Reveal: Entryway, July 2013

Building our entry door has completed our simple, thrifted, and handmade entryway.

First stop on this virtual tour, our small hallway, with only one item currently:

When we floored the living room in January, I had to replace a section of subfloor that was soft.  I removed the subfloor and while I painted our canvas floorcloth, my daughter painted on the scrap subfloor cutout, and turned it into art.  :)

Right around the corner is our console table:

It's simple, and we haven't "styled" it, yet.  We have plans for some of the items, and things may move around with time.

This area was empty before.  Now it's functional, costing me $90 out of pocket, including a splurge item.  :) I guess that's not too bad.

See the white vase and photo frame that reads $0? The white vase is from the family storage area downstairs.  The item inside is actually an old walis ting ting (Philippine broom) that was falling apart.  I washed it, turned it upside down and stuck it in the vase.  It reminds me of Pensacola Beach.

Like the grass growing through the white sand in this photo of me and my 34 week old (in gestation) daughter.  Did you notice my tangled hair too?  Haha!  :)  Mrs. Carrie Keigley took these photos for me at no cost.  It was part of her service to Safe Harbor Women's Resource Center in Pensacola, Florida.  :)  Bless you, Mrs. Keigley and blessings to Safe Harbor!

The black and white photo of my daughter was taken by Mrs. Keigley at no cost to me again, as a documentation of my first Mother's Day, when my daughter was 4 months (out of the womb).  =D  She printed this one for me and I framed it in this frame my mom bought for a project I started when I was 12.

My favorite of Mrs. Keigley's photos from that day:

Seeing these photos again make me miss Pensacola.  I loved living there for one year of my life, and 6 months of my daughter's.  :)

This little guy was a gift with a $20 splurge purchase I made at our local Farmer's Market.  At the time, the farmer's market was a 5 minute walk across the street from our home, to the only high school in the nation that is situated partly on a beach.

My splurge was for this locally handmade shell inlayed with mother of pearl and wood pieces (on the outside).  It looked so pretty on the table and agreed with my "Sea Garden" idea, so I traded a 20 for it.  My husband puts his loose change in here.  The larger coins my daughter deposits into her piggy bank.  :)

I saw this mail holder in family storage as well, so it was free for me.  I've said this once before when talking about the mellow yellow side table, but I must reiterate, family storage is my favorite place to shop.

I keep mail I need to read or that needs to go out the door in here, a pen (with a lost cap) and my little notebook with my To Do list, shopping list, and ideas.

The beautiful purple blooms that were on this orchid plant fell a few months ago, so we are expecting blooms to return again soon.  The last time it bloomed, the flowers stayed for over 2 months.  :)  I water the orchid with ice cubes as part of an experiment testing information from Paiko Hawai'i.  :)  So far, so good.

A testament to real life functionality, I keep all sorts of random things in this bin.  My original plan was to put magazines from the mail, or larger items we need to take outside (like bags, umbrellas, etc), but right now it's storing a leftover wood dowel, batteries, a picture frame I need photos for, and even a broken belt that I wanted to re-purpose.  It's my "visual to do box" for now and even my "leftovers" bin for little projects.

Lastly, I built the herringbone top console, one of my husband's favorite pieces of furniture in our apartment, and the entry door, one of my favorites.  :)

Thank you for visiting with me on a brief reveal tour of our entry way and part of our small hall.  It's funny how the smallest of spaces can be so personal; a reflection of the hands that have curated the things within.

Link Party @
Handy Man, Crafty Woman // Polkadots on Parade // The Style Sisters // The Blissful Bee // Artsy, Fartsy Mama // A Glimpse Inside // A Handful of Everything  // Jelli Bean Journals // Live, Laugh, Rowe // Remodelaholic  //  If It's Not Baroque // Too Much Time

Building an Entry Door, Part 3 of 3

See how I started building this door
See how I frosted plexiglass and added trim

It is partly because I built it with my hands that I love our entry door.  Having day dreamed of the design sketched on paper and now seeing it every day is surreal.  We do so appreciate it.  The best part is, it was not difficult to do.  You can build your own front entry door too!

After filling the holes, sanding, glazing and caulking the plexiglass in place, we painted our door deep purple with the gallon of leftover paint we used to paint our small end tables, our painted canvas floorcloth, and rear media console. 

Before the door could be complete, I glazed the plexiglass to the timbron I used as stops, added glazier points and more trim to keep the glass in place and waited 3 days, per the instructions on the glazing compound, before it was time to caulk and paint.

Building an Entry Door, Part 2 of 3

See how I started building this door

Our stairwell has a tiny window at the very bottom of the steps.  The rest of the stairwell is a fairly dark, narrow space that I've not touched with a paint brush yet.  We wanted a glass insert in our door to allow light into our dark stairwell and to increase a feeling of openness when climbing the 12 steps to the top.

We couldn't find a large piece of plexiglass that was the size we wanted, so we used a 24" x 48" pane, frosted it, and added trim around it with a panel below.

Building an Entry Door, Part 1 of 3

After removing the old kitchen tile and installing thicker Allure Ultra flooring, our old jalousie entry door needed to be planed to fit.  Our new floor gave us a wonderful excuse to set our old door aside, currently residing in our garage for a potential future project.  However, this meant that we've been without a door for quite some time... I know.

It's been convenient to walk right into our home and not have to fumble with keys or even turn a knob.  Remember how lazy I can be?  It's left our dark, nearly windowless stairwell a little more open, breathable.  However, it's been inconvenient when visitors have to walk right in and little 3 year old daughters walk right out.  And so, we started to design and build our own entry door.

Spending a couple hours over two days, I worked on installing the door frame with hardware so it would be ready to hang when we were totally finished.