Refurbished Door Headboard Reveal!

A friend of my daughter's just moved into an apartment in Manhattan. She is a recent college grad and will be working through a two year program at Pace. She decided that she was done with dorm decorating and was looking for a more sophisticated way to decorate her new apartment- basically her bedroom, since the apartment is shared with two others. Like many, she turned to Pinterest and fell in love with the whole refurbish-recycle look. She went on Craigslist and found assorted old chippy architectural pieces like doors, shutters, various shelves and an old window that someone had turned into a mirror. How fun is that? Wouldn't it be fun to be twenty-two again?

She was inspired by the above photo and I used it back when I did the post  Recycled Door Headboards. Check that out if you would like to see more headboard inspiration. I couldn't wait to tackle the project of refinishing the doors and getting "the look" that she wanted for her new space.

When I got the doors this is what they looked like. 

Immediately when I painted on the paint stripper, the first layer of paint started bubbling up.

Working a small area at a time, using a 2" putty knife, I just started to scrape off the paint.

Once I was satisfied with one area, I moved onto the next.

I poured the stripper into an empty soup can because it evaporates very quickly. 

Every now and then I would stand back to access the entire door -scrape a bit more here and there- until I was satisfied with "the look". Then I cleaned it up good with some mineral spirits and a steel wool pad. After it dried I went back and made sure there were no loose pieces. Chances are it was lead paint so I was sure to wear a mask through the whole process and then finish with a light sealer.

Onto the second door...same story!

Here are the finished doors!

If you're wondering why I didn't do them with the door knobs either together or on both on the outside it's because the opposite side of the doors were covered with some sort of contact paper underneath the layers of paint. I guess that was not an uncommon practice years ago and it would have been fine if I wanted to completely strip the doors down...but I needed that deep down layer of paint!

And here are the doors in their new home!

Don't you just love them? 

She and her mom did a great job accessorizing the space. How awesome to have an old fireplace in your room- a great place to display her old window/mirror!

...AND a view with lots of natural light! She is off to a great start...I can't wait to get down there in a couple of weeks and see it for myself!