the far right, standing proudly over
our initials!

I'll write a much longer post about why my Dad was over at the house chatting with the plumber...it involves an old piece of furniture my Dad is making new for our house!

I would love to know if you've ever written your name in concrete! My big brother (& many others) always alleged that I wrote my name in a sidewalk near our childhood home. I didn't, though no one believes me despite the intervening 20+ years & my best protests! I hope someone has a good place they've put their name or initials :)

Water Service Upgrade

Dig dig dig

Everybody likes good water pressure for their shower, right? With that in mind we updated & upgraded our water service pipe to accommodate the addition of the master bathroom and a dishwasher to the mix of water using appliances in the house.

Well, we didn't need that hole after all.
Fill it up!

The City rips a hole in the street to give access to the valve that hides under the parkway. I guess this is where our water will be turned off if we stop paying our bill....yikes! It is also where the water department turned off our water when we had a pipe burst earlier this year. Yes. With virtually no pipes in the entire house.....the one pipe that could possible burst, did. Hello water spraying all over the few things we stashed in our destroyed basement. Not ideal. At least that pipe is now a thing of the past :)

I think our neighborhood was kept safe
with this use of 2 orange cones.
Here we go digging the 2nd hole in the
driveway.

Back to the present: the city decided they couldn't run our new water service from the first hole they dug into the street (because it might damage our beautiful parkway tree - I don't want that - I like the tree a lot. Also because it would be running too close to our sewer line. Yuck.) Soooooo they dug a second hole in the street and tore open part of our driveway for good measure. There is no reason to have just one hole in the street/on your property when you could have three. Am I right? Insert visions of dollar signs here as the costs begin to increase :(. Oh well, nothing to be done!

Keeping our parkway tree safe with orange fencing.
Lots of orange happening today.

There are the 2nd & 3rd holes that were dug. Why just dig one when you can dig three??

I was sad to miss this action, I was in Colorado with my big sister & littlest niece (which was abundantly awesome & wonderful - wouldn't have missed that trip for all the house stuff in the world :), but between my Dad & our contractor- I was fully informed of the progress. Thank goodness they were willing to send some photos too!

The little machine fit perfectly in our driveway. The 3rd hole
is right behind the digger.

Sweet bricks! Price was right: free!
Well, given the chunk of change we paid for the water
service upgrade.....maybe not exactly free.....

Bonus of the multiple holes dug in the street (which we are on the hook to pay for :(? A pile of very good looking red bricks! Thanks Dad for scavenging for me. I think I know where I get my love of trash to treasure!

Ta da! Here is what all the fuss was about:
our new water service in the basement!