A fireplace redo!

Hello my peeps!! I hope you had a LOVELY Thanksgiving week!

I’m so glad to be back, but the little blogging break was nice. :) I can’t wait to tell you what we were up to last week – but for now, I am SO psyched about the project that’s been going on around here over the past couple of weeks!

For as long as we’ve lived in this house, I’ve had a thorn in my side…that I may have mentioned one or 437 times.

Our family room set up was part of the issue for a very long time – but I addressed that earlier this year with our new sofa and moving the TV. LOVE it still – probably the best changes I’ve made to our home.

But there was that one thing. That corner thing. The one that drove me batty:

I curse the day I chose that corner fireplace! Shakes fists in air!!

I know it doesn’t look that evil. But it was.

Ahhh…all those years ago, I thought oh yes – let’s do a corner fireplace and be all cool and different and uh...ANNOYING.

I’ve addressed it numerous times – first by adding molding to the top. It started out looking like this:

And then I changed it up a bit later by adding a mirror over the mantel. It was great because it gave it the “feel” of a wall.

But there were still so many things that drove me nuts. I added crown to the room this year, and I had to end it by the molding over the fireplace. I hate the weird stop – but I’ve not found a better way to do it. And I realized a few months ago that part of the reason the fireplace looked weird to me was because it was so top heavy – big on top, little on bottom.

And the corner mantel was really a pain in my patoot to decorate. And I’m all about the decorate:

And even though the top was large and in charge, the whole thing felt too small for this space.

I thought about taking in the chunky molding on top, to make it less top heavy – but then I was going to have to redo that and the crown. Nah thanks.

Then I thought about building a wall above the mantel to close it off (many of you have suggested that). But it would have just made the mantel even smaller.

Then I had THE idea…and it was right in front of my face every night for the past eight years.

Why not try to make a full wall like the one in our bedroom:

Nah DUH.

I’m quick.

But then there was another issue – the firebox couldn’t be moved out to meet up with a new wall. I didn’t know how to make it work (I thought it all had to be flush.)

But then, one glorious day, I walked through a model home (one of my favorite things to do!), and found IT!!

It was a corner fireplace, with a wall. But the firebox was inset quite a bit:

It was a good five inches or so. And I knew I could do the same with our fireplace! (With some help.)

Cue the angels singing. (I almost wrote “angels signing” – which would be OK too.)

I called the handymen who did a ton of the work around here when we had the fridge/floor fiasco. I explained what I wanted to do, showed them pics, then showed them our upstairs fireplace and THEY SAID EASY PEASY SQUEEZY!!

Yesssssssssssssssssss.

So a couple weeks ago we started with this:

Vince (Handyman #1) took the mantel off (it was way easier than I thought it would be) and the trim around the front of the fireplace, then started building a wall:

And what a glorious wall it was. I’ve never been so happy.

(They even added studs between the studs right where I would hang the mirror – no anchors needed!)

Then they drywalled and sanded like mad (which resulted in more dust than we had when the floors were sanded – no joke):

Then they started building the mantel. A REAL mantel people!

HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY!

They couldn’t go real beefy with the surround because I wanted a DEEP mantel and enough space around the fire box to install tile. So in order to make that work, the sides were a bit thinner, but the molding and mantel were chunkaaaay.

To save on costs I finished the redo from there. You’d think it would be quick, but nah. You know me. :)

I found a beautiful mosaic tile at Lowe’s (I found it months ago and knew I’d use it if this project ever happened). The guys brought me their tile saw to use and it ROCKED! It was so easy to use!

I made the cuts for the side pieces:

And used mastic to apply them around the fireplace:

No mixing required – it was SO easy to use!

I just buttered the wall:

There was a bit of a gap between the firebox and the drywall around it when they pulled off the trim. You can see here that they ended up installing some luan that covers that gap and gave me a good surface for the tile.

Then I buttered the back of the tile:

And stuck it on. It does not take much – I used too much at times and it came out between the tiles. Not hard to clean up, and you just learn as you go. I didn’t have to grout because the tiles were so close – whew!

I LOVE how it turned out!

We went away on vacation last week, and I was chomping at the bit to get this finished up! I worked most of today painting. And painting…

Forgive me for these pics – it was pitch black at 5 p.m. and I was busting booty to get this finished today…but the pictures didn’t start till about 7. :)

After three coats on the wall, four coats on the mantel and surround (it still needs at least one more), reinstalling all of the wainscoting next to the fireplace and then some quarter round at the bottom, I was DONE:

What you don’t see here is the nice little large spot where I put painter’s tape on the wall too soon and had a nice loooong patch where the drywall was exposed. And then had to patch and paint all over again. Hence the 7 p.m. pics. ;)

But I’m pretty much done – finally! I put accessories up there for it’s first photo shoot and I was SO excited at how easy it was to make it look decent and how BIG the mantel is and HOW MUCH I LOVE IT!!!:

:)

The guys used one (really, really thick) piece of molding to beef up the mantel and I love it – its exactly what I was hoping for!:

I still have some touching up and caulking to do, but I was tired of messing with it today. :)

We all stood in front of it last week commenting on how much we liked that it’s inset – it makes it look like it’s been their forever, like something you’d see in an old house:

The one thing Mike (handyguy #2) mentioned later was that he wished he had thought about adding lights underneath that I could dim – what a great idea! Wish I had thought of that. ;)

But honestly I don’t think I could be happier!

I was willing to give up some square footage in the family room – I actually wanted to go out a little further. But the guys didn’t want to take it too far out and now I know that was a good call. Overall the wall comes out about a foot more than it did before.

We don’t even notice it in the least though – it feel like it “fits” in the room SO much better! It really feels like it was always like this!

I have all kinds of ideas running through my head for the wall above the mantel – some kind of molding treatment. But I’m really digging the simple, clean look right now – I don’t know if I’ll even add anything:

It’s so surprising to look at the before and after – the before looks SO busy and overwhelming to me. And now it’s bigger and even more of a statement but it feels simpler and easier:

Oh happy day. :)

So there you go…what I’ve been up to the past couple of weeks. Can’t WAIT to decorate this for Christmas! The guys even moved the outlet (behind the candlesticks) so I can still have my twinkling lights up there.

It took a little help from the professionals (building a wall isn’t in my repertoire, but I’m working on it!), but I was able to fix the thorn in my side. I am so thrilled! Do you have something about your house that drives you crazy? Have you thought of a million and one ways to fix it? ;) Actually done it?

 

**You can see how to make that mossy letter here! And no, it’s not upside down. I promise. :)

Let there be light!

Well HEY! Thanks for all the kind comments on our new floors! I tell you what -- I am more thrilled with them each day. I swear these floors don’t show anything! I so wish I could say I’m the I-want-to-see-the-dirt-so-I-know-when-to-clean type…but I’m just not. Sorry. ;)

Anyhoo, I told you the new floors have spurred on some new projects. One in particular I wanted to take care of before they moved the furniture back in. It involved the roman shades in the family room, so I wanted to take care of it while the sofa wasn’t in the way.

I showed you here how I’ve fallen in love with bamboo shades. We used to have two-inch blinds throughout the house, and slowly but surely, I transitioned all the windows to bamboo shades instead.

They are SO easy to install:

Over time, I’ve been craving a little more light though. So I decided to try hanging them up higher instead of inside the window. When you install roman shades, you need to decide if you want them hung inside the window frame, or outside:

(source)

I’ve always hung ours inside, but I got the I-need-more-light wild hair and decided to try the outside mount.

I didn’t get photos of the process (because I was trying to get it done before the furniture was moved back in), but it’s pretty easy. You just take the bracket and hang it above the window, instead of inside the window frame:

That pic is looking up underneath the roman shade.

Make SURE that you either use anchors or get your screws into a stud or the header over the window when hanging them. You want to make sure the brackets have a good grip!

I started moving them up and decided everything would need to go up, so I moved the drapes as well. Now everything is hung right up under the crown:

And I have to say, I LOVE it! It raised the bamboo shades about ten inches, so it lets a TON more light in the room.

The only thing I didn’t consider…that the blinds don’t cover the entire window anymore:

Whoops. ;)

In my defense, our upstairs shades have a ton of extra at the bottom, because I buy the 72 inch length for every window. So I just figured I’d have enough extra at the bottom. I don’t. :)

The only other thing that is different is the space between the shades. At the right angle, you can see between them:

Not a big deal, but I like it totally closed off at night. :)

A new set of shades will fix these issues though – I’ll just get wider and longer bamboo shades. I’ll move these upstairs when I have the budget for new ones, but until then, I can deal with these little issues.

I figured the short shades would be hidden by the sofa, and they would have been if I hadn’t decided to move things around a bit. :) When they brought the furniture back in, I had the sofa and IKEA sofa table placed back about a foot. You can see the before on the left, now on the right:

Funny how one foot makes a HUGE difference! To me anyway. I love little changes like that! And you can see the difference in the shades and drapes in these pics too.

We need the extra space in the family room, not in the kitchen, so it works SO much better like this. But now the sofa doesn’t cover the entire window.

No biggie. I’m trying not to develop the heebs at night because of it. ;)

The best part – it made our windows and ceiling feel even taller AND lets in more light…for FREE!

Here’s the evolution of the family room drapes…very early on I went with the tan drapes on tan walls hung immediately over the window, with no blinds at all:

Then I moved on to the DIY drapes with blinds:

I still love those brown drapes!

And then I flipped the drapes and the bamboo obsession started:

And after stealing the dining room drapes and raising everything up, (and OK, a few other changes) here’s where we are today:

Again with the cloudy, rainy day. This needs to shape up for my photos!! ;)

You can’t see the molding I installed around the windows now, but I don’t mind it – I’ll take natural light over that any day! This certainly has me thinking about moving more shades up around the entire house.

See how one thing turns into another around here?

So do you hang ‘em high? It’s an old decor trick that certainly works! I think it works best when the shades and curtains are both hung high – so the window really looks taller. Sometimes I think just hanging the drapes higher can make the window seem even shorter.

P.S. Check out my FAQ page to find out where I find my bamboo roman shades.

Our “new” house!

Well, they are DONE! The floors are down, sanded and stained. It took the guys yesterday and today to get the quarter round down and painted, and then the furniture back in – so I’ve been smiling and fluffing and giddy all evening. ;)

The house is still (mostly) a mess – but I’ve been trying to get the layer of dust out of a couple rooms to show you the results!

I mentioned before that we went with hardwoods finished on site instead of prefinished. (You can go here to see how we came to that decision.) Remember the dark prefinished sample I fell in love with?:

Well, here’s how ours turned out (same spot):

Yes. I went dark. Not crazy dark. Just dark. er. ish.

;)

The stain color is from Minwax and it’s called Jacobean:

Originally we were going with a walnut, but then the flooring guy said the Jacobean was just a tad deeper and more brown. Because our laminate had a reddish tone that I wasn’t crazy about anymore, I wanted to go as brown as possible.

I know many of you warned about the dark floors showing everything, and believe me I get you. Our laminate floors weren’t super dark, but dark enough. Every single crumb and waft of cat hair showed, so I’m used to it.

What always bugged me more about our laminate was how shiny they were – it looked GREAT when they were clean, but as soon as someone walked across them with bare feet, they were toast.

The crumbs I can deal with –  it was the footprints and smudges that drove me batty! I wanted dark floors, so I knew just what to do to keep the floors from showing everything. I talked to Floor Guy, and we went with a satin polyurethane instead of a gloss:

And it worked like a CHARM!! It’s crazy awesome – you can’t see anything on these floors!

I’M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!

Really. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me after trying to keep that blasted laminate clean. ;)

It was pouring rain today, so the guys were in and out over and over to bring in the furniture – with wet boots. (They took great care to cover their shoes up till then – there was no way around it when they brought in furniture.) Two guys with wet shoes walked through that spot up there in the pic at least five times, and that’s how it looks. I didn’t even wipe it down.

I'M SO HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:)

A few of you asked about the baseboards during installation, and we did not remove them. The flooring was placed right up against them and then the quarter round covered any gaps:

I know some don’t use quarter round, but in order to do that you’d have to take up all of the baseboards, then reinstall them afterwards.

Um...I had enough of a mess on my hands. ;) I like both looks, with or without the quarter round. But I have to say -- when they installed and painted ours, they made the already awesome floors look stunning. It’s the whole contrast thing for me I’m sure. :)

And many of you were passionate about the quarter round matching the baseboards – I SO agree! I didn’t think of that when our laminate was installed and it matched the floors. It made our already wimpy baseboards look even smaller. I’m SO thrilled to have all white!

I love how the boards each have their own natural characteristics. It looks SO LOVELY. I love this board with the little worm holes:

Each piece stained so differently and it gives our house so much character. Some boards are light, some are dark. Some are super smooth, some have some texture. I am SO thrilled with how it turned out. Beyond thrilled. Ecstatic. :)

So how about some before and afters?!

Here’s the living room before:

And now, with the floors down:

Of course it was raining and cloudy and perfectly awful picture-taking weather today, so my pictures aren’t great. It was hard to get a decent shot of everything.

The transformation in the family room and kitchen isn’t as dramatic, because the laminate was down before:

But you can see all the character in the floors now:

The laminate used to stop by our basement steps, and now that everything is hardwood, it makes our main level feet HUGE:

It’s so funny – we feel like we have a brand new house, but it also feels like it’s been like this forever. I don’t even remember the carpet and laminate, already. Well, I do…but the cherry and animal and Christmas tree stains on the carpet and the dirty laminate are oh so easy to put out of my mind. :)

The change has so many new projects running through my head now too – it’s like my mojo was given a jolt! I’ve already completed a few (small) projects and have a few (HUGE) projects in mind.

Now I hope to get some Halloween decor up (the Bub has been SO patient) and then get our house fallified as well. I’ve been holding out on any decor because of this process. I’ll show you more of the floors and my latest projects soon – hopefully with better light!

Thanks for coming along with us during this project!! Everyone told me and I will say it – (now) I don’t mind at all that the old fridge pooped out on us and leaked everywhere. :) NOW I can say that. Seven weeks later. ;)

Mini Transformations

Hey hey! How are you? I’m super excited because it’s only supposed to get up to 79 tomorrow – ahhh, I’m in heaven! Although that is perfect deck staining weather, unfortunately. Fortunately? Whatever.

I’m back with one more post about the family room redo – are you tired of seeing it yet?

Don’t answer that. :)

Many of you had questions on the little details in the space so I wanted to get the info on all of the accessories in one spot.

First up, the TV area – the old TV spot was a thorn in my side, and now I couldn’t be happier:

The dresser was (another) Craigslist find. I told you it’s story here. It’s a Henredon and I adore it – it’s one of my very favorite pieces in our whole house. It’s GORG.

The lovely lady lamps were from HomeGoods last year – they are a beautiful green with a gorgeous finish. LOVE.

The mirror was also a HomeGoods find and it started out black. I got it months ago for another room, and it didn’t work there, so I put it back in my car to return it.

When I went to open the back of my SUV to get it out, it fell out in the parking lot. GAH. So…it wasn’t going back. ;) Drats.

The corner was busted and it had a few scratches (I can’t believe the mirror didn’t break!), so I sanded those down a bit. It was way too dark in black (I wanted something brighter above the black hole of a TV), so I took the mirror out and  spray painted the frame bright white. It turned out beautifully!

I haven’t found the mirror again, but I did run across this one at Target just recently:

It’s so close, and I think it’s the same exact size! I love how the mirror balances out the dresser and TV and all that jazz.

I showed you the mantel changes awhile back:

And it mostly stayed the same, but that brown candlestick needed some color!

Enter my Mountain View spray paint:

It was just what the mantel needed!:

That mossy “S” was a crafty project using sheets of moss:

I showed you how I hot glued my fingers made that one here.

The IKEA sofa table got a little accessory redo too, yet again using what I already had:

I had never done much to accessorize the top before:

So I went hunting through the house. :) The lanterns were a smashing deal a couple years ago – I got them for $10 each at Walmart. They used to sit on our deck and looked like this:

I wanted a brighter look, so I busted out the brushed nickel spray paint and there. you. go:

The tray was a $4 Goodwill find I’ve had for awhile and was black, originally white:

Someone had spray painted it black and I sprayed it back to white. Again. Got it? ;) I picked large blue books, again to pull some blue over to that side of the room. The faux greenery puff ball I showed you here.

And the lamp has gone through a few transformations – the latest being a coat of blue:

It’s a vintage light that started out ivory and brown with a different shade:

Then went to black, then green:

I luuuuurve the funky shape of it! We’ll see what color it is next. ;)

The very first thing I do when we get a new sofa (which is all the time, you know) is to take off the pillows that come with it. I ditch the matchy matchy and use pillows as a chance to pull in some color and customize the space:

I used the pillow forms that came with the sofa and made the striped pillow covers with Waverly fabric from Joann’s. The large furry cream pillow in the corner is from Target and IT’S SO FLUFFY!!!! (Name that movie!)

The others are all Pottery Barn pillow covers I picked up last summer. The embroidered one on the left was a total splurge but I. LOVE. it. I don’t buy my pillow inserts there though – they are insanely expensive and I actually don’t think they are firm enough anyway. I use old pillows to stuff my cases, or get forms with a coupon at Joann’s or Hob Lob.

Whew! I hope that helps to answer any questions you had about the space! Other than a few pillows, I used what I had to finish up the accessories and wall decor for the whole space. I’m really, really pleased with how it all came together!

If there’s something I missed, let me know in the comments and I’ll let get back to you there! And…I swear, that’s the last I’ll mention the family room for about, uh…a few days? ;) 

So tell me, have you transformed something with spray paint lately? It’s magic in a can, I tell ya.