Fresh Reveal – Living Room

Hallelujah! The fireplace surround is complete! You may remember some of the work we’ve been up to in recent weeks. I’m so pleased to add that we couldn’t be happier with the results. It’s surprising what you can accomplish with a little imagination, and a lot of good old fashioned DIY handy-work.

Here is a reminder of the “before”:

The last bit of building involved those beautiful tiles… ahhh… who doesn’t want a little sparkle in their living room? We also built our own moulding up top. Framed it out with plywood, added it the moulding on top for some added texture and interest.

Here she is ALMOST complete:

How about some stain for that mantle? We chose a Varathane Natural Oil finish in Clear 66. It was a surprisingly important decision… so glad we saved an extra chunk of the mantle to do some test swatches on! Saved the day!

And the official “after” shot:

Did I mention how inconspicuous that speaker system is? Hello there little guy hiding on the mantle!

Here’s a close-up of those tiles. The mosaic tiles are a glass tile from Bellavita with a Bamboo background finish.

A great place to relax at the end of the day. What do you think? Have a project you’d like to share? Don’t forget to email those low-res photos in!!

Nursery Dresser – Before and After

I’ve mentioned how awesome our neighbours are before… and they’ve come through again. We got this great hand-me-down and I decided to refinish it while I have the time (since everyone keeps telling us we’ll have none when we have a family).

Here’s how she started out:

I wanted to get the top down to the wood. There was a few coats of paint hiding under there. I began attacking it with a paint stripper…. but only got so far.

But, then it was time for the big guns — the belt sander. That got me right down to the wood.

Picked up some new hardware and paint. The paint is a soft celery colour (Behr Premiun Plus 380F-4 Ground Ginger). The stain on the top and front is Minwax Golden Oak.

Those little giraffes had their own mini-makeover as well. Here they are before:

They started out pretty glossy. So, they needed a good sanding before paint. Here is how they turned out after a fresh coat of paint. I used Behr Premium Plus in S-G-360 Bright Star, for a good pop of colour.

Picked up this set of hooks from Ikea ($3.99) for a bit more storage and interest.

What do you think? Share your own projects by sending low-res photos here.

New Crushes…

Our Moroccan stenciled laundry room as popped up in a couple new places. Couldn’t be happier to be in such great company!

Have you had a chance to check out these great sites?

Ladies Home Journal

Unplggd

Fresh Tease – Living Room Reno

At long last, it’s time to share what we’ve been up to in that living room of ours! This was a big one for us. As I mentioned in our laundry reno, we wanted all our components out of the Living Room (ie: receiver, dvd player, sat box). This is what sparked the laundry room getting reno’d in the first place!

Here is at shot of our living room fireplace shortly before we moved in, so this is a before-before shot! We had nothing wired for TV (we thought that would only ever be in our basement space — we were wrong!), and we we’re not prepared at the time for the investment of finishing off the fireplace (but the intention has always been there)… so there it sat. Waiting for us to come back and finish her off…

Our Living Room isn’t huge (about 14′ x 12′), so we definitely wanted any electronics hidden, and not taking up any floor space. This is how she looked before starting the work…

Time to get to work… tons of planning before the first cut in the drywall. I think the planning takes as long as the actual work! You can see our plans stapled to the wall here. But we’re just getting started…

Oooh yeah… now it’s getting scary. What have we gotten ourselves into?

You’ll notice the hubby on the floor here. We are fishing wiring through our walls for the new (discreet) sound system we chose.

We ripped the drywall off in order to wire everything into the adjoining laundry room. Speaker wires, hdmi wires, electrical, the whole lot had to be handled at this stage. We also took this opportunity to beef up our insulation.

Meanwhile… in the garage….

This is our mantle. We wanted something substantial. Solid wood preferred, but we didn’t know much about mantles. Getting estimates on a custom mantle were coming back way out of our price range — plus, we wanted something a little more natural looking anyway. We ended up purchasing this 14′ long 12″x6″ hunk of fir from our local lumber yard.

We spent days with it in the garage taking the belt sander to it for a smooth finish. Now, how do we get it on the wall?

We ended up having a friend we know that is a very handy welder create brackets for us — much the same principle as a floating shelf — we drilled holes into the mantle to accept the brackets, and secured to the wall. We also built supports into our fireplace surround to help hold the mantle. Here is the mantle the day it went up on the wall:

Once the wall was closed up with drywall and paint we could get started on the fireplace surround. The wires left hanging are awaiting speakers, and that black spider looking thing on the wall is the TV mount! Pretty serious stuff! ;)

Now for the building. You can see here we’ve got it framed out and drywalled. There are fabulous plans for a wainscoting and moulding vibe up top, and tile on the bottom… but this is just a tease (sorry!)… you’ll have to stay tuned for the finished product!

What do you think so far? Have you got a project you’re proud of? Email me some low-res images! I’d love to share your hard work! ;)

Photo Grouping – Before and After

Photo groupings are such a great idea for filling up a large blank wall space on the cheap! I had a bunch of old family photos passed down to me recently and decided to group them together in our living room.

The vaulted ceilings in this room really add to that “blank” feeling. It really needs something substantial. With some affordable frames from ikea, in a mix of wood finishes, and a visit to the photo centre to blow-up the size of some images — we’ve got a large work of art! It fills up the space nicely and lets us share some vintage photos with a modern twist.

Those of you with a keen eye may have noticed the Monitor Audio R45HD speaker hangin’ out with my new photo display. In the matching walnut finish of the frames I might add! Yep, the living room reno with fireplace and sound system is almost complete — check back soon to see how it turned out!!

It’s a nice idea to anchor a bunch of smaller images and photographs with a larger central piece of art. Stops things from getting too busy.

Love these old photos. Now they can be enjoyed daily.

Now i think that armchair needs a reupholster… hmm….

Bench – Before and After

This is a simple one. But I think it’s a good exercise in ‘just because something is new, doesn’t mean it can’t (and shouldn’t) be personalized!’. Yep, nothing wrong with this little guy.

After finding this in the “Discount/As-is” area of a furniture store — I loved the shape of the bench, but knew it wasn’t quite right. But, I never pass up a good deal when a little effort can turn it into a FANTASTIC deal!

Ordered this fabric from one of my fav furniture stores – Urban Barn – and simply stapled it right over the existing fabric, and voila! What do you think? Got a project you’d like to share? Email me!

Moroccan Stencil Download

Some of you have been interested in the Moroccan inspired Laundry Room Stencil from an earlier post. Feel free to download a PDF here!

Be sure to resize as you see fit to suit the pattern for your wall. The laundry room pattern was actually larger than an 8.5 x 11 sheet. So you may want to increase your print out by tiling your sheets when printing (Alternatively, you can increase the printout size with a photocopier). Once you have your print-out, trace on to some acetate (I found mine at a local office supplies store), cut it out, and you’re ready to go.

NOTE: Make sure you leave in some tabs on your finished stencil to hold on the centre area! (You can paint over them later on ;). I did my second coat by hand to paint over the gaps left by the tabs, and to smooth out the edges and any small mistakes.

Happy Stenciling!

- Fresh Crush

Fresh Take – Floral Arrangement

If you’re anything like me, Spring inspires you to bring the outdoors in. I took advantage of our fantastically warm weather today to stop by the local florist and grab some inexpensive Gerber Daisies and greenery.

I’ve been noticing this trend of having your arrangement completely contained within the vessel… and I like it! So I gave it a shot. Added perk; when the petals start to fall, they remain contained in the vase, instead of all over your impeccably arranged vignette. ;)

Head over to Style at Home to get more ideas of how to welcome Spring into your home.

Crushing on – Monitor Audio R45HD Speakers

Click here to check it out: Monitor Audio’s R45HD Speaker

“Designed to dovetail with the R360HD subwoofer and available in the RadiusHD range of real wood veneers and lacquers, the R45HD will blend perfectly with your décor in an ultra-discreet, multi-channel audio or video system…”

Hang on Monitor Audio, you had me at “real wood… ultra-discreet…”

Thank goodness for technology! Gone are the days of having a high-quality sound system the size of a Volkswagen parked in your living room. These little beauties offer quality sound and measure only 100 x 100 x 100 mm square. (3 15/16 x 3 15/16 x 3 15/16) and come in your choice of finishes. I know I’ve got my eye on the walnut veneer! It will fit nicely into our new living room reno (stay tuned for that!).

Mirror – Before and After

I was on the hunt for vintage clothing when I came across this mirror for… wait for it… 2 bucks!! Yes, $2 at the local thrift shop. The frame is actually heavy plastic and the mirror was in fantastic condition.

One little fix-up needed. One side had some of the filigree missing, so I grabbed my trusty handsaw and took the matching piece from the opposite side to match up the symmetry.

Here she is all even and ready for a quick sand and then paint!

I taped off the mirror for ease, and applied a creamy coat of paint. Well, maybe more like 5 coats. With all the nooks and crannies of the mirror, it definitely took a few visits to get it right.

Next, I added a touch of black to my creamy paint until I achieved my desired grey colour. And, just started adding some details — it really brought out the texture of the mirror.

And here it is. I think it worked out great.

Let’s take a closer look at that detail. What do you think?