Mid-Century Front Door: Crestview

In progress with 2 coats of stain.

Naked door.

Ugly before hollow metal door (read: double ick).

June was a wickedly busy month. I'm thrilled to be onto July when I'll have some more time for blogging. I've got a lot of updates coming your way. First up you might remember way back in Feb. 2009 I bought a front door, one of the last from Crestview Doors in Austin, Texas. Crestview started out as a husband and wife team who were interested in purchasing a front door for their mid-century modern home and could not find any high-quality retailers. They ventured out, took pictures in neighborhoods built in the 1950's and 1960's and came out with a dozen or so styles that ranged from exact replicas and others that offered a more modern twist. In winter 2009 they decided to restructure their business model. They wanted to get out of the business of shipping whole front doors and in the business of selling something a bit more compact. You can check out their website now to purchase a window kit to mid-century modernize your already existing front door. This is much less expensive then purchasing and entire front door mail order. It took me while to settle on s stain and to find someone to hang the door but finally it all came together about 2 weeks ago with the help of Jonathan Plummer from Bunchberry Woodworking and Mr. Monkey of course. The front door is up and the hardware is a whole other story. It will get it's own post once the final product can be shared. In the meantime here are some pics of the before and the during (not quite the after). I still have to put one more layer of stain and the top coat and then we'll call it beautiful. Cheers!

New Year: New Door

Yippee! Yesterday our new front door arrived! I took the plunge on a somewhat calculated whim I bought a Crestview Door online. In December I spoke about the possibility of a new front door (here) but I didn't think it would happen so soon. Tiffany, friend and reader commented that Crestview doors was no longer going to be selling to individuals - instead they were going wholesale. This was news to me. So I jumped on it. I went to the Crestview Doors website - signed up for their email newsletter and the minute I received the notice of their final front door sale I knew exactly what I wanted. There were only about a dozen doors total. Many had been floor models and a few had damage. Two doors remain - and one is a crazy good deal! If you need a front door be sure to grab it. We got the Grover - pictured above. There were other less traditional models available but I thought this would be best. It would bring the house closer to what it should like and it wouldn't be too different when we decide to sell - way down the line. Anyway with all the work Mr. Monkey is doing on the front yard you will be in for a big treat when we post pictures of the "after" version of the front of the house. I'll end it like I started it - Yippee!

New Front Door Light

This top picture is what we have today - it's the AFTER! Every time I see the little globe light it  makes me think, "Thank gawd, those awful butterflies have flitted away!"

This is the before-before.
Before-before: what the house came with. ^

What we ended up with and I am very pleased even though it is "just a globe light" as Mr. Monkey labeled it.


The in-between before. This clear light only lasted for a week.
Here we are with a close up of the final. (Kindly excuse the cob webs).
Once again I'm working on making small changes around our house. I'm looking for small changes that make a big impact - at least in the way I feel everyday in the house. For this little project we worked on the front door light. The in between light we got for 6 bucks at the local hardware store (not a big box hardware store either!). But once it was up (thanks to Mr. Monkey) I was just not as happy as I had hoped. So when we went to Bring recycling in search of a new/re-used front door we saw these globe lights for a buck. I wasn't sure if it would fit but I figured for a buck it was worth the risk. And to my delight and the delight of Mr. Monkey - he was not happy about the thought of changing out another fixture - it fit - the light fixture and my fancy. The previous owner had left us with the very nice craftsman styled butterfly light. So we took it and it's parts to Bring Recycling so that someone with a cutie crafty could make good use of it. It was a nice and sturdy fixture just not to our liking.  I like to think of our new addition as the little-globe-light-that-could (give us a more MCM look, that is). I know it's a bit piecemeal at this point but the front door is next. Bring R. had a couple of options that are similar to these Crestview Doors just minus the major price tag and plus a couple decades of use. So we're keeping our eyes open. We saw two re-useable doors at Bring that were in the same style as the "Grover". As always we'll keep you posted. Later this week I'll share another holiday find from the best little store-in-a-house in Eugene, Oak St. Vintage.