Put a Cork in it!

Instead of going on some long diatribe about how I've been busy, all kinds of things have been happening and I moved, which meant I ate leftover things from my cabinets for at least a month and trust me no one wants to read about that, I'm just going to jump right in.

Behold, the great doorway makeover of 2014.

So, backing up a teeny bit... I moved! (I loved my old apartment, but the people who owned the building loved it more and decided to sell it). One perk of moving is the chance to clean everything out, but also to get/make new stuff. I'm going to do a couple of posts on how some of the things I made for my old place fit into the new one, but first, there were a few things to do to get this one in shape. It's a "railroad" or "shotgun" style apartment which means it's just a bunch of rooms all in a line, the perk of this is that I have all kinds of space, just in a weird layout.

Now, you can see the first problem in the foreground... because the fire escape is in the kitchen, at the far end, the bedroom, at the front, has an emergency exit to the hallway. It's a really cute vintage looking door (see?)

Although right next to the adorable doorknob with the adorable teeny little key, you can see the problem.... the giant pane of glass, letting people in the hall see into the apartment, and also letting all the light from the hallway in all night. You can see the elegant solution I used for the first few weeks:

Then I decided to make lemonade out of my lemons. By which I mean, a bulletin board out of my giant hallway window.

Step 1:

There needed to be some kind of base - I had initially looked into window decals, but all of those are designed to let light in. Then I looked into contact paper, but apparently it is almost impossible to get out of glass. So, I had to cut a specially sized piece of foam board and wedge it in there. I used double-sided foam tape to stick it in.

Step 2. 

Then I had to attach the cork, which came in a big roll (the cork in the roll is nowhere thick enough by itself- it's probably only as third as deep as a pushpin would go). Getting the cork stuck up there was no small thing. I first tried the sticky tape (this picture is blurry because there was just a lot going on).

This whole thing worked brilliantly until about 4am the next morning, at which point the cork started ripping and unpeeling making a noise like a deadly animal was trying to scratch through the door, which I have to say, is quite a way to wake up in the dark. Charlotte was having no part of it and immediately ran to the other end of the apartment. I ended up gluegunning in the middle of the night, which was a first. Basically, it's just really really hard to get the cork to stick to tape-like things, because the top layer of cork dust comes off covers the tape, and you're totally screwed.

Step 3.

Once everything was attached, I put a little border up, using cute tape, to cover the edges where they didn't always perfectly meet the door.

This stuff also had a little trouble sticking to the cork, and had to be subsequently glued, but I still think it looks cute!

Step 4.

The top is way over my head so didn't seem to have a lot of need for cork, but I did cover it with cute paper on top of the foamboard.

And... the final product!