$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.

The new kitchen table

Oh my! I am so excited about not only the new space in the family room (after taking down the wall), but the fact that we have so much more space in our kitchen as well. Because everything shifted down towards the old office our kitchen space has doubled. It is DREAMY.

A couple months back (I can’t believe it’s been that long!) I asked your thoughts on moving our table and we did end up moving it between the sectional and the kitchen island. I had the light moved over and we LOVE it this way.

Because we have way more space there compared to when it was over by the back door and pantry we were able to consider a new table for the space – I’ve always had to work with a much smaller area so this was pretty exciting for me.

I’ve spent the past two months trying to find the perfect table. I went back and forth between buying and building a table. I did a combo of both on the previous kitchen table (we are moving that one down to the basement) and this time I was considering building from scratch. I had a definite look in mind and it involved these legs:

I am obsessed with the curved look of them. I wanted to go a little more “pretty” this time (compared to the more clean lines of our previous farmhouse table). Honestly though, I just couldn’t pull the trigger and start building – sometimes when you DIY a lot you like to just BUY something. :) So that’s what I started looking into next. I stalked Craigslist for solid month and almost drove three hours round trip to pick up an old table I was going to refinish. It was a basic turned leg table and I liked it…but not enough to drive that far, especially for a Craigslist table. What if it wasn’t in great shape or didn’t look like it did in the pictures?

So I started looking online but everything I liked was so expensive. It was when I was finally going back to plans of building it when I found THE ONE. I happened upon it one evening and fell in love with the shape and the legs and the size and everything…and the icing on the cake was when I noticed it came unfinished.

WHOOT! I couldn’t believe it! I never thought in a million years I’d find the table I wanted for a decent price and unfinished – I guess that’s why it cost less than others I was looking at. Most people probably want a table they don’t have to mess with. ;) But that’s great for me because it’s an empty canvas to work with:

This table is a smidge wider than our old one and much longer – about 15 inches longer with the leaf in the middle:

We’ll keep the leaf in pretty much all the time – it gives us plenty of room. At the old table the chairs were closer together so this gives us space to spread out. I’m considering chairs for the ends of the table too but not sure about that just yet.

The best parts are the details along the apron and the gorgeous legs:

I adore it. So beautiful. I cannot believe I found exactly what I wanted, seriously. The legs are nice and thick – the whole table is incredibly heavy – 100 percent solid wood. It’s made of rubberwood which has a similar finish and hardness to maple. The difference is the top is made in more of a butcher block look, not full planks.

I love that it’s a harder wood so it won’t be an issue when doing homework and writing out bills. Our pine-top table was softer and sometimes the writing would transfer. I was fine with it but would prefer something a little stronger. AND there are no grooves – it’s nice and smooth. I looked at so many tables that had those blasted grooves in the top!:

So now I’m trying to figure out what to do with it! I’ve always been a dark top/white leg kind of girl but I have to tell you I’m kind of loving the lighter look. I love the lighter wood against the chair color – and I don’t want dark legs that will match the floor too much:

At first I was considering a gray wash on the top and white legs, but we already have so much gray going on in the room. It would match the chairs and the light and the built ins and the fireplace… I did wipe on some dark stain underneath and it looks SO good, but again I think I want to go a different direction with this one.

So now I’m leaning toward just waxing it or brushing on some poly to seal it. I am loving the more natural wood look right now, but I’m not sure if I’d like this bare look long term. I think it needs something – a wash perhaps?:

As it is now you can really appreciate all the curves and pretty lines on it and I feel like those stand out more in this lighter state.

Any ideas for me? It’s a blank slate but I don’t want to do anything that’s going to be a pain to sand down and redo any time soon. I do want to do something soon though – it’s making me nervous to use it without any kind of protection on it.

I’m excited about the potential! I think it’s a beauty. :) Oh, by the way, I got it from Wayfair – my first purchase from there and I was really pleased with it and the delivery process. Plus free shipping!

Let me know if you’ve done a lighter or natural finish you love! I’d love tips!

Tiling a fireplace surround

HELLO! Sorry for such a late post today – I completely forgot I was supposed to help at my son’s school this morning so my day has been a bit behind. ;) This is a big post but I still wanted to share it with you today because I’m SO thrilled with how it turned out.

I finally finished up the tile around the fireplace and I luurvvvvve it. Yep, I brought out the lurve for this one. I went with the herringbone tile because a.) I loved it and it was the one that had my heart as soon as I saw it b.) I realized that it wasn’t going to be as hard as I thought to install and c.) my husband picked it immediately between that and the regular marble subway tile.

SO. I’ve shown you how I tiled the surround years ago, but this is a refresher with a little more detail. That time I didn’t need to grout so this tutorial includes that step. I started by finding the middle of the actual fireplace – not the surround but the firebox:

This was because the two sides beside the box aren’t exactly the same size. So I wanted everything centered on the firebox part.

I borrowed a tile saw from the guys that do work on our house occasionally (they’ve let me borrow it a couple times and it’s a big money saver). I’ve used it before and actually quite love this tool. It looks scary but it’s not hard to use at all. For this marble tile I made my measurements and used a pencil to mark where I needed to cut:

Pencil is the only thing that would leave a decent mark. Before you do any cutting be sure to check your mark against the saw:

Like double and triple check! The saw makes it easy to line everything up – just make sure all the sides are flush against the panel that the tile lays on and then check your line one more time before you start cutting.

The tile saw must have a water source – usually a bucket that the pump sits in underneath that runs the water through the machine. Make sure that water is running through before you start cutting:

Now, tile on the mesh is easy to cut because you’re taking care of such a big piece at a time – but there are some tricks to it that I learned along the way. First of all, GO SLOW. The marble is very soft and will easily chip. You’ll want to hold onto the panel that the tile sits on and control it as it goes through – otherwise the saw will want to push it through really fast.

It’s not hard – you just have to be patient. I found that when I was cutting the tile didn’t cut as cleanly on the right side, but the left side was usually a better cut. So I made sure to turn my tile accordingly to get a clean cut each time. Does that make sense? I wanted the “good” side on the left.

Also, because the tile is so soft and the pieces on the mesh are so small, I found it helpful to lay something on top of them as I pushed them through:

If you can apply a little pressure as it goes through it keeps the tiles from moving around as the saw cuts them. (WATCH where your hands are!) It was really helpful when it came to the first and last piece along the mesh.

Bottom line though – very few of my cuts were perfect. I realized very quickly that it was going to be next to impossible to get perfectly perfect cuts on every one. Which doesn’t bother me – it adds to the “character.”  ;) I have a LOT of character in this house.

I would cut a piece or two and then get them up on the surround – I used this premixed adhesive to do so:

I’ve tiled a few times and the first time I mixed the thinset and grout myself – I didn’t care for it. It’s messy and a pain in the butt, at least to me. Buying it premixed and ready to go costs a little more but was SO worth it.

You’ll want a notched trowel to spread it on. I don’t feel like I’m ever good at this part:

I think I use too much – but I’d rather have too much than too little. Spread it as evenly as you can and make sure to get the edges: 

Then just push the tile on there and smoosh it around. I didn’t use spacers at all and I didn’t need to do anything to hold the tile up as I went – the thinset grabs it pretty quick and within a few minutes it starts to set. Just adjust it if it starts to move down at all. Also, if the thinset comes up between the tiles you can just use a toothpick to clean it out. Even with my laying it on thick I didn’t have to do that much.

I had the gas line run to the  front of the surround when we moved the fireplace so I had to work around that spot – you can just unscrew that metal valve so you know what pieces need to be cut:

I thought that area was going to be a lot harder than it was. If a piece was in the way I just took it off the mesh backing and then cut it by itself. You can also get little nippers that will cut smaller pieces like this easily.

When you’re done you just “butter” the back of that individual piece with the thinset and then stick it on. I had quite a few pieces that didn’t cut great and I would just take them off the mesh and then find/cut a better one for that spot and stick it on. You never know when it’s done. :)

I let it sit for a day or two – I can’t remember how long really but the container will tell you how long. Then it was time to grout – which is usually my least favorite part. It’s MESSY so be prepared for that.

I taped off the wood around the surround:

And then covered the actual fireplace with some tape and a trash bag:

I let the trash bag come out to the floor so it caught most of the grout that fell in that area – it made for quick clean up too.

Again, I used premixed grout:

I picked a color called Delorean Gray – you get more color options when you mix it yourself but I was going for this anyway.

So usually if your grout lines are more than 1/8 inch you’ll want to use sanded grout. If they are less you can use unsanded. Most of mine were 1/8 – but some were less, some were more so I used sanded grout.

The only thing is, as I mentioned, marble is SOFT. So there are some issues with the sanded grout that I’ll touch on in a minute.

You use a float tool to apply the grout – I found it easier to get it out with my little scraper: 

And then apply it to the float:

In my opinion there’s no right or wrong way to do this part – just do what you need to do to get it all in there:

Just smoosh (lots of smooshing) it in there as much as you can, making sure to get the edges. I had a gap between the fireplace and the tile that I grouted too (that’s why there’s painters tape there).

Then as soon as you can start wiping it all down with a big sponge and a bucket of water. This part always freaks me out because it feels like the grout isn’t going to come off. But just keep at it – wet sponge, wipe, rinse the sponge, repeat:

So here’s where the problems with sanded grout come in with this tile – first of all because the tile is so soft the sand kind of wears down the sides of the tile a bit. There’s not much you can do about it though – and honestly between the float and the sponge I think you’d get some of that anyway, even with nonsanded grout. I actually like the “worn” look it gives them. Again with that character. ;)

And then the grout kind of etches into the tile as you can see here:

It didn’t do it on all of them, but I did have to wipe down a bunch individually. I just used a wet rag:

After that if any had some left I used a (very clean) razor to get any other residue off:

If you were using this on a backsplash where it would be seen closer I’d probably use the non sanded grout – but because I had some bigger areas to fill I’m glad I used the sanded on the surround.

After the grout dried I ran a bead of grout around the edges (it comes in a tube, same color) to make all of my not perfect cuts (mostly) disappear. Character! :)

And we now have a gorgeous fireplace surround that I’m obsessed with:

I went back and forth between gray and white grout and I’m so glad I went gray – it really makes the design pop even more. I LOVE IT.

I love all the colors in the marble too – white, gray and a lot of a tans as well – they tie in perfectly with the new wall color in this room and those tan colors keep it from feeling too cold:

I love how the the tile looks with the gray paint and the metal doors on the built ins. And I love that they catch the light and almost shimmer:

Next up – tackling the wall above the fireplace! It will be the same gray color and will get a treatment. I hope to get that started and maybe done this weekend. And then everything will get one more coat of paint.

But for now I’m thrilled with the progress so far!!:

I hope I made some sense of the tiling process – if you have any questions let me know! It’s not hard at all, it just takes some patience.

Have you attempted a tiling job? Did you find it hard? A small spot like a fireplace surround is a great place to start! Have a great weekend!

Kitchen table: to move or not to?

Hello and happy Friday to you! Ya-yah.

I need your help today! I mentioned earlier this week that I was able to start rearranging the furniture since the TV was moved. We are now using our family room space how I’ve been hoping to use it for weeks! SO awesome.

Now that the wall is down we’ve moved the furniture down into the old office quite a bit – so much so that we have a bunch of space in the kitchen. Like, a ton. WHOOT!

One of the main reasons we considered adding on to the house was to give us some more space in the kitchen. Ours is tight and it’s bothered me for years. The rectangle table has helped a bit, but this shot shows you how much space we were working with:

We had about three feet between the table and the sofa table – maybe four? And no matter what table we’ve had in here the pantry area felt tight. 

Here’s another shot:

Our original plan was to bump out that bay window a bit to give us a little more room. Now…I don’t think we’ll do it. There’s just no need, which is great!

My plan is to add french doors in the family room so we won’t need the door in the bay window. If we keep the table there we can push it back into the bay area and put a window where the door is. I would love to build some kind of banquet but to do that would mean replacing the side windows.

Here’s that area as it looks today:

Just imagine it pushed into the bay window area some more (and the door gone/light moved).

That black dresser is way too deep and won’t stay on that wall to the left, but I will have something there. The patched floor to the right is where the island will be.

But here’s the thing – look at all this space!!:

Wow! What do I with all of that? It’s feels like too much to just leave as is. The sectional is staying where it is – it moved down into the old office quite a bit.

If you remember – the sofa and table used to sit back to the middle of the wall where that black dresser is now:

People. SPACE!!!! So much space I’m not sure what to do with it. Am I dreaming?

So. I moved the table over to see how it would work:

I think one or two of you actually suggested this – I always wondered but didn’t think we’d have enough space. We have plenty. :)

Sorry for the blurry pic – here’s a better shot:

The island will be put back but it will be so far off to the right – there will still be a ton of space. Of course I’d have the light fixture moved over the table. I think it could work really well, it’s just such a big change! I’m not used to having it there. 

We have so much space I’d probably get or build a bigger table eventually – you can’t even imagine how exciting that would be for this girl who has struggled to find small tables for our kitchen over ten years! (It’s why I DIY’d that farmhouse table.)

I love that table though and would keep it -- there’s a spot in the basement where I’ve been wanting to put a table and this one would be perfect.

The question is, if I move it, what to do with the space where the table was?: 

That left end of the patched wood is where the island ended – it will be placed about six inches closer to the door when we reinstall it. My dream for years has been to extend our island for more storage (a whole other post) so if the table is moved then there will be plenty of room for that to happen. But then we’ll still have quite a bit of open space. I feel like it would look odd to just leave it empty. Maybe not with a bigger island?

There are pros and cons to both options. If we leave the table in the area where it's been all along then we’ll be able to keep all that open space between the kitchen and the family room, but it feels a little too open. Not sure what I would do with it. The con is that we’d have that door taken out and replaced with a window and that’s an added cost for sure.

Moving the table to between the family room and kitchen feels like the right move, really. It will just take time to get used to it. And the thought of a bigger table someday makes me all kinds of giddy. I can’t think of any cons – other than the open space in the bay window that I’m not sure what to do with. This option would be lower cost – we actually would probably not even do the french doors if we keep the back door and that would save us money. It would be silly to have the two doors so close to each other.

Any thoughts or suggestions? I’m leaning toward moving the table – I’m plan to live with it there for a week or so to help me decide. :) Thanks in advance for your thoughts and have a great weekend!