J'Door

We have ugly doors. 

There, I said it.

We replaced the exterior doors before the second winter hit--the first winter we dealt with a lot of heat loss because of old doors that didn't seal well. 

This post is not about that.

In our small, ranch-style home, there are only 5 interior doors--three bedrooms, the bathroom and the basement stairs. I realize that 5 hollow-core doors don't cost very much ($25/each), but once you add in door knobs and hinges it adds up. 

That doesn't mean I wanted to look at ugly doors anymore, so I fixed this one up--it's the door in our master bedroom that is _this close_ to being completely done! 

It's newspaper! The Saturday, November 23, 1963 edition of the Omaha World-Harold, to be exact. Random, perhaps, but I like it!

 
Here's a selection of the sections of the paper I put on the door, including ads (you can get a new iron for $9.88 or rent an apartment for $90/month), the classifieds (whoever bought this paper was looking for a pool table), movies and nightclub advertisements as well as the latest headlines about Cary Grant and more information about the assassination of President Kennedy. There's also a cartoon about an inquiry at a travel agency. The agent tells the customer, "Yes, we have something in your price range--we seat you in a deck chair and show you color movies." That sounds perfect for my budget!

I thought our house was built in 1963, but my husband says the county records have it being built in 1961. Oh well, it still would have been brand new when this newspaper was issued. Besides, I like the naturally yellow paper and the touch of history. 

 
I only trimmed off about a half inch to make the paper the right width. Then I painted on some primer and smoothed the paper on top. Yes, it has wrinkles. No, I don't care. When the primer was dry, I added a layer of polycrylic on top to make the paper a little more durable. 

So, what did I do with the other side of the door? Well, I certainly didn't get a good picture of it, that's for sure! 

(Oh, look, you can see my craft closet in the background!) 

Please ignore that the door was still drying during its photo shoot. And yes, it's dark! It's a slate or charcoal paint I got in the oops section. I like that it's not super dark black, and I'm hoping it'll stay cleaner-looking than the doors I've painted white (the insides of the nursery and the bathroom and the basement door).

Again with the not-a-great-picture thing, but the darkness on the left side of the picture is our new master bedroom door. I wanted to show you what the doors looked like before! The door at the end of the hall leads to my boys' room, and the narrow sliver of a door is the nursery. They were all closed at the time of this photo because it was nap time and there was a little cutie sleeping in each of those rooms! Just so you know, I was standing in the bathroom to take the photo. Yep. Small house! 

Besides the gorgeous new(ly re-finished) floors, this picture shows you that I've painted all of the trim in the hall! I am also done painting the hall walls! I want to hang some pictures and I still need to paint three more doors and the closet doors. (Across from the bedrooms are my newly painted and reorganized linen closet and craft closet.) I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel! 

So there you have it; what to do when life gives you ugly doors!

What should I do with the ugly door knobs? Ignore 'em? Spray paint? Rub 'n Buff?