(before) and after

Another salvaged door Steve turned into a table -- this time, though, it's a desk for me! I didn't manage any before pictures, but please know that Steve spent a lot of time perfecting this table -- as a door, it was in rough shape. As a desk, it is just what I wanted. The height, the length, the width! And the cypress? It is gorgeous. Gorgeous. The legs are pine -- painted white. After much consideration, I decided it was time to ditch a desk with drawers. I'd rather have a table; it promotes less accumulation of stuff.

Speaking of accumulating stuff!, I've been to the thrift stores every single week since the beginning of the year and they are turning up nothing! I think this is because the seasonal, retired folks are down here with nothing better to do than go to my stores. How dare they! (I'm not territorial or anything.) So, I continue to search...and the next time I find lovely Pyrex, I'm going to break into song.

before & after

Happy New Year!

I hope each of you had a lovely holiday! We have ourselves a clean slate of sorts, don't we? I'm dreaming of a new year full of good finds...what about you?

***

We're definitely *not* the first people to use salvaged doors as something other than, well, doors. But this door? Steve and I realized this was a door with tabletop possibility. I regret this was the best picture I took of the door before we gave it a new life -- as you can see, it was covered in white paint before we transformed it:



We softened the paint with a heat gun and it peeled off in long, satisfying strips:



After that, we began sanding it and uncovered a solid cypress door:



At this point, we went back and forth between oiling or varnishing it -- we decided on varnishing the top. Skip ahead a few dozen steps that Steve did and voilà! I think it looks sharp, no?



The legs were designed by Steve -- they're lovely, lovely cedar:



And that's what you can do with a door from a salvage yard.