Farmhouse Restoration: Salvaged Screen Door and the Big Reveal (for now)

I’m so excited to finally share with you two of my favourite pictures of the farmhouse restoration…

The day we put an offer on the house…

…and where we’re at now.

There is so much more to still do (and more on that farther below), but already it feels a thousand times better. I still can’t believe this is the same house when I pull into the driveway.

I’ll get into it more but first I’m going to back the bus up a bit and tell you about our “new” screen door. While we were cleaning up the Spring House, we found an old wooden screen door in the back. I dragged it out front and sure enough the holes lined up with the ones in the front door frame. It was pretty flimsy and broken in a few places, but I wanted to see if we could fix it up enough to last even just one summer until we can figure out what we want to do with the front door.

I gave it a good cleaning, removed the hardware and sanded all the wood I could get to. My dad surprised me by gluing the pieces back together and clamping it in place.

While the glue was setting, I gave all the hardware a few shots of black spray paint. The brass was in various states of disrepair, but I hoped to revive it with a fresh finish.

At first I thought about doing the door a dark wood stain, but I was a little worried how it would look on all the different pieces of wood (it’s a real smorgesboard), so I decided to go with a fun and playful colour instead. I picked Behr Marquee Semi-Gloss Exterior Paint in Whipped Mint. I just loved the soft blue-green colour.

Here is the end result! A bright screen door!

The only thing we had to replace was the screening, which was about $20. My dad has had to replace many screens over the years thanks to a doberman who has a tendency to put her paws through windows, so he was able to teach me how to do it.

The hardware turned out great.

I love the contrast of the black hardware with the white walls and whipped mint door.

I gave the light a fresh coat of black spray paint while I was at it, but eventually we’d love to find a big lantern to hang from the ceiling.

Having a screen door has been such a treat this summer. We get that cool country breeze on even the hottest days.

One last before and after, because I just can’t get over how much better it looks…

 CLOSING DAY

AFTER THE PAINTING

 WITH THE DIY SHUTTERS AND SALVAGED DOOR

We still need to clad the post and beams with pine and add the trim. Eventually we’d like to had a stained wood tongue and groove ceiling to the porch as well.

The concrete porch will be painted along with these steps too. We’re also putting in some fresh sod here…and eventually getting around to putting my fall mums in their real pots!

Thanks so much for all the kind words on this week’s posts about the farmhouse. It’s been quite the journey (and we’re far from being done) but it’s been lots of fun too.