A Story About a Sad and Neglected Cabinet Door

In February and March I was busy working on several projects, and was really finding my niche at "upcycling" old scraps into new pieces for our home. 

Many of you may remember my growth chart project. It started off as scrap piece of wood that I paid $1.00 for, and turned into a great way to track our little family's growth!

I started by filling up the holes with wood putty in hopes that it would even out the plank.

Then I sanded it down and gave it a nice smooth finish. I also asked Rob to saw it down to size for me (6 feet). 

Then I stained it a rich walnut color and added the blocks and numbers, yet it was looking too "clean." I was going for a distressed look, but I have never distressed anything before so I was pretty nervous! They say you never learn unless you try, and I was amazed at how simple it was to distress this piece!

Now let's talk about my sad and neglected cabinet door. My friend, Casey, had made an awesome after-school schedule for her kids on her chalkboard. I loved the idea, and wanted to replicate it... but I didn't have a chalkboard. While I was at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, this little gem spoke to me. I'm sure Rob thinks I'm schizophrenic by now because I keep telling him that all of this "junk" speaks to me, haha! But I was willing to sacrifice another two dollars to see just what this door could do for me.

This was one of those projects that I started right before we bought a house. Then we decided to take on a whole home renovation, and this little dude got pushed to the side. But this week was its glory week and it is looking mighty fine since I bought him a couple of months ago!

  

After removing the hardware and giving it a good sanding, I painted a couple layers of chalkboard paint on it. It still looked very "unfinished" so I went digging through our garage. Thankfully, our moving company thought our art was worthy enough to be crated in custom-made wooden crates, so we had a bunch of scrap wood left over that we had been using for firewood. (For the record, all of our "art" is from TJmaxx, Ross, or IKEA- I don't think I paid over $50 for any of it!) I salvaged 4 pieces and Rob and I made a frame for my poor cabinet. Then it sat in our garage for 3 months....

After giving it some fresh paint this week, gluing the frame to the cabinet, and adding an old drawer pull for the chalk... we have an awesome new addition to our kitchen! 

  

The kid's chore charts will go up there after we get back from our vacation, and I can't wait to put their after school schedule on the board. (Only because that means they will be back in school and not driving me crazy everyday! haha!) 

I'll be on a little DIY hiatus for a couple of weeks, but I'm sure I will have warm & sunny pictures to share with you when I come back!