Our first house, a 1960 ranch home.
Kate at Centsational Girl is hosting a fun link party, so check it out! This is where I blog from.
Yeah, the cabinet doors and drawers aren’t done…yet. But it is nice to have my own space to spread out and organize.
This room also doubles as a library. I love having everything in one designated space, opposed to all over our house. Once the doors and drawers are built, my office will be complete!
Before we remodeled our main bathroom, it had pink on nearly every surface. Even the walls were covered in a metallic pink floral wallpaper.
Before the wallpaper removal began, we planned to have 18 inches of white trim at the top of the walls, a shelf below and lilac paint covering most of the walls. We thought the paper would be easy to remove becuase it was peeling. With our trim plan in mind, we began tearing down the wall paper.
It turned out to be far more difficult than we initially thought. After hours of scraping, peeling and subsequently damaging the sheet rock, we had removed about 18 inches from the ceiling down. And that was on one wall! Time for plan B; we opted to install sheets of beadboard to cover up the remaining wallpaper. A few more hours of scraping and we had the top 18 inches of wallpaper removed from the entire bathroom.
Once we had the paper removed from the areas we knew would be visible, we cut our sheets of bead board from 4 foot by 8 foot down to 76 inches, leaving them four feet wide. Ben used an air nailer to secure the sheets to the wall, going in to the studs. Then, we covered the bottom of the bead board with baseboard, hiding the unevenly cut ends and gap between the panel and floor.
To build the shelf to display and store items, Ben cut a sheet of 3/4 inch thick MDF into 3.5 inch, 3 inch, and 1.25 inch wide pieces. Then, Ben nailed the 3.5 inch cut piece to the wall 77 inches from the floor, checking to keep it level. He added shims in areas because this piece was partially covering up the bead board panels.
Once the trim was secured, the 1.25 inch pieces were added to provide additional support for the shelf. Keep the tops of the trim flush with one another. Cut the trim pieces at a 45 degree angle when approaching doors or other vertical trim. Finally, the 3 inch shelf was installed on top of the trim pieces.
Then, of course, fill, sand, prime and paint. This can be modified to any height. If a shelf is added, be sure the height works for the use of the space. You don’t want to bump into it.
We have a lot of trim in our house, so I thought I’d share the technical names of some trim features. We’ll work from the bottom to the top.
We have baseboard and shoe moulding. baseboard are the lowest piece of trim, covering the joint between the wall and floor. Shoe moulding is similar to quarter round moulding, but is higher than it is wide. Shoe moulding is installed where the baseboard meets a finished floor.
Plinth blocks are a middle ground for door casement and base board to meet.
Chair rail is a horizontal piece of trim that is usually installed 36 inches from the floor to protect the wall from the being damaged by chair backs.
Now, we come to the humble window sill. I’m sure most, if not all, of my dear readers know what a window sill is. For those that don’t, the sill is the lower horizontal part of the window opening. I like for ours to extend 1 inch past our casement.
Casement trim is placed around doors and windows to cover gaps and imperfections. Rosette blocks are a decorative alternative to mitered casement corners.
As if painting a magnet board and making a piece of art wasn’t enough, I decided this was the perfect weekend to start mission rug redo. I bought a jute rug from a local thrift store recently and decided this would be the perfect chance to paint a rug. Martha Stewart did a segment on painting stripes on a sisal rug, so I used that as a starting point.
First, I created a template to use as a guide for my design. Starting in the dead center of the rug, I used painters tape to mask off a chevron design, placing my template down and taping around it. I also made a second template to use as a spacing guide. After I had my design completely taped off, I used the handle end of a screwdriver to rub the edge of the tape down.
I sent Ben off to the hardware store to get a quart of white oil based paint. He came back with this:
I started by ‘pouncing’ along the taped lines, just like stencling, to prevent the paint from seeping under the tape. Then Ev started crying, so I took a break to feed him. I let my first area of paint dry and peeled back part of the tape to check my lines.
Happily, the paint didn’t bleed under! So, I painted, and painted, and painted.
Then, I ran out of paint, so I bought a gallon. I returned home, full gallon in hand and painted some more. This was by no means a speedy process. It took about 4 hours to get everything painted. I let everything dry for 24 hours before removing the tape. Definitely do this outside, as the dry paint flakes off the tape, making one big mess.
I like the bold pattern. I think it’s just what this room needed.
In all honesty, I love the look of the painted rug, but not the feel. The paint does dry crunchy, BUT, a jute rug is never squishy and cushy, so it’s not that different than the unpainted rug. This would be much better in an outdoor setting, like a doormat or ourdoor living area. Until I can find a plush rug I can afford, this will stay in the boys’ room. I do think it will make an appearance outside at a later date.
After spray painting a new magnet board for Vincent, I started creating a painting for our main bathroom. I looked in our garage and found a 13 inch by 31 inch scrap of 1/2 inch thick MDF. I really wanted something that was 12 by 36, but it was close enough. After a quick cleaning, I applied a coat of primer to all sides.
This is going in our bathroom, and I don’t want the MDF to swell in the humidity. Priming and painting all sides will seal the MDF, preventing any swelling.
I was inspired by the shadow of leaves the afternoon sun casts on the walls in our house, so I went out to take a picture of our tree.
After my primer and white paint dried, I began drawing leaves onto my ‘canvas’, using my photo as a guide. I lightly drew some of the leaves with pencil. Some areas where the leaves are more clustered together were difficult to recreate, so I took artistic freedom and drew some leaves as I liked. After 10 minutes or so, I had half of my template complete.
I mixed up a custom ‘greige’ color using a small amount of black, tons of white and some yellow. Then I started carefully filling everything in.
It was a little time-consuming, taking about one and a half hours, but I actually doing things like this. Call me crazy, but I’d rather spend an hour or so creating free art than buying something. Now we have a custom, one of a kind piece of art in our bathroom.
I like the long, rectangular shape and size. It definitely makes more of a statement than the smaller items that were there before.
How many of you make your own art? Whether it’s a painting, drawing or something else. Do share! I would love inspiration!!
ourhumbleabodeblog.com 