Coat Rail Makeover with Mini Door Knobs

You may or may not already know of my love of bringing new life to old furniture. Sometimes I take it to extremes, taking something that really doesn't have a lot of potential, hidden beauty or any other redeeming features and making something out of it. The Bavarian despairs of me when I refuse to throw out what most people consider rubbish. In the particular case I am going to show you today, the object in question is a broken coat rail that the previous owners of our house left in the cloakroom.

It was the kind of coat rail you can find in any DIY shop for a few quid, made of cheap pine. Of the original six wooden pegs, only four were left. One was very loose. The other three were well secured still. Why bother keeping it? Well, the simple answer is beacuse it might come in handy. The truthful answer is that I cannot accept that something that is not completely irreparable should be dumped because we don't definitely need it right now.

So the rail sat in the cellar for four and a half years until one day in a full-to-bursting trinket shop in Dachau of all places I found the *perfect* knobs to replace the three missing ones. And so the make-over could begin.

To transform my coat rail I needed:

White undercoat suitable for use on wood

Cream satin finish paint

Three small dooor knobs

A drill

A paintbrush

First of all I gave the rail a good cleaning with a damp cloth. It had been in the cellar, so a fair amount of dust and cobwebs had gathered on it.

After that, the whole thing got a coat of white undercoat, knobs and all. After the undercoat had dried, I applied two coats of cream satin finish paint, letting the first coat dry overnight. 

During the painting, the holes for the screws to attach the rail to the wall had become clogged, so these needed drilling through to unclog them. The holes for the screws of the mini door knobs also needed widening, so the drill was used for that job too.

Once the holes has been cleared, the project got to the good part - adding the unique touch. This is the part of renovation projects I love most, making the item my own. 

In this case, I had already selected the knobs. Now I needed to arrange them in the order I wanted. I chose to put the flat-topped knobs to the left and right and place the round-topped knob between two of the original wooden hangers.

Here you can see the rail and knobs in a bit more detail.

Hung on our pale green bedroom wall, the rail has become very handy for scarves, chains or handbags. I am so happy thatit has finally make it out of the cellar and avoided the bin.

How to Make a Window Mirror - An Upcycling Tutorial

I *may* have mentioned before that I have a thing for salvaging furniture. A few weeks ago I think I reached a new low. It was pouring rain and I should have been driving directly to Kindergarten so as not to be late.  But it was Sperrmuell day on part of your route. Sperrmuell is the German term for the  annual rubbish collection of furniture, electronic appliances and other oversized items. Basically anything one might normally throw into a skip is left on the footbath to be collected by the bin men. In short, my idea of heaven.

On this particular morning, I was in a rush but needed my fix of salvaging, now that I'd seen what day it was. Unfortunately there wasn't time for more than a quick glance. I spotted kitchen cabinets being dumped, stopped for a nosey and picked up this cabinet door. The glass was gone and it was soaked from the rain. But I thought I might be inspired to upcyce it into something. I love internal windows in houses. That was my starting point.

To cut a long story short, it became a mirror. You may have spotted it in last week's hall renovation post. Here is how I went about it.

Clean the window frame and sand it, if necessary. Thankfully mine didn't need sanding.

Paint with two coats of undercoat suitable for use on wood.

Paint with a top coat of the colour of your choice. I chose a pale cream in a satin finish.

Once I had the woodwork finished, I brough the frame to the DIY centre. I was between two minds as to how to proceed: mirror or photo frame. I tried it out with some passepartouts and it looked fine, but I preferred the idea of a mirror after I tried out both looks.

Luckily I was able to find a mirror in the correct size, but the DIY centre would have ordered one to the correct size if I had needed it. I used a special glass and mirror glue to fix the mirror to the frame.

The mirror now hangs in our hall and helps brighten the place up by reflecting the white of the stairs and wall opposite it. 

A couple of weeks after I had finished and hung my mirror I was shopping and spotted the mirror in the photo below. I couldn't help myself and had to look at the price tag on the back. €99! Mine cost me around €20 for the mirror, glue and hanging fixture I needed. I had the paints and brush already from other projects. But best of all, I had a great time working on it and that is priceless.

Our Hall, Stairs and Landing Transformation

When we first moved into our house, we hadn't the time to renovate or decorate anything that didn't need immediate attention. That meant that the dark and gloomy but otherwise fully functional hall, stairs and landing was not a priority. The ugly peach coloured woodchip wallpaper was given a very hasty coat of white emulsion and that was it.  

The dreadful peach walls being painted over.

It was a year before we had time to set to work on it. What kept me going was that I knew it had the potential to be beautiful without costing us a fortune. When we first viewed the house, I fell in love with the old wooden staircase and the shape of the banister. 

The Stairs.

When we finally had the time and the inclination to begin renovating, we began to realise that it was going to be a bigger job than we thought. Stripping the old painted and re-painted woodchip wallpaper was a tough job. Underneath it the walls were a mess. Some were old internal walls, others were old external walls (the hardest to strip) and only one was plasterboard. 

The state of one of the walls when we removed the woodchip wallpaper.

But we'd statrted, so we had to see it through to the end. We got the hall and the wall along the stairs plastered but we decided to keep the woodchip wallpaper on the landing. Now I never imagined I would agree to woodchip wallpaper in my house. I really didn't. But it was relatively new, it came up nicely painted white and we really did not have the endurance it would have taken to strip it. *Maybe* some day. But, I mean look at the angles we would have been dealing with:

After the plaster dried, we painted the whole hall, stairs and landing area white and put in new pre-painted white skirting boards. We also had the stairs painted white with a pale grey handrail. 

 

White seems a bit mad for a house full of little boys but it was our only option to brighten the gloomy space up. I really wanted a bit of contrast somewhere, so we painted the wall along the stairs a very pale grey with a hint of lavender. Looking directly at it, it looks like white but when you see it against the white of the stairs, you notice the difference.

I was very keen on having a pretty wall-mounted light-fitting at the top of the stairs. I found this one at the online shop Mirabeau and in reality it was even prettier than it seemed online. I love how it finished off the top of the stairs. For weeks after we installed it I would come out to the hall, look up at it and smile. I just adore it.

Since we finsihed all the actual plastering and painting, I have been taking my time with decorating. The landing was particularly tricky because there are three doors as well as the stairs to the hall and another stairs to the attic leading off it. 

To make things even more complicated, there is a sloping ceiling. After much deliberation, we opted for a Hemnes chest of drawers in white from Ikea. It is the right depth and height for that space and offers a lot of storage. Above it we've hung some Irish art we got as wedding presents.

 I  am far from a collector of art, but I do like to have pieces around the house that reflect my/our interests. It gives the place more personality. I'd hate to walk into someone else's house and see that we have entirely the same furnishings, frames and fabrics. Here's a selection of what you'd see around our hall, stairs and landing now. 

A mirror I made from a cupboard door

One of three limited edition children ;)

A print of Pooh and Piglet

Part of Edward Lear's Nonsense Alphabet

My own left hand, painted by my own right hand

We had to take a few  short cuts along the way, but we are happy with how it has turned about. It may not be perfect, but it is comfortable, lived in and a damn sight better than peach woodchip.

The (badly needed) Bathroom Makeover

When we bought our house  back in 2010, I really wanted to change both bathrooms. They  were very dated and ugly. Unfortunately everything worked perfectly, so there was no urgent need to do anything with them. Over the years we got used to them. Finally, in 2013, the some tiles literally fell off the wall of the downstairs bathroom and I siezed the opportunity to start planning a new look. I wasn't into Pinterest yet then but I have a half ton of interiors magazines in piles in the guest room. I spent many happy hours ear-marking pages, ripping out pictures and imagining a brighter, prettier bathroom.

To give you an idea of what we had been living with, below is a close up where you can see the mottled beige tiles (yuck), the grey-beige bath (yuck again) and the old fittings. If you think that is bad, what you can't see here is that these tiles were floor to ceiling on all four walls of an approximately 3.5m square room.  To complete the look, there was a tiled picture of a field of wheat in various brown and beige tones above the bath. Believe me when I say it had to go.

So, eight weeks before Number 3 was due to arrive we got the builders in. After day one, the bathroom looked like this and I was thrilled with the progress. If I hadn't been highly pregnant I would have asked for a go of the sledgehammer. 

Even at this stage, we still hadn't completely agreed on a concept for the new bathroom, but we did know that we wanted it to be bright and not too bathroomy looking. The builders we'd got quotes from gave us a few stange looks when they heard we wanted a bathroom that doesn't look like a bathroom. They were all very keen on tiling every surface and creating a super modern, glossy bathroom. They didn't really get that we wanted something unique, less clinical and more like a room. In the end The Bavarian put it bluntly, "We don't want a slaughterhouse. We only want tiles where they are needed". 

Then we spoke to a builder from Sicily and he was able to imagine the kind of look we wanted. So he got the job! By and large we are pleased with the end result. Here's what it looks like now.

  

The antique wash stand came from a second hand shop. The Bavarian gave it a few coats of yacht varnish to waterproof it. The white 30 x 60cm tiles come half way up the wall that the sink and loo are on. At the bath/shower the tiles go to the ceiling.

The rectangular sink sits on top and, despite its modern style, fits well with the shape and proportions of the wash stand. 

At either side of the wash stand are towel rails. We use the one on the right for a handtowel and have adapted the one on the right to a toilet roll holder using two decorative S-hooks and a ribbon. 

When the curtain is open, our apple tree is reflected in the mirror (from Ikea).

A framed print of Salvador Dali's wife painted by Dali himself is one of my favourite possessions. I bought it in Figueres on our honeymoon. 

A little arrangement of scented candles and a vase. I always like to have fresh flowers from the garden around the house.

One of the electric sockets we have on either side of the wash stand.

Our bathroom sockets have flip up covers which hides them from view and makes it all a bit safer for the kids too.

We chose wood-effect tiles for the floor. It did take us a while to find realistic looking ones but we are really pleased with the shape, texture and colour of the ones we finally chose.

To make the room as bright as possible and to add to the non-bathroom look we wanted, we decided to install a clear glass window and a curtain rather than the traditional bathroom window glass. A couple of years ago I fell in love with this curtain from Mirabeau online shop. Luckily The Bavarian, who normally has no opinion on fabrics, liked the curtain too. The extendable curtain pole is also from Mirabeau. The ivory colour of the metal pole matches the wall tiles and walls very well and the decorative ends are a perfect match for the floor tiles. 

The bath / shower area the day the tiler finished it.

And finally, the loo. We chose a modern style. The children are obsessed with the way the lid closes softly by itself! I love the fact that when mopping the floor I can just mop underneath it since it hangs off the wall and has no connection to the floor.

The small tiles behind the loo are from the same range as the floor tiles. We used there here to break up all the white and also used them in the bath/shower area.

We are really delighted with our new bathroom. It is so much brighter and airier than the dingy old beige one we had.