When one door closes

In my blog post "Helpful Hints to stay on budget when remodeling or building, (https://lifeandlovebringsyouhome.blogspot.com/2018/01/helpful-hints-to-stay-on-budget-when.html), I mentioned that one way we saved money was by purchasing clearance doors from a local home improvement store. By doing this, we were able to save a ton of money and get solid wood doors versus the builders grade that were figured into the budget.

We used several different styles of doors throughout the house. They all had similar styles, but each just a little bit different. Many of these
doors were less than $10. Most of them were not sold in frames, they were just the door panel itself. We purchased them early in the building process, so we knew the size off each door before framing began. We just changed the frame sizes on the plans to fit the doors. They were all different wood colors, but we just painted them all the same trim white, and the differences in the doors just disappeared.

Our master bathroom has two doors. One leads from the master bedroom into the bath and the other leads from the bathroom into the master closet. The bathroom has no windows and is a long and narrow space, so I didn't want to close it off with solid doors. While searching for doors, we came across the sample door that shows the different glass types you can choose for the doors you custom order from the store. Because this 15 panel door had 5 different types of glass in it, they had marked it down to $25. It was a beautiful solid wood door with a unique finish and knot holes that made it look perfectly rugged for the farmhouse style. They only had one of these doors, but we purchased it anyway, because it was just too pretty to pass up. Then we contacted another location, and totally scored because they had another one just like it. This door wasn't marked down as much as the first one. I think we paid $45 for it. However, we purchased two doors for $70. We put one on a barn track and the other on hinges. This unexpected surprise in the clearance section has turned into one of my favorite things in the house.

For the hubby's office, we used two glass panel doors. We liked the look of these doors for his home office because he could have the doors shut for sound while allowing light into the room and not totally feeling separated from the rest of the house. When we purchased the doors, they were two different woods, but we stained them with a dark, almost espresso finish called Jacobean by Minwax, so the different tones did not show at all. Then, we hung them on a barn track to give visual impact. We purchased both doors for well under $100, much cheaper than purchasing premade barn doors. We also found a knotty pine door that was just beautiful, so we hung it in his office as the closet door, and it creates a great rustic look that is just perfect.

The process of finding these doors was not easy. We spent many hours at different locations rummaging through the clearance aisle and mapping out where each door would fit. We spent many date nights searching for the perfect doors for our new home, but it was absolutely worth it! I love that these doors are unique, and many of them have their own story, our story! Creating these memories in our modern farmhouse has made the experience all the
more meaningful.