Behind the old blue door...

This is not literally "behind the old blue door", because that would be messy and full of lawn equipment, but more like "The Story Behind the Blue Door."

A few years ago we began the addition of "Gram's Garage" and were dealing with our garage's back brick wall.

In my picture hunt I had to resort to 2 pictures to show the entire wall. Oh look, there I am calling the family to an average weeknight dinner.

Please don't believe that.

Anyhoo, Outdoorman and I knew we were going to install a double window so Gram could look out into the backyard garden and see the crepe myrtles. What we didn't know, was where we were going to stash the lawn mower and shovels and saws and birdfeed and fertilizer and, well, lots of stuff.

Handyman Billy came up with the genius idea of creating a closet and opening it up to the backyard for just that sort of stuff. Yay for Handyman Billy!

The last picture shows the closet already being used without a door. The height of this back wall is lower than what would fit a normal, off the shelf door. Praises be, that meant Outdoorman would have to build one and I saw my opportunity!

I used inspirational pictures like this one to describe the look I was going for. Outdoorman has known me long enough and is indulgent enough to not deny a design picture in my head. Bless him.

I went online and ordered hardware that, to me, looked sufficiently aged to match my vision. Here's the brand new door Outdoorman built with tongue and grooved pine. I couldn't wait to lay out the hardware to get a picture. Oh YIPPEE.

A trip to our local Lowe's gave me plenty of paint options. Ended up, I was able to use several of the little sample paints off the shelf for accent colors.

After an initial coat of medium brown stain I then just started layering paint on the wood. I wanted a look that said "I've been around for years and my people couldn't decide what color I should be".