We’re jumping back into house projects! Part of it is new year ambitions, and the other is that we just couldn’t stand another minute of the utter brown-ness of our library.
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| Where's my scrunchy? |
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
I don't love the 80s, but I love our library!
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
*GASP* We painted the brick!
When you’re trapped inside all winter with an infant, you start to feel a little oppressed. Like the walls are closing in. Something heavy, orange, and brown looming over you, weighing you down.
Orange and brown?
Yes. For me, this color pairing will forever be associated with the feeling of entrapment. Sorry, Cleveland Browns. Your jerseys just happen to be the same oppressive color of our fireplace:
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| Living room two Christmases ago. Before it was overrun by the tiniest tyrant. |
We’ve been stuck in a decor rut with our most-used room in the house. And it’s because an entire wall is nothing but 80s-spectacular orange and brown brick. For the past two years, we’ve kicked around the idea of white-washing or painting it, but just couldn’t pull the trigger. Other things to do, plus OMG! You can’t paint brick!
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
holy forgotten post, batman!
This post has gone through so many reiterations and promptly forgotten about that … well, it’s more sad than funny. First off, pregger brain is real. Second, newborns are adorable little tyrants and any ‘free time’ new parents may have is devoted to basic living functions like eating, sleeping, and, um, pooping. For all of us.
Example A: this post. It’s about our dining room makeover, which was a first trimester project. It was completed, more or less, long before Anna Bear made her debut.
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| That's a lot of swatches |
Or this:
The wainscotting was done, the walls and trim were primed, and it was time to paint. We selected Olympic’s Admiralty, a gorgeous navy, that had been a candidate in our bedroom but lost to Cozy Corner.
As you can see by the lack of 40-week bump, this was done waaaaay at the beginning of the year. We covered our new wainscoting (which turned out awesome, thanks to Mike’s handiwork) to protect it from drips. Other than that, I didn’t bother taping off to cut in. What can I say? I live dangerous.
Before the navy paint, we were debating whether or not to paint the trim in here. Luckily, the navy really warms it up, so we decided to leave it be. We did, however, paint the crown and then painted the once-navy raised ceiling a soft gray with just a wee hint of blue in it. It’s subtle in the camera, but it turned out perfect. It gives just enough contrast that you see the white crown but it doesn’t close the ceiling in.
Before I show you the after shot, let’s take a trip down memory lane: The listing photo.
Oh baby.
But now, it’s a little more like this!
What still needs to be done?
- Replace the chandelier with something less massive
- Paint and reattached vents
- Add additional decor
- Replace tile with hardwoods
- Enjoy!
Finding the table was an arduous journey that we have detailed in a long draft post. However, I think at this point, the short story will do. Our dining room is 11 x 11.5 feet, so very nearly square and a weird size for most tables these days. We wanted a table that could seat 6-8 people (8 extended) without becoming uncomfortable. Mike dislikes round tables, and an extended rectangle’s ends would be too close to the walls for chairs … and kind of defeat the point of extending it for additional seating.
Way back in early spring, during the local furniture meca’s massive shareholder sale, we set out to find a table. Our pre-sale search revealed a possibility: a squat rectangle that butterflied into a square that could seat 8. Only kicker? It was counter height. We combed the internet for a similar table at standard height within our price range and seemed to be coming up short. So, when the sale came around, we were contemplating chopping the legs down (and hoping/praying we didn’t turn it into a wobble).
Of course, the store had rearranged the tables, so it took some serious hunting before we found the counter height table and then flagged down a sales person. This table was also espresso colored, so we were hoping for some finish choices that wouldn’t be so dark. We had a good saleswoman who listened to our dilemma about table heights; she offered to see if this manufacturer made the table in the standard option. No such luck. But then she disappeared into the special order tomes.
When she came back, she found essentially the same table by a different manufacturer, and it came in a walnut finish. Sale price? Right around $200! We were stoked but a little hesitant, because it’s hard to judge the finish by the picture, and “walnut” seems like a fluid shade, judging by the floor samples of other tables carrying the same label. The chairs that came with the table weren’t oo our liking (seemed heavy for the space), so we decided to forgo getting the matching set at the discounted price and figure out what we wanted down the road.
A month later, our beauty arrived, and we love it! It looks very rich and warm in person and picks up warm tones from the trim.
The day after Anna was due (but not remotely interested in coming out), we spotted some parsons chairs on Craigslist in a neighboring city. We also spotted two windsurfers for sale at a cut-rate price in another city. So, of course, we figured we should get both. Why not? I was only 40 weeks pregnant.
We figure we can buy more chairs in a contrasting fabric for fun, or get matching ones from the original store.
Now to take care of that chandelier!
Sunday, August 9, 2015
tiling like a boss
Well, we finally did it! WE TILED THE UPSTAIRS BATHROOM!
::big belly dancing::
It’s funny, originally we figured it would be years before we began updates on this bathroom. The tile was ugly but in good shape, and it’d be the kids’ bathroom. Getting the carpet out of the master bathroom should have been priority #1. But but, but, we found pretty sweet tile for only 88-cents! It's a Deal!
You know what?
We wish we’d done it sooner! (Except we would’ve missed out on the killer deal.) It’s just like the kitchen pulls -- we dragged our heels on it, but once it was done, it was sooo worth it!
Okay, enough gushing here. Last you heard from us, Mike had cut and laid the Hardi board to give us a level floor for mortaring the tile. Next came the tricky part - figuring out our “main tile line” that would become our guide for the entire layout. Or, squaring the room for you technical folk. This proved more difficult than we expected.
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| Making a line |
First, just to see, we laid a line of no-cut tile from the tub to the wall behind the toilet (call this the horizontal tile layout) and squared it up, marking the square on the board to keep us in line. We ended up with a small gap that was too big to hide with the trim, and too small to easily cut a sliver of tile.
Hmm, ok. So the easy peasy full square, half square, full square starting brick pattern wasn’t going to work. I grabbed some cardboard and cut out “templates” for ⅓ and ⅔ tiles, so we could play around with cuts without actually cutting anything. This allowed us to get a good idea on how to negate that sliver of tile on the toilet wall.
Next, we had to contend with positioning around the toilet stack. Basically, what obstacles would we have to worry about in the ‘vertical tile layout’ direction? Originally, our starting line was against the back wall, but this would mean 4 circular cuts around the stack. So, we shifted the starting line a half tile from the wall, which allowed Mike to make two half-circle cuts instead of four quarter-circle cuts.
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| Testing |
Now we were in business.
Looking back, we are so glad we took time on this step. It really set us up for success throughout the whole tile job. A lesson learned for future tile jobs is to certainly do this step but not to the exacting standards that we had done for our first tile job. A word from the newly wise, layout the tile as best you can, but don’t stress completely about being perfectly exact.
Next, we opened up multiple boxes of tile and spread them out. We love the variations in each tile, but this means we need to be careful with laying things out. You don’t want clusters of similar tile in one area of the room. We even laid out the tiles that would need to be cut in half, notched out for corners, etc.
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| Dry layout with labels |
Once we had our pattern, Mike had a brilliant idea: LABEL THEM!
Since they’ll get moved around as we start to mortar, it’d be easy to get the order mixed up. So, Mike grabbed some painters tape and numbered each one and included an arrow for the upper right corner. This was the best idea ever! We could safely move and reorient things as we needed to get the best design possible. Likewise, this immensely helped during ‘cutting day’ as Mike could simply mark and grab the right tile. Then we moved tiles to the hallway so that they were out of the way.
Mike marked the final starting line all the way down the room before clearing that space for mortar. Our game plan was to lay down all the non-cut tile first on a weeknight and then do the cuts on the weekend, since this involved going up and down a lot of stairs (tile cutter was stationed in the patio).
After a considerable amount of internet sleuthing around, Mike still had questions about which mortar to use. Luckily, our good friends are builders here in town. Mike went over and looked at the bags of mortar that they were using for their gorgeous tile job in the master. He wrote down the bag numbers, grabbed them from the store and GAME ON!
While Mike was on trowel duty, I was the official Hander of Things. So, I’d hand him tile, spacers, wet rags, etc., as needed. (Mike says “this saved gobs of time and stress, thank you wifey!”) I’m just glad I wasn’t the one on my knees and messing with the mud. The tile was stacked in numbered order in the hallway, so I could just grab and hand to Mike. Then, he would trowel on a couple of tiles worth of mortar and begin laying them down. The first row is CRITICAL, as it essentially determines your entire layout of the floor. Mike checked each tile to make sure that it aligned perfectly with its neighbors and also that the tile was level.
Rince and repeat. This was the easy part...
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| Laying the mortar |
Next came the hard(er) part, cutting and laying all of the half and notched tile.
Cutting Day!!! Mike read about several different ways to cut and shape tile. The most effective for our tile was the tile saw and a good pair of compound nippers. Mike tried the manual ‘score and snap’ tile cutter, but it wasn't a good fit for this tile.
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| Just before the SNAP |
The ‘score and snap’ is a pretty ingenious method of cutting SMOOTH tile. You simply score the tile with the carbide wheel, push down on the handle, and the pressure from the handle pushes tile against a small triangular ridge on the base. The tile should then ‘snap’ along your scored line. While our tile is hard wearing porcelain tile, it’s actually roughly textured to resemble slate. The carbide cutter wasn't able to make a consistent line across the tile, and often times the tile would shatter.
Luckily, we scored on a ‘cheap’ tile saw from Amazon a couple years back. This thing is nothing special but it certainly got the job done. Mike set up a tiling station on the back patio and went to town. Mike says that it was surprisingly easy to cut the tile and was likely the lowest stress part of this whole project. He didn't even really use a measuring tape to mark his lines. Instead, he would line up the tile with the tile spacers and adjacent tile. He would then use a second tile overlaid to trace out the vertical and horizontal cut as needed. A little later, he found an even better method by ‘connecting the dots’.
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| Mike making his dots |
In this method, you simply line up the tile that needs to be cut, and make a ‘dot’ with a sharpie on the edge of the tile. At the cutting station, it was easy to use a speed square to create the needed line on top of the tile.
The curved cuts were next, and were not nearly as difficult as expected. Again, slow and steady won this race. Mike made a series of ¼ - ½ inch vertical cuts into the circular cutout. Then he would use a hammer to sharply strike near the edge of the circle, most times the tile would break close to the desired circular line. To clean everything up, Mike used a set of compound tile nippers (make sure you spend extra and get compound nippers, the regular nippers are not powerful enough for porcelain/ceramic tile) to clean up any jaggged edges.
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| Some of the fun cuts (and our seriously beat up trim) |
With the tile all down, it was time to grout. We didn’t want white and we didn’t want something too dark, since it’s not a large bathroom and the tile is already dark. We wound up selecting DeLorean Gray, and it’s a great light-to-medium gray.
Unfortunately, I was no longer just a Hander of Things. Since we had to be cognizant of drying time, I was put on sponge duty. Mike would lay the grout, and then, after about 15 minutes, I followed behind him with two large buckets of water and two sponges. I was not looking forward to this, because wiping up the shower grout was the worst part of grouting the master shower.
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| 8 months pregnant, handing things, cleaning things |
This time, things went better, either because of our grout choice or a better technique.
- Squeeze the sponge out in clean water.
- Swipe it across the tile (diagonal if you’re going across tile corners).
- Flip the sponge over and swipe again.
- Rinse the sponge in the bucket.
- Repeat.
We had the two large buckets of water, because your water gets dirty pretty fast, and dirty water doesn’t rinse well. The two-bucket method saved us some trips up and down the stairs and out of the house.
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| Mike wiping |
This is also the phase of tiling when we discovered another disadvantage of textured tile: grout gets in all those grooves and ridges, and you really need to scrub them out. Scrubbing was slowing me down and I was running into dryer and dryer grout. Once Mike was done grouting, he followed behind me to spot check grout left behind. Then, a couple hours after we started, we were done! I checked in about an hour later, and the tile had barely glazed over in a couple areas, so I wiped it again. We had a gorgeous and rock-solid new floor for the bathroom. Plus a HEAP of new knowledge on tiling that we’ll use on other parts of the house.
Next up? Painting!
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Demo, baby! A Mike post
No our Poppyseed is not demoing...yet. Instead I found my ‘nesting’ instincts revolve more around a sledge. As we previewed before, I decided that when wifey is away I should ‘check’ to see how difficult the tile would be to replace in the second floor bathroom.
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| “It’s pretty much ridiculous. I think you could set off a nuclear bomb in here and be fine.” |
Yep, we knew this house has good bones, but sometimes they REALLY overbuilt. Case in point, our bathroom tile is individually, hand-placed ceramic tile, over 1 WHOLE INCH of wire-reinforced concrete.
With the help of a shiny new prybar and an arsenal of tools, I went at it. After five hours of demo, only ⅓ was completed...Boo. This stuff was insane to demo and was remarkably well made. The chief cause of frustration was that wire mesh. It looks like chicken-wire, but I assure you, that it's at least 2-3 times as thick. The traditional technique of breaking up the tile and then lifting it off the floor in large sections just didn't work because of that wire mesh. Instead, the mesh meant that I had to resort to a tedious technique.
First, break up the ceramic tile and leave the cement exposed. Next, using a shiny new pry bar, lift up a foot of concrete at a time from the sub-floor. This will then proceed to drag all of the rest of the floor with it because of that darn wire mesh. Then pry up around the target area a few more times, which loosened the cement from the floor. And now for the really un-fun part, take the 4 lb sledge and break out the concrete pieces from each hole of the wire mesh. This took FOREVER to do.
Once you have a mound of rubble, scoop it all up and haul it to the garage. Rinse and repeat.
Now, after that first foray, I was about as sore as you can imagine. We also had a gazillion family/friend activities and weddings to attend, so that poor bathroom sat ⅓ demolished for longer than I care to admit. Sorry, Emily!
Before the next demo party, it was time to take out the toilet. Of course nothing is ever easy, and the shutoff valve needed to be replaced. Back to Lowes! This time I was smart and picked up shut-off valves for all of the remaining toilets in the house. If two were bad, then we can be assured that other ones should be replaced, too.
Anyhoo, once the water was shut-off, we inexpertly drained the tank, managing to splash a fair amount of the tank water on the floor, OOPS.
Hint, this is epic foreshadowing for our next post….
Anyways, I removed the toilet tank, and then proceeded to try and remove the bowl. Nothing is ever easy.The original installers had saved 10 whole cents and used zinc plated bolts instead of the nominally more expensive brass. The problem with zinc? It eventually corrodes and our house is 30 years old. We now faced a completely rusted-out bolt and nut that needed to be hack-sawed off. Double grumble.
Eventually we removed the bowl and cleaned up the toilet flange. Learning from the many other DIY bloggers, we stuffed an old rag down the waste pipe.This stops any sewer gasses from drifting back into the house and also prevents any debris from getting in the stack.
I then SLOWLY proceeded to demo the rest of the bathroom. All said and done this ‘little’ bathroom managed to suck up a solid week and a half just for demo. The subfloor is in fantastic shape for a 30 year old home. The only real worry is this spot next to the tub.
While there are signs of surface rot, we tested it and the area is still sound. We are going to seal it up and the new thinset should protect things nicely for another 30 years.
So what's next? Here is a preview of the tile that we purchased from our awesome haul. Depending on how dark it looks overall, we might paint the vanity. Then, I’ll need to put down thinset and cement board to level out the floor. Finally, we’ll get to install the tile.
Friday, June 19, 2015
Nursery progress + Pinterest fun
Now that the third trimester is upon us (OMG!), it’s about time we update y’all on the nursery progress. Like our little Poppyseed, it’s also a work in progress.
Back when we contemplated a Poppyseed, I ventured into the world of nurseries and all things cuteness on Pinterest. And it just got worse once the little one “arrived” as two lines on a stick. Even though all a baby really needs is a safe place to sleep, Pinterest and blogs out there will have you believe that an Awesome Nursery of Awesomeness is the first test of good parenting.
So, yes, I have multiple boards full of nursery ideas, and I might even tackle some of them. Within reason. Our “theme”? Um, sailing+nerd? Seriously, there’s adorable nautical stuff out there, but there’s just as equally awesome Star Wars & Harry Potter ideas that I think “Geek” might be the all encompassing theme.
Our backdrop is gray (Mindful Gray by Sherwin Williams) and navy/white, because of this cuteness:
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| Scored at Home Goods |
Plus, navy will carry in the sailing aesthetic introduced by our next practical acquisition:
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| Marshall's |
If you’re like my very excited mother-in-law, you might say, “Oh, you’re having a boy!” Well, we don’t know what we’re having, and I firmly believe navy (or blue) is a gender neutral color. And the amount of girl and boy sailor clothes I’ve seen in stores this season fully support me on that! I figure once Poppyseed is out, we can add in whatever accent color we want. Personally, I’m leaning toward teal, but I could see red to make those sails pop.
At the end of this post, you can check out of my favorite nursery ideas. But for now, let’s see where we are, shall we?
First, Mike primed and painted the trim. DO THIS BEFORE THE WALLS, it makes life so much easier. You only need to tape or cover the carpet and quickly brush the trim.
Then, we had to paint over the peach with Mindful Gray. This was our first time ordering a color without prior sampling. Lowe’s discontinued our go-to Valspar Ultra, so we figured it was a good time to try out Sherwin Williams’ zero-VOC line called Harmony. I did a lot of Internet hunting for a reliable neutral gray, and Mindful Gray kept popping up. It was more a matter of expediency than confidence that I bought a gallon without first testing it.
Luckily, we love the color! In daylight, it’s a slightly warm gray, and it does take on a little more brown in the evening. We think it’ll be a perfect backdrop for whatever colors get incorporated. We got lucky!
Our feelings on Harmony, on the other hand, aren’t as enthusiastic. Despite being advertised as zero-VOC, it still has a strong odor. I wore a mask, just to be safe and ward off headaches. The texture going on was definitely smoother and less prone to gunking up than Valspar, probably due to the slower drying time. The coverage? Pretty much the same as our Ultra; it nearly gets it all in the first coat, but you definitely need that second coat. At twice the price (even with a coupon), we did hope SW would prove to be superior and were disappointed. To rub salt in the wound, we knew we didn’t have quite enough left in the bucket for a full second coat. No worries, we’d just grab a quart and mix it in.
Wrong.
Apparently, SW only carries Harmony in the gallon size. I was rather upset about this, because what we needed was maybe half a quart. I almost walked out. Painting a small bedroom shouldn’t cost you $80 post coupons! Then I toyed with the idea of ordering a sample, except the sample comes in a higher gloss and different line, so I didn’t think that would be wise. So, I sucked it up and bought a gallon. I’m sure we’ll be repainting at some point, once the little one discovers crayons and markers …
Anyway, with the walls freshly painted, it was time to assemble the crib. We’ve heard tales of nightmare crib building but didn’t think it could be that difficult. And it wasn’t, for the most part, except the included instructions were barebones and the pieces weren’t labeled. The instructions had labeled pieces … but apparently Sticker Guy took a break when our crib came down the assembly line. After some choice words for Sticker Guy, Mike figured it out, and then I held pieces together while he screwed them all together. Fascinating stuff, right?
Next, Mike’s parents graciously gave us one of their gliders. It’s super comfy and free! We’ve been struggling in our glider/rocker hunt, because we didn’t want to be spending a few hundred dollars on something that will only be used for a couple of years. I even contemplated foregoing a glider for the sake of our budget, but with so many moms telling me it’s a lifesaver during all those nights of breastfeeding … let’s just say I’m very grateful to my in-laws!
Next, we hauled up an Ikea expedit shelf from the library to use as changing table and storage until we find a dresser. We’ll throw a changing pad on top and baskets into the cubes. We also scored a neat bamboo toy box at a garage sale (see crib pic). Mike’s considering restaining it, just to bring the grain out a bit more. It’s not complete yet, but it’s definitely taking shape, and I do get a little mushy hormonal when I go in here now.
What we still need to do:
- Hang room darkening curtains
- Caulk the trim
- Get mattress and sheets
- Hang/create/acquire decor (see ideas below)
- Get baby supplies
- Have a baby!
So, without hopefully being too crazy and random, I’d like to highlight some of my favorite nursery ideas. Heck, I might even complete some before the baby’s born.
Wall Decor
Love this Star Wars/Seuss combo, and who wouldn’t love Darth Vader with a Death Star balloon?
Heck, it’s even coordinated with this No Wake Zone collection!
Or, alternatively, this text-less silhouette collection.
But let’s not forget about Harry Potter! I admit it, I’m a sucker for book page art. Unoriginal? Sure. Doesn’t make it any less awesome.
Love this little girl walking her AT-AT.
Nautical shelves! Be easy and cute to do.
And I love this driftwood sailboat garland. Maybe I’ll make a mobile like this?
Random Items
An R2-D2 diaper pail is a must.
Also love the idea of a Lego toybox, or even a robot one. Here you go, Mike!
Stay tuned ...
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