Something Old, Re-Used

Something borrowed, something blue…Or however it goes. I’m not getting married, so don’t anybody get your feathers all ruffled; speaking of feathers I should take some pictures of my chickens and their fluffiness. They’re so cute. That is, if a chicken can be cute. The roosters are looking yummy. I really think I might have to eat one or two of them. I digress. This post isn’t about chickens. Or about the fact that it’s snowing outside and I have more laundry to do than you can shake a stick at; or about the fact that I haven’t got all the wrapping done, and there’s a pretty good chance we’ll be stuck at the house on Christmas Eve, instead of going to Uncle Leo’s and Aunt Lois’ house (a Ducheneaux tradition for the last 47 years- if they make this one). By the way, Uncle Leo isn’t my real Uncle, he’s Zach’s, and only through marrying Granny’s sister, Lois. But this post, really is about Uncle Leo. Sort of. In a round-about way. Uncle Leo is one of my all-time favorite Uncles. I can claim him, right? Leo is just one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet; he’s kind and he’s handy and apparently, he’s a good listener.  I mentioned to him this spring that Zach and I were looking for an old door because I wanted one so that I could make a headboard out of it. And low and behold, when we shipped his calves out this fall, we get to his house, and what do we find, but an old door. It’s something like 80+ years old, and has about 4 different colors of paint on it; is beautifully crackled and speckled and otherwise torn up; it even has a couple bullets in it.

I’ve been waiting for this time of year- when the days are short, and the colts are weaned and the cows pretty much take care of themselves (ok, so we’ll be feeding them this weekend during ensuing blizzard). There’s not a lot to do, so home-improvement projects get the limelight!  And sometimes (usually) I don’t even have to ask my cowboy to do them. He just does them. Because he rocks, and I’m lucky like that.

Two days ago, I walked into, Bud’s shop (Bud is the baby of Zach’s family), to find, my door, cut into 3 pieces. I must admit I almost freaked out, because I planned to use the door whole, but Zach, he had different ideas. The door was a raised panel door, and had four panels- two ran about 2/3 of the length, the other two the other 1/3. He decided that since it wasn’t symmetrical and we only have a queen sized bed that he would cut the door and just use the top two thirds as the headboard. He was going to use the other third as part of the headboard but make them usable side-tables that would fold up if you needed them and down if you didn’t. I must admit, that since I wasn’t in on the planning of this, I was skeptical, though he did consult me from time to time on options and such. I really should learn to trust him. After all he did build this, and this, and this, and they turned out great. He loves to make old things new, and I love rustic, western eclectic things, as evidenced here.

Below is ultimately what he came up with. He trimmed the door in 80 year old beadboard. This is also what the door looked like, when it was given to us. I just sealed it up with a spray acrylic sealer because I really liked it the way it is. What do y’all think of it?