Fireplace Phase 5

We’ve been updating our fireplace pretty much since we moved into our house.  It’s gone through several phases and is finally nearly complete!  I’ve probably talked more about the fireplace than any other thing in our house.  Here’s a reminder of how far we’ve come:

Since they way-before photo was taken, we added an expanded mantle shelf, hid the flat screen tv cables, painted the brass accents black, and painted the entire fireplace mantle white. 

Now we’re onto the fifth, and final, phase of the project – tiling!  We’ve done a few tiling projects in our home, including our kitchen backsplash and bathtub accent border, so I’m no stranger to tiling.  For this project, we decided to go with multicolored glass mosaic tiles as they have been pretty easy to install based on our past experience.  I like glass tiles because they have a smooth finish, unlike some natural stone tiles, which means that the adhesive and grout wipes off easily during installation and I don’t have to worry about it getting stuck in little crevices on the tile’s surface (a problem we ran into when tiling our bathtub).  I also really like mosaic tiles for this type of project because no tile cutting is involved.  I just cut the sheet of tile to the size we need with scissors and that’s it, the actual tiles themselves don’t get cut. 

I got the fireplace ready for tiling by taping off all of the painted areas (it’s hard to see in the photo below, but I taped off the inside of the mantle top and sides).   Our existing fireplace surround was a black stone material and since we had no idea what was underneath of it and it seemed like we could get tile to stick on top of it, we decided to take the easy road and tile right over it.

I used a pre-mixed tile adhesive that we had left over from a previous project.  This is the only type of adhesive I’ve tried, so I don’t know how it compares to others, but it has worked great and has been very easy to use in my experience.  It’s by Tec and is available at Lowes.

Now, onto the fun stuff!  I got to work by spreading the adhesive onto the fireplace and sticking the tiles on top.  I’ve previously detailed this process in my kitchen and bathroom tiling posts, so I’ll spare you the details this time around.

The tiles we chose are from Home Depot and are sold in 12” x 12” sheets for $5 in my store.  I needed a total of 5 square feet for this project, so all of the tile ran me a total of just $25.  That’s pretty good, in my opinion, for a project that should have a big visual impact when it’s done.

Here’s another progress shot:

It took me about 2-3 hours to prep the entire area and tile it (about equivalent to the length of a terrible TV sci-fi movie I inexplicably decided to watch during the project).  I wasn’t in much of hurry though, and may have taken a snack break, so it was a probably a shorter project if you count only my hard-at-work time.

And finally, here’s how the fireplace looks with all of the tiles applied:

The tile adhesive requires over 12 hours to dry for a project this size, so I wasn’t able to get to grouting this weekend.  But grouting is on my agenda for this coming weekend, so hopefully I will be able to get d-o-n-e!

What do you think so far?  What projects have you been working on recently?

DIY Craft and Office Desk Makeover

I’ve been holding out on you guys.  A while back I completed what can only be described as my FAVORITE DIY PROJECT EVER!  I took some time to tweak it and take some nice photos of it, but I’m finally ready to share it and I couldn’t be more EXCITED!  Can you sense my enthusiasm yet???

Get ready…It’s a DIY office/craft room desk makeover!  Before we get to the awesome (if I do say so myself) after photos, I must share the embarrassing before pictures.  You see, my husband is a truly wonderful man and has brought so many fantastic things into our marriage.  BUT, he also brought his computer desk from college into our home!



This style of computer desks was quite popular not that long ago and could be found in homes everywhere.  And while my husband was very fond of it and describes it as “functional” and “homey,” I was not as thrilled by it. 

This desk lived in the corner of a spare bedroom when we first moved in and I would use it occasionally (Hubby got a larger and nicer desk for his office), but I quickly decided it needed an update and one day I doodled a little sketch on a post-it note of how I could fix up this desk.



Although I didn’t stick to this plan exactly, the basics remain the same- a coat of paint and some new shelving to completely transform it.

I started off by removing the top hutch portion of the desk.  It was fairly easy to take apart and I covered up the holes from where the desk and hutch were attached with some spackle before painting.



Then, I sanded the desk down manually (it’s made of particle board so I didn’t want to go crazy and sand off too much with a power sander).  I know there are lots of tutorials online for painting furniture, but since this is a particle board desk and not an expensive antique, I just used whatever supplies I happened to have on hand.  I think I used a can of spray paint white primer to give the desk a base, then painted it with regular latex wall paint I had left over, and then finished it with a  coat of protective spray paint. 

So are you ready to see the after photos?!



Boom!  If I can pat myself on the back, I must say that’s quite a transformation!  Here’s a good before and after shot to give you the full picture:



I’m now able to plop my laptop down and use this desk as my office, or I can add my sewing machine and use it as a sewing or craft space.

Above the desk, I hung two shelves I had purchased at a garage sale.  They were originally red, but I painted them white too.  I used some empty food jars to store some paint brushes and pencils.  The letters are our initials and are from The Christmas Tree Shop.  I absolutely love the map too, it is another garage sale find.  I plan on adding pins to the map marking the places we’ve traveled.



The desk isn’t very large so I try not to keep a lot on it.  Just a lamp (also from a yard sale) and a couple of framed photos.



When I’m not using the sewing machine, I keep a little decorative box on top of the desk.  It’s filled with old birthday/holiday cards, party invitations, and other little keepsakes I like to hold onto.  I haven’t gotten a nice chair for the desk, so I’ve been using a dining room chair in the meanwhile.



Just for fun, here’s another before-and-after shot:



I couldn’t be more pleased!  This is probably the most fun and satisfying makeover project I’ve done to date.  I’m really thrilled with how this desk turned out and that I have a new office and craft space.  I’m so happy we were able to keep the desk and transform it into something that works better for us without too much difficulty and at almost no cost (about $8 spent on the map, shelves, and decorative letters, everything else we already owned).

What do you think of this transformation?  Have you created a craft or office space in your home?  Or have a spouse that has also brought some questionable furniture into the house?


I'm entering this project into the Creating with the Stars contest from East Coast Creative!

I'm linking up this project to House of Hepworths, Miss Mustard Seed, Finding Fabulous, Beneath My Heart, Thrifty Decor Chick.

White Painted Fireplace!

Woohoo!  I’ve been hinting about a project over the last couple of weeks and I’m so excited to finally share it today.  I’ve been giving my fireplace a makeover!  After a lot of pondering, I finally worked up the courage to paint my oak fireplace white.  (Spoiler alert: I love how it turned out!)

But before I get to the makeover, here’s a look way back at how the fireplace looked before we did any improvements.  When we first moved in, the fireplace was oak with no real mantle shelf (it was only about 2 inches wide at the top making it too narrow to place anything).    



My Dad built a mantle shelf for us which gave me more room to decorate and made the mantle look more substantial.



Then I used paper of all things for a free and easy way to hide my flat-screen tv cables.



Then over the winter I finally got around to painting the brass fireplace accents with high-heat black spray paint.



The fireplace was looking much better than the sorry state we found it in when we moved in, but I still was dreaming of a white fireplace mantle.  So I did it!  I painted the fireplace white!  To do so, I broke out some new painting tools.  I read a lot of articles on painting oak, and oil based primer seemed to be the way to go so I bought Zinsser white oil-based primer. 



And I bought some new brushes too because I wanted a really smooth finish.  Since I have some other painting projects in mind down the road, I got a multi-pack of Purdy brushes.  These brushes were good, but I wasn’t blown away with them considering they were the most expensive brushes at Home Depot.



With those tools in tow, I finally got to painting!  I gave the mantle two coats of primer.  Here it is after one coat of primer:



Since the top mantle shelf is removable, I was able to take it apart and paint it outdoors since oil based paint can get a bit smelly.  I used a fancy method of newspapers and chairs to setup a painting station for myself.



In between each coat of primer, I sanded everything down.  After two coats of primer were on and dry (I actually waited about a week since I was only able to work on weekends), I got to the actual painting.  I used semi-gloss Behr paint in “polar bear white.”  Choosing a white paint color was surprisingly hard because I wanted something white, but not too stark, and didn’t want the paint to have a grey or yellow tone so it wouldn’t look dingy.  Polar Bear White ended up being a little brighter than I expected, but I don’t mind because it has a nice fresh look.  Here’s the fireplace after a coat of paint:



Again, I sanded between coats and gave the fireplace about two full coats of paint and a third coat at the top of the shelf to give it the perfectly smooth look I was after.  And here’s how it looks cleaned up:



After I took the painter’s tape off, I could see how much paint I accidently got on the black fireplace surround.  I’m not worried about this though because the final phase of this project will be tiling the surround which will disguise all of my misguided paint.



I didn’t figure out exactly how I wanted to decorate the new white mantle yet, so I just put a plant and some decorative birds up there for now.



Here’s another look at my new white fireplace! 



Since we all like a good before and after, here’s a look at how far my fireplace has come.



My fireplace has had more looks than Madonna!  Now it just needs some new tile and it will be all done.  In the meanwhile I’m thrilled with my new white fireplace!

I'm sharing this project on Delightful Order, House of Hepworths, & Beneath My Heart; check out the other great projects shared.

Travel Gallery Wall

I did it!  I made a travel gallery wall in my upstairs hallway!  I’ve wanted a gallery wall for months and finally finished it!  We love to travel, so I filled the wall with photos and souvenirs of our trips.  I am so excited by how it turned out!

 

I absolutely love it!  I’m so happy I made it travel themed because these photos and mementos invoke so many wonderful memories. I painted a bunch of frames that I already owned white and filled them with bright photos and postcards.  One of our favorite vacation souvenirs are art print postcards.  I always look out for postcards with prints of local art work whenever we travel.  It’s so nice to bring home a piece of unique art to remember a trip and they’re usually pretty easy to find and cost less than $1.
 
 

One of the frames that I painted was document sized and did not come with matting which made it a little tricky to frame a photo in.  So instead I came up with a postcard collage for it.
 

I wrapped the frame backing with a map of Rome from our recent trip to Europe and placed a collection of post card art on top of it.  I love how it turned out and am glad I got to frame a map as part of the wall.  Rob’s favorite part is a post card from Cannes of a vintage 1925 advertisement of a monkey drinking a bottle of liquor!
 

I made sure to save a spot for the map photo frame I made a few months ago too.
Of course the wall is full of lots of vacation photos.  I also included a piece of hand painted art from our honeymoon in Costa Rica.
 

I’m so thrilled with how this gallery wall came together.  It will also be fun to play around with the photos and art and swap them out as we travel in the future.  I hope this give me an excuse to take more vacations! 



I’ll be back to share details of how I put together the wall, including how I worked out the spacing between each frame, later this week.  I found much of my inspiration for this wall on other blogs and on Pinterest (like the gallery wall from Young House Love and travel wall from Running Lawyer).

So what do you think?  Do you have any gallery walls in your house? Do you display vacation mementos is another way?

Dining Room Tour

My house tour is moving back downstairs today with a look at our dining room.  Since it’s easy to ignore a dining room, we make an effort to eat in here whenever we can so we can take advantage of the room.  Plus, dinners just seem nicer when you eat them at a dining room table rather than on the couch!

Here’s a look at our dining room.  You might remember that recently I changed up the orientation of our dining room table.  I like the new orientation for now, but I think I will move the table back around the other way once it gets closer to the holidays.



We have two still-life paintings in the dining room, both of which were painted by my very talented Dad.  I think the paintings are cheery and I love the color they add to the room.  I chose to leave them unframed, with a gallery wrap instead.



I still have my summer centerpiece on the table, which is simply a collection of white candles on a marble tray.



On the back wall, we have a tray table that is convenient to place food and drinks on during big dinners, but is used to display family photos the rest of the time.





I think dining rooms are a great place to display family photos, so we have some of our wedding pictures on another wall as well.



I really enjoy our dining room and love hosting family gatherings in it.  Someday, I’d like to update the lighting fixture (it was there when we bought the house) and maybe add some board and batten walls, but in the meanwhile I love the dining room just the way it is.


I’m linking this post up to the dining rooms party at Involving Color.


P.S. The 3M giveaway is still going on, make sure you enter!

Hiding TV Cables

Some DIY projects require complicated fixes.  Some DIY projects only need easy fixes.  Some DIY projects require complicated fixes, but I do an easy fix anyway.  This is such a time.

You might remember that we have a honking big TV hanging over our fireplace.  I know that having a TV over the fireplace isn’t the most design friendly element, but I can’t watch the Real Housewives of New Jersey in a beautiful painting or pretty mirror, so TV wins every time.  But with so much focus on the TV, I was tired of my cables and cords being visible.  I tried disguising them behind vases and other decorative items on the mantle to make them less visible, but we all know they’re still there.



I would have tried to run the TV cables into the wall myself, but I was afraid it would get too tricky being that it was over my fireplace.  I also didn’t want to shell out the dough to have a professional do it for me.  So that left me with a harebrained idea to try to cover up the cords.



First, I taped the cables to the side to hide them under my curtains.



Then I took some paper (the thick paper you get at places like HomeGoods when they wrap up your breakables at checkout), and painted it with some leftover wall paint.



Once it was dry (I used a blow-dryer to speed up the process since I can get a bit impatient), I cut the paper into strips that were wide enough and long enough to cover the TV cables.  Then I taped the paper on top of the cords, hiding the painter’s tape behind the TV and curtains.  I also used a tiny bit of glue to secure the paper to the wall along the entire strip.



nd guess what?  Since the paper color matches the walls exactly, everything blends in together and you can’t even see the TV cords or even the paper strips anymore!




If you really examine it up close you’ll see that I have something going on there, but from the couch no one will be the wiser!  Sure, this might not be the correct way to hide flat screen TV cables, but it’s free, it’s better than having the TV cables exposed, and it works for me!

Water Without Elephants

Since we added trees and a garden to the very back of our yard we needed a way to water them.  The problem was that we only had one outdoor faucet in our yard, at the very front of it.  So to reach our new garden bed we would either need a 75+ feet hose or another way to water.

As someone who personally hates dealing with a hot mess of tangled garden hose, the first option was a no-go.  I suggested getting an elephant, but Rob worried that might get messy.

Source

So my very clever Dad suggested creating a second faucet half-way through our yard.

To our existing faucet, he added a splitter and on one end attached our regular garden hose (that is the perfect length for watering plants around our patio).  On the other end, he added a PVC pipe.  He had to work some of his magic to connect the pvc pipe to the hose by buying some special parts (I wish I could detail this further but, like I said, he used magic).



The PVC pipe then ran down to our patio and along our fence behind our patio garden area.



I've since move the pipe closer to the fence so it's not very noticeable.



And halfway through our yard, the PVC pipe ends at another water spigot.




There we attached another garden hose that's the perfect length for man and dog to water our new garden bed.  No elephants required.