Fall nesting

Hello everybody! Hope you had a lovely fall weekend! In between some fun I was able to get a few little things done around the house and get a bit of fall decor out as well.

I’ve actually been tackling some little projects over the past week or so – including a LOT of cleaning and organizing. Our home has felt like a mess even weeks after the construction in the family room was completed. So I’ve been addressing the piles o’ crap everywhere and finishing up small projects along the way.

I’ve been planning to paint this mirror frame for weeks now:

I went back and forth on a color and actually started painting it a brick red color – which would look GREAT for fall. But I quickly realized come spring and summer that the color would feel really off in this room.

I don’t want to add too much more gray to this room but I felt like it needed some balancing out – so I went with gray. ;) It really feels right with that color on the fireplace across the room too.

I LOVE how it looks with the finish on that table, the white walls and the green lamps:

It’s cloudy and dark here today, hence the darker photos. You’ll see I also finished up that little bit of trim on the board and batten. The trim that’s still not painted. :) But at least it’s all done and ready for paint.

By the way, I framed out that mirror myself years ago. It used to live in the chocolate brown dining room and you can see how I made it here.

A wall in the old office has been without the top trim since July – I finally got that replaced (we saved a lot of the old trim so I just reused what I had for most of it). It still needs painting as well – do you sense a pattern here? But I got some art up on one wall that is done:

Which totally makes me feel like I’m getting to the home stretch in this room! Hanging stuff signifies (almost) completion to me. :)

I focused on the upstairs too and changed up the decor on the bedroom mantel to warm it up a bit:

Those walls STILL haven’t been painted to go with the new dark gray wall – but I do love that gray/green color for fall. It feels very cozy! I also cleaned the gas fireplace glass in preparation for the colder months. Today we’re supposed to have an unusually warm day but after that it’s going to get chilly for good.

And speaking of fireplaces – when I shared the new completed one in the family room a couple weeks ago some of you suggested painting the crown molding at the top. You were so right and I seriously stared at it every. single. day. wanting that white gone.

It finally bugged me so much I got up on the ladder late last night while I watched Revenge and got it painted to match the rest of the fireplace:

Ahhhh. SO much better. Now I can quit twitching. :)

Today my goal is to get the garage cleaned out so I can actually reach the rest of our fall decor. The boy is begging for some Halloween so I must comply.

It feels SO good to get little projects like these done! I’m really wanting to focus on some other areas of the house but my goal is to get the family room done this week – I’m going to make it happen!! I LOVE this time of year – fluffing, cleaning, getting ready to host family and friends and warming up the house. I’m one of those weirdos that actually enjoys the colder months. (Until about February or so.)

Have you done anything around the house to prep for fall and winter? I can’t believe it but I’m already starting to think about the holidays – every year I’m determined not to be rushing around and every year I’m rushing around. We’ll see if this year is any different. :)

$13 planked wall (Finished fireplace!)

Hello all! Wow, what a full weekend! My husband was out of town so the kiddo and I played hard all day Saturday – all kinds of fall goodness. Sunday I worked my tail off getting the fireplace finished up, finally! It’s DONE!

I had a couple things left to do to get it done – I had already finished up the wall treatment above the fireplace and I’m really pleased with how it came together. I knew all along I wanted to plank the top wall, but I wanted to do it a little differently than I did last time. I wanted the planks to be much wider than the standard mdf or pine I usually use. So I went straight for the underlayment at the hardware store:

This is the stuff used under flooring and it’s SUPER cheap. I paid $13 for a big sheet. The nice guy at Lowe’s cut it down into strips for me – each one just over five inches wide.

The edges needed to be sanded down just a little bit – it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be though. Then I gave them two coats of my Peppercorn color and started the process of hanging:

My wall is a little over 50 inches tall so I did some figuring to determine the width of each plank – I knew I was going to put some space between each one so I ended up with the five+ size. You can use anything you want as a spacer – I had my brad nails on hand so used those.

By the way, I painted the wall the gray color first – this is important if you’re going to leave any space between your boards.

I moved my “spacers” down each plank as I nailed them in, checking for level while I did it:

This install went really fast – the front part anyway. The only parts that took some time were around the outlet:

I used my jigsaw to cut out the spot for it. This wood is so thin I could have just scored it and broken it off really:

You can see I’m no ace at the jigsaw. ;) Good thing nobody will ever see it.

I painted right over the outlet and the cover:

The sides took some time as well just because I needed so many pieces. These were installed the same way:

Because I needed so many boards that were the exact same size I just used my original as a guide to cut them all out:

I just lay it on top of the board, mark the line, cut, lay it down again, cut…it saves time instead of measuring every single piece.

You can see here how skinny this wood is – exactly what I was looking for!:

The corners didn’t need to be perfect because I covered those with some corner molding.

I had finished all that up last week but still needed to touch up some spots. I also put one final coat on the entire fireplace – it needed three coats of the Peppercorn all together.

Here’s that same corner with the trim covering up those rough edges:

I haven’t even filled the holes on the wall yet and I don’t think I will – they add a little rustic flair that keeps this area from getting too stuffy. That’s my excuse anyway. :)

When I designed this huge fireplace I knew the TV was going to have to go above. Not my first choice but it was the only way to make the layout work. So I had the guys make an inset in the middle of that upper wall for the TV to sit into:

We have it on a bracket that moves any direction – but when we push it back in you can’t see any cords at all. I LOVE that. Love love love:

I cannot believe this thing is finally done! I’m absolutely head over heels for all of it!:

I went out of my comfort zone painting it that dark gray but I LOVE it. It feels good to branch out every once and a while. :)

We get such good light in here now the room can take it:

I haven’t really decorated it yet – this is stuff I’ve had up here and I’m not sure it will stay. I’m not sure if I’ll keep the long box up there or not:

The mantel is so deep -- my possibilities are endless! I just want to play around with some things to see what works. For now it’s simple and I like it.

I had some gold candle sconces from Target to hang on either side of the TV but when we held them up last night both my husband and I thought they didn’t look right. It looked too busy. I think I’d still like to try something on either side perhaps, but they will need to be long and skinny:

The crown still needs to be painted and finished up there…I’ll tackle that all at once around the room.

If you remember we had to build the fireplace out this far because otherwise we would’ve had to get a permit to build a “doghouse” off the back of the house for it. That would have added quite a bit of time and lots of money so we went with this. It ended up working GREAT because we now have extra storage and a spot for the TV components on the sides:

A few of you asked and YES the remotes work through that metal sheeting! I LOVE that I have all kinds of junk in those cabinets right now and you can’t even tell. Buwhahaha. :)

We were going to hold off on any more construction till next year…but then I quickly realized I just wanted to get it all over with. So that window on the right will be double doors soon (I’m hoping within a month) and the bay window in the kitchen will get a makeover too. So I haven’t continued the molding in that area or painted anything – there’s no point till after we get that done.

But the big beast in the room is DONE!! It took me nearly a month!:

I’m SO pleased with it. Now onto the smaller jobs in this room to get it finished up – paint, molding fixes, door trim, more paint and then some final decorating touches. This is taking waaaay longer than I thought it would but it’s been a pleasure along the way. :) Thanks for coming along with me, as always.

To see more about the dark gray color, go here.
To see how I cut the inserts out of the doors and what I used to cover them, go here.
For a tutorial on installing a tile fireplace surround, go here.
For tips on how to clean the glass on a gas fireplace visit here and more tips on sprucing up your fireplace here.

It’s time for some board and batten

Hey heeeey! Hope your weekend was great!

I got SO MUCH DONE in the family room over the weekend – so much that I’m crazy sore today. Me thinks I’m getting too old for the days of nonstop DIY. We’ve been living with our family room half way done for a couple weeks now – I’ve gotten very little done up till now. I was out of town for a trip three days, then I was sick for most of last week with a crappy cold. I didn’t feel like doing anything.

Yesterday was the first day I felt good and had a mostly free day to get things done. I can live with half way for a while – then all the sudden I can’t handle it one. more. day. and I go into beast mode. There’s something about this time of year – I want to NEST like you wouldn’t believe. I want to decrapify my entire house, fluff everything, start thinking about fall decor…all that stuff. And none of that is happening if I have the family room taunting me. :)

There’s so much for me to do in the room, it can become overwhelming. So I’ve been focusing on a few walls at a time. I painted the walls in one end of the room already and I’m still patching some of the board and batten and touching up paint there. But the biggest area that’s been bugging me is this side of the room:

It was really a mess, as you can see. My first plan of action yesterday was to finish up extending the crown molding. This is a little trick I use to make the crown appear thicker. You all know how I love me some chunky trim!

I’ve seen a method where they attach baseboards to the wall, I think upside down? And then you install the crown over it. A few things though – I already had the crown up in the room, so I’m not taking it down just to put it back up. Also, that’s a BIG added expense in a room this size. Third – I had already done this trick in the office so I needed to continue in throughout the space anyway. :)

It’s quite easy – it just takes a lot of trips up and down the ladder. (I should have legs of steel at this point, really.) I use this inexpensive decorative trim:

You can find it at Lowe’s and Home Depot. I just place it about an inch below the current crown. You can use a piece of wood or something as a spacer so you have the same distance around the room – I just use my level as I go around so it’s fairly consistent.

The great thing about working so high up is when you cut the piece too short for the third time and just put it up anyway cause it’s making you cuss, nobody will know:

Caulk and spackle people. Caulk and spackle.

It took three coats of semi gloss white (legs of steel) until it was covered, but it looks so good! Chunky!:

The day we tore down the wall one of the guys mentioned how I was going to have to redo all the crown in the family room to match up with the office because I had used the baseboards underneath. It fooled him, it will fool others. ;)

So I mentioned I was in beast mode yesterday and this is where the rest of the work came in. Here’s a shot of this wall just after I finished installing the small trim:

It hadn’t been painted yet, obviously. We had to patch a few holes from the TV hanging there before and the darker rectangles on the wall were from the molding I had had up there forever. Nearly eight years – I’ve been ready for a change for awhile.

After caulking the baseboards in three places, painting them, painting the bottom part of the wall three times in semi gloss white, installing all the board and batten and most of the decorative trim, finishing up the crown and painting the walls their new color, I ended up with this:

And I LOVE IT. Whoa, I LOVE how the white looks against our floors and the furniture. Yummy.

OK, so this spot is still far from done. I still need to finish that small decorative trim at the top of the board and batten – I ran out:

The door trim in the background still needs to be finished and painted. And the biggest thing is caulking and painting all the boards on the wall.

But it’s closer and it looks SO much better so I’m celebrating that!:

I’m trying not to think much about the decor just yet – but the accessories will change up on that table. It’s a bit too neutral for me. And I want to paint that mirror a fun color, I just have no idea what it will be. :)

But the wall looks a ton better and I’m SO excited about the direction of this room. I still need to patch a few spots on the other wall, finish up the board and batten on the other side of the room (there’s not much) and then I’m putting all of my attention on the fireplace. I want this space done by the end of September – that’s my goal. Sooner would be awesome!

**To see my how to install the board and batten look, go here.
**For more about that awesome table and where it used to sit go here. :)

Family room reno: week four

Happy Friday! Two things to be excited about today. First of all, the weekend, duh. Secondly, by the end of the day today the work on the family room will be DONE! Whooooo! Well, the work by other people. Mine has just begun.

Here’s an update on where we stand! Last week the flooring guy came and patched the floors:

He did SUCH a good job. To make them look seamless he recommended sanding down the entire area and restaining – especially since we added the spot where the island was too. He said smaller spots are OK to just stain/poly, but bigger ones like this would look better if everything was redone.

Here’s a bigger shot of the three areas he patched:

Monday he came out and sanded:

I’m always tempted to just poly them and leave them this color – the natural wood is so pretty!

And then Tuesday and Wednesday were stain and poly days. This is what the rest of the main floor looked like till last night:

If you follow me on Instagram, yes I found my keys. Yesterday. They were in the garage. :)

It’s ALL worth it though…here they are in their finished glory:

The ceiling has been patched and painted and now there’s absolutely NO sign that a wall was ever there! YES!!

Here’s a shot from mud room into the whole space:

Instead of moving everything back in first thing yesterday I got to work. I took down the molding on the walls:

It’s been up for eight years now – it’s time to go. This is that “foamy” molding I told you about years ago. It will be replaced with the board and batten look that’s in the office.

While I was at it I took the trim down from around the two doors in the room:

I’m replacing them with my craftsman trim I’ve been slowly adding around the house:

Still have some work to do. ;)

You’ll notice the new baseboards too – our old ones were impossibly small. Since we didn’t remove them when the floors went in years ago they looked even smaller:

Because 1.) our base is so hard to remove (the builders used two inch heavy duty nails every few inches) and 2.) with the hardwoods down it’s hard to remove them without damaging the floors – I have to get creative when it comes to beefing up the base. You can see my master bedroom solution here.

Because I’m adding the board and batten around the room I added a horizontal board along the top of the old baseboards and then placed the new base over that. I explained the process more in this post with pictures, but here it is after:

I finished up the family room space, just have to do the kitchen area. They look a little wonky now but it will make more sense when the vertical boards go up. :)

I finished up some smaller projects too, like adding a decorative trim to the built ins. Here’s the unfinished before:

And after with some trim:

 

The sides will get some trim that will cover all those seams. One step at a time. :)

And all is right with the world now that the island is back in the kitchen. Even though it does look like an art project gone wrong:

Isn’t it PRETTY? This poor island has been through so many makeovers. To get it out they had to tear off the decorative beadboard. At least I will be spurred on to get the island extension done sooner than later now. ;)

I wasn’t able to move it too much from it’s original position, but we now have quite a bit more space between the cabinets and the island – I wanted to move it out since I plan to extend it. I didn’t want the oven area to be cramped when we opened it.

So far…SO GOOD!! I hope you’ll be patient with me as I begin my portion of this work now…I want it done fast but it takes me a while.

By the way, we’re definitely moving the kitchen table – you can see this post for more on that. I think the open space by the bay window is going to be AWESOME now that I’ve had some time to get used to it.

Have a great weekend everybody! I’ll be painting!!

Looking back: A bright office

It’s time for a trip down memory lane! I mentioned earlier this week that I’ll be sharing some of the rooms in our home over the years over the next few weeks. I LOVE before and after pics and I love looking back at this space because I think it’s one of the biggest transformations I’ve ever completed in this house.

This room was decorated and painted before I ever started blogging, like all the other rooms in our house. I painted it a good eight years ago I think? Let’s just say my style was…different. :) I actually quite liked this room for a long while – I loved how cozy it felt. But the color always bugged me, I just couldn’t get it right.

These are total old school before pics – you can tell by the computer monitor. ;) I took these some time in 2007/08, not sure when. I know it was when my baby was actually a baby. :)

Behold the ORANGE:

I was never going for orange – let’s just clarify that right now. I always wanted it to be a rust color. It was not. :) Back then I was really into the dark wood tones and deep colors, as you can see. As I always say, my style then wouldn't be what I would do now, but I am still proud of what I did. It was “me” at the time – who knows what our house will look like ten years from now?

Did I mention I painted the ceiling the same color as the walls? Yeah. I’ve always been a painted ceiling girl, even when it made the room feel like a cave. A comfy cave at least:

A few years later I repainted the room, this time hitting the mark a little better. It was more of rust color color for sure, but it still would get an orangey tone in some light:

We also used this room as the kiddo’s playroom for years. After about three years of not being able to walk in there most days I moved most of the toys to the loft and reclaimed this spot for me.

So about four years ago I started the process of making over this room in a big way! I started with a new “desk” (actually an old farmhouse table I got from a friend), a new light (there is no overhead light in here) and painting the room:

I also painted over the red ceiling with a pale blue, I was SO glad to see that dark color go!!

Then I got the crown molding up and took on the board and batten walls:

My vision was starting to come together!

I recovered the faux leather parsons chair (I’m sitting on it now and I can’t believe how well it’s held up!) and added a dresser from Craigslist for storage. I covered the upper part of the walls in Goodwill frames spray painted white – they are full of photos and art that are near and dear to me. I love it. :)

This room actually gets a TON of natural light, so my hope was to work with that and make it a bright, pretty space.

This is a corner of the darker version of the office before:

And that area now looks like this:

That DIY memo board that was hanging to the right felt too heavy in the room so I took it down. I think it looks so much better without it!

I didn’t completely remove all of the Bub’s things from this space – the dresser is full of craft supplies and the caddy holds his markers, paint and crayons:

Because of a leak that ruined our old laminate floors, we ended up getting new hardwoods and continued them throughout the main floor, including this room. It made a HUGE difference in here as well.

Here’s a shot of the other corner of the room before (check out that sexy monitor!):

That thing weighted at least 30 pounds, no joke.

Now that side looks like this:

The little table was my sister-in-law’s when she was small and she gave me the OK to update it. My boy doesn’t sit at this nearly as much as he used to though. Sniff. :(

You’ll notice the filing cabinet and printer are gone – the cabinet didn’t hold nearly enough files so I sold it. We now use a cheapy metal one and keep it in the basement. The printer is wireless so it’s in my husband’s basement office since he uses it more often.

Here’s what you saw when you walked in to the room before:

And this is that same corner now (well, a few months ago):

Ignore the Charlie Brown trash can, it’s been toned down quite a bit and looks much prettier now. ;)

I finished this space more than two years ago and I absolutely LOVE working in here. Before I worked from the sofa most nights, now I spend my days in here and it is a complete joy to be in this space. It’s quiet, sun-filled and there are usually a few cats laying on the desk as I work. :)

The only change I’m considering right now is the desk – I’d like to have something a little bit smaller. I do love the large surface space but I don’t need it quite this big. We have a couple options that I’m going to try in here to see how they work! (The cats will not be happy though.)

So there’s one of the spaces in our home that’s changed the most over the past ten years. I can’t believe the difference when I look back! My office is easily one of my favorite rooms in our house – it should be since it took me nearly two years to finish. :)

You can see all of my projects and posts about this space here!