How To Turn A Vintage Door Into a Family Message Center

How can a perfectly weathered vintage door help keep your family better organized? By turning it into a Family Message Center, of course!

Vintage doors are a popular item to re-purpose for home decor.

You can easily turn a vintage door into a Family Message Center, making it a useful home command center as well as a beautiful focal point of any room.

How to Turn a Vintage Door Into A Family Message Center

An All Things New Again Tutorial

Vintage doors are one of our favorite items to look for when we are out treasure hunting. We usually have a few for sale at our store All Things New Again in Leesburg, Virginia. This 24 x 80 inch door had a great shape to it—and a beat-up white paint job that needed sprucing up. We liked this door because it had two distinct sections we could use when turning it into a Family Message Center.

Adding Farmhouse Flair with Milk Paint

We started by cleaning up the door. Cleaning is always my least favorite part of any paint makeover, but it is so important.

Then I mixed up a batch of Real Milk Paint Company’s Warm Ash and sloppy painted it on.

This wasn’t even a full coat of paint. I just wanted to get some of this rich brown color onto the door so when I distressed it later, the brown would come through instead of the old white color.

PAINT TIP: Warm Ash is a great color to use as a basecoat—especially if you are covering up a previously painted piece and you want to give the appearance of wood coming through your final color.

After the Warm Ash dried, we applied Real Milk Paint’s Hemp Oil around the edges of the door where we thought it would naturally distress over time. The Hemp Oil creates a resist for the second color of paint you apply, allowing the basecoat color to come through with some wonderful texture.

You do not want to apply the Hemp Oil in big splotches—thin lines will do nicely. Apply the second color of paint while the Hemp Oil is still wet. We used Real Milk Paint’s Granny Smith Green—a pretty color more on the yellow side of green—for our Family Message Center.

As the paint and the hemp oil dry together, it creates an old, crackly, alligator’ed look that I love. You can easily add this little touch of farmhouse flair to any paint project using milk paint and hemp oil.
Once the Granny Smith Green dried, it kind of bubbled up and crackled where the Hemp Oil was applied underneath. I came back and halfway scraped/ halfway sanded these areas with fine grit sandpaper to reveal the Warm Ash brown color underneath.

In some places, the door looks distressed. In other places, it looks crackly and alligator’ed. I love this look! This simple painting technique is an easy way to make any surface look old, weathered and perfectly vintage–and it fits with so many decorating styles.

I finished by sanding the entire door just to smooth everything out. No need to break out a sander. I just rubbed it with a sanding block for a few minutes. Then I brushed on Hemp Oil again—this time over the entire door—to seal the paint.

We painted that big square on top with four coats of black chalk-type paint nice and thick. When it was completely dry, I “seasoned” it by turning a piece of chalk sideways and rubbing all over to prepare the surface for writing on it.

A Family Message Center needs a spot to leave messages for each other, right?

Family Message Center Finishing Touches

The finishing touches complement the rustic look of the piece and are what transform this vintage door into a fully functional Family Message Center. We turned a cup handle drawer pull upside down to make a chalk tray. We also added rusty star-shaped knobs from the inventory we carry in the shop to hang a wire basket.

Now this vintage door looks beautiful—and it serves a great function as a Family Message Center and spot to drop mail. Perfect for an entryway, kitchen or mud room!

Your Family Message Center doesn’t have to take up a huge space in your home. Vintage doors are perfect for this function because there are so many places where you can prop them. The milk paint and rustic touches we added to our Family Message Center give it a little farmhouse flair, but you can choose different hardware and create an entirely different look to fit the style of your home perfectly.

And—most importantly—help keep your family organized!

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All Things New Again

All Things New Again is a family-owned furniture and paint boutique in Leesburg, Virginia, about an hour or so west of Washington, D.C. Stop by the next time you are in town!

We sell one-of-a-kind hand painted furniture, home decor and several lines of paint for your next DIY project. We also offer painting classes and workshops . If you like the farmhouse look we created on this old door, you will love our Introduction to Real Milk Paint Class. This is a hands-on class where students create a variety of looks using milk paint plus paint a small project to take home and enjoy. Sign up today!