12 Days of Creating: Day 8

On the eighth day of the 12 Days of Creating, I lovingly gave my home: an old school door refashioned into a barn door.

Here’s the backstory: I envisioned some sort of protective mechanism that would keep my sons in their bedrooms and out of the rest of the house should the adults be sleeping. In this scenario, they still have access to the bathroom and the parents’ bedroom, but they are not free to roam around the house, potentially get outside, and wander down to the lake to encounter any number of potentially dangerous situations.

This door does just that! At night, we simply slide the door closed over the hallway entry, lock it, and sleep soundly knowing our children are protected. During the day, it nestles behind an old cabinet and looks just like a decorative element peeking up over the top.

This door was pulled from an old school in Panama City by my former headmaster. He had a few left over from remodeling our school, and he offered them for free. They were just the neatest, so I snagged one. I simply adore the windows. Once upon a time, it had a grate covering the opening at bottom, but the door only had cardboard covering the hole by the time it ended up in my possession. We decided to purchase a piece of decorative metal (the kind you might find in a deco screen door) to cover the hole. 

I painted the backside of the door a year ago, and we got it hung before the arrival of our baby. Then, the project languished. In fact, not only was the front side unpainted, but we just put kraft paper over the hole. Luckily for us, our oldest son isn’t the mischievous type, and he never attempted to bust out of our less-than-secure set-up. Yesterday, I finally put on the final coat of paint, and we retired the kraft paper covering in favor of the metal. Isn’t it just perfect?

There’s only four days left of the #12daysofcreatingwithColleen challenge. Will you join me and work to add a little beauty to your corner of the world?

Cheers from the cottage,

Colleen