One of our front doors (it's a little confusing to visit our house) has this super neat old latch, and requires the actual vintage-looking key in order to lock or unlock it from the inside.
So that little key has to stay close to the front door, or else there is no opening it for the occasional salesperson or visitor who doesn't yet know to use the back door. With children who can easily grab the key in the keyhole and run, it obviously has to live someplace else, someplace very secret and/or unreachable. Especially because I have not yet discovered their mother of all hiding places, where three of my measuring cups have resided for at least two months now.
So far, this has been our very classy and aesthetically pleasing solution. Please note Isaac's phone in the foreground. He boosted it from Mikayla when she realized she could talk into an old iPod with similar results. Now our son toddles around happily with a pink plush cell phone going, "Hooooo (hello), pa pa, hoooo, mee-ma!" Who said anything about gender stereotypes at our house?
Tucked away in the recesses of my mind, then, has been a desire to find a more fitting home for our key. I thought it would be neat to hang it on a hook somehow, next to the door. But I never quite got around to it.
Enter my current obsession with repurposing picture frames and recent trip to Goodwill, where I purchased about ten really beautiful frames that we intend to use for a collage in our living room. Someday.
This project seriously consisted of removing the glass from the frame, and covering the cardboard backing with a piece of thin quilt batting and a scrap of muslin left over from my Advent calendar. I didn't even secure those in place, just put the frame back together and hoped for the best. I still needed a hook...a tiny, somewhat attractive hook...then I remembered that we had JUST that sort of hook on both sides of our bathroom window. I'm sure they're there to hold curtain tie-backs, but seeing as how I still have not curtained the bathroom, a year later I figured I could spare one of them.
I basically jammed the hook through my fabric and backing and secured the back with a little glue so it would hold the weight of the key. Here's how it turned out:
It's almost a little too neutral-on-neutral for me, but it does have a nice contrast with the maroon edge of the matting, and the darkness of the frame itself. It's hard to see, but there is tiny metallic detailing around the inside edge of the frame as well. I would consider swapping out the hook for a ribbon hanging in the frame if I had the right color, but alas, I do not.
This was a fun little project that required minimal time and resources, thanks once again to the rotary cutter that made trimming the materials a total breeze. I may not ever move out of this house (or when I do, they may find themselves short one front door key), because I love how much character and charm this old latch and key have. And now I get to enjoy it all the more from my comfy perch on the sofa. Bliss.
More to come, as I hope during naptime today to put together a frame for our bathroom mirror and/or repaint a wooden shelf I found for Mikayla's room. I don't know what it is, but I'm finally motivated to do the zillion projects I've been contemplating since we moved in. Perhaps somebody left a Round Tuit lying around here without me knowing it...
You know, you always get something done when you get "a round tuit". (Thank you, Dad, I remember that one from all the way back in your Westminster College days!)
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