Seeing The Light

For as long as we've been in this house, every time I use the powder-room I've known I'll never be happy until I have two big holes in the door.
 

You probably wouldn’t imagine that knocking holes in a door would be a solution to disguising a great mess.

You might imagine going by my last post that mess is a problem in our home. Well sometimes. Maybe.  Just a bit.

But I mean, look at the view from our downstairs power-room. <Urgh.>  My laundry ‘aint pretty - not in the least, but with the door closed the powder room looks like a dark cave.

I’ve been thinking about having window panes inserted to replace the top two door panels for ages- years in fact. That solution would let in the light, while I close the door on the mess.

I’ve asked two handymen and three builders and they’ve all scratched their heads and talked about removing the door which involves removing the frame, part of the wall. Buying a new door and doing all of the above to get it in.. Well, I think that’s serious over-kill. 

I wanted to do the same with the front door of the house, and I ended up with a brand new door. Which then had to be primed (several times), and painted and sanded back (several times) and that all took weeks to complete.

So during a visit from family, my sister’s clever husband took a look.  He uttered words that were music to my weary ears: “I’ve actually done this before..it's quite simple.”

As he checked out mine; knocking a bit on it to see if it was solid, he reminded me of a beautiful door in their home with two gorgeous stained glass panels.

“See here? This beading is nailed in, get a fine chisel under it and you can ease this off. Then cut out the panels – replace the beading on the back, silicone in the glass then nail back the beading on the front.”

More music to my ears, and I understood most of it. Beading, also known as moulding, is the trim inside a door panel: 

We started out running around the edge of the beading/moulding with a Stanley knife to cut through the thick paint, then worked the chisel around slowly working off the front moulding.
After measuring up the panel size, minus mouldings, we stopped by the glaziers to order the glass panels, then headed to the hardware store, where among other things I bought a new chisel and a new toy.

Ryobi Multi tool - I cut, I shaved and I sanded!

I also needed new beading, as I wasn't quite gentle enough in places. oops but as it turned out, the original moulding was very wide anyway which meant smaller panels and less light.

So the whole thing went merrily along just as my renovation wingman had described. I should call him the reno-Pilot really because I certainly had neither the expertise nor the courage to tackle this on my Tod, and wouldn't have at all if he hadn't motivated me (pushed me into it)

So this is the story in pictures:

Ta Dah!

Many thanks to my clever Brother-in-law who recognises a procrastinator when he sees one and knows just how to give a gentle shove :0)