Old Doors Become an Art Gallery the Decayed Elegance Way

If you have spent any time reading our blog one thing that becomes very clear is that we love to thrift. The thrill of the hunt, buying something wonderful for a bargain price and the creative extension that the “trash to treasure” challenge presents are all reasons that thrifting appeals to this creative couple. One of the down sides of our thrifting and our collecting lifestyle is that we end up amassing stuff….lots of stuff and I am often the person that needs to move and organize the collection that is awaiting our special touch. As a result, I have become a little more particular about what we bring home. We don’t have a lot of storage space and most of that space is packed full.

One day, Cathy called me and asked me to run up the street and pick up an old pair of doors that someone had put out for the trash. I told her no….firmly….we didn’t have the space and I had already driven by the doors and knew that they looked bad. She insisted however until I finally relented.

The doors took up storage space for the next couple of years. And I got sick of moving them so I was happy when Cathy told me that we were going to use them in the house. I have also learned that it is pointless to question her creativity. I have seen it over and over again. We obtain something that seems like total junk, and it ends up being drop dead gorgeous through the creativity of my wife.

Cathy told me about her plans. She wanted to paint the old doors, distress them and use them as a backdrop for our art. After seeing how wonderfully this has turned out, I just had to share the results with our blog readers. Now, if you have seen some of other posts you may have seen pictures of these doors but I thought a focused blog post on this project might inspire some ideas.

Following is a picture of one of the doors before we did anything to them. Althought it’s hard to tell from the photo, the finish is alligatored, dull and dingy. Something needed to be done to the doors to bring them back to life.

The next picture shows the doors after we painted, glazed and distressed them.

And here they are again, in use as a lovely backdrop for artwork. I think they really add an elegant touch to the paintings.

I especially love them as they sit behind the painted desk in our bedroom and reflect the lovely light of the crystal chandelier hanging in front of them.

The doors have been a great addition to our room and our artwork, and I now have no regrets about the day I took ”orders” from Cathy and ran up the street to pick the doors out of the trash. I’m sure I’ll be picking trash again before I know it, and if the trash turns out this good, I’ll be happy!

Thanks for visiting. Stop back again soon.

Paul

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