Cabinet Door turned Bulletin Board

As many of you know, we did a major overhaul on our kitchen when we moved in our 60's Rancher a couple years back. You can read about it here. We removed some cabinets, and replaced them with open shelving (Yay!), which left us with some cabinet doors. The doors had been lying around in our basement since the remodel. Grunt Labor wanted to throw them away, but Junk Queen me said, "No, I'm going to use them for something." Of course, I had absolutely nothing in mind, until I thought "Hey - that could be a bulletin board!" 

As so a bulletin board, it became.

This project was all about using what I had. I am in an incredibly frugal mode at the moment - especially with the makeover of the master bedroom. I know drapes and wall art are gonna cost some $$, so I'm going cheap with all my other lovely creations as much as possible. 

First, I used the same DIY chalk paint grey color from the French Country Chest to paint the cabinet door. 

I wanted this piece to have some character, so I did some distressing. I just went over it with sandpaper in a few spots. 

Then, I got out some brown shoe polish. Yes, I said brown shoe polish. No, I did not stop halfway through to shine Grunt Labor's shoes. I have never shined shoes anyway, but I digress (imagine that), I wiped the shoe polish over the distressed areas to add more depth and antique it up a bit. 

It worked perfectly! And it was just a $3 can of shoe polish! Not a ridiculously overpriced can of wax! Yay!

I had some cork lying around from a Goodwill trip from a while back. I cut it the size of the inner opening on the door and then wrapped it in burlap I had left over from my burlap entry bench. (those sacks just keep giving and giving!)

 

I used hot glue to secure the burlap to the cork, then ran out of glue sticks, and had a slight nervous breakdown. 

The next day I got glue sticks, the nervous breakdown subsided, and I flipped the cork / burlap combo and hot glued it to the door. 

 

Right now, this is in the guest room as a little "welcome / valentine decoration board." I'm not quite sure where it will end up, but that doesn't matter, right? Just that its pretty. 

 

Here's a few close ups of the distressing with the shoe polish. 

 

 

 

What do ya think? Turned anything into a bulletin board lately that wasn't meant to be a bulletin board? Love me some re-purposing!