Scavenger Chic

Upcycled Mortise locks and Shutter Shelves diy

• By Joan
• August 3, 2015
• 15 Comments

A couple of weeks ago my brother asked if I could babysit my niece, Bea, while he and his wife went hiking.  Of course I would, I don’t get to see enough of her.  He also said that he had been cleaning out his garage and had a few things I might be able to use. 

Now, my brother has really good taste in vintage and salvage stuff. He gutted his townhouse years ago and rebuilt it piece by piece using as many original details as he could.  What he couldn’t find in salvage yards, he built himself. He loves to scour the salvage yards and antique stores and always seems to find a hidden treasure. So when he says he’s cleaning out his garage, that’s saying something.

With the birth of his daughter, a year and a half ago, he hasn’t had as much time to work on projects.  So, of course I was intrigued with what might be lurking in his garage.

First things first,  Bea and I had a great time.  Here she is playing a rousing game of peek-a-boo.

But more importantly, my brother showed up with 8 sets of the above shutters (that’s 24 shutter pieces), at least 30 spindles, 2 doors (one of which was cut in half) and a newel post. Oh my gosh, I will babysit for you any day…oh, and feel free to clean out your garage any time.

You can make me happy just by delivering a pallet to my doorstep, imagine my excitement with this load!

You would think that with all my new found goodies, I would come up with something bigger than just a shelf.  Hey, I’m working on it.

For this project I only needed one of the shutters.  The problem was that the hinges had long ago been caked on with paint.

Tried applying some paint remover to the screws and letting it sit for 15 minutes.  Nothing…no bubbling.

This job called for my handy dandy Dremel.  You can see a bit of the Dremel and the cutting tool in the above picture.

By scoring the screw with the Dremel it’s easy to remove with a screwdriver.  Takes about 2 seconds!

For all you diyers out there, this technique also works great on a stripped screw.  Last year when we replaced our brass door hinges, there were tons of screws that were stripped.  The Dremel worked like a charm.

Back to the shutter.  The shutter was cleaned…then sanded with a palm sander….then given a coat of wax to seal.  Did I mention that this is a fairly easy project? You’re onto the last step.

These are mortise locks.  They are the piece of the old time door knobs that fit inside the door.  You need the ones with the part that sticks out for screws (not the top one). I have had a few of them sitting around for a couple of years…

…Ever since making door knob table numbers for my son’s wedding. You can find the pallet wood centerpieces here. Everybody uses the cute doorknobs and the decorative back plate but the mortise part was pretty much trash.

The mortise locks were just screwed onto the shutter.

These are rather small shelves, so I put it out for a vote.  Do you think I should add another wooden piece on top of the mortise to make a larger shelf?  The vote was unanimous, I should leave them as is.  Of course, only 2 people were voting, but it was still unanimous. 

So cute to show off any small collectible. 

I already have plans for one of the doors as well as a few more of the shutters.  Have a great week and don’t throw away those mortise locks.

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