Wardrobes-Part One

Once upon a time Niall bought me George Clark's "Home Bible".  I read it and we decided to follow his advice and design our doorframe (the one door frame we moved and actually got to decide placement of) to fit storage behind it.

We had a few pieces of furniture left from our house in Cardiff.  I loved each one, and we tried to make them work for the house.  But, after a year of trying, we finally gave up and called defeat.

I mean, we tried.  Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or sell it an buy something that works.  So, step one for Operation New Wardrobes was Gumtree listings for the furniture!  

We want to put some storage in the room that will last long term.   Right now the two little girls don't need much wardrobe space, but that will soon change.  I saw a blog post where Meg and the Martin Men took an Ikea Pax wardrobe frames and had a frame built to make the storage look more custom.  It seemed like a good fit for what we need.  (Doesn't it look great?)

Even the basic Ikea wardrobe frames are pricey (£65 each.)  Plus the doors and components make what we're aiming for about £800 just for the stuff from Ikea.  In case you're wondering, that's way too expensive for us.  As per usual, I spent weeks.  I hunted high and low, posted WANTED ads, ended up doing silly haggling and hauling and we're to this point:  Three frames, with the components, plus some doors that need some TLC.  Factoring in the proceeds from the furniture we sold, we're at a total spend of £65.  Way more complicated, but a lot easier on the budget.

Over the next little while I'll work on the doors, which need paint, and then I'll attach and secure the wardrobes.  And a bit down the road we'll get the carpenters to come in and do their magic to make these beauties look a little less Swedish Superstore and a little more bespoke.  In the meantime, Niall and I are pretty much experts at the assembly of PAX wardrobe frames.  Natch.

Push Plates-Making Original Features

Some of our neighbors have beautiful wooden doors with the original 1920's hardware.  Our doors are painted, but do have the original locks and knobs.  I was perusing gumtree and came across this...

At £10 a door, we considered buying all the doors and replacing ours.  But, we've learned the hard way that after 90 years, the doors aren't so easily interchanged.  Plus, we just had all our doors retrofit to meet building regs, so we didn't buy the doors.

However, I did contact the seller and asked about the hardware.  He was willing to sell, so  I went to take a look.  Unfortunately, the brass knobs were modern.  But the brass push plates were the real deal.  I picked up all the seller had (five) for £10.  They are so ornate and lovely!

The plates were quite tarnished, and it took at least an hour per plate to bring back the shine.  Plenty of time to get to know all the details.

Now our doors have some original (to the neighborhood) push plates.

Push plates are so pretty!