A New Door? No Problem!!!

Our dining room has gone through a lot of changes in the past seven years. 

After we built a deck just off the dining room, I started to look for a door to replace the dining room window. 

I published an ad for the door on a local radio program, Tradio - a format that allows folks in our area to buy and sell things. I got a call from a man who had a door for sale and we went to check it out. We brought the door home and put it in the garage.

We took a break from big projects and did a smaller one: We shortened the dining room table; we would need the extra room a shorter table would provide, to get to the anticipated new door. We found a pedestal-style base at a yard sale, brought it home and painted it black. Then we removed the center insert of the old table and covered the old table [top] with barn wood, center. Voila! We now had a nice table - shorter, yes, but wider. 

Shortly after we got the door home and the table shortened, someone loaned us a masonry saw. That thing was HUGE! We picked a day to cut the hole in the house, and we were ready to go. 

After the window was removed, it was time to enlarge the hole to accommodate the new door. 

It was a very scary thing, watching the beautiful sandstone of this house being assaulted by a saw. I would have taken pictures but I couldn't muster the courage to watch the actual cutting!

The actual installation of the door straddled two days. 

Bright and early the second day of the installation, we removed the tarp we'd put over the hole the night before and got busy building a frame for the new door. We rallied the troops: our sons came by to lend a hand off and on throughout the day. 

By the end of that second day, we were able to start enjoying the newly-expanded view. 

Thj

The finish work would take another week - dry-walling, painting, re-installing the cornice and curtains, etc. 

In retrospect, I think it's a good thing I didn't know all the ins and outs of what this sort of project entails. I was, like, 'Hey! Let's put a door there!' It wasn't until after the thing was installed that I thought, 'This could have been a disaster!'

Burlap Back Splash

This house was built in the late 50's. The kitchen counter top and back splash reflected that: It was ugly yellow  and gold-flecked! It took some time to decide how to redo the counter top. In the meantime, I came up with a solution for the back splash: I covered it that area with burlap.  

First, I made paper templates of the sections of the back splash area. Bill used the templates to cut plywood. I covered the pieces of plywood with burlap. Then I sprayed the burlap-covered plywood with copper paint.

The plywood was then glued and nailed into place.

It would be a while before we redid the counter top, but at least the old, ugly back splash was GONE!

Here is a close-up of the back splash. For any skeptics out there, I would like to add this: The back splash looks as good today as it did when I installed it almost seven years ago....