Remember this...

...that old water heater door that's been driving me crazy since we purchased the house? Well, thanks to my handy husband (who knew he'd become that :) I think I have solved my problem.

First, we took off the doorknob and patched & repainted all of the holes that were left from my previous camoflauging attempt. I patched & sanded, while John removed the doorknob & repainted. (He was a bit agitated at the idea of removing a fully functional doorknob, but he I convinced him of my vision & he obliged).

Then, John took 5 old fenceboards & cut off their dog-eared tops & attached them together to create a faux shutter. (No pictures of this, largely due to the fact that one of us was not in the others good graces).

After John finished the faux shutter, he used the leftover paint from the kitchen beadboard & painted the whole thing for me. Two coats even!

Now the fun part. After all the paint had dried, John started hanging everything. The top piece shown here is the original shutter from our house (along with the matching shutter that is not shown in this picture). Two summers ago, when I repainted the exterior trim & purchased new black shutters for the front windows, I saved these because of their charm & potential. Now we were finally getting to use them. I painted them this past summer and they have been sitting in our bedroom waiting to be displayed.

The 2 original shutters with the diamonds and John's faux fenceboard shutter inbetween (you can see the door below)

The finished product

If I could have, I would have scooted the entire thing over a bit to the left, but in order to cover the door and hang everything correctly I had to leave it where it is. Its right side lines up with the edge of the couch, but I think it still looks alright.

I'm very pleased with the outcome & I even think John likes it too.

Total project cost: $0