Happy Friday! In light of yesterday’s post about turning an old door into a memo board, I thought I’d continue the “door” theme with five projects repurposing old doors.*
You can always find some good solid wood doors lying around. I found them in the basements of both houses we’ve moved to, by the side of the road, at thrift stores, and at salvage yards. They are usually inexpensive and waiting for you to transform them into something useful and gorgeous.
If you have an old door, I’ve got a project. Here are five ways to repurpose old doors:
1. Build a daybed.
I turned two old doors I found at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore into a daybed.
The tutorial for how to build a daybed from old doors is here. It wasn’t hard, and I love the structure it gives the bed in the guest room.
This project appeared in the October 2015 issue of This Old House Magazine!
2. Create a sliding door.
When our pantry doors – which swung out and blocked our silverware drawers – didn’t work, I took a door I found at a thrift store for $1.99 (!!) and turned that regular door into a sliding door.
This is a great project where, as here, there isn’t enough room for a pocket door but you still want to be able to close off the area. Click here to see how to turn a regular door into a sliding door.
3. Turn a door into a desk.
In our last home, in my office, I turned an old door I found in the basement into a desktop.
I simply laid the door over a file cabinet (found at a thrift store for $6 and repainted) and an IKEA cabinet, and topped it with a piece of glass I found at a garage sale. It was a great work surface for writing and doing projects.
4. Turn a door into storage.
Jamie at C.R.A.F.T. turned a door into kitchen storage:
Such a great idea, especially for smaller kitchens!
5. Clad an island in doors.
In one of my favorite makeovers by Sarah Richardson, she used old doors to cover a kitchen island:
It looks like expensive trim and woodworking, but it’s really old doors. Swoon.
And now I can add my old door into a memo board to the list!
Have you repurposed an old door in your home? What did you do with it? I’d love for you to share your projects and ideas in the comments!
*This post updates the post that originally appeared here.
A "recovering lawyer," I turned in my power suits for power tools and a life of DIY. I believe in merging old and new to make a house a home.
I LOVE reusing old doors, this is a fantastic roundup, thanks for sharing! Your memo board is adorable!!! I’ve built a king sized head board (will be featuring that in our bedroom reno) I’ve made a hall tree, that’s on zee blog, well the fact that we were adding it to our shop is on the blog. We are reusing old doors… as closet doors (crazy I know) that’s also going to be on the blog (eventually). And I have another beautiful old door that I’ll be making into another hall tree. Sheesh I better get going… I have lots to do. 😉 Have a great weekend!
HA! That’s awesome, Laurie! I love old doors – they have such character and can be reused in so many ways! Thanks for sharing your projects – can’t wait to see them all!