Turning an Old Door into a Headboard
I have wanted to give my master bedroom an update for years, but I just did not make it a priority. It is definitely time for a bit of self-love. My style is very eclectic, and I fill my home with things I love. Unfortunately, our bedroom is lacking, and I haven’t made more than a few changes over the past 20 years. I chuckled when I realized just how long it had been. James and I are really great at working on projects for others but rarely find time for our own home.
As I surveyed the room for what to keep, I noticed I loved everything above the chair rail. I adore my picture of cherry blossoms and the beautiful woven pieces on my shelves. The lamps are perfect and fit with the other black accents in the room. During one of my last updates, I painted the walls taupe, and I love how I feel when I’m in the space.
What am I going to change? Well, the furniture. It’s time to make them more my style and give them that painted, time-worn look that I love. We are going to start with a headboard. Don’t see one in the picture? Exactly! We have never had a headboard. As newlyweds, we were given beautiful traditional solid maple bedroom furniture. However, the headboard for the set was for a queen-size bed, and James is over 6 feet tall, and that was just not going to work for us. We moved to a king-size bed and just never replaced the headboard.
Shortly after building our current home, we purchased nightstands, a blanket chest, and a lingerie dresser. They are obviously not part of the original set and are something we added out of necessity while still staying within a very tight budget. These pieces of furniture work for now, so just a facelift is in order. Follow us over the next few weeks as we give the furniture a new look and feel.
I have been collecting old doors for a few years and have hoarded quite the collection. I decided to make one into our new headboard. I picked a three-panel late 1800’s door. It had so many layers of paint the panel details were lost.
Supplies Needed
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Paint Strippers - Citristrip and/or Blue Bear Soy Gel (found at Woodcraft)
Chemical Resistant Gloves
Putty or Spackle Knife
Paper Towels
150 Grit Sandpaper
50/50 mix of Denatured Alcohol and Water
MilkPaint™ - Typewriter and Farmhouse White
MilkWax™ - Clear and Grime Gray
Old Door - Where can someone find one? Facebook marketplace, yard sales, estate sales, and salvage yards
Since this piece was going right over the bed, I wanted to confirm what kind of paint we were removing, so we started with a lead paint test. As I knew it would, the test was positive. That dictates the way we dispose of stripped paint. After removing the remaining hardware, we began stripping and found that one side of the door had at least 12 different layers of paint. It was probably a bathroom or bedroom door. You could see the decades as we removed each of the layers. We found multiple whites, rose, pink, lavender, creams, and beiges. It took four applications of stripper on this side. Citristrip struggled with some of the oldest layers of paint, so we moved to Blue Bear Soy Gel. (Tip: Masking plastic helps the stripper do its magic.)
Starting the stripping process
Look at all of those layers of paint!
Hooray! We finally hit wood!
On the other side, which probably faced the hall, we found fewer layers but still decades of historic colors. And to my delight, a color almost identical to our Lucketts Green.
Once we got most of the paint off, we wiped it down with odorless mineral spirits to remove the last remaining paint and stripper. It took several passes with clean paper towels. I was excited to see all the incredible detail around the panels was intact. Then we trimmed the door to make it symmetrical. Yes, it would drive me crazy if it wasn’t since that bed wall is all about symmetry.
Wiping the door down with odorless mineral spirits
Now the door is symmetrical!
Then we moved on to the last couple of prep steps, lightly sanded with 150 grit sandpaper and a wipe down with 50/50 mix of denatured alcohol and water to remove any remaining residue. This last step ensures proper adhesion and prepares your project for paint.
Now to give it the painted time-worn look. A coat of Typewriter was applied as the base. Since all the accents on the wall are black, I felt it would be a better option than Curio. I also wanted to make sure the second layer chipped, so we used a beeswax puck in some areas.
We moved on to the next layer before the first layer could completely dry to promote crazing (fines lines and cracks). Farmhouse White is a neutral white, neither warm nor cool, making it the best option with our taupe walls. We used it for the top layer on our headboard, followed by heat, sandpaper, and scrapers to chip and craze the top layer of paint.
The last step was to seal the paint and add a touch of grime to the corners. We began with MilkWax™ - Clear, followed by a controlled application of Grime Gray.
Want to see it in place? Stay tuned; we will share the finished room at the end of our master bedroom series.
