Category Archives: Random Makes

Somebody asked about my headboard… about a dozen years ago we put picket fence around all the back yard gardens, and I used this leftover piece to make the headboard for our bedroom. We have a big slider door that looks out at the back yard and I wanted the bedroom to seem like an extension of the outside. We put up a screened gazebo on the deck so we can walk out in nice weather, even maybe have coffee out there in our jammies. With that in mind, I put up a clothesline inside the screen house frame and hung curtains. Disclaimer: my room is a mess. In order to take this picture I threw all the mess to the back of the room and stood in the pile to take the picture. I can’t be expected to CLEAN MY HOUSE, you know. I am WAY too busy making odd decorating projects, lol. 

I had a cardboard globe somewhere but this curb harvested plastic one lets light through. The base said “Room 205”. It might hold a bird bath one day.

Jeff and I installed this as Molly’s bedroom door as a surprise on Christmas eve. She’s a Doctor Who fan, and the time traveling machine from that series is The Tardis, a British police phone box.

Her room has an odd sized doorway, so we had to cut down the length of a hollow core bifold door. That involves removing the block of wood at the bottom (predrilled with hardware holes), sawing off the required inches, and reinstalling the blocks of wood with a little carpenter’s glue.

I turned the door upside down because I needed to cut out panels to make windows, and the long panels are usually at the bottom. I laid it on the table and used an exacto knife to make repeated cuts around the grooves of the top panels, on either side, until I could saw/pop them out with a steak knife.

I cut plexiglas to fit onto those holes and glued it in there with liquid nails, thick like glazing putty.

I made the white privacy glass effect with a cut-and-apply film. I mitered (kinda) the half-round molding to make window vanes. really, it looks better from a distance… lol

The pic was taken from the clothes closet across the hall — the blue looks too dark because of the lighting but it’s Who blue, really. The two side boards are the door frame. The top is a one by four and a taller board with notches Jeff cut. The sign is just a painted board with blackboard paint on it and I printed and cut out the alphabet letters and mod-podged them on there. The sign rim is made of wooden yardsticks.

Jeff printed the sign for the front and that’s mod-podged to the door.

All that’s missing is the door handles — looking for a spare moment and the right drill bit.

Oh, and the little light thingy on top. I’m almost done with it but have to rig a thin, hidden extension cord to plug an electric eye night light inside of it.

It looks awesome in the dark when M is in there, and it’s all lit from inside.

Somebody offered to pay me to make one for their house, but I said I would rather do something that takes less time and effort for the money… like, say, a surrogate pregnancy. (kidding.)