Laundry Room Door...Part 2

This project has been a long time coming. Back in January, we purchased an old paneled window door to replace our old louvered laundry room door.  You can read about that purchase on my blog post about it.  We found it at The Old Home Supply House out in Ft. Worth. ($75) I LOVED this place.  Great antiques, a warehouse of old doors and windows, and if you have an older home it's a great way to keep with the era of the home.

It took me so long to complete this project it was absolutely ridiculous!  The main reason being, is because I stripped down the entire door to the bare wood before I painted it. 2 words...big. mistake.  The wood had over 6 layers of paint on it, and judging from the difficulty of the removal, I think the door was an exterior door.  a.k.a. the paint was baked on hard.

One side of the door was white, and the other side was a poopy greenish color.

 

 I had to use hard core Klean-Strip paint stripper and let it sit for a really long time before I was able to peel any of the layers off. With the paneled door it was really difficult getting into each crevice to make sure everything smoothed out.

I spent weeks...WEEKS peeling the paint off of both sides of this door. It was baked on so hard.  I also used wood filler to fill in all of the small holes, and knicks.  I used the sander as little as I needed to.  I started off with Norton 80 grade sand paper in order to strip off as much paint as I could.  I then finished it off with Norton 100 grade smoothing sandpaper. Even still there were a lot of imperfections I just had to live with.  

It was a most glorious day when I was finally able to put the first layer of paint on the door.  I just used Eggshell White Glossy Paint from Home Depot. 

Once the door was painted I used a razor blade to scrape off the glass and get every bit of dust and paint off.  Cheese cloth works so well for making sure that everything is off of the door.

 

I knew I wanted to frost the window, so I got the Rust-oleum Frosted Glass spray in a can.  As you can see from the image below, it didn't turn out so well.  There were specks, and really uneven cloud coverage on the window.  I would not recommend this product for frosting windows at all!  I would probably only use this for small craft projects, not large windows.

The window sucked, so I ended up having to completely 

scrape off the frosting off of the entire window.....not fun. 

I went back to Home Depot and found this little treasure. Artscape Etched Glass peel and stick.  Whoever invented this stuff was genius. I cut out the piece that I wanted for the window (I cut about an inch more than I needed), sprayed the glass with a soap and water mixture, peeled and stuck the adhesive to the surface, and then squeegeed out the soap and water.  The great thing about this stuff is that if you have bubbles, you just peel it off, spray with soap and water, and then start again.  It's absolutely fool-proof.  After I got the adhesive where I wanted it, I used a razor blade to cut it close in to the window so that there weren't any imperfections on the border.  Miracle product, I'm telling you, and very cost effective. They also have many other decorative designs as well.

The vinyl decal I used came off of Etsy from Circle Wall Art.  When I found this design, and fell in love with it, it was originally huge.  I contacted the maker, and asked if they could customize it for my window.  It came all the way from London and was great quality.  It took both husband and I to get the decal level on the glass, this took about 15 minutes by itself. We taped it, and then started scratching.

This decal was pretty easy to apply, but I have to be honest, I was SO nervous peeling this thing off! My one piece of advice when working with vinyl decals...PATIENCE.  

 The great thing about decals is that you can clean right over them with any glass cleaner and they will be fine.  On one side of the glass I had the frosting decal, and on the other, the "laundry" decal. Worked perfect.

We also purchased the door knobs at the home supply store.  I really love glass knobs, and these were perfect. 

 

I totally forgot to take any photos of us changing out the hinges, but we found some black steel ones at Home Depot.  There was such anticipation in getting the door hung back in the kitchen/laundry room.  I squealed when it finally was installed.  Here's a blurry Before & After.  So glad that this project is finally complete. 

I have a lamp in my laundry room and at night it gives a really nice glow through the frosted glass.  Everyone who walks into our house has raved about the door.  Big improvement!

Vacation Part 4: Vienna, Austria

On the train ride to Vienna I finished reading "Heaven is for Real." Great book, an easy read, and really shifts a lot of perspectives on Heaven and the eternal.

We arrived mid-afternoon in Vienna and walked the long Mariahilfer Strasse from the Westbahnhof train station and arrived (after getting slightly confused and lost) at the K and T Boarding House for our stay.  That evening Husband booked us tickets to the Wiener Staatsoper Opeera House to see Mozart's "Le Nozze de Figaro." This historic opera house is where Mozart, Wagner, Beethoven, and many other famous composers have directed. 

    

All dressed up! Seats weren't the best, but hey, when you have a chance 

to see a Mozart Opera in Vienna...you do what ya gotta do. 

Vienna reminded me a lot of NYC.  Big city, lots of shopping, and on the main stretch of road we were on there were 4 Zara's and 3 Humanic stores all within' a mile. 

We spent the following day exploring Burrgarten, Hofburg Palace, and the Schemetterlinghaus.

Butterfly House Museum

Late in the day we headed over to Saint Stephen's Cathedral.  This was an amazing adventure of a church, because there are catacombs underneath the structure that are REALLY cool, and kind of freaky too.

Isn't the tile roof amazing? 230, 000 of those tiles...pretty incredible.

Schonbrunn Palace was a great highlight of the trip.  This place was not only huge, it is one of the most important cultural monuments in the country.  Known for it's huge palace gardens, the fun secret of the place is that the gardens comprise of a maze! 

I feel so small! 

Out last night in Vienna we headed on the trolly about 20 minutes outside of town to the quaint little town of Grinzing to visit a Heuringer, wine garden.  Imagine a cute little outdoor winery filled with accordion music, laughter, and gatherings of friends and families.  The food is all home cooked and the winery has been passed down for generations too far back to count.  Definitely a good ending to our last night in Vienna. 

I have to say this was one great vacation.  Salzburg, and Zurich were probably my favorite stops.  One things for sure, I have the greatest travel partner.  Husband has shown me more of the world in the past 2 years of our marriage than I have ever seen in my life!  Thank you my darling for another world traveling adventure. **muah!**

Vacation Part 3: Salzburg, Austria

Open scene..."Thhheee hiilllllsss are alliiivveee with the sounnnddd offf mmuussiiicccc!!!"  We were so excited to arrive in Salzburg after a long train ride.  Thankfully our hotel was not far from the train station and we walked to our little historic stay. 

My first tweet upon arriving at Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in Salzburg:

Apparently the Haribo gummy bear factory is in Salzburg, and they were everywhere.  There were even gummy bear vending machines on the streets. Crazy.  

We wanted to get out and explore a bit the afternoon we arrived, and then devise our plan over dinner for the remaining 2 days.  Salzburg is known for a lot of things, but the main 2 things it's known for is The Sound of Music (TSOM), and Mozart, both of which I have a great love for.  We discovered that one of the main gardens, Mirabell Gardens, on TSOM was right down from our hotel. We had to go!  

Husband gettin' his sang on. haha.

See any resemblance? 

We only did a bit of exploring that evening, and then went to dinner at a cute little italian diner to try to figure out how the next 2 days were going to play out.  Husband and I had a great plan for not stressing each other out. (We do that sometimes) :) 

When we travel, or are on "vacation," we have two different frames of mind.  Husband wants to wake up at 7am (or possibly earlier), get breakfast, and hit every high point, castle, museum, tour, or what have you, in every city.  I, on the other hand, have a more laid back approach: sleep in till 9 or 10am, get brunch, do a bit of window shopping, or actual shopping, hit a tourist/historic site that I REALLY REALLY want to see, maybe 2 or 3 of them, if they are close by and the afternoon allows for it,  stop for coffee once or twice, shop, sit and people watch....you get the point.  

On this trip since we had about 2, or 2 and a half days in each location, we decided that he would get to plan out a day, and I would get a day.  And we would do what the other person wanted to do on their day, with no whining or complaining, grouching or moaning, and let the person plan and have their own day.  Married couples....this is our secret to being the best travel partners ever, and staying sane.  It was a fabulous plan and we had the best time planning out and enjoying each others "days." 

Salzburg has SOO much to see and do!  We were both very torn about what specific sites we wanted to visit.  Specifically I wanted to, of course, go on the 4 hour SOM tour, and Husband wanted to go on the 4 hour "Hitler's Eagles Nest" tour.  Both of those alone would knock out an entire day, and we knew that we could see more in our time there.  

Turns out that we both threw our agendas away, and came up with the best idea on the trip.  If you ever go to Salzburg you need to purchase The Salzburg Card.  This little baby will pay for itself twice over, get you deals and discounts, lots of free stuff, and you will see a ton.  I would only recommend this for people who have a limited stay in Salzburg.  Anyone staying over 3 days, go have at any tour you want.  

These shots are from our days combined:

Mozart's birthplace and residence

The entire city has a great love for Mozart and his work. 

Salzburg Cathedral in Mozartplatz (Mozart Square)

More sites in Mozart Square.  Boroque Neptune Fountain, and the Sphaera sculpture from Balkenhol

Took the trolly to the top of Festug Hohensalzburg

Great view of the city and the Salzach River

Artist in the square

Below the castle we went through St. Peter's Cemetery and Catacombs.  This was were the Von Trapp family hid in the movie, and Mozart's sister is also buried here.

Salzach River boat tour. 

Went to Augustiner Abbey and Mullner Brau Brewery.  Probably one of the coolest stops on our trip.

Walking back to the hotel at dusk over the Salzach River.

On my day I wanted to do some of the SOM tour stops, but minus the tour.  We made our way outside of town to Hellbrunn Palace.  This stop was a huge surprise for us.  We were just expecting another "castle palace" tour, but this turned out to be one of the highlights of Salzburg.  The palace is specifically known for it's "trick fountains" hidden in the architecture and landscape of the palace grounds. We had the best time laughing with complete strangers over our entertainment of getting soaking wet!

Here is a short video of the trick fountains...

Palace tour...love this shot of Husband, he looks so entertained.

And the final stop at the palace..."You are sixteen, going on seventeen...."(I don't remember any of the other words, so I just sang that line over and over again, haha)

Final meal in Salzburg at Cafe Mozart.  I recently tried to recreate the dish that I had there: penne pesto pasta with sun dried tomatoes and bacon. Yum.

That evening we embarked upon the last and final stop of our vacation, Vienna.