The Great Fireplace Remodel: Planked walls, Beam mantels, Built-out surrounds, and all that jazz.

Who's ready for some eye candy?  I finally pulled it together and cleaned up well-enough to snap some photos of the finished fireplace!  Well, it's not completely finished.  I still need to caulk some seams, but it looks done enough for now.  And here it is!

Isn't she lovely?  Before I show you any more, let's take a walk down memory lane.  This is what the house looked like when we signed our offer papers.  Peach.  Green marble.  Shiny fake yellow brass. But that light!  We knew it had potential.

Phase 1 was getting rid of that peach paint and ripping out the carpet.  It was brand new and pretty when we moved in, but the dogs trashed it very, very quickly.

Phase 2 ... we have a new laminate floor!  And curtains!  Those two things alone were a huge improvement, but when I pulled out the fireplace insert to paint over the brass, and then painted over the green marble, the room sky-rocketed out of 1990s and into 2015.  The mirror removal was an interesting process, and made me happy that we were planking above the fireplace instead of trying to perfectly repair all of that drywall.

I took measurements and meshed them with the vision I had stored in my brain in order to draw up the plans.  Brian made a few adjustments that would make the build more practical for himself along the way.

Brian worked so hard on this project.  I am kinda picky about things being just how I planned, and was such a trooper throughout the process.  For example, the mantel.  I wanted it to look like a beam from the front and sides, and he did a beautiful job!  

Eventually I'll share photos and descriptions of the process, but for now, let's all just look at pretty pictures.

I think Brian would say that his hardest task was running all of the wires behind the walls and through the fireplace surround.  I think I'm going to paint this old nightstand from Brian's Grandma that will house the electronics.  It needs a hole cut in the back so that we can actually put the electronics inside, but that'll happen eventually.  

Speaking of things that will happen eventually, we still have some caulking and paint touch-ups to do, but I can live with those for now.  Especially because when you stand back, you notice nothing but the beauty of the overall situation.  

Having the TV mounted on the wall frees up some floor space.  Seating arrangements in this room can sometimes feel tunnel-ish, but with the fireplace finished, the TV above it, and the couch and chairs facing each other, it feels like a cozy place to gather.  

It feels lovely.  And bright.  And cozy.  All of the good things!  It's so nice to have a space in the house that feels like "us".  

Perfectly Imperfect

**tap**tap**

Is this thing on?

Hiya friends!  What's shakin'?  

It's been waaaay too long since I've actually written something here.  In the last few weeks, I've had 4 different people tell me that they like to read updates here on the blog, and that kinda lit a fire under me to actually post something other than Project 365 updates.  

So, let's start small.  We've been really busy with projects around the house.  The fireplace is done! And it's stunning.  The bad news is that I don't have photos.  Our TV died, and Brian hung an old TV in it's place, so we have wires and cords running everywhere.  I'm going to try to make it pretty enough to take photos so that I can share some with you. 

For now, you'll have to settle for some teasers.  Check.Out.That.Mantel.  Are you drooling?  You should be.  I had so much fun throwing some pretty fall decorations on that guy for the first time.  It increased the cozy factor in the Family Room by one million.  

Do you decorate for fall?  With all of the renovations and just the busy factor of the fall, I took a few minutes last weekend to get out my box of 'fall-ish' stuff and spread it out a bit.  I'm not big on 'cutesy' decorations.  I mean, I like them, but I tend to lean toward fall decor that's a bit more neutral and subtle, yet big on texture.  Old books, rocks, textured pumpkins, wicker, pine cones, soup crocks ... they're all favorites of mine!  Honestly, I would keep this kind of decor year round.  It just kinda speaks to me.  

I love how easy it is to add 'fall' to a room.  Adding a cute gold pumpkin and an acorn bundle to the candle, lamp, and slate coasters that live on this end table pumps up the cozy factor a bit.  Now that the boys are a little older, I'm not afraid of putting decorations at low heights.  Of course, I choose things like foam pumpkins and disposable candle jars to put within reach.  Nothing too crazy!

Sometimes bringing fall inside is as easy as plopping down a pumpkin and adding some baby's breath to a jar.  Boom.  Done.  Also?  As referenced by not one, but 2 of the photos in this post, lampshades in my home are never ever ever straight.  Ever.  It's just a way of emphasizing the fact that our lives are perfectly imperfect.  

And sometimes that perfectly imperfect factor is emphasized when I get lazy so I throw a bunch of crap on a shelf and call it a day.  Because why not?  Home should be comfortable, cozy, and easy.  Is it the prettiest little vignette ever?  Nope.  But it's fall-ish and it works.

So that's how we're celebrating fall in our home.  That, and keeping sick boys comfortable.  As much as I love fall, it inevitably brings sickness.  Blegh.  Stay healthy, friends!

Evolution of a Family Room.

It's kind of amazing to me how far the family room has come in the last year and a half.  Shortly after we closed on the house, when we at the house working, we would lay on the floor while we took breaks from various projects.  We would dream and hash out our plans for our new home while laying on that floor, soaking up the sunshine.

Our plans have changed and grown with time.  And while it feels slow, we've made so much progress.  The first step was a coat of paint.  After living for 2 months with a bunch of paint swatches on the wall, I chose S-W Aqua-Sphere, tinted at 50%.  Next, we ripped up the carpet because our dogs trashed it very, very quickly.  

That fireplace was screamin' for a remodel.  New tile wasn't in the budget, so a little paint fixed it right up. It was plain white for awhile before I painted a little marble effect onto it.  I'll post a tutorial about that too.  

The curtains softened the room immensely.  I was worried about blocking out too much light, so I made sure to hang them high and wide.  

The flooring went down in February and we are still loving it.  I had a really pretty sisal rug in here for awhile ... and then the dogs peed on it.  Sisal + dog pee = rug death.  For now, we're living with just the smaller rug, which I actually kinda like because it allows us to enjoy more of our beautiful floor!

 I wrote about installing the baseboards in this post.  I love how the finish the room!  

The giant mirror came down last weekend, so now we're planning our remodel.  We're planking the wall, mounting the TV, building out a fireplace surround, and building a mantle.  To say I'm excited would be an understatement.  Here's a little preview of what we have planned...

EEEEEKKK!!!  So pretty.  So, so pretty.  I'll post more specific details soon!

DIY-ing MDF baseboards.

We have had new floors in the living room, dining room, and family room for 5 months now and we are still loving them.  In true cost-saving fashion, we tried to save the baseboards when Brian removed them before laying the floor, but they were in really rough shape.  Admittedly, my hubby is not the gentlest of creatures, but he was really trying to save these suckers.   Sadly, no matter how gently he tried getting them off, those suckers snapped like wafers.  

Brian put the flooring down and we lived without baseboards for 5 months.  The biggest challenge to living without baseboards was that the boys' K'nex, and Legos would roll into the crack and then I would have to dig it out.  After 5 months of that, I was d.o.n.e.

Deciding what kind of baseboards to install wasn't exactly easy.  I knew that I wanted something tall and fairly simple.  The moulding around our windows and doors is fairly decorative, so I didn't want baseboards that were too fancy.  It's just not my style.  I wasn't sure if I wanted something really simple or with a bit of flair.  After trolling the baseboard aisle at Lowe's, I brought home two 5.5 inch tall samples - one very simple and the other with a touch of curve to it.  We set them on the floor and lived with it for awhile, until I decided that the simple one was the way to go.  

I had a bit of sticker shock when researching these things.  We needed roughly 150 feet of baseboard moulding, meaning that we would need around $250 worth of MDF moulding.  Determined to pay less than that, I floated the idea of buying sheets of MDF and ripping them into baseboards.  Sure, we'd have to sand and prime them ourselves, but after waiting for 5 months for baseboards, I wasn't worried about the process taking a bit longer in order to save some cash.  

Brian purchased 3 sheets of 4'x8' MDF and ripped each into eight 6-inch tall boards.  We sanded the cut edges nice and smooth to prep for primer.  MDF dust is nasty stuff, so don't do what my husband does and wear a respirator!  MDF does, however, sand very easily, so this process went pretty quickly. 

I wanted to have the boards primed and fairly well painted before installing them so that I would only have to do touch-ups once on the wall.  MDF is essentially compressed sawdust, so it'll soak up liquid like a sponge.  In order to prevent this, we used an oil-based primer.  I used the remainder of a can of Kilz until that was gone, then moved onto Zinnser BIN; both worked well.  One thing I love about primer is that it dries insanely fast, but the texture of the dried primer bothered me.  It didn't necessarily look bad, but it was kinda rough.  I took a high grit sanding block and smoothed out the texture before moving on to paint.  

Can I just say that I LOVE the fact that Lowe's now carries Sherwin-Williams paint??  I'm a big S-W girl, but Lowe's is literally 2 minutes from my house.  Now I can get my very favorite paint closer to my house.  Yippee!!

Anyway, I sent Brian to Lowe's to grab a can of Ovation Paint+Primer Extra White in a Semi-gloss finish.  I like a little shine to my trim, especially in a house full of boys.  It's more durable and easier to clean.  Here's a tip - even when you want to use Extra White, ask them to tint it at the paint counter.  It seems to have much better coverage that way.  Brian was unaware of this little tidbit, so he just grabbed a gallon off of the shelf.  It took me 2 coats of paint to get good coverage, but my guess is that it would only have taken one coat with the extra tint in there.  Oh well, husband now knows!

Brian installed the baseboards using a nail-gun and compressor he borrowed from work.  The finish work is usually my job, so I told Brian not to bother with mitered corners, as I was going to caulk the cracks anyway.  

I have very, very little experience with caulking, but every tutorial I've ever read stresses how easy it is.  First up, gather your supplies - caulk gun, caulk, tape, and paper towels.  We just happened to have this caulk in the basement, so I went with it.  I have no complaints about it!

Next, use the painter's tape to create a barrier on your wall, very close to the top of the moulding.  I left barely any wall showing.  If you are caulking a surface that isn't white, you may want to tape the second surface as well.  But since our baseboards are white and I was using paintable caulk, I didn't bother with taping the baseboard.  Only work in 3-4 foot sections, because we want to be sure to take the tape off before the caulk dries.

Now, it's time for caulk.  Cut a small hole in the tip of the caulk tube.  Keep it small, and cut it on a diagonal.

 I found that just a light squeeze works well, and I moved the caulk gun fairly quickly.

As a newby, I was definitely not neat and tidy during this process.  But it's cool, because it still needed to be smoothed.

I took my finger and gently smoothed out the line.  Stock up paper towels for this part!  A little bit of warm water helps for stubborn gunk too.

When the caulk is nice and smooth, it's time to remove the tape.  You want to pull the tape at a 45 degree angle to get a nice crisp line.

Sit back, admire your nice lines, and then move on to the next section!

How pretty is that??  Once I caulked the top of the entire room, I moved on to caulking the floor seam.  I didn't take photos for that, because it was essentially the same process.  After some wood putty to fill the nail holes and a little bit of paint touch-ups, the baseboards are looking beautiful.  I'll share photos of the family room soon!

We definitely saved money doing it this way rather than the ready-to-install baseboards.  Instead of buying $250 worth of moulding, we spent $96 on 3 sheets of MDF.  We had to buy paint and nails either way, and we had primer and sand paper on hand, but even if we had bought those things, we still saved at least $100.  Pretty baseboards at a cheaper price ... I'm in love!!



**No affiliate links, and no affiliations with any products mentioned.  Just linking to things that work well for me!


Linking up with: A Pumpkin and a Princess, Artsy Fartsy Mama, Home Stories A-to-Z, A Glimpse Inside

Dreaming of ... planked fireplace walls.

I've been sailing through a few little projects here and there.  Accomplishing something always makes me feel ... accomplished.  Ha.  But I can't help but feel that by finishing the small fun things, I'm putting the bigger ones on the back-burner.  And it turns out, Brian was feeling the same way.

So we decided to sit down and make a list of everything we need and/or want to do in each room in the house.  From there, we'll try to focus on finishing one room at a time.  We are both dying to do the kitchen, but that's going to be expensive so it's going to be last on the list.  To perk ourselves up a bit, we decided to focus on a room that's already come a long way, and that will pack a big punch without too much expense.  

And that room is the family room.  

We spend a lot of time in this room.  And we have already made a decent amount of improvements - Painted walls, new flooring, updated fireplace, curtains.  

But that mirror has been driving us both crazy since Day 1.  And I hate that TV stand with the fire of 1000 suns.  It's huge and has sharp corners and we're itchin' to get rid of it and mount the TV on the wall.  

While we're making plans, I've been gathering inspiration photos from around the web.  Here's what I know - we're definitely doing some kind of white planking where the mirror currently is hanging, we'll definitely mount the TV, and we'll definitely do some kind of box beam mantle.  

via The Lettered Cottage

via Thrifty Decor Chick

via Proverbs 31 Girl

via Classy Clutter

via The Inspired Room

So much eye candy!  It makes me drooley.  I'm currently working on some mockups in Photoshop to show to Bri so that we can make a grand plan.  And then comes figuring out how to get that beast of a mirror off of the wall.  

New stuff underfoot!

While mopping the floor yesterday, I realized that I never posted about our new floors!  Our home was a foreclosure, and before putting it on the market, the bank painted the entire house a lovely peachy beige and installed new beige carpet throughout the whole house.  Sadly, our dogs completely trashed the carpet in a matter of months.  Whether it was the adjustment to a new space, the scent of the previous owners' dogs coming from the sub-floor, or the fact that our 8 year old dogs are just un-potty-trained assholes, the peed on the carpet.  A lot.  And you can only clean giant puddles of dog pee out of the carpet so many times before it's just ... done.  

I'd been researching flooring options for quite some time and trying to decide how to get several hundred square feet of flooring for practically pennies.  We considered painting or staining the sub-floor, and did quite a bit of experimenting with ideas.  Ultimately, we needed to find out what kind of shape the floor was in before we made any decisions.  And one day I decided that I couldn't live one more day with the nasty carpet and we ripped that crap outta there.  Turns out, the sub-floor was in just so-so shape.  Not terrible, but not great.  

I pondered a little more and one day stumbled upon a really great sale at Lumber Liquidators.  A 6mm laminate flooring called Donar Oak for $0.29 per square foot. It was a really pretty, albeit cheap, laminate flooring.   I tried to place an order, but they were all sold out.  Womp Womp.  I called the store on the off chance that they had some in stock and the awesome store manager told me that they run sales like fairly often and let me know when to check the website for another sale.  

(via)

A few weeks later, I found an even better sale than the first one -- $0.19 per square foot for a 6mm laminate called Black Forest Oak.  It wasn't as pretty as the Donar Oak, but it was CHEAP.  So I ordered enough for the family room and living/dining room and then waited for awhile -- a few weeks, to be exact. The people at Lumber Liquidators were wonderful and kept me updated throughout my waiting period.  Eventually, I got a call from my local Lumber Liquidators store manager informing me that they were still waiting for half of my order to arrive (it looks like they are out of the Black Forest Oak still/again), but that they had enough stock of the Donar Oak (my original choice) to fill my whole order.  Ummmm, OK!!  

(via)

We picked it up from the store that day and also picked up some Blue Hawk underlayment from Lowe's.  We didn't want to go with anything super expensive because BUDGET or anything super cheap because KIDS and DOGS and NOISE.  Brian and his friend got it all installed in a weekend.  It was very easy and would have been possible to get done in a day had they not had 3 little helpers!  Those helpers are super cute though, so they rolled with it.  (I didn't document their process because there are a million tutorials out there for laminate flooring installation.  Shanty 2 Chic did a pretty good one that you can find here.)

We are loving, loving, LOVING the floor.  It's beautiful, cleans easily, and hides dust and dirt very well between vacuum sessions.  And it was cheap!  With 3 little boys and 3 dogs, I'd rather something cheap get ruined than something expensive.  We won't always have 3 dogs and eventually those little boys will grow into big boys and if the floors are shot, I'll consider it money well spent.  The underlayment we chose has been lovely so far and we're happy with the choice.  It's not echo-ey or hollow sounding or anything.  

In case you're wondering about the budget breakdown...

9 Boxes (approx 600 sq ft) Donar Oak Laminate Flooring - $120.71

6 Rolls Underlayment - $284.94

Grand Total - $405.65 

That's roughly $0.68 per square foot!  Not half bad, if you ask me, especially since it barely took 8 hours worth of work.  I think that prepping and painting/staining both rooms would have taken well over double that amount of time, and most likely for not much cheaper.  So I'm pretty happy with our results!  

We haven't installed new baseboards yet, but I'm leaning toward a nice, simply, high baseboard like in the photo above.  I like to chew on things for awhile before I pull the trigger, so this piece is sitting in the family room so I can decide if I like the feel of it.  In the mean time, we're lovin' the floors!

**For the record, Lumber Liquidators and Lowe's have no idea who I am.  Just passing along info on products I'm diggin'.