dining room reveal … for real

May 23, 2013 By Linda 12 Comments

Yes. I’m finally sharing the dining room remodel …

I’m not sure what took so long. Perhaps because I was futzing with some window panels. Window panels that I finally scrapped …

and that “scrapping” involved hardware removal. And caulking. And sanding. And painting.

Which should’ve been a breeze considering the hard work was already done. The board and batten was installed and caulked and painted months ago …

… in the months before the infamous finger injury. And surgery. And ongoing physical therapy.

Perhaps I was waiting for the living room to be completed too …

Since the board and batten wall treatment and Naval Sherwin Williams paint and awesome navy and white striped rug would be repeated in the living room too …

… just beyond the arch.

I feel like they go together. A mix and match set.

Like Garanimals …

But I can’t wait any longer. So here it is.

For now.

And here it was …

… before.

You can find more before by clicking here.

P.S. That leaded glass window is a fake. You can see how I made it myself clicking here …

P.P.S. I also share an easy fix on how I beefed up the baseboards by clicking here …

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the most visited room in the house …

February 10, 2012 By Linda 91 Comments

Behind this chalkboard door is the most visited room in our house …

Powder Room Makeover After Chalkboard Door

When searching for before shots of this space, I couldn’t find any. Not a single picture. Despite the fact that, when we moved in 17 years ago, I photographed the entire house. Even the basement. But not this room. Nope. Clearly I didn’t know then …

… that one day …

… this would become the most visited room in the house.

The 3 1/2’ x 5’ first floor powder room bathroom …

Powder Room Makeover After door open wide shot

Visitation is not calculated in terms of duration spent …

… hopefully, wishfully, thankfully …

… but more in terms of frequency.

You know, multiple visits per visit …

… dependent on the duration of the visit …

… and the number of beverages consumed during said visit.

And no. I will not venture into the bowels of bad bathroom humor here …

… okay, with the exception of that one joke, I’ll keep my potty mouth in check …

… uh oh, now I’m on a roll. Tee hee.

Clearly I have an abundance of ‘after’ shots …

… but what to do about the before? Well, I’m forced to create a bit of a re-enactment.

You know, a la CSI.

Powder Room Makeover After Hanging Basket

Using some of the ugly that, unfortunately, still exists in the other bathrooms in our home …

Powder Room Makeover After Basket Closeup

… to serve as my powder room “before” body double, if you will …

That floral wallpaper down there on the left – exposed when we removed the ‘lovely’ Hollywood make-up mirror light fixture on the right – at one time covered the entire space. Floor to ceiling …

I ripped that stuff down all by my lonesome about 10 years ago. And let me tell you, that was one messy job.

When I freed that last piece of ugly floral, I proceeded to paint it purple. Just because I could. And that sink. I painted it too. Yup. You read that right. Painted it with a re-glazing medium …

Powder Room Makeover Before Purple Walls

Now, this most recent makeover involved the nail gun, my husband and my favorite: board and batten …

Powder Room Makeover After Board and Batten

… painting above it with leftover BM Yarmouth Blue from the kitchen.

I made a relaxed balloon shade and hung it high to give the illusion that the glass block window is twice as tall …

Powder Room Makeover Relaxed Balloon Shade 1

The vanity was given a coat of leftover BM Bittersweet Chocolate from the kitchen remodel …

… and yes, that is a fuzzy toilet seat cover. Don’t mock. That’s just the way I roll …

And there you have it. My teeny tiny (in size, not effort) powder room makeover. The most visited room in the house …

… well, unless my teen son’s friends are the visitors. That’s when the kitchen gives the powder room a serious run for the money …

Board and Batten Bathroom with Painted Sink

P.S. You can find out how I added moulding to our boring builder grade mirror here …

P.P.S. And get the lowdown on how I painted the sink here …

P.P.P.S. And how we added the board and batten by following the tutorial here …

P.P.P.P.S. And how I made the balloon shade curtain by clicking here …

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batty for board & batten … and a tutorial

January 17, 2012 By Linda 52 Comments

Board and Batten Tutorial: How To Install

I’ve gone a bit batty for board and batten …

… truth be told, I’ve really gone much, much more batty than a mere ‘bit’ for this amazing board and batten wall treatment. And, yes, I’m late to this particular home diy party. What else is new?

I love this wall treatment so much that after my husband and I installed it in the entry (you can see the amazing before and after here) — by hand with old fashioned hammers and nails — I ran out to Home Depot and purchased a nail gun of my very own. Because I will be installing more board and batten …

EVERYWHERE …

I love how it looks like it’s been here forever.

And I love how the board and batten wall treatment is the perfect backdrop for my other love … hooks.

How To Install Board and Batten Wall Treatment

Now on to the promised board and batten tutorial (though, quite honestly, you can’t swing a proverbial dead cat in the diy blogworld without hitting a board & batten tutorial). The key to making the process run smoothly …

… and not freak out my husband who is not a diy handy dude (though he does wash a mean load of laundry) …

… was advance prep and planning.

I started here at Centsational Girl’s tutorial and then followed all of the links she included in her post.

Unlike Centsational Girl, I decided against trying to install panels on the wall. My walls are smooth drywall so I just nailed the vertical and horizontal boards to the wall, caulked like a crazy woman, and painted it all a high gloss white. In the end, you can’t tell the difference.

I started by determining how high on the wall I wanted the molding to be … but I had to work around this odd little window …

So I grabbed some painter’s tape and a level and starting taping out a pattern that looked pleasing to the eye. In the end, I took the board and batten molding about 2/3rd’s of the way up the wall, with the vertical ‘battens’ approximately 16 inches apart. I fudged here and there to make it fit. I leveled the horizontal and vertical taped lines as I went.

Then I painted it out with primer and removed the tape … and was left with a template of where to place the boards …

I measured all the vertical and horizontal lines once, twice … and then once and twice again … and jotted down all my measurements.

Then (this is a very important step ladies) I took a shower, styled my hair, put on make up, rummaged through my wardrobe for something without paint and glue stains, grabbed my list of measurements, and went to the lumber yard at Menards. A gentleman who worked there very kindly made all my cuts for me … and didn’t charge me a cent 😉

I use primed mdf … I’m all for cutting out a few steps of sanding and priming. Here are the materials I used:

1 x 6 Primed MDF for horizontal top board

1 x 2 Primed MDF for vertical slats

1 x 3 Primed MDF for shelf; cove molding to finish off underneath the shelf.

I also picked up …

… a box of 2 1/2” hardened trim nails …

… yea, that stuff is never coming off …

… and grabbed this $15 miter box on my way out.

My lumber came in just under $40.00.

Plan A included borrowing my next door neighbor’s nail gun. No such luck. He couldn’t find it.

Plan B included a skeptical husband, two hammers, and a box of nails.

If you, too, will be employing this low-tech board and batten installation technique, may I recommend that you hammer the nails partially into the boards first before attempting to put them on the wall. Then you don’t have to worry about holding the board and holding the nail and holding the hammer and holding the level …

… see how this could be problematic?

Oh and don’t do this step on your hardwood floors because sometimes you … or your husband … may get a bit overenthusiastic and hammer that nail right through that board and make a few nail holes in the hardwood. 😉

Before any hammering of nails, I did a quick dry fit …our 115 year old home is neither level nor square … and then numbered the wall and the boards so I would know which ones went where.

I also used a stud finder to try to find studs, but since (a) my house is old and (b) this is an exterior wall, I was finding studs all over the place. I marked them out as best I could.

Finally, some people remove and replace their baseboards with a 1 x 4 so that the “batten” of the board and batten will sit flush on top of it.

I didn’t bother. And it doesn’t bother me … not one bit.

One final step: We slathered liquid nails on the back of each board before nailing to the walls. Did I mention that these boards will never, ever be removed from the walls without causing serious damage?

After three hours of leveling and banging and leveling and banging …. and on and on … all was attached. My husband countersunk the nail holes and I followed behind with spackle.

Then the caulking began. This is a long and messy process … but so worth the end results!

Three coats of semi-gloss BM Bright White later, we added hooks, mail sorter bins and a few accessories …

This is officially my favorite room in the house. Now if I could just figure out how to fit our bed in here …

PIN IT!

Board and Batten Tutorial

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home tour: entry before & after

December 6, 2011 By Linda 103 Comments

Imagine you arrive at our home and are greeted with this amazing (if I do say so myself) painted on porch rug …

… and then the door opens to this …

Yeah, that can’t happen.

Truth be told, I finished the entry project last spring before moving outdoors to tackle the disaster that was the front porch (you can follow that story here).

I’m exceptionally proud of this project because it was 99% diy. The missing 1% goes to bringing in an electrician to hang the new chandelier. We learned early on that changing out light fixtures in our 100+ year old house requires the assistance of a licensed professional. There are some scary things going on inside our walls and ceilings …

… though I did play the role of the trusty assistant.

The before was pretty sad stuff. I hung a mirror over the radiator cover, used a cheap laminate left-over chest to catch toys …

… painted a blue ‘accent wall,’ made a faux stained glass window, and added some black & whites of our wedding photos to the wall leading up the stairs …

… and that was that. I’m embarrassed to say that’s how it remained for 15 years …

The entry is the first impression of our home and it certainly wasn’t making an impression that I was proud of …

… and once again I can’t believe I’m airing our dirty laundry here for all to see …

Besides being ugly, the entry wasn’t functional. We have limited storage in our square-foot-challenged city home.

It was in the planning stages for this project that I truly discovered the world of blog diy and became an ardent fan, true believer and an obsessive/compulsive follower. Pass the Kool Aid ladies and gentlemen …

The first major change came in the form of ‘faux’ board and batten …

Mike was quite the trouper and we nailed each and every piece of lumber up by hand. Needless to say it was a long and noisy day. And a day that prompted me to rush out and purchase a nail gun of our own.

It’s all over the blog world and was old news by the time I discovered it … but I can’t get enough. There are big plans in the works to carry it through the entire first floor …
… but I first needed to convince my husband that this was a good idea because I couldn’t hang board & batten on my own …

You can find my board & batten tutorial here …

The mail used to just pile up on the radiator cover, so I added some inexpensive bins from Target to sort it all out. You can read more about it here …

The staircase and wood floors on the first floor (oh, and the foundation and a weird closet in the master bedroom) are the only things original in our house. The molding and trim had to be torn out because it was painted with outdoor paint (most likely to cover up lead paint). Needless to say, I had more than a few trepidations about painting the original, 100+ year old newel and banister posts …

But in the end am confident in my choice. (You can find my tutorial on the staircase here). Oh, and I really do love the closet door painted black (and of course you can read more about that love here …)

Centsational Girl was by far the greatest influence on my entry design … and execution. I followed her instructions about how to B&B and how to strip, stain, poly and paint a staircase to a tee. I even traveled out of the city to Lowes to track down the exact same hooks she used in her project. Centsational Girl’s tutorials can be found here (board & batten) and here (strip, stain, poly, paint).

I just love the final results …

And, yes, that’s the same bench as before. Just primed, painted black, distressed, and dressed up with a custom cushion and pillows …you can read more about that project here

This is the vibe/feel that I plan to bring into the rest of the house …

Links to Entry Projects:

How to Hang Board & Batten

How to Strip, Stain & Paint Staircase

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