How To Turn a Vintage Door Into a Family Message Center

by Courtney @ All Things New Again

Easy

Vintage doors are very popular right now. Check out Pinterest for 1 million things you can do with them! Here's a DIY project we did---and you can easily do too!---to transform a ho-hum door into a perfectly weathered message center for your home using Real Milk Paint Company products.

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Here's the before shot:

The 24 x 80 inch door had a great shape to it---and a beat-up white paint job that needed sprucing up. We started by cleaning the door (my LEAST favorite part of any project!). Then I mixed up a batch of Real Milk Paint Company's "Warm Ash" and sloppy painted it on.

This wasn't even a full coat of paint. I just wanted to get some of this rich color onto the door so when I distressed it later, the brown would come through instead of the the old white color.

The next step was a bit of an experiment for us. After the Warm Ash dried, we applied Real Milk Paint Company's Hemp Oil around the edges of the door where we thought it would naturally distress over time. The Hemp Oil creates a resist for the second color of paint you apply, allowing the basecoat color to come through with some wonderful texture.

We learned you do not want to apply the Hemp Oil in big splotches—thin lines will do nicely. Apply the second color of paint while the Hemp Oil is still wet. As they dry together, it creates an old, crackly, alligator’ed look that I love.

We used Real Milk Paint’s Granny Smith Green—a pretty color more on the yellow side of green.

Once the Granny Smith Green dried, it kind of bubbled up and crackled where the Hemp Oil was applied underneath. I came back and halfway scraped/ halfway sanded these areas to reveal the Warm Ash brown color.

In some places, it looks distressed. In other places, it looks alligator’ed. The entire door looks vintage and beautiful. I’m very happy with how it looks and I’m glad we tried out this new technique.

We made the top panel into a chalkboard and added rustic touches like the wire basket and rusty star knobs to finish the piece. Now this vintage door looks beautiful---and serves a great function as a family message center and spot to drop mail.

Please visit our All Things New Again Blog for more DIY projects and tutorials. And if you are ever in Leesburg, VA, stop by our shop All Things New Again. Our coffee pot is always on!