If you’ve ever been in my house, you’d realize right away that I am obsessed with primitive and rustic decor. I am all about mason jars, vintage items, and “jacked up” paint, as my hubby lovingly calls it. One day, I’d like to live in an actual country home, but for now, I’ll just make MY home as country as possible.
We took one huge step towards achieving that dream of mine over the weekend. My dad and brother came over to help Jerry create a wall out of an 1800’s barn door I bought last year. For $20. Off of Craigslist. Not kidding… it was a total steal. I still can’t believe it.
We knew we needed to build a wall from the moment we found out I was pregnant. My home is a raised ranch, and as such, is a total death trap for babies and small children. The layout of a raised ranch is that you walk in the front door and enter the foyer. From there, you either go upstairs where our main living room, kitchen, dining room, bedrooms, and bathroom are, or you go downstairs to the garage, laundry room, extra living room, bathroom, and extra bedroom (AKA my library). We spend most of our time upstairs in the living room… where there’s a huge drop down to the foyer behind the couch. All that was between the couch and the steep drop below was a railing. Take a look at the below “before” photo. That was the view from our couch.
Scary view with a baby, right? We knew something had to be done, and while we initially planned on building a regular wall… it wasn’t quite what I wanted in my rustic home. Enter my grandmother! She started investigating and came up with some ideas. One was using vintage wooden shutters, and one was using barn doors. Hmm…
I found a few barn doors online, but they were in the “several hundred” dollar range. Then I stumbled upon the beauty that is currently my wall. It was only $20, and while it had a large “SALE” spray painted on it, we knew we could work with it.
We went out and picked it up last summer in my dad’s truck. It was huge and wobbled the whole way home, but it made it in one piece. One end of it was in bad shape and broken quite badly. It looked to be in rough shape but we had a vision for this old door, and boy did we bring that vision to life! See below…
TA DA!
The first step was the addition of a wooden beam to attach the door to. Not sure the logistics behind this, but I know my dad was up in the attic at some point to get it attached. The beam was later transformed by my brother who covered it up with leftover pieces of wood from the barn door. The other side was anchored to the wall with another strip of leftover wood. The railing was also removed too, of course. See pictures below of the beam and the other side where it also attaches.
Part of the covered beam and as you can see, the door still had its original hinges. LOVE!
Where it attaches to the wall.
The boys measured the space and then cut the wall down to size. Luckily, they were able to cut off the part of the door that had been cracked and broken. For a door that’s over 100 years old and spent many years in crazy New York weather and crappy winters, it was in pretty good shape except for that one side! Luckily, we were also able to cover a large portion of the spray painted letters with pictures and the couch.
I am absolutely in love with my new wall. When I think of it, I can never imagine leaving my house now and leaving my wall behind! We transformed it even more with the addition of my mason jar string lights, my wooden lyric sign (from a song that Jerry had played for me as a surprise at our wedding while he threw down rose petals), and rustic wooden frames that I bought online. I think I’ll add a few more rustic frames soon, and also begin to decorate the other side too that’s in the foyer.
Here are a few more shots of my new wall. If anyone is truly interested in tackling this project themselves, let me know and I can get some more detailed instructions for you from the guys.
View from the front.
Love the washed out paint!
Original handle! Beautiful, am I right?
Back side, in the foyer.
I couldn’t be any happier with how my wall turned out. Not only can I stop worrying about Caleb and my nephews falling down into the foyer, but it just totally transformed my home into the country home of my dreams! Many thanks to the guys for bringing my dream to life, and my grandma for the inspiration. Oh, and the crazy people who let this beauty go for just $20! You see junk, I see treasure! The life of the primitive lover. I actually bought this old, creaky cabinet for my kitchen once from a guy, and he said “really? You want this? Okay….” True story.
That “jacked up” paint that I love on my kitchen cabinet. Thanks, Jerry!
Who needs plain, boring walls and cabinets when you can have junk like mine?! No, really. I love all my primitive stuff and think it’s just so beautiful, cozy, and homey.
