Friday, January 1, 2010

French Door Mirror

This is my submission for the....

Shanty 2 Chic
...party!

I curb-shopped a set of french doors from my neighborhood. They weighed 40 pounds each! I'm sure I looked pretty amusing and slightly crazy cramming these puppies into the back of my VW Beetle. I was so triumphant! I got them home and stood them up in my garage and.......stared at them. Um??.......I knew I wanted to do something with them but had no idea what.

SO, there they sat for a couple months until one day it just hit me!
Here's what I came up with. Sorry about some of the pictures.
A photographer I am not.
At some point in this poor guy's life he was painted a metalic silver and had beer bottle caps nailed to him. All over one side. It took me forever to pry them off!


Rusty beer bottle caps. Strange.


Here's his twin sitting in the garage...



There weren't individual panes. It was actually one big piece of glass with a wood "frame" overlay. Which actually worked out much better for me. I just pried the wood off on one side.






Back side, with the wood overlay removed.





This is the pretty side. The side people will see. No beer bottle caps on this side.
(Thank goodness!)

I taped off the pretty side for painting the wood.



I removed the hinges and a little lock someone had installed at the top.







I used Design Master in Walnut Wood.



One coat down....4 more to go! :)



All done painting. About 5 coats and 3 cans of paint later.




I wanted the clear glass to be a mirror instead. After researching my options I chose to go with a reflective "mirror like" spray paint made by Krylon. It's called Looking Glass.
What I didn't know was there's very few stores that carry it!


When I say "very few" what I really mean is, that I ended up driving from Tampa to Ocala for this spray paint. Any of you not familiar with the west coast of Florida, that's approximately 100 miles. Yes, I know, my best friend said I was crazy too.

I REALLY
wanted that spray paint.

Side Note: Hobby Lobby in Ocala is VERY IMPRESSIVE! Very, very much worth the drive!!



The Looking Glass spray paint is crazy really because you spray it on the backside of the glass and it turns the front into a mirror. Now...how does the spray paint know which side is which? I mean, really? ;)
Well, here it is after the mirror spray paint. I was pretty pleased with the way the "mirror" came out. I couldn't really practice too much with the paint before I applied it because it's $10 a can and only 6 oz per can. That, combined with the recommended application of 5 coats....well, I didn't have too much to spare.




I attached some fancy hooks. Also from the totally awesome Ocala Hobby Lobby.




....and a fancy piece on the top...which was white, so I spray painted it the walnut color. It wasn't quite dark enough, so I misted a layer of Rustoleum Canyon Black over the top.



I think it came out really cute.




Reflective paint works very well. :)


Well....that's my project. :)

27 comments:

  1. That looks like a lot of work, but worth the effort! Great job, thanks for sharing!

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  2. wow! that is so cute!
    great job. Thanks for explaining everything.
    gail

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  3. WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You rock and the amount of work you put into that piece is amazing! GREAT job!

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  4. It looks amazing. Great job. I didn't know they had a mirror paint. Thanks for sharing this.

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  5. Great job! I have been looking for the Krylon mirror paint too! I saw it in Martha Stewart. It looks really neat on your door!

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  6. AMAZING! I haven't heard of Mirror Paint... wow that opens a whole new can of worms! I'd love if you linked this up to my Power of Paint Party on Wednesdays.

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  7. What an incredible change!! I love the darker paint that you chose, and boy-oh-boy, was that drive worth it for those mirrors! Can you believe how much money you saved over having mirror cut to fit?!?! Very impressive post!

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  8. I love french doors and what a fantastic transformation you have made!! Cute last picture!

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  9. How cool! I need to look for that spray paint!

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  10. So beautiful! The rusty beer bottle tops was a big strange.. how funny is that! It turned out lovely. I haven't used the looking glass paint yet. I am definitely going to try it out soon!

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  11. This has got to be one of my favorite things! You totally rock. Can't wait to try the mirror spray paint!

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  12. Very nice!

    I just picked up a set of narrow french doors myself from a house being torn down.

    Many glass panes are broken though! I have some ideas, but haven't started on them yet.

    Tina

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  13. That is really cool! I had no idea about the looking glass paint. I want some!!! I wonder if I could convince my husband to drive to Ocala from St Augustine...probably not for an impressive Hobby Lobby, but you never know.

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  14. Very pretty - you completely re-vamped it! Great job!

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  15. I've never heard of mirrow paint. Thanks for the tip! I think your project turned out great.
    Kudos!

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  16. Very Cool! I love finding trash and turning it to treasure. Keep it up!!!

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  17. That's fabulous! I love a French door in any form!

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  18. This is awesome! I'll be linking to your project sometime next week on my blog.

    Michelle
    www.TrashToTreasureDecorating.com

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  19. Hi Emily - You did a fantastic job. Quite a transformation. I think you win the prize for the weirdest "before" picture with the bottle caps. I guess the previous owner thought they were very artistic. I saw the Looking Glass spray paint at AC Moore by me in PA. It really is reflective. Thanks for showing us, your trip to get the paint was well worth it.

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  20. I was curious as to how well you like the Design Master for painting wood? Did you have any problems? I've used it in a floral shop but didn't know how well it would work on wood.

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  21. Great idea for the whole project, I really like it.

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  22. Holy Moly!
    That is great!
    :o) Trish

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  23. Okay now THAT is ADORABLE!! You are amazing!

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  24. You can order the reflective paint on line. I have seen it several places.
    Love your finished work!

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