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Powder Room Reveal
We started working on painting the house again. We painted the ceilings in the kitchen, powder room and hallway, and the mudroom a couple weeks ago. Then we painted the walls the same color we had used in the family room and foyer. The trim still needs painted and I hope to finish that this week. I promise to post pictures of it once it’s done. The hard part isn’t taking the pictures – it’s getting the house picture-ready ;p
Meanwhile, I spent over a week tackling the powder room. Almost everything has changed except the floor and toilet. Nothing wrong with the original – it just wasn’t “me”. My biggest complaint was the yellow marble-ish countertop.
First, we painted the ceiling the same Behr Silky White that we are using elsewhere. I painted the walls Behr Premium Plus Ultra Suede Gray (PPU18-17) in Eggshell.
I spent several days cutting a vinyl stencil with my Silhouette machine to mimic the pattern on the towels. They were the inspiration for the whole room.
My main issue with cutting the stencil was that the vinyl material kept shifting halfway thru the the cutting process. It was tedious. Once it was cut, we had the fun task of applying it to the ceiling. That was also . . . tedious. And painful. I figured using the vinyl would be easier on a ceiling over using a regular stencil that would have to be moved around. Having done it, I don’t know which would be better. I think it’s going to be a pain on a ceiling no matter what.
I used FolkArt Solid Bronze Metallic craft paint to match the stripe on the towels. (The stencil was cut with dark gray and white vinyl, which is why you can really only see part of it).
I used 1.5″ tape to create a border along the crown molding so that there would be a finished edge. I used a sponge brush to dab the paint on.
I knew I’d have to do a lot of touching up after the stencil was removed, but unfortunately, it also pulled down large chunks of the white paint down to the drywall. We think it must have been an issue with the original primer coat because there was no rhyme or reason to it. I spent the next morning hand painting both the white and bronze paints to clean it up as best I could. Then we painted the trim to match.
Meanwhile, after an exhaustive search, I found a $35 mirror at Home Goods. Was pretty sure the color wasn’t going to work, but that was an easy fix. I had been waiting to see the new wall color so I could decide what to do with the vanity. It was originally a dark espresso stain. Should I paint it white, black, some shade of gray, or leave it as is? I knew for sure that the countertop had to go.
I finally found a remnant for the countertop so I took the original countertop and sink to the fabricator. The sink is a little small, but I didn’t see a need to replace it. I figured then was the time to paint the vanity before the new countertop arrived. While perusing Pinterest one evening, I had found an idea for the new vanity finish. I lugged it and the new mirror outside and spray painted them Satin White with leftover paint from my parent’s bed. Some of the white PVC pipe is visible under the vanity, so I spray painted it shiny silver to look like metal. Small change, big difference.
It was tempting to just leave it white, but I was anxious to try the Black Coffee Metallic Glaze I had bought. It was recently discontinued, so I bought 2 bottles since the store still had it. I hadn’t used glaze before so it took some trial and error. The glaze is a little heavier than I would have liked, but it turned out ok. You can see the metallic sheen when the light hits it.
Here’s the finished room:
You can see some of the now-silver PVC pipe peeking out from under the vanity.
New towel and TP rings from our recent Ikea trip. I found the candle holder last week at Target and it has a similar pattern to the towels and ceiling.
LOVE the new chrome faucet. I’m all for single handle faucets for ease of use. Still looking for a new soap dispenser. I’m also loving the new, thicker countertop. It’s a marble called Diano Reale.
Across from the toilet is a linen closet with a window next to it overlooking the front porch.
Needless to say, this shade is closed 24/7. Originally, this window had a heavy curtain with a flocked damask pattern which kept the room dark all the time. I replaced it with a white, linen texture roller shade. As I mentioned before, this was the only sample in my stack that let light in, but remained opaque at night.
The oil rubbed bronze chandelier was replaced with chrome and crystal one. BLING!!! “Sparkly” is an understatement.
The ceiling is far from perfect, but decent for my first attempt. It definitely makes a statement and is a pop of color.
I’m really excited with how it turned out. It’s a little glamorous for us, but it’s fun for a room that gets a lot of use. The only changes I still want to make are some artwork or something for over the toilet and some crystal knobs for the vanity.
Here are the details:
Room Size: ~5’1″ x 7’9″ with 10′ ceilings
Vanity: Existing Vanity spray painted Rustoleum Satin White glazed with Martha Stewart Living Black Coffee Metallic Glaze. Drawer Knobs were existing.
Countertop: Diano Reale Marble
Faucet: American Standard Portsmouth Monoblock Faucet
Walls: Behr Premium Plus Ultra Suede Gray (PPU18-17) in Eggshell
Trim: Woodgrain Distribution painted Behr Premium Plus Ultra Satin in Silky White (PPU7-12) in Exterior Semi-Gloss
Flooring: Existing site-finished Red Oak with Minwax Early American Stain
Mirror: Home Goods – painted to match Vanity
Ceiling Stencil: Starburst Grid Lace Pattern painted with FolkArt Solid Bronze Metallic craft paint
Lighting: Chrome Finish 4-Light Round Chandelier
Towel and TP Rings: Savern by Ikea
Trash Can: Knodd Bin from Ikea – spray painted Rustoleum Anodized Bronze
Window Shade: @Home Collection Designer Screen Roller Shade in Lily
Next on my list are to finish painting the trim downstairs and start working on The Kid’s room. I want to add more shelves to his closet and come up with some storage ideas for all his stuff.
Spring Updates
Well, I knew it’d probably be a while before I wrote another post, but I wasn’t planning on it being this long! We’ve had quite a bit going on, so the projects around the house have been mostly on hold. My sister got married on St. Patrick’s Day which was followed 2 weeks later by a reception 500 miles away in our hometown and another reception 2 weeks after that, 90 miles away in his hometown. Add to that spring break, passing around colds and viruses, severe allergies and life in general and there hasn’t been much time for big projects 🙂
Now that spring has finally arrived, we have been working outside quite a bit. I finally received the roses I ordered back in January. 6 of those were my favorite rose we had at the old house – Hot Cocoa. It’s a smokey orange color (mixed below with Burgandy Iceberg). It gets pretty tall, so I planted 5 along the front of the house to help fill in front of our high crawl space.
I planted the extra one in my rose bed along the side of the house. I now have 14 there, although several are from the rose bed at the old house and I’m not sure if they are still alive.
We also purchased 2 Coral Bark Japanese Maples at Costco (ours now has a garden center). They have red bark with bright green leaves. We replaced 2 of the many holly bushes with these. They should eventually get to be 10’x 10′ or so which will fill in some of our large landscaping area.
The other one is on the front corner of the house by the office, but we will probably end up moving it. A few days after we planted it, I came across this Burgundy Lace Japanese Maple at Lowe’s and had to have it. We replaced a big crepe myrtle with it. It’s in front of the Coral Bark and we don’t need both of them in the same area. We’ll move the Coral Bark as soon as I figure out where to. The Burgundy Lace should also get around 10′ x 10′ which will be a nice focal point and cover up some of the blank stone wall on the front corner of the house.
We also replaced a boxwood on the corner of the porch with a Crimson Queen Japanese Maple. We planted 3 of these at the old house and 1 of them did really well. It would have been worth a fortune and I desperately wanted to move it, but didn’t want to lose the curb appeal while trying to sell the house. Fingers crossed that this one does as well. I’d like to get at least 2 more, but they aren’t as cheap as they were a few years ago.
Last week, I bought 20 bags of dark brown mulch and put it around the 8 trees that are out in the yard. 20 bags is about my limit to do alone, so we’ll have to finish the rest of the mulch when David has some time off. I bought the Preen mulch that is supposed to keep it’s color. We put it down a few months before we sold the old house and it did stay dark a lot better than the bulk stuff we’ve bought in the past. It also tends to be heavier which is good because we have a big problem with mulch floating all over the place when it rains here.
I also finally found some plants for all my pots. I really liked these concrete square planters from Lowe’s and thought they would work well on the front porch steps.
Here’s my first attempt at mixing plants in a pot – using the “thriller, spiller and filler” tip I saw on Pinterest.
Purple Fountain Grass, Purslane and Dusty Miller.
We made a big trip to the Atlanta Ikea last week and I picked up these lanterns for the front porch. I kind of wish I had gotten 3 so we’d have an odd number for the steps.
The large ones only came in beige, so I spray painted them a metallic copper. More on the Ikea trip in a minute. . .
I also filled the pots which we have had at 3 houses now. I used Rose Moss and Potato Vine. I like the Rose Moss because it blooms continuously and it’s usually a surprise as to what color each bloom is.
Back to the Ikea trip, David and I ran there last Thursday. It’s a 3.5 hour drive each way, so it makes for a long day. My main objective was to buy patio furniture. As I mentioned in a previous post, the rocking chairs I found at Old Time Pottery were in the same packaging and come with identical instructions to Ikea furniture. A search online confirmed that Ikea had an entire collection of matching patio furniture. Until now, we’ve just had the 4 rocking chairs (plus 2 on the front porch) along with my parents’ black metal furniture they brought from their old house. The black metal furniture was enough to fill most of the space, but I wanted something newer and more substantial looking since we have such a large area out back.
We ended up getting a 55″ square table with 6 arm chairs. I had originally planned on getting the drop leaf table, but really liked the square table once I saw the display. I also hadn’t planned on getting the umbrella, but it looked really nice and was a great price for one that size. We also got the matching bench which I plan on putting on the mud room porch, but it is currently at the table since one of the armchairs came with 2 right arms ;p I can’t complain too much since that was the only packaging problem we had among all the boxes we brought home. Also seen in this first picture are 2 folding tables by the rocking chairs. The Ikea furniture came with a brown glaze on it which is why they are darker than the rocking chairs. Everything is made out of Acacia wood and the Ikea glaze should eventually fade so everything will match. We treated the rocking chairs with Teak Oil and will do the same to the rest of the furniture once the brown glaze wears off.
(Please disregard the photo-bombing Bulldogs in the following pictures).
The 3 lanterns on the table are also Ikea.
My parents’ black metal furniture is still in the background until their house is done. We are currently use it to keep the dogs from jumping over the walls to get out of the patio.
I also grabbed 2 $10 pots for my Laura Bush tree roses. They only had them in green, red, yellow and white, so I bought 2 white ones and painted them hammered silver.
We also picked up 2 chaise lounges and 9 sectional pieces for the back porch.
We have 3 corner sections, 5 armless sections and 1 ottoman/table. They can be configured in any way, but this is the layout I keep coming back to. We didn’t buy cushions, but I’m planning on making some with my favorite Crypton fabric and some contrasting throw pillows.
I finally put out the fountain Mom bought me on clearance last fall. We bought quite a bit last week, but we had just looked at a patio set locally that would have cost almost as much as all this Ikea stuff, but we would have only had a table and 6 chairs. As long as we maintain the acacia wood with teak oil, it should stay looking nice for a long time.
Finally, here’s the last new addition to our patio. I thought I noticed a bird making a nest in one of our holly trees a couple weeks ago. Sure enough, there was a nest with eggs when I looked a couple days later.
This weekend, I thought I saw movement over there and saw 5 little beaks when I looked.
My best guess via internet research is that they are Northern Mockingbirds. Fingers crossed that they survive the coming storms today.
I hope to get back to painting the interior of the house in the next week as I’d really like to get all the major painting finished before school gets out for the summer. Meanwhile, my parents’ new Southern Living Eastover Cottage should be completed within the next month. I plan to take pictures of the completed house before they move in and I’ll be sure to share the tour here.
Master Closet – Final Reveal
Today’s the day I bet you thought would never come (you and me both!). Here is the finished master closet that we started back in October. All the specifics are below the pictures.
New flooring, new paint, new custom cabinets, new light fixture – the only thing remaining from the original closet is the baseboards which we reused. We lost a lot of floor space, but gained a ton of storage – more than I was expecting. All the drawers have stuff in them, but most aren’t close to being full. You can also see that we still have a lot of hanging space available and a lot more stuff could be stored on the top shelves, if needed. For the most part, the left side is His and the right side is Hers, but there are sections that we are sharing.
The first cabinet on the right is the shallowest since it is right in front of the door (which is thankfully a pocket door).
Since we have extra hanging space that isn’t being used, we have been keeping our laundry hampers in the first bottom section. We started a matching cabinet in the bathroom, right outside the closet, which will eventually have built in hamper drawers whenever we finally finish it. For now, this is working out well and is better than the floor ;p
There was originally 2 cut outs for the breaker boxes, but (go figure) we had a breaker fail so David had to take the cover off the breaker box to replace it. We knew that might be an issue at some point – just not this soon. They’re not pretty, but if we ever hang clothes there, they won’t be visible.
I chose blue crystal knobs for the top 2 drawers on the rear cabinet. They tend to look purple depending on the light.
The bathroom still has the original linen trim color which quite a contrast to the white closet.
Chrome closet rods are surprisingly expensive, but they look nice and are sturdy.
In leu of the old florescent fixture, we now have a chrome fixture with 4 100W Reveal bulbs which give the room (and our clothes) a more natural color light.
The crown molding matches what is throughout the rest of the house.
In addition to the breaker boxes, I also had the water heater control and coax cable box to design and build around.
The water heater control just involved drilling a hole in the side of the first cabinet for the wires, then mounting it to the inside of the cabinet.
The coax box is hidden behind shelves which leaves it still accessible, but out of sight. I could put the cover back on it, but you have to get on your knees to be able to see it anyway.
The carpet was replaced with wood tile which will not show the wear that the carpet would and is easier to clean. David did pretty good with the herringbone pattern!
To see the progress from the beginning, start Here.
So, would I do it again? It would depend. Obviously, it would be a lot easier the second time around, but it was a lot of work. I would look at trying to customize stock cabinet boxes first to see how the price would compare. The white looks really nice, especially in a closet this size, but I probably would pick a different color. White isn’t the best choice for a room that sees a lot of lint and dust. Anything on our shoes ends up on the shelves despite the fact that our closet is about the farthest room into the house. I think I would do a wood stain, but that would significantly add to the cost and time involved since better lumber would have to be used. I do plan to build storage for The Kid’s closet and the pantry, but those won’t be anywhere near the scale of this project.
Regardless, I like how it turned out. It’s not perfect, but most people won’t see what I know is there. Most of all, it’s functional and I designed and built it.
Here are the details:
Room Size: 12′ deep x 7’6″ wide with 10′ ceilings
Cabinets: 10′ tall with crown molding. First cabinet on the right is 14″ deep. Rear cabinet is 18″ deep. All other cabinets are 20″ deep. Cabinet boxes are made of sanded plywood. Trim is primed MDF boards. Drawers are made of poplar and MDF boards with sanded plywood bottoms.
Crown Molding and Baseboards: Woodgrain Distribution
Flooring: Style Selections Serso Wheat Tile with Mapei Chamois Grout
Walls: Behr Premium Plus Ultra Eggshell in Salt Glaze (PPU12-11)
Trim and Cabinets: Behr Premium Plus Ultra Satin in Silky White (PPU7-12)
Drawer Slides: Gliderite
Drawer Pulls: Hickory Hardware Dew Bar Cabinet Pull P3698 in Frosted Chrome
Drawer Knobs: 30mm Diamond Crystal Knobs in Blue
Closet Rods: Chrome from Lowe’s
Lighting: Kenroy Home Marilyn 4-Light Island Light in Chrome
I think that’s everything. Stay tuned for updates on all the painting and updates we’ve been working on elsewhere in the house. . .
The Painting Begins
The office began the first room to be completely painted yesterday. I had painted the trim last week and we painted the walls yesterday. We went with the same color we repainted our last house shortly before we sold it – Behr’s Perfect Taupe (PPU18-13).
It’s a good mix of gray and brown and I thought it was a safe choice for the office between the combination of woods in there and not knowing what furniture will ultimately end up in there. I thought it was going to seem darker in there, but it’s actually quite a bit lighter which is nice.
For some reason, I had a hard time getting the white balance correct on these pictures which is why the color looks a slightly different in each one. Despite the way it may look, there is no green, yellow or any other hues in the paint color – it’s pretty straight grey/brown.
On a side note, this is the desk I would LOVE to get for the office. The wood and the metal go perfect with the office ceiling and it’s black metal braces. Unfortunately, the price isn’t even remotely considerable and I lack the welding skills to make it myself 🙁
I wasn’t planning on painting anything else this weekend, but David said we might as well. We were actually done with the office around noon on Saturday so it didn’t take as long as we expected. After tossing around some ideas, we decided to paint the foyer and living room ceilings. It wasn’t fun, but we got it done. There is quite a contrast between the ceiling (Behr Silky White – PPU7-12) and trim (match of Sherwin Williams Linen Cloth – SW1150) now.
After a couple recent discussions, we had decided it was best to paint the ceiling of each room first, then the walls, then the trim. That ended up being a good decision because it was near impossible to keep the ceiling paint off the crown molding. I’ll paint the walls next, which will also inevitably get on the trim too. Saving the trim for last will save me just having to touch it up again later. The picture below has the crown molding in the old trim color surrounded by the new ceiling and trim color.
There is a glimpse above of my other task this week – to pick a color for the main part of the house. I picked up a sample of my first choice – Behr Mineral – earlier this week and painted a couple patches in the living room and kitchen. It is a very light warm grey, but it kept having a slight pink cast once I got it on the walls. It never looks that way on the chip, but it does on the wall. I finally decided it was going to drive my nuts, so I started looking for other options. Everyone online swears by Benjamin Moore’s Revere Pewter as being a great grey-beige, so I tried to find something similar by Behr. I bought samples of 4 more colors and painted more patches on the walls and on a board with the trim color as the background.
The paint chip on the middle right is the new office color for reference. BM Revere Pewter is on the bottom of the left chip. The bottom right patch was my first choice, Mineral. I ruled out the bottom left patch, Aged Beige, because it has too much yellow in it. That left the top 3 colors.
Top to Bottom: Behr Cotton Grey, Behr Sculptor Clay, Behr Wheat Bread, Behr Cotton Grey (again)
I painted those 3 on the walls and surrounded the living room swatches with the trim color so they wouldn’t be touching the current wall color (which makes everything look really grey in comparison).
Top to Bottom: Behr Cotton Grey, Behr Sculptor Clay, Behr Wheat Bread, Behr Cotton Grey (again)
The kitchen swatches are next to the back door, so they have the old trim color on one side and the new on the other. (The paint chip taped to the wall is the new office color.)
I really like the Cotton Grey, but am worried it will be too “cold”. The Wheat Bread keeps giving off a pink cast similar to the Mineral I had considered, so I’ve ruled that out. That leaves the Sculptor Clay which happens to be the closest match to BM Revere Pewter. I keep questioning if it’s grey enough, but I’ve seen enough pictures of it and I think once it’s alone on the wall, it will be fine.
*CLICK HERE to see the after pictures of the new paint color.*
I’ve been really dreading all the painting that now needs to be done, but I am more motivated now that we’ve gotten started. It was nice to see the office come together and now that the living room ceiling is painted, I want to get the trim done so it will match. The trim and wall colors are going to make it so much brighter in here and I’m anxious to see it.
Merry Christmas!!!
Wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from our family to yours!
