DIY Cabinet Door Re-Purposing

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve become quite the scavenger. I’m always on the lookout for things I can use to re purpose on the side of the roads.  Pretty much anytime I’m driving I’m looking for wood, pallets, furniture, cabinet doors, etc. Those things are treasures these days! For 2-3 weeks I had my eye on this door sitting on the side of a building next to my work office. I finally walked down to see if they were getting rid of it and hit a gold mine! Not only did I get the door but they restore homes that have been damaged by fire, flood, storm, etc. and they had lots of cabinet doors they were going to throw away and said they would let me know anytime they have items that I could use. I was THRILLED to take these cabinet doors off their hands so I now have about 10 or more cabinet doors and endless options of things to make with them.

I LOVE the chalkboard in kitchens. They’re perfect for weekly menus, grocery lists, to do lists, weekly bible verses, etc. I figured that’d be an easy first project to start with to either use in my house or sell on Hamby Home Decor.  I’m still not positive what I’m doing with my kitchen walls so for now it’s for sale on Hamby Home Decor but also very easy to DIY.

Here is how I did it:

To begin with all of these cabinet doors, I puttied the holes where the knobs were and sanded them a little to smooth the putty and sand some of the finish off.

For this chalkboard I used one of those small Valspar Paint Samples from Lowes for the outside and used some chalk paint from Michaels (found with acrylic paint) for the inside. After many layers of the solid red I decided it needed some character. I took some of the red paint and mixed in some dark brown to darken it up and just roughly added some dark paint strokes and wiped it with an old t-shirt to soften the strokes. I love the way it turned out and it was so easy! Plus it can be done in any color imaginable!

 

I am obsessed with most house signs. I usually love the old wood, pallets, or whatever they’re written on and I love the daily reminders of how blessed we are. I am pretty sure I have a list of at least 20 signs I’d love to have in my house.

Recently in church we sang “It is well with my soul” and they told us the story about what was going on in the life of  Horatio Spafford as he wrote this song. Even as Horatio was mourning the loss of all his children, he wrote this song and gave all the glory to God. It was such a moving story and such a wonderful reminder that no matter what we go through and all the tragedy in the world, we are saved. These words meant so much more to me after hearing the story and I knew immediately this was something I wanted in my house somewhere as a daily reminder.

For this cabinet I also used a small Valspar Paint Samples from Lowes in an antique white color. I painted the entire thing with a couple coats of this antique white paint. I wanted the white/wash distressed look for this sign so I took a “fan paint brush” and just started adding strokes of gray acryllic paint and using a tshirt to smooth out the strokes. As far as I know, there is no right or wrong way to do this. I just added the strokes sparingly because I wanted the white to still show through. I tried to randomly place the strokes all over the cabinet door and just kept rubbing them in the same direction with the old t-shirt.

Once I had the entire thing painted I started with the words. Ideally I would use a stencil or silhouette/cricut but I didn’t have any of that so I just freehanded it. It’s not perfect since it’s freehanded but I think it adds some character. I did purchase some paint pens so I can have more precision on my next sign than I did with my paint brush.

At the end I added light gray to my fan brush again and lightly painted over the letters to give it the same worn look as the cabinet door.