Vintage style hand painted faux weathered doors – old world feel

I had a vision for our new bedroom and bathroom. I wanted it to feel calm, yet full of character and wanted it to speak to a part of us that feels connected to other parts of the world, the past, and what will come. Painting our doors full of peeling layers and a worn look seemed like the best way to accomplish this feeling. I love the look of century old doors found in Morocco, Turkey, and throughout Europe.

Here is how my process worked:

1. Decide on a style – do you need certain colors for your doors? This style can also be done with shades of whites, tans, browns, or do as I’ve done below and then add a mostly white layer over it if that is your style. I found interest to be incredibly helpful. I have my weathered door inspiration board here if you want to follow it.
2. Measure what size doors you need, if you’re buying some. Decide on new versus re-used doors. We found our doors used, the great part was that these heavy, duty, wood doors were $105 total for all three.  The downside to some would be that we had to build the frames for them, so that added more to that cost. Here are our doors “before”:

 

3. I went over the doors with sandpaper, roughing up all parts that would be painted.

4. Next I started painting with deep colors. I mixed layers of colors first, then rubbed both wax and with a flat palette knife I put blotches of vaseline on to repel paint as well.  For me I put some vaseline and wax directly on the wood before I painted at all. Then colors, then more wax, vaseline. Then layers of grays, then scraping with a straight edge revealing the colors underneath, then adding more paint in places. Just keep going over several days, letting paint dry between layers. Keep going until you get the feel you’re after.

5. Here are some of the paints, crackle glaze, and supplies I used:

6. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. You can just add more, sand some off, change colors. If the door feels too bold at the end, just a few layers of neutral colors like white, soft gray, or tan over it. Start by dipping your brush in the paint and dragging it lightly, not coving the whole door, then adding more as needed. Try not to make a pattern, the more random, the better.

7. Next we primed and spray finished the door handles:

8. Here are the final doors! We painted our room a soft gray color to balance out the boldness of the doors. On the glass panels I applied a few layers of gallery glass, clear stained glass paint for extra privacy while still allowing sunshine to come through.

Glass Panel Faux Weathered Door 1:

Faux Weathered Door 2:

Bifold Faux Weathered Door 3 – bifold closet door:

FINAL Result:

 

For the wood floor made of plywood:

We cut 4’x8′ sheets of plywood into 4″ x 24″ strips. I then dry brush painted many layers of stains in gray, white, red, and browns. Making sure not all pieces were the same. We then used liquid nails and an air nailer to install the floor. Staggering the pieces.  (The middle image below is from the closet, the rest of the floor was more of a random staggering pattern).  We then seals with 3 coats of floor sealer.

And that friends is how we created our new bedroom full of character, a chipper, old world feel, and yet calming.