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Tuesday, August 16, 2011

French Door: Finished!

We are looooving our French Door, especially now that we've finished it all up.

I took a few days to paint the trim inside and out, and boy did it make a difference.  First I sanded the threshold with a rough then smooth sandpaper (forgot which numbers), then put on two coats of black outdoor paint.  The white trim around the sides took three coats.




Our next step was to buy a runner that could take the place of our tiny rug.  Originally I thought about stitching together a few rugs like this tutorial, but that seemed like an awful lot of work.  So instead Mr. Great Indoors and I picked up a blue Alslev rug from IKEA for $20.  I LOVE the way it brightens up that little corner.  Now I just have to recover those dining room chairs.  Isn't that the way homeowning goes, anyway?


I got on my mad Martha ironing skills to iron out the folds (the rug comes flat-packed just like everything else at IKEA), but there's still a little crease down the middle.  I'm sure that will iron out by itself over time.  And it's cotton, so super easy to stick in the washing machine once it gets soiled.  The tag says that it's hand wash only, but I'm a daredevil-- I put it in a hand wash cycle in the machine as soon as we got home. Watch out, world.


Let's take one more look from the backyard, huh?  That beautiful morning glory vine started flowering this week.  Just like it was welcoming our door.  :-)


So that brings our grand total for the door up to $435.  You can read more about our door installation here.  I love that we got a brand new rug for twenty buckaroos.  Anybody else make any cheap but totally-worth-it purchases this weekend?

2 comments:

  1. I have the same ALSLEV rug from IKEA but in red. I love mine, but I use it in the kitchen and it gets dirty so quickly! Do you still wash yours in the machine? Does it work well? Which settings do you use? Thanks.

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    1. Yes, mine gets dirty, too, but I do wash (and dry) it in the machine. The only problem I have is that one edge rolls up. I'm not sure if it's just my particular rug -- since it was supposed to be handwashed, haha -- but I figure it's not too expensive to replace.

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