Painted (message center) Door

I found this door that had A LOT of great features. It was a little boring and needed some color but, the structure was there to do exactly what I needed it to do. I needed a central area for book bags, homework, message center and it all had to fit on a small wall between the kitchen and the door to the garage. This space has to work hard to do all I need it to do for our family. (You can see the one I did for our Utah home HERE) I loved the message center at our last house and I have sorely missed it and knew I needed to do one here.

I started by making the antique door WAY more interesting….COLOR!!!

I painted it duck egg blue and decided the texture of the door should be used to my advantage (it looked like it had layers of paint)…add another color….some beautiful yellow I had on my shelf. Some sample I had bought years ago and it worked great for this project. It just had to be hand painted around where the paint had chipped off. A little time consuming but it gave the beautiful old door it’s CHARACTER back!

Then I waxed with a clear wax and then applied a dark wax over top.

The hardware was ready to be put back on but I needed to decide which antique door knob to add to the original hardware.

I tried black, oval, crystal and porcelain. The one I chose was…

The brown metal knob because it went with the brown glaze and the chalk holder.

I turned a drawer pull upside down so that I could have a place to hold the chalk and eraser.

The door was missing it’s original glass so I added a magnetic chalkboard so the kids can leave notes or magnet papers up.

I added some hooks for book bags and jackets.

I then needed a way to hang it on the wall in the studs and a screw is the only thing that would hold. I drilled the holes and counter sink the screws so they wouldn’t stick up on the door.

I found the studs and marked them with tape so I could find where they would hit on the door to be able to drill the holes to attach it securely to the wall.

I had to call and ask the home owners if we could take the trim off this wall and they were okay with that. (See, what did I tell you….they are great!)

I attached chair feet to the back so it didn’t ruin the wall (it also helped with the hardware that stuck out on the back, just a little. This gave it the clearance it needed to sit flat against the wall.

Once it was attached to the wall, I realized it didn’t have enough hooks, so I added bull dog clips for homework at the top of the door.

This is it after over a month of use….it’s well loved and I L-O-V-E the messages I find on it. On my birthday, I found a message that the kids were going to make me my favorite breakfast…they heated up some pancakes…PERFECT!

The chalkboard is magnetic which makes it not only a chalkboard to write on and but you can magnet homework to.

The hooks are perfect for coats and book bags (no book bags pictured, the kids had them at school lol)

Now I have my message center door and it turned out beautiful! The kids hang their book bags, jackets and magnet their notes for me or they can hang their artwork on the bull dog clips at the top. I love that we can display their art for a week and then it can go to the save bin because I would never have enough wall space to display all their beautiful artwork. The message center created storage for back packs and coats and a way to keep homework in one place. It’s perfect to help keep our family organized!