New Life for Old Stuff

Before we moved to our current home, we were renting a beautiful old house full of original woodwork and orange shag carpet.  It had little closets in every little corner, and all the beautiful old doors had their original doorknobs.  Tucked up on top of a shelf in the kitchen was a beautiful old skeleton key that opened all those old doors.  I love that we own our home, but I really miss that house. We moved four years ago and ever since I’ve been on the lookout for great old skeleton keys.

While I was in Texas a few weeks ago I found them.  Skads of them.  I spent the better part of an hour happily digging through the pile looking for “the one’s.”  I finished this project a few days ago and I love it.  It’s currently hanging up next to my front door.  (I should point out that this frame has been hanging up next to my front door for months.  I found it at the thrift store and it’s been hanging there, unpainted and empty, for a long time.)  I covered a piece of heavy chipboard with batting and stretched a scrap of fabric around it, then hot glued it together in the back.  Then I stitched the keys on with a little bit of invisible quilting thread.  That way if I change my mind about them I can just snip the threads and use the keys somewhere else.  But I don’t see that happening anytime soon.  It took long enough for this project to get done.  And I certainly don’t need any new projects at the moment.  I’m going to try and finish up a few more Christmas presents this week.  Four more to be precise.