Like that subject? Because yup, that's what I did. I took down two doors in the house. And what a difference it has made!
The first door was the awkward door between the kitchen and the mudroom. Now, I really debated whether to take this sucker down. On the one hand, I'm not thrilled about having zero separation from the laundry room and right now, the view into the laundry room is the utility sink and its various and sundry tubes and pipes. Eek. On the other hand, the cat's litter box is back there, the half bath is back there and every time you opened the half bath door, it inevitably crashed into that mudroom door. Plus, the kids couldn't seem to open it. I know I can make the laundry room pretty gorgeous eventually and I figure I can deal with sounds of the washer and dryer. So down the door came. Here is the door collision before I took it down ("it" = the white one ... I still have to paint the brown half bath door):
The other door was my bathroom linen closet door. A few weeks ago, I painted it white. It looks great! The only problem: that same awkward door collision as with the mudroom door and powder room door. It irks. And since I know I just need a few hours to make the contents of that closet swoon-worthy, I removed the door and opted for open storage, much like the folks at Young House Love did in their first home's bathroom linen closet. Plus, because it is smaller than the mudroom door, this closet door is much better suited to work as a desk! I don't even have to get out my saw. And the door has a magnetic latch and does not have a door knob all the way through it, so I won't have to contend with figuring out what to do with the hole where the doorknob once sat. Win-win-win.
Now, the only lingering issue when you remove a door is the holes left behind from the door hardware. Here is the doorway between the mudroom and kitchen. See the wood patches at the top and bottom of the doorway? Eww.
It couldn't be simpler to take this mess and create a pretty-looks-like-its-always-been-an-open-dooryway-and-not-a-door area. If you can frost a cake, you can fix these. All I did was remove the hardware and then get out my wood putty and plastic putty knife.
I did a nice thick coat for the first coat and let it sit overnight.
The next day, I sanded it down and did one more thinner coat. A waited a few hours and sanded again. All that was left was to paint with the trim paint and voila! It's like the doors were never there. Here are the afters!
Whew! My garage is filling up with doors! Time to make the desk and to call the Habitat for Humanity ReStore to see if they will pick up the rest!
Have a terrific Labor Day weekend! Farewell Summer!
See you swoon,
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