Archive for June, 2011
Fireplace Happenings
We’re back with the fireplace update that we mentioned in yesterday’s post about removing our old not-baby-safe wood stove.
This next step is definitely just the beginning of our fireplace makeover (as in step two of probably fifteen). We figure we’ll tackle this baby in stages (just like we do pretty much everything else around here) so the first step was to spend as little as possible to get it looking better for the short-term (since it might be a while until Phase Two kicks in). So here’s what it looked like yesterday morning:
And here’s what it looked like yesterday evening:
I know, I know – the orange paneling makes it look craZy with a capital Z. But just scroll down a bit to the dark den from our first house (which also had paneling and brick) to see just how transformative paint can be (we didn’t remove the paneling in there, just primed and painted it). So try to envision some fresh paint in a soft color on the paneled walls with glossy white beams and trim to match the same semi-gloss paint on the fireplace. Can you see it?
And now for a word about the candles and the mirror that I tossed into the firebox. Those are definitely not Clara-friendly. That was just mommy psychosis (I wanted something cute in there for the pics, even if there won’t be a thing in there for a while during Clara’s waking hours). It was such a quick little addition that it gave me some baby’s-in-bed-let’s-have-date-night ideas (you know as opposed to baby’s-in-bed-let’s-upload-fireplace-photos-and-write-the-post-for-the-morning ideas). The latter won out, so maybe I’ll break out this look for anniversaries. Me-ow.
But when it comes to the day to day stuff, l fully expect to find pillows, stuffed animals, books, and whatever else Clara decides to put in there awaiting me when I walk into the kitchen. The girl loves hiding stuff around the house, so I’m guessing that she’ll appreciate this new little nook. Maybe we’ll even be able to sneak a picture of her chilling in her not-hot-and-not-sharp-anymore zone reading a book or snuggling with Gee (her stuffed giraffe that she named herself).
The best thing about this little fireplace facelift is that it took us about five hours (on and off with drying time in between coats) and it only cost eight dollars (and three cents, to be exact). We just used primer that we had leftover from painting the guest room (Olympic Premium No-VOC primer), some white semi-gloss paint that we always have around for trim touch ups (Olympic Premium No-VOC paint) and a quart of Benjamin Moore’s Temptation in satin that we picked up from Lowe’s (color matched to, you guessed it, Olympic Premium No-VOC paint). Primer isn’t always necessary (we’ve gone without it while painting brick before) but we had it on hand so we figured we might as well use it.
You guys know we’re no strangers to painting brick fireplaces since we tackled not one but two in our first house. Remember this guy who went from this…
… to this:
And this one that went from this…
… to this:
You can check out our original fireplace-painting tutorial here, but since we’re nothing if not even chattier these days, we thought we’d recap the steps we took when it came to prepping our current fireplace for paint. First we:
- Closed the damper and declared the fireplace inoperable (we never used the woodburning fireplace in our last house and plan to either install a double-sided gas or electric insert down the road).
- Scrubbed the heck out of the firebox, exterior brick, mantel, and hearth with soap and water to cut the grease/ash (we used Dr. Bronners + water).
- Let everything dry.
Then it was time to prime and paint. Here’s what we did:
- Primed the firebox with Olympic Premium No-VOC Primer (remember, we’re not going to use this fireplace for wood burning, so if you’ll be using your fireplace either leave the firebox unpainted or hunt down high-heat options that are meant for the job).
- Painted the firebox with Ben Moore’s Temptation in satin (color matched to Olympic Premium No-VOC paint).
- Taped off the wall around the fireplace (since you have to smash a paint brush into craggy brick, it’s hard to stay in the lines).
- Caulked the big crack between the tile hearth and the firebox so it would look seamless when painted.
- Caulked other especially cavernous holes in the craggy brick so it looked less shadow-y and chipped when painted.
- Primed the brick fireplace surround, wood mantel, and even the tiled hearth (yup, the tiled hearth… more on that in a minute).
- Painted the brick fireplace surround, wood mantel, and tiled hearth with two coats of Olympic Premium No-VOC semi-gloss paint in off-the-shelf white (some folks like more contrast when it comes to mantel and hearth color, but we’ve always loved the all white look – although later when we build out or even tile the fireplace & surround we might add more varied colors and materials for fun).
- Applied three thin and even coats of Safecoat Acrylacq (a low-VOC non-toxic alternative to polyurethane) to just the tiled hearth on the floor. Be warned that certain polyurethane types will leave a nasty yellow tint so the only two that we trust are the Safecoat I mentioned above and Minwax Water-Based Polycrylic Protective Finish in “Clear Gloss.”
You think we’re crazy for painting the tile on the floor huh? Check this out. We did the exact same thing to the exact same heart floor in our first house. See the same little smashed up tile?
The whole prime, paint, and poly technique was meant as a very very temporary solution (we planned to replace the tile pretty soon thereafter). But it stuck. Literally. It still looked mint four and a half years later when we sold the house! Even with foot traffic (in shoes) and small nephews of ours ramming it with metal matchbox cars. Here’s where I’d add a close up shot, but sniffle, we don’t live there anymore. So here’s the last wide shot we took of the room (you can see that it still looks glossy and white):
So although painting ceramic tile, especially tile that gets walked on, is nothing the pros recommend, we’re totally cool with doing it as a temporary fix (although doing it in a bathroom is probably a terrible idea because it can get slick when walked on with sopping wet feet). I should mention that in both cases the tile was terra cotta which is really matte and porous (and not slick and shiny), which might be why it grabbed the paint and held the heck on for such a long time. Who knows, it could inexplicably show a lot more wear and tear than it did in the last house (you know we’ll tell ya if things quickly go south). But either way we’re pretty sure we’ll bring in some awesome new tile for the hearth and maybe the entire fireplace when we get down the road a bit (read: save enough loot to tackle the kitchen in a more major way). Until then I’ll just be found pinning the heck out of a million fireplaces on Pinterest. It’s a sickness, people. Here are a few that I’m loving:
Have you guys painted any brick lately? Or ever primed, painted, and poly’d tile- just to see what would happen? Has your husband ever taken terribly unflattering photos of you painting something to get you back for sharing pics of him scrubbing brick in his high school gym shorts?
Psst- The last three images were found via Pinterest (but they’re actually from here, here, and here).
A Maple Miracle
We were sneaky. Before we put our first house on the market we dug up a maple that we had planted in the back. We planted it right around the time we got married and it was an offshoot plant from a gorgeous maple that grew in John’s parents’ house (the only house he lived in for his entire childhood which has since been sold). So it was kind of double-meaningful with the whole “wedding tree” and “John’s childhood house” connection. That’s why before we sold the house we figured we should dig it up and put it in a bucket and move that bucket right along with us. But since we moved in December, it wasn’t exactly planting season. The whole thing was touch and go from the beginning, and by the time we finally got around to planting it (about seven weeks after we moved since there was so much snow going on and the ground was frozen) we worried it was d-e-a-d.
But we planted it anyway, and watered it a little, and did the whole cross-your-toes-and-eyes thing.
So when spring rolled around and this other maple on our property looked like this…
… and our poor tree still looked like this…
… we really feared the worst. It had tiny buds on the end of each branch which had been there since we planted it in the winter, but they weren’t changing. Boo. But at least it didn’t look rotten or completely dead. Just sort of dormant. So we decided to leave it alone and see what happened. John even suggested that maybe it would somehow miraculously bloom next spring or something after a year of “rest.”
Then the other day John came inside after mowing and looked me in the eyes and said “guess what?!” Then he paused for dramatic effect for what felt like ten minutes while I guessed things like “you met a talking Squirrel” and “you found buried treasure.” I was dying for him to just spit out and and he finally said “the maple…” and I screamed “is getting leaves?! it’s alive?!!!!” and he nodded. Little guy up and grew some gorgeous little red leaves for us:
The whole thing culminated in my running outside and chanting “Go maple, it’s your birthday, go maple…” which eventually evolved into “Grow maple, grow maple, grow!” And I think the new neighbors might have heard me. Way to make a good impression $herdog (yes, that’s my nickname to myself that refuses to catch on). But really, who can’t relate to dancing and singing for the miraculous growth of leaves? Ok, nevermind. Only now do I realize how strange that reaction was. Hindsight is 20/20.
I guess things could still go south (we did recently learn that leafy branches can up and die in record time), but the new growth seems like an awesome sign. And it will be amazing if we can glance out the window and actually see our gorgeous wedding maple from John’s childhood home chilling in the backyard for years to come. Oh what the heck- GO MAPLE, IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY!
Fire (Not) In The Hole
As of today we’ve lived in our house for six whole months. How crazy is that? Can you believe this little adventure was half a year ago?
And in all that time we’ve never formally introduced you to Bart. How rude of us.
Bart, aka Black Bart the woodstove insert, is hard to miss in our kitchen. We know the previous owners got a lot of use out of him (although they did warn us that he made the house pretty smoky and coated a lot of nearby surfaces with fine black dust). We’d always planned to replace him down the road when we hopefully convert our fireplace into a double fireplace (that can be enjoyed from the living room as well as the kitchen).
But Clara spurred us into action a bit sooner. See, the bean is just too obsessed with Bart. And the potential harm to Clara thanks to a searing hot 30+ year old wood burning stove has always outweighed any potential benefits. So although we moved in the middle of winter, we didn’t fire him up once. And Clara still finds the sharp metal edges of Bart oddly fascinating, no matter how many times we say no or redirect her with toys/the dog/insane dance moves, etc. In fact two especially pointy corners are right at “pulling up level” – which makes us even more nervous now that she’s about to be toddling around.
Sure Clara, why not play with a potentially scorching hot surface with sharp metal corners that’s conveniently located right at baby level? After all, it was last tested more than thirty one years ago – before either of your parents were even born.
All kidding aside, we know many folks who love wood stoves (even those with kiddos), but Bart just wasn’t working for our fam. We couldn’t keep denying that he was truly (and weirdly) a Clara magnet, and after she once managed to get the stove door open and her hand into some soot before we could pull her away, Sherry and I were officially fed up with this sharp and dirty metal monster that we weren’t even using.
Never ones to act hastily (you know us, we prefer to overanalyze while hemming and hawing), first we considered locking the doors with a kid-proof lock, adding foam pads to the pokey parts, and even blocking him off with baby gates or some sort of homemade blockade contraption. But in the end we realized that building everything short of a moat around something that we didn’t use and already planned to replace down the road seemed more than a little wacky. In other words: it was time to bid ol’ Bart adieu. So we borrowed some confidence from Layla and Kevin‘s fireplace makeover and decided to give our kitchen a Black-Bart-ectomy yesterday (don’t worry, we won’t trash him- Bart will live on, but more on that later).
When it came to the whole wood stove removal thing, I didn’t really know where to start. And this was one of the few times in my life that google was no help. So during Clara’s afternoon nap (so as not to set a bad example slash taunt her) I just sort of started pulling at things. Lucky for me, the flashing around the sides easily pried away. So much so that I’m kinda surprised Clara hadn’t figured it out yet. Yikes.
I learned there was only a little bit of glue holding the three pieces flimsily in place (which made the stove look flush on all sides).
The only questionable moment was when I revealed a bunch of wires on one side and worried that some electrical work might be involved. Thankfully I soon realized that they were just connected to a fan on the back of the unit, so I didn’t have to disconnect anything after all (I just kept it all attached and removed it all together). Phew.
With all sides of the stove revealed, the only place I could see it attached to the house was right here at the top. It seemed to be bolted to a vent that snaked up into the chimney. So I figured I’d just attempt to take that apart and hope for the best.
The good news was that my hunch was right- those bolts were the only things holding that baby in place. The bad news was that the bolts were really friggin hard to get off. Okay, just one of the five was (the top of that bolt was so soft that my wrench had trouble gripping it). Oh and did I mention that space was tiiiight? My skinnier-armed wife tried to save the day, but she’s also shorter-armed, so alas… no dice.
But I kept at it (and Sherry kept trying as if her arms were growing by the second). And after getting covered in ash and enduring a few knuckle scrapes we got Bart fully detached from the vent. Ta dah!
Okay, so it was less of a perky “ta-dah!” and more of a grunting “ohmygoodness” because that beast was HEAVY. But as you can see, we managed to shimmy Bart out of the fireplace and onto a piece of scrap cardboard (which helped us slide the whole darn thing out of the way). So our fireplace could go from this…
…to this:
Admittedly it’s not the prettiest before & after. In fact, the after kinda looks uglier in a way… despite the fact that I got my Cinderella on and scrubbed the inside it with some warm water and mild soap:
Sherry really wanted to be the one to yoink this beast out all by herself (short arms be darned) so she made me scrub things down while she sulked slash snapped embarrassing photos. I’m making that face for two reasons. 1) because the sooty clean-up job was pretty nasty, and 2) because I’m realizing that a photo of me in my high school gym shorts would end up on the Internet. Yep, still own ‘em and still fit in ‘em… sort of.
Short shorts aside, Bart is currently residing in our dining room (where Clara rarely goes), just waiting to be craigslisted or otherwise donated (haven’t yet figured out if a Big B is worth anything to anyone, but we’ll share the craigslist link if he ends up there).
And hopefully soon we’ll have a prettier version of our fireplace to share. Immediate plans for it include painting the firebox a dark charcoal color to even out the stained brick interior. And that’ll probably be followed quickly by painting the brick and mantel. Spoiler alert: we’re leaning towards bright glossy white (we’re planning to bring some color onto the kitchen walls, so a white fireplace should be a nice counterpart). But we’ll share all those painting details as we go.
Down the road we’re also planning to take the fireplace makeover a step further – perhaps by eventually tiling it, beefing up the mantle, or even framing it out all the way up to the ceiling to give it more height. Not to mention the whole double-siding plan. But all that future fireplace stuff is TBD at this point. We’ll just have to see where we end up. Oh, and Sherry wanted me to mention that she scraped off that big circular blotch of glue that you can see just outside the upper left corner of the firebox in the photo above. Despite how easily the metal flashing peeled off, the gummy glue didn’t come off the brick as easily. So she got all ninja on that blob and ended up using an exacto knife to slice it off in pieces.
Have you guys removed a wood stove or any other fireplace insert? Was google surprisingly unhelpful? Does anyone have a kid who loves their wood stove as much as ours? Do you think Big Bart is worth craigslisting or should we donate him to the Habitat For Humanity ReStore?
Psst- We’re sharing a fun, functional, and affordable little kid-art corner over on BabyCenter today.
Fab Freebie: Guiding Site
***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!***
Thanks to random.org, our winner is… Kari (who gets lost even with the help of GPS). Congrats Kari!
It goes without saying that we’re big fans of decorating and design help through the magic of the internet. So of course we’re psyched that one of you is gonna score some customized assistance from My Design Guide. They tap into a network of real interior designers to help you out with everything from quick fix mini-consults (which come free just by completing their StyleFinder quiz) to full blown 3-D renderings with paint color picks, furniture selections, and a shopping list (see a sample here). The latter of which our winner will be cashing in on this week. Woot.
- PRIZE: A 3D Custom Room Design from My Design Guide (a $229 value)
- TO ENTER: Comment on this post with the words “GUIDE ME!” and…
- BONUS QUESTION: … tell us about when you need guidance. Do you rely on maps or navigation systems to get you where you’re going? Recipe sites and books for cooking help? Friend and family input when it comes to relationship advice? Or pro assistance at the home improvement store?
- GIVEAWAY CLOSES: Wednesday, June 15th at 8pm EST
- NUMBER OF WINNERS: One
- PRIZE SHIPS: Anywhere they have the internet! Yup, this one’s global, baby.
- USUAL STUFF: One entry per e-mail address is permitted. The winner will be selected using random.org and announced on Thursday as an update to this post. That’s right, come right back here on Thursday for the announcement of our winners. Good luck…
Note: We weren’t paid or perk’d for hosting this giveaway, we just like rewarding our lovely readers! See our Giveaway FAQs page for more info. Pics from My Design Guide.
House Crashing: Lantern Love (And Lots More)
We’re back with another house crashing adventure from our recent road trip through Charlotte, North Carolina. You already caught a sneak peek of the amazing kitchen, so we’re back to fill in the blanks. And oh man, this family couldn’t have been sweeter if they were made of sugar. Seriously. And their completely transformed 60′s ranch couldn’t have been more charming. Even the outside had us at hello (you know we love a brick ranch).
Since they tackled such an amazing makeover, we decided to toss in some before pictures to show you just how far Kristen, Stan, and their one year old son Davis have taken it (well, Davis was in the belly most of the time- they worked hard to complete their renovations just days before he was born). And in baby compatibility news, he and Clara got along swimmingly. Cute, huh?
Here’s the photo we shared in last week’s sneak peek, but now we have actual info for ya. Like that gorgeous oversized lantern above the island is by Troy Lighting (here’s a link), the vent hood is a GE Profile 36″ island hood, and the butcher block counter is from Locust Lumber (right outside of Charlotte).
And look at the spread they tossed together to greet us! Nuts, chocolate candies, ice cold grapefruit drinks, and even animal crackers for the kids. Did I mention this family was sweeter than sweet?
Of course I played the role of Debbie Downer by suggesting that we wait to eat/drink so we could snap our photos beforehand. You don’t wanna know what that island looked like after we snacked (just picture scrunched up napkins full of half nibbled animal crackers, a few matchbox cars, and a bunch of empty glasses).
So we ran around grabbing photos as fast as we could (animal crackers awaited!). Here’s a wider view of the lovely kitchen that leads out into their family room:
And this is what the kitchen looked like from the same angle before they started their renovations about a year and a half ago:
Pretty darn amazing, eh? Here’s the other view of the kitchen from the now-adjoined family room (well, I guess it was always adjoined, it just had a tiny door and now has a nice wide opening).
Here’s the same angle before the makeover:
Any open jaws? Ours totally were when we checked out those before pics. Here’s a nice shot of the whole family room now, complete with pillows and table lamps from Target and a handsome worn leather chair from the Mitchell Gold outlet in Hickory, NC.
Just for fun, here’s a before shot of that room. Isn’t it stunning how much some light paint (with primer) on that paneling did for the room (Kristen actually followed our tutorial). And of course that big opening to the kitchen changed the space immensely too.
But back to the room as it looks now, I was in love with the casual and welcoming mix of textures and furnishings. Nothing was matchy-matchy but it all felt layered and inviting. Like the big patterned rug (handed down from Stan’s mom and dad) along with the old chair that Kristen recovered using this navy geometric fabric. The red side table was a an old secondhand wood one that she transformed with red spray paint (True Red from Lowe’s) and some spray on high-gloss finish (for a lacquered look).
Kristen also let us poke through some other rooms in the house, even though they’re still a work in progress. Look how sweetly this little guest room is coming along. I love the matching headboards (another lucky hand-me-down from Stan’s parents) along with those fun pillows from West Elm and the cheerful rug from Crate & Barrel. I’m sure when Kristen finishes up in there it’ll look even more amazing.
We also snuck some shots of Davis’ nursery because there were great ideas all over the place. See the fun patterned curtains? Kristen made them with fabric from Duralee. And since she’s such a fan of layering cheerful textiles, she brought in another pattern (from Etsy, called Teeny Tiny Zoo, in the color “Pool” by Alexander Henry) for the pillow and even covered her drum shade with it (for anyone who wants to cover their own lampshade with fabric, here’s a tutorial we wrote a while back).
We also loved the DIY-ability of these awesome painted canvases. Kristen got them from this fun boutique (actually as a gift from a friend), but you could print out animals, cut out their silhouettes, trace them onto canvases, and fill in the space around them with paint in varying tones for a similar look.
The mobile was also adorbs. Yup, I said adorbs. Anyway, it was made of felt by Eleni Creative, and worked so well with the fun animal fabric… which Kristen used as mats behind some sweet baby photos that she framed above the crib. Genius.
So there you have Kristen, Stan, and sweet little Davis’ lovely house in Charlotte. Thanks so much for letting us swing by and share the photos! Let’s bring down the house for the whole fam and play our usual what’s-your-favorite-part game. Ours were that amaaazing lantern hanging above the island in the kitchen, the fabric covered shade in the nursery, and that awesome navy chair and red end table in the family room.
Psst- Still in a snooping mood? Check out a ton of other houses that we’ve crashed right here.
Psssst- John and I saw Bridesmaids this weekend (our second movie at a theatre since Clara was born!). 1) It was hilarious. 2) I had lots of fun noticing a heart shaped earring and short skirt pattern when it came to Kristen Wiig’s wardrobe. 3) I wanted every single dress that her rival was wearing. Anyone else?
