Modern Vintage Kitchen Makeover Fall ORC: Week Three

Week Three ORC: Fall 2020

We are at the halfway point of the One Room Challenge and I’m ready for a vacation. (To see previous weeks, click below)

Week One I Week Two

Okay, I was a ready for a vacation prior to the start of this. But now I’m extra ready.

My husband is as well. He’s making a dent on this bottle. But really I wanted you to see a close up of the new tile.

The crazy part thing is, that it’s going to be way busier the last few weeks because we’ve done almost everything we can do until our windows go in on Nov 2/3rd. Then it’s going to be a race to finish everything in time for the end of the challenge.

Not to be all cynical, but I honestly don’t know if we’ll make it for the initial “reveal” date of Nov 12th. (but technically we have an extra grace week, but my husband doesn’t know that and he doesn’t read my blog, so don’t tell him!)

So! What we’ve been doing in the past week!

The husband has been hard at work doing the tile backsplash in the kitchen.

All of you who think he’s just the best husband ever to do all my dirty work….not only does he get paid in sex as I mentioned last week, but the real reason he’s been working so hard is so he can go on a climbing trip this weekend with his friends.

Sex as payment was a distant 2nd place prize when compared to a climbing trip. So, don’t you be feeling bad for him.

We’ve done as much tile as we can do until the window on the right side of the wall is removed and drywalled over.

We’ve come across a little snag in this tile job as the ceilings in our 100 year old house are extremely out of line….to the tune of 3/4” unlevel in only a span of 5 feet of ceiling. We’re going to have to get creative how we address the top 6” of space for tile.

But creativity is the name of the game around here. Sadly, I might have to do dark grout instead of light grout like I was planning. The white will only high light all of the level issues…we shall see!

I’ve started the painting process for the cabinets. Stay tuned for a cabinet painting tutorial.

I hate hate hate the sanding and prep process. I managed a crystal glass finish on the table I painted for the spring ORC, so fingers crossed I can do the same for the cabinets.

I’ve also got the bottom part of the wall under the chair rail painted with a winning color. (Which is black…what a shocking surprise coming from me, I know.)

I really tried to do something different but I am not cool enough to pull it off.

Originally, when the cabinets were going to be green, I was going to do the lower section a shade of green different than cabinets. But then I changed to yellow cabinets and I definitely didn’t want to do the lower wall yellow.

So I picked out a color from the wallpaper and got some samples with ‘beige’ in the title and thought that I was going to bring back beige.

Newsflash. I will not be bringing back beige. That will have to be someone else’s job. It could’ve worked if the floors were very dark, almost black or a gray. Definitely did not work with my floors.

So I went with what I knew…which conveniently was in my basement, and that was Sherwin Williams Black Magic (the same color as the exterior of our last house).

The color makes my heart happy, which says a little something about the color of my heart. (I got real excited about the addition of the black heart emoji on my phone).

Doesn’t it make you feel better too?

Stay tuned! We have all of this coming up!

Still to do:

• Banquette bench installation

• upholster bench

• paint bench

• new windows

• Tile over old window location

• hang open shelving

• wallpaper.

To follow along with all of the other guest participants doing the One Room Challenge, click here.

The featured designers are doing some pretty cool virtual stuff here!

One Room Challenge: Week 6. Curtains, Tables, & Flamingos, OH MY!

One Room Challenge: Week 6. Curtains, Tables, & Flamingos, OH MY!

So here I sit in western Wyoming in a car that is shaking from the wind blowing crazy around us at a campsite we reserved but are going to leave because there's a chance we will all blow away down the canyon. And that's saying a lot since we all gained the Covid-19.

It’s Week 6 of the One Room Challenge and we’ve done some work in the past few weeks.  That’s all we’ve been doing as we were working 12-14 hour days trying to finish our room(s) before we left on our 6 week cross country road trip adventure extravaganza.

Okay this blue table- bought it for $40 on CL and finally finished sanding and painting it.  So much sanding.  Looks pretty sweet now though...especially next to those two new pieces of art I got- they are a cynaotype which uses a photo negative and a chemical process in the sun to achieve the look- no ink! Up close it’s on water color paper and looks super neat.

Yes, I just used the word neat.

Fabric for the dining room curtains finally came.  I’m in love with this fabric from Pierre Frey- the perfect mix of some old tradition with modern built in. Plus that red!

I also finally decided on living room curtains.  Covid really put me through the curtain ringer here. Almost as stressful as getting Covid and being on a ventilator, I’m sure.

My original LR curtain plan was these blue and red/pink numbers from Anthropologie. But then it turned out the blue was really more a of a green, and that wasn’t what I was going for, so back they went.

See? This is definitely green.

I wanted something blue and red- so found a bunch of different potential fabrics from spoon flower that I ordered samples of.  Except because of Covid I didn’t get the samples in time.  I can’t even list all the different fabrics I was interested in, but couldn’t get because of Covid.

I ordered these plain blue ones as backup but they were just too plain and boring and who wants to be boring?

I was on a crane kick from the crane spoon flower fabric I saw, so I searched for crane fabric and came across this Genevieve Gorder fabric.  So many fun colors. I ordered it in blue and black and figured I’d decide when it got here.  The blue arrived first- I loved the pattern but something just seemed off. So I started looking for other options online.

And then the black and white crane curtains came and saved the day and ended my obsessive compulsive curtain researching.

Once again, some amazing styling going on in those bookshelves. RIP my poor dead computer.

Because of Covid and everything being closed, I made and hemmed all the curtains for dining and living room by myself. Please note my definition of “made” is very loose.  I got some fabric hemming tape off amazon and hemmed those suckers all the way around. I then used curtain clips to connect them. It was super easy but time consuming.

But free, so there’s that. I saved so much money “sewing” my own curtains I’m basically making money over here.  I think that’s how that works?

Remember the mudroom paint color conundrum? I couldn’t handle the color and neither could my coworker, so we painted it black as originally planned.  She felt so strongly about it she offered to help me paint it.  I felt so sick of painting, that I took her up on it.

But realized I didn’t take a picture of it black so you’ll have to wait for the end product since I am currently sitting in the middle of Wyoming.

Okay phew.  That was a lot of talk about curtains and fabric.  But all the obsessing was worth it because both sets of curtains really make the rooms.  Along with all the other stuff.

Next week I’ll get into the process behind the fireplace tile and some finishing touches projects.

Oh yes, there was a big box on the fireplace a few weeks back.  This is George, and George lived in that box.  You might be disappointed because you’re like, “seriously?! George?!” We were waiting for George??!

George is getting a little makeover, and here’s a little sneak peek of his makeover. You didn’t think I was going to design a room in our new house and not involve some flamingos, did you?

I painted those flamingos, thank you very much. You can do anything you put your mind to and have google to look it up.

Thank you so much for following along this journey with us. We sort of suck at documenting it, but we are trying.

As always, don’t forget to check out the other amazing rooms being transformed during the One Room Challenge. There’s some cool stuff going on!!

Wait, What?! Is that Fireplace Silver?? ORC Week Three

Wait, What?! Is that Fireplace SILVER? ORC Week 3

All I gotta say is that I can’t imagine actually renovation a room in this 6-8 week time period.  I’m mostly just doing small projects and painting and fixing some stuff up and I feel like I don’t have time to get it all done.  (I believe that may have something to do with the 3 creatures who cling to my legs a lot, but could be other things).

We did make progress though this week! We still aren’t feeling 100%, but had some energy to get some junk done.

I spent my one days sans kids sanding/painting all the shelves and cabinet doors that go in the recessed arched bookcases.  Letting the paint cure a few days before I try to install them.  Especially because I just used normal wall paint I had leftover as opposed to spending $30 on a quart of cabinet paint.

These aren’t going to see much use, and mostly are just going to sit there and look pretty, so I didn’t see the point of the added expense (and trip to pick up the paint). 

Don’t it look pretty with those doors installed? 

My dad thought I was committing a sacrilege by painting the wood doors and shelving, but sacrilege and doing things I’m not supposed to like licking knives is what I live for. Also, he would decorate his house in real tree camo if given the opportunity, so I try not to take design advice from him.

I had to time to start cutting the wallpaper, and it made me wish I could install this on the ceiling. Talk about extra. But alas, a textured plastered ceiling with rounded edges is not conducive to wallpaper. Especially since the ceiling might fall down at any moment.

Onward to the fireplace. We started out with a painted gray brick fireplace.  I love painted brick fireplaces.  I don’t love gray.  When we moved in, this house was painted 50 shades of gray, and was about as boring as I assume that movie is.

Boring Gray Fireplace going on here.

I was thinking about what color I could paint the fireplace and I wanted something that would stand out.  I went through the whole rainbow, searching for ideas.  None of the colors really spoke to me…yes, colors speak.  Then I started thinking about the paint I already had in my garage and remembered those two cans of rustoleum metallic paint sitting there.

In all of its silver shiny glory

So, I searched for a metallic silver brick fireplace on the internet and couldn’t find any.  Not finding any similar pics of what I want to do is a fun and scary thing.  Fun because, “YAY something different”.  Scary because “ummmm…What if there aren’t any pictures because it’s a really really terrible idea and everyone already knows that they shouldn’t do it.  Or they did do it and it looked terrible and didn’t want to share the pictures”.

Mid-glazing

I knew the silver would way too extra in all of its glory, so I planned to darken/age it slightly by using my trusty old can of glaze (circa 2010…I’m really going back in time here with this one).  Now you can sit in my living room and not be blinding when the sunlight hits the fireplace.  That’ll be extra special for our houseguests.

I’m 98% confident that once I’ve got the whole room together it’s going to look amazing, but it really could go either way. 

But until then, here is a picture of the fireplace in all of its current glory with an even bigger experiment sitting in that cardboard box on top of it. 

George is in that box, and you’re gonna have to wait to see George. 

Besides George, what’s still to do?

• we gotta figure out fireplace tile situation and tile (choosing from samples at bottom of fireplace)

• finishing ordering and hang light fixtures

• finish curtain rods

• Figure out curtain situation (covid is really killing me here because I can’t get what I want

• Re-finish the dining room table

• Finish art for living room

• Paint entry way and mudroom.

• Some small spray paint crafts

• Style whole place

Holy crap. After reading all that I realized I need to get off my computer and go downstairs and start doing some stuff. Especially because we are going to try to get it done early and leave for a little camping adventure in a few weeks. (can’t social distance more than you can in the middle of the woods)

As always- don’t forget to go the One Room Challenge Blog and get a million more doses of design inspiration!

DIY Wallpaper Home Office Peg Board

DIY Wallpaper Home Office Peg board

Sometimes you just gotta organize a bunch of crap and there aren’t a lot of pretty ways of doing it.

Or maybe a worldwide pandemic happened and you find yourself home schooling and you’re not sure where to put all the art supplies.

Maybe you decided to wallpaper a laundry room and you realize that your kids craft desk being in said laundry room is gonna ruin that really amazing wallpaper you just put up and you have to figure out a way to protect it. (hypothetically speaking, of course)

Maybe you just have some leftover wallpaper and are looking for a project to use it up. 

Or maybe all four as in our case. 

We have this great counterspace/desk area in our laundry room that our oldest uses as her personal craft studio.  Originally it was going to be my desk….guess where I’m not working?  The laundry room. 

I just can’t compete with the stacks of coloring books and piles of glitter glue. 

Ikea to the rescue! I came across the Skardis Pegboard online at Ikea…And thought “self, I could wallpaper that pegboard and make it real pretty”.   So that’s what myself and I did. 

It’s super cheap and super easy. 

Buy however many Skardis pegboards you need (we used 5 panels of the 14”x22”).  Figure out what accessories you want for pegboards.  (they come in white and black which is handy).

Figure out where you want the accessory baskets and clips before you attach wallpaper. 

Trace the outline of the pegboard on the back of the wallpaper.   If you want your wallpaper to line up in a certain fashion, then figure that out when you’re tracing and BEFORE you cut…always before you cut. 

I didn’t care if mine matched up perfectly, but I wanted to make sure there was a yellow bird on each board.

I then sprayed the front of the pegboard and the back of the wallpaper with elmers adhesive spray and stuck it on there. 

Now you can attach pegboard to wall following directions Ikea gives.  Then punch holes in the places you want to hang the accessory pieces (this is why you figure out where you want them first, so you don’t ruin your pretty wallpaper job with needless holes).

Voila! You’ve got yourself a pretty place to organize a bunch of crap!  This could work on a normal pegboard material too- but then you don’t have the pretty accessories for storage from ikea. 

Hex Tile Besta Ikea Console Hack

Hex Tile Ikea Besta Console Hack

I wanted to create something custom and unique that almost anyone could copy without having to have a bunch of skills.  You need some skills, but not a bunch. 

Call it a console, a media cabinet, a buffet, call it whatever you want as long it’s pretty.

To hack this, you don’t need to be an expert wood worker.  For this particular version, you would need to be able to tile…or you would need to be able to pick up the phone and dial a number and find someone to tile it for you, like I did.  

Generic storage unit we had before

If the tile you use is not expensive, and you want a custom look, it is still much cheaper to hire someone than it would be to buy a custom console.  

Other options to give the top a different look is a cool piece of wood or some funky wallpaper. 

How we made this particular console.

• Bought a 70” besta console from ikea. 

• Bought corresponding Ikea doors from semihandmade (the SSS beaded line in white)

• Tiled the top and sides (Tile from Mission Stone & Tile)

The process

In order to keep the tile flat and not have it potentially buckle if the console itself became unlevel, we first put james hardie cement backer board on the top and sides.  (look close at this pic and you can see the screws and cement board- we lost some pics of the process in a deleting accident.)

Then came the tiling part.

Due to the particular tile we picked and some of the small pieces it had, it would’ve been extremely difficult, if not impossible to to miter the edges at a 45 degree angle to have a true waterfall edge.  So we did the next best thing and made sure the pattern lined up.   

We used a black schluter strip in black to edge the tile and hide the cement backer board.

We bought legs from pretty pegs in a fun color.  We started with 4 legs, but with the weight of the tile, we needed to add 4 more legs in the middle so it didn’t sag in the middle.

These legs were the 17” legs from pretty pegs, which we like the look of better, but it made the console a little too tall for the space, and a little more wobbly than we liked considering this was going to be used for kids toys, and we didn’t want the kids to yank a drawer open and topple it over on them. 

If this wasn’t being used by kids a lot, I would’ve felt comfortable keeping them as is.  But since it is being used for kids, and we sort of like our kids most of the time, we figured we didn’t want them to die in a freak furniture accident, so we cut the legs shorter.  (and by we, I mean my husband). 

If pretty pegs doesn’t have a color you like, paint them! They paint really easily!  We bought the first 4 in yellow ochre and then by the time we realized we needed 4 more, they weren’t selling yellow anymore, so I ordered some wood ones, and got a custom match at the paint shop and I can barely even tell which leg is which!

We moved it into our house and set pretty things on top and a bunch of ugly plastic toys inside and called it a day. 

If you have any questions, ask below in the comments!