Replacing Interior Doors

*This post is sponsored by Woodgrain and some of the links below are affiliate links. For more detailed information please see full disclosure.*

I believe that the toughest jobs can be accomplished with the right tools.

Would you agree? 

I am really happy to finally be creating this post as it means that we have completed yet another huge project in our house – the interior doors. We have replaced all of them! ??

Most houses on the market come with builder grade doors and this house was no exception, except our doors were in really bad shape. They were old, dirty, smelly and just plain outdated. 

Just look for yourself…

These are the same doors you see in 90% of homes today. I mean, let’s be serious, those doors did NOT go with these windows…

And then there was the door to the basement with the smallest “doggy” door in the world… we don’t have pets FYI. 

Also, brass knobs? No thanks! 

I was on a mission… a mission to customize our home by replacing our interior doors…. all of them! 

We have partnered with Woodgrain when we cased out our windows (shown above) and we have partnered again with them for this makeover as well. They have the best quality custom interior doors with an extensive selection of door patterns and styles to suit any home with any aesthetic. 

My husband and I decided to go with a more simple craftsman style door.

It’s simple but pairs beautifully with our cottage farmhouse style. It can also be used in more modern or transitional decor by simply painting them a color other than white. 

Either way the difference is amazing! 

If you have ever considered replacing an interior door, two doors or even all the doors to your home the thought can seem pretty daunting, but I want you to know everything you need in order to start the process.

This tutorial will be in video format for you to get the best instruction possible, but I want to go over the tools you will need ahead of time.  

First thing’s first, doors come in slabs – this means the door will come in one solid piece. No hinges, no holes, no knobs… nada. You will need to do the rest. 

So, you will be drilling holes and making notches, but rest assured it’s simpler than you think. 

Tools

The first tool you need to know about is the door hinge kit and we use this one from Ryobi.  

This will allow you to create a template for you to go over and notch out the where the hinge goes.  You will do this with a router. We own this one shown below. 

The hinge kit is adjustable to any hinge size and stays firm on your door while you notch it out. 

We decided to replace our hinges so we went with these hinges to match our hardware. 

If you measure everything correctly, you will get a perfect fit. 

Before you do anything else you will need to hang the door back on to its frame. 

And then you will need another kit, a door lock installation kit.  This mechanism will allow you to place it on the door to fit the latch on the frame perfectly. We show you exactly how in the video below. 

After your holes are done, you will need your final kit, a door latch installation kit. This will help create the template that will allow you to notch out the latch area. 

You will need to use your router again for this. 

Then it’s time to install your hardware. 

We chose these knobs and I am in love! The rectangular piece in the back mimics the pattern on our doors and I love that antique bronze look. We bought them here. 

After that it was time to paint the doors and I used my trusty Sherwin Williams paint that I use for all of my cabinets and trim. 

Once they were dry my new doors were complete! 

Aren’t they so much better than what was there before? This seems like such a simple idea, but when you finally see how drastic a change a gorgeous well made door is in your home, it elevates everything else in the space!  

It’s no longer cookie cutter, builder grade blah… it’s a statement!

These doors are solid and heavy. They are built differently than builder grade doors since they are not made with particle board. They have an interior wood slat that is flanked by two thick MDF pieces in order to create the crispest lines when cutting the customized pattern on the doors. 

And it’s like those doorknobs were specifically made for those doors!

What’s even more exciting is that now that I have all of these architectural details added to my home, I can finally start transforming the rest of my rooms! 

And nothing speaks more than a side-by-side.  

I want to give my husband, The Latino Engineer, a huge shoutout. He was the lead in this project and I was his assistant and painter. I think he did an amazing job! 

Now that you know what you need and are inspired, it’s time to get to work and if you have been thinking about doing this yourself, check out where you can find a location near you that offers custom interior doors by Woodgrain. 

Simply go HERE to check it out! 

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Replacing Interior Doors: Video TUTORIAL

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I hope you liked the new doors and perhaps you learned something new! We love sharing anything we can that may help you with fixing up your home and making it the house of your dreams. 

We will continue to learn and share the knowledge we gain along the way as we continue our journey. 

Don’t forget to share this with anyone you think will appreciate it. ?

I look forward to seeing you in the next one… until then, adios! 

 

DIY Window Trim

*This post is sponsored by Woodgrain and some of the links below are affiliate links. For more detailed information please see full disclosure.*

Hey everyone! How was your weekend? I hope you were able to enjoy some time with family and friends. It has been pretty chilly here these past few days and I have been cozying up by the fire inside our house. 

I mean, is there anything better than a wood burning fireplace??? ?

As promised, I am back with my other post that I talked about last week. This post has been a long time coming, however, since it has been just my hubby and I that do this as we progress through our house (and he has a full time job), this project has taken a little longer than expected. 

But alas, here we are! 

The minute we walked into our new home I noticed something immediately – there were no casings around my windows.

They looked naked. ?

I had never owned a home without window casings before and the windows just looked bizarre to me. I knew that the windows were going to have to be addressed at some point. 

Of course, we had to remove the popcorn ceilings, repaint the walls, remove and install new flooring, replace the baseboards and fix the kitchen…. 

So after all of that was done it was time to get started.

I went to Pinterest to see what kind of inspiration was out there and naturally, I went to Canva to draw up what I had in mind after I decided on a look.

This is what I ended up with.

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You can also watch the video tutorial on Youtube as well!  

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I used 3 different sized pieces of millwork for my window casing. I wanted a large 5.5″ inch (actual size) millwork piece for the top. 1.5″ pieces for the top trim pieces and 3.5″ pieces for the sided and below the window sill. 

I didn’t want the casing to be just a square so  I wanted the top part and the sill to come out the sides a little more. 

They ended up being 1.5″ wider than the side casings. Feel free to take a screen shot and save these images for future reference if you wish to do something similar. 

Once the drawings were done, it was time to get to work. The first thing we needed to do was demo the existing window sills. You will need to score the edges with a box cutter and then use a hammer and crowbar to remove the existing sill. 

 

Once you remove the sill, you need to make sure that all the nails are removed and any debris is vacuumed up with a shop vac.

Then it was time to cut the new casings! 

For this we used Woodgrain’s Finished Elegance millwork from their Timeless Craftsman collection. The pieces are all pre-primed and their finish is super smooth. They are all cut with square edges that are slightly rounded so the corners aren’t so harsh. 

Woodgrain is celebrating 65 years of manufacturing and their dedication to providing great wood products is exceptional. They offer millwork of all styles and they are both manufacturer & distributor of their wood products. I was honored to actually go and visit one of their distribution centers here and they have such an amazing operation. Woodgrain also manufactures doors and windows. 

Another great thing about Woodgrain is that they really consider the environment. Whenever lumber goes through their sawmills and millwork facilities they capture the wood fibers and shavings from when they cut down the lumber and then use that for animal bedding (the type used in stables etc.). That’s pretty awesome! 

And the best thing about their millwork is that you can buy it at your local Home Depot. So, if you are looking to update your home, definitely give their products a try! 

Okay… so after we took the necessary measurements we cut each window based on their exact measurements. Since our home is older we knew that there were going to be slight differences here and there.

We used our miter saw to cut the pieces to length, and used the jigsaw only for the window sills. 

Next, we set the sill in place and nailed the sill in with a brad nailer. 

We placed the sill first and then the 2 side pieces. We made sure to use liquid nails along with the brad nailer to install the rest of the trim. 

The top piece was assembled before it was installed as shown below. 

Finally, the last piece that was installed was the trim piece that went underneath the window sill. 

After everything was attached, we went in with Woodgrain’s Finished Elegance caulk and made sure to seal all the seams so that it looked like the window casings were always there. 

And even though these are pre-primed I still went in with my favorite paint to cover all of the nail holes and the sides that were cut exposing the MDF. I wanted to make sure everything was seamless and that the casings matched my new baseboards as well. 

After everything was done, this is how they turned out! 

They totally changed the look of the windows! 

By adding casing in this design the windows look even bigger and are now a focal point in the rooms.  

And they go perfectly with our new Woodgrain baseboards!

What do you think of the change? Here is a side by side. 

Now, there were a few windows in the home where we could not case out the windows completely because of the lack of space between them. So, we made sure to replace the window sills and paint everything light and those windows still look great! 

I am extremely pleased with their new look and how simple it was to add so much character and value to our home. 

Let me know if you have any questions below! And share this with anyone who wishes to “level-up” the look of their windows. ?

I will see you soon! 

Until then…adios!

Cottage Farmhouse Dining Room Reveal

*This post is sponsored by Lamps Plus and some of the links below are affiliate links. For more detailed information please see full disclosure.* 

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I took a much needed break and I will be honest it has been hard getting back to the rhythm of things. There are a couple of posts that I am excited to share with you all and then going forward for the rest of the year I decided to figure out a better schedule for myself. 

As of right now I will be doing one post and one video per week. I am hoping it will give me adequate time to get each video and coordinating blog post out at the same time (which is something I really want to do for this new year). This is not to say that there may be more than that per week on occasion, but there should always be a new one every Wednesday. ??

Okay back to our scheduled programming…. ??

One of the things I have been dying to tackle for a while now is our sad dining area. It’s actually comprised of 3 areas: the entrance, the dining room and the transition space from the dining room to our newly updated kitchen. 

First off, the entrance is so sad. The door is outdated and the furniture in the area is a mismatch of items that we kept after we sized down to our new home. We sold a lot of things on FB Marketplace and only kept the essentials. This meant that not everything went together. 

The large dark cabinet is an entertainment center and the blue cabinet is a really old makeover when I first started painting furniture…. I have come a long way folks . ?

The entertainment console (as you can see from this angle) also weighs everything down and blends into the dark floors giving no character at all to the wall behind it. And the lamps are outdated and just between you and me, the one on the right doesn’t work anymore. ?

The secretary you see on the corner will be a furniture flip I will share here soon. The fireplace is also outdated and will eventually be given a facelift… just not today! 

In regards to the dining table, that is actually a new purchase off of Facebook marketplace. We sold our old dining table and purchased this one. I love how it’s so large and fits the room perfectly so that is definitely staying. 

Finally, lighting has been a huge issue as well. We only have one large window in this space and it’s underneath a porch so not much light shines through. You can see below that there are areas more lit than others and I still have the ceiling fan base up after we took off the blades to remove the popcorn ceiling.

Yep! Full transparency here folks!?

You can also see how sad this transition wall to the new kitchen is. It had no character and looked extremely cluttered with all of the items we were keeping on top of my old coffee bar table (originally an IKEA hack). 

So I am sure you can see how all of this was driving me crazy! Everything was disjointed and not coordinating at all. 

I will say that one thing I do love about the space are the window casings that my hubby and I installed ourselves (more on that soon!). I am also grateful for our floors being done, the updated wall color and new baseboards that we replaced. 

So in essence the place has good bones, but it just needs a furniture and decor overhaul.

So I got to work!

Initially I had wanted to turn the transition space into a pantry because I currently walk all the way down the hall, but I did several renderings and honestly, all of the options I liked were just too large and overpowering for the space. Plus, there was still the issue of the area being too dark. 

So I nixed that. 

Pantry shown above is a design from Ana White*

I decided that I wanted to make this a feature wall instead with lighting, shelving and a unit that would not only give me style but storage. 

RELATED: How to Create a Mood Board Tutorial

Lamps Plus reached out to me during the time I was planning everything and wanted to be a part of the transformation so I checked out what their website had to offer. And let me tell you their selection was amazing! 

Not only do they have lighting options for all areas of your home, in different styles and for different budgets, but they also had home decor accents and furniture pieces to transform any space in your home. 

I went to Canva online in order to put together a rendering of the entire space to make sure that I coordinated everything for a seamless flow, but also to make sure that there was adequate lighting in the space with what they had to offer. 

And this is what I came up with. 

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As always you can watch the transformation on my YouTube Channel as well. 

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Now while some of these pieces were not what I ended up going with in the end, this gives you an idea of what it will look like when everything came together. 

The most complicated and time consuming part of the project was the transition wall. This included hardwiring sconces to our existing electrical and then stenciling the entire wall and adding shelves.

I chose this stencil and decided to give the wall a very light painting treatment. I didn’t want to overpower the space with too many things going on, but adding a stencil gave it a more high end and cozy feel.

Once the hardwiring was complete thanks to my awesome husband (don’t worry, he is professionally trained), it was time to add the actual sconces. 

After that was complete we picked up these brackets and installed them on the wall with some wood pieces that I stained to match my existing plate rack in my kitchen wall. 

Also, the screws that worked for this installation were silver, but I took some metallic black paint to camouflage them. 

Once that was done, I added some drapes to the window at the front. The window (while it looked amazing with the new casing) was still lacking something and adding the drapes I used in my office at the last house worked perfectly for this. 

Finally, I couldn’t leave my front door as is. It was outdated and dingy and I couldn’t wait to give it a facelift so I used Magnolia’s Wedding Band in a Semi-Gloss to give it a refresh. Perhaps someday in the future I can replace it, but for now, this will do. 

Once the larger pieces arrived and we set them up, it was time for the accessories. Most of the accessories I used were from our last house, but they paired perfectly with the new pieces from Lamps Plus. 

For example, this task lamp from Lamps Plus was perfect for the entrance. I paired it with this greige table and added items to the shelf on the bottom. 

Plus, I love the fact that this table lamp is so unique and it has a base that allows you to plug in your phone or tablet to charge. So handy!

On the other side of the entrance I added this server that functions as 3 things: storage, another entrance table and a buffet when needed. Win-win-win!

Plus, look at how much those lamps light up the space. It doesn’t feel as dark anymore. 

Again I used more of my old decor for the area and replacing my outdated lamps with these made a huge difference -plus they were more my style. 

Replacing the chandelier was the only thing needed over by the actual dining table. But by just doing that it elevated the space so much and created such a focal point! 

Now, over to what is possibly my favorite area of them all – the transition space. I LOVE how this came together exactly how I envisioned it. It doesn’t look like the same space anymore (as a matter of fact, it even looks larger!). 

And not only does everything work perfectly to get that high end Cottage Farmhouse style, but the light this space now has is amazing.

The stencil gave it that personal touch, the shelves filled in the empty wall space, the storage console gave me storage and a surface to place things on and the sconces added so much life to this dreary space. 

Look at how everything came together and brightened up the entire space! 

JUST WOW! I am so in love! Do you have a favorite piece from the updated space?  I would love to know below! 

It’s definitely a huge change from before and the look of everything is elevated! The space looks more cohesive and sophisticated.

The best part about this is that there was no huge demo involved. By adding one pair of sconces, replacing the current light fixture above the dining table replacing the outdated lamps and adding one task lamp by the entrance, I resolved all of my lighting issues. In addition, by adding some key pieces of furniture with similar materials and styles the entire space was transformed. 

Another great thing was that I was able to accessorize with things that I already had on hand allowing me to appreciate everything even more. 

If you are looking at updating your space with either new lighting and/or furniture I would highly recommend Lamps Plus as they have such a large online selection with different styles and price points.

In addition, their items ship fast and their furniture pieces are packaged so well in order to protect them during delivery. We were really impressed with the care of packaging because in the past we have received items from other vendors that were damaged, split or broken so that definitely is important to us. Plus the quality of the actual product is hard to beat! 

I look forward to seeing you all back here very soon!