Cottage8: Cinder Block Wall, Behind the Scenes

Okay, by now you’ve seen all the “after” photos. Now here’s a look behind the scenes.

Aside from our house looking a bit disheveled, this a before shot of our cinder block wall, just moments before the big renovation began…

And here’s another “before” shot, below…

I’m not sure if this will come across in the photos, but there was 2 inch recess in the lower part of the cinder block, on each side of the firebox. To compensate for the difference in depth and make the wall entirely level without any gap, our handyman used construction adhesive to attach two wood planks on each side, then screwed another set of wood planks on top of those…

Aside from the tools and cinder block dust, here you can also see the beginning phase of the first sheet of drywall (left side) making its way onto the side of the wall that faces out…

The drywall fully installed, our handyman seamed the edges and finished it with compound. After 2 1/2 years of that unsightly cinder block, even this half-finished sight was a vision of beauty to my eyes…

For the next phase of the makeover, I painted over the drywall with Ralph Lauren’s Canvas Natural. Then came the mantel, which our handyman custom built to fit our fireplace…

   The design I had in mind was for it to be simple, straight lines and fuss free…

Crown moulding beneath the top plank was added to give it a little extra detail…

 

A look at the side profile… 

Simple finishing trim was used to finish off the corners and edges…

Next came the finish and paint. The top of the mantel was stained a dark walnut shade. The base was painted in Behr’s Seaside Sand, which was a little too vibrant, so we toned it down by mixing in a couple drops of raw umber…

How about a little Before and After, shall we?

BEFORE: 

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

Notice how cluttered the bookshelves used to be…

   AFTER:

Bookshelves look much more streamlined now…

To check out more photos of the rest of this completed project, please click here!

A couple of folks asked me about the paint we used inside the fire box: Rust-Oleum’s Specialty High Heat paint, in Satin Black. A bit thick, and it went on beautifully…

In my next post I’ll share with you this side of the (beadboard covered) cinder block wall, the one that faces into our dining room, and how we replaced that huge chalkboard with something(s) we love even better!

I want to thank you for your encouraging comments and emails on our recent renovation. I have to admit, I was a bit nervous when we began this project. But now that all the dust has settled, I am over the moon thrilled with how it’s turned out. Thanks again for joining me on yet another renovation journey.

To see more of our home, along with updated photos and faq’s on how we managed to do all this stuff, click here, or you can click on the Cottage8 link at the top of my site!

Cottage of the Month Turns 5!

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I can hardly believe it’s been 5 years that I’ve been doing the Cottage of the Month feature on my website. Actually, I can believe it. All those late, late nights, and hours of editing each month.

Yep, 5 years – that’s 60 features, people!

People sometimes ask me when I’m going to stop doing this feature. End Cottage of the Month? Could you imagine! I think the earth might possibly stop rotating around its axis if I skipped a month. Come hell or high water, I have never skipped a month. Even when we moved into Cottage8, and the first two months we were living out of boxes with mattresses on the floor, I still managed to get ‘er done. It is a labor of my love, I assure you.

I’ve also been asked if I have ever thought of charging for this feature. Honestly, that is the furthest thing from my mind. I mean, I guess I could charge, or create a donate button on the page, but I’ve never done this for financial gain or profit. Several of my friends and family members think I’m a little cuckoo in making that choice, with all the work that is involved. But hey, if you’re feeling generous, I’d love it if you stopped by my online store every now and then : )

I think one area that folks don’t think much about is the behind the scenes work that is involved. Sure, I spend my 12 – 15 hours each month creating every feature, but if it weren’t for the homeowners there wouldn’t be any feature. And let me tell you, I demand a lot of my homeowners. Stunning photography, beautiful rooms, great vignettes and completed questionnaires. There are many emails that go back and forth between them and I, and I always seem to be asking for more. I make it my goal to present their homes in their most beautiful light possible.

Just looking back at the last several months, there is always a bit of a last minute rush and a good measure of pressure. For March’s upcoming feature (not telling who it is, you’ll have to check back on the 1st to see), the person I had initially scheduled wasn’t prepared for her feature, so I had to move to Plan B and contacted the next person on my list. With very little warning, this gal had a 4 day deadline to execute the entire shoot. Styling, photographing and editing. And I should also mention, she has a very young daughter and she’s also 7 months pregnant.  She is my hero.

Some of my recent hero’s also include: Maria who made numerous trips to the store in the attempt of buying fresh flowers for her Valentine’s dining table vignette, which turned out gorgeous. Shelley who had to physically remove Christmas from her home because it was still December and we were featuring her in January. Carol who had to drag Christmas in to her home while it was still November. Rhoda, I can’t say I remember any bumps in the road. That woman is organized and prompt. And Lu, knee deep in skeletons and corn stalks in late September, preparing incredible vignettes for October’s feature. I obviously have many more heroes, as this is looking back at just the past 6 months. But each person I’ve featured over these last 5 years has been so gracious and kind, opening their doors to us and letting us take a peek inside.

So Happy 5th Birthday, Cottage of the Month! And thanks to you folks out there who encourage me to keep it going. Here’s to another 5 more! (Don’t tell my husband I just said that).

Cottage8: Cinder Block Wall Reveal

Thanks for joining me here today. I just love a good reveal don’t you! All the drama, and the excitement. And the nail-biting anxiety that folks are hopefully going to like it. But enough about me. Allow me to turn your attention to exhibit A, below. I figure if I’m going to make this a good reveal, I’m going to go full monty and show you not how our living room looked last month, but how it looked the day we bought this house, 2 1/2 years ago:

Cinder Block Wall, Living Room Before:

Good-Bye Cinder Block Wall, Living Room After:

Truth be told, we didn’t actually tear any of the cinderblock down, we simply covered it in 1/4” drywall, secured with construction adhesive. We may be insanely passionate about remodeling, but we’re not crazy. And it would have taken crazy money to take on that kind of major renovation. We’re saving up all our pennies for a new roof. So that means creativity and thinking outside the box is the vehicle that allows me to continue to fix up our house, while keeping us on budget.

On the side of the wall that faces directly out, I decided to cover it in chalk board paint, right over the drywall. It was so easy and quick. The hardest part was convincing Adam that it would look good. Funny thing is, after I painted it we both loved the clean black wall so much, we dragged our heels a bit before actually using it as a chalk board. But after I bought this fabulous old frame from my friend Debra, we were finally ready to break it in. Inside the frame I wrote my favorite quote…

And wouldn’t you know it, the ledge of the frame makes it the perfect spot to hold my chalk!

Beneath the old frame are a couple of large glass jars I bought at Restoration Hardware. I filled them with fun and curious objects, and I plan on changing out this jar area often. Currently in my jars are rolled copies of documents tied with twine (left) and cactus skeletons (right). For those that are curious, apparently the cactus sheds its skin and leaves behind its skeleton. I just loved the texture and quickly grabbed them up when I spotted them at a flea market one day.

On to the fireplace wall, did you notice the new mantel? Our handyman, the one who built the floating shelves in our dining room, built this mantel for me. I love collaborating with him on projects. He listens very closely to what my “vision” is, never questions my ideas no matter how silly or strange, and we work seamlessly together to achieve the final product.

For the mantel, I told him I wanted simple, easy, clean lines. No fuss…

Did you also notice I painted the inside of my fireplace black? It used to be gray (well it was originally orange when we first bought this place), then I painted it gray, then I realized…ooops! I used regular latex paint, not special heat resistant paint. What was I thinking. So I bought a great product specially for high heat areas, and I’m so loving the black!

A few of my favorite flea market finds: a vintage suitcase, an old clam basket, and a bundle of old document ledgers rolled up inside…

The thick black frame above the mantel was something I’d found at a flea market several years ago and just had lying around somewhere in the back of a closet. So my friend Laurie took one of my old french documents from the late 1800’s and had it blown up and printed right onto canvas. I carefully placed it inside the black frame…

I so love the strike-through at the very bottom…

I can honestly say that for the first time I’m truly happy with the look of the bookshelves on the right side…

I found a huge collection of vintage encyclopedias, but wasn’t thrilled with the gold writing on the spines. So I simply turned the books around, and it gives off a great looking black and white vertical striped vibe which I’m completely loving…

It’s really hard to pull me out of this chair sometimes. I love sitting in this very spot more now than ever!

Okay, quick funny thing….see the silver champagne bucket on the right, which I bought at an estate sale…   

Well, if look closely at the engraving…it says “Happiness Forever. Love, Burt Reynolds”. I highly doubt it’s Cannonball Run’s very own Burt Reynolds, but every time I look at this silver bucket it makes me chuckle…

This is an old photo of our dining room. Since we already had a chalkboard on the right side our dining room, we decided having a chalkboard and a painted chalk board wall was just too much. So we recently decided to ditch the chalkboard and we redid this wall, which I am totally loving! I just have to take some pics and show you what we did in here…

A note about chalk board paint:

I did a lot of research about chalk board painted walls, and how you are supposed to “condition” them before use, and clean them afterwards. There was a lot of different information out there, but I met a friendly blogger named Kristin who worked at a coffeehouse and regularly had to clean the black boards. She changed my entire school of thought on the subject. It’s simple: if you want to keep your chalk board black and clean (not hazy with eraser swirls) simply wet a towel (wet enough so it’s soaked through but not dripping) wipe over chalk and let air dry. She recommended a chamois, but a wet towel worked just fine for me. And I didn’t condition the painted chalk board wall either! (Conditioning is when you rub the entire surface with the side of the chalk before you start using it, thus creating instant haze). And for those of you worrying about the dust, I used dust-free chalk and there was hardly any mess at all.

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I took a bunch of pictures before and after the drywall installation, how we built out the wall around the sides of the fireplace opening, the mantel before I painted it and stained it, and how it all came together. Since this was such a big post, I’ll share all the before’s and during's in my next post. Plus I will also share the changes on our dining room wall. Whew! Stay tuned!

I’m joining Jennifer Rizzo’s “Refreshing our Rooms” Party:

Hope you’ll join me over there!

Christmas comes to Cottage8 again, in February!

Hello Friends! We have so much to catch up on…

I’m happy to announce we finally completed our dreaded cinder block project, as several friends and bloggers have started referring to me as “Jenny From the Block” over the past couple weeks. Thanks girls, you made me laugh when I was near tears over this project. I think this was one of our most difficult makeovers yet. What began as “honey, I bet we can whip this thing out in a three day weekend”, quickly turned into “honey, do you think we will get this thing done by 2012”?

Here’s a

before

photo of the three-sided block monster we were been up against…

I’ll be taking photos of the completed result in the next couple days (I promise), and you won’t want to miss how our block monster project turned out. We are really pleased with it and can’t wait to share.

PS: Did you notice in the photo above, the wreaths on the backs of my chairs in the dining room? That leads me to my next bit of news…

Better Homes & Gardens magazine was here for two days, photographing our home for their annual Christmas Ideas issue, hitting book stores this coming Christmas (November to be exact). That’s right, while fellow bloggers were cutting out pretty paper hearts and sending out valentines, we were hanging the stockings by our chimney with care, and assembling our artificial 8 foot Christmas tree, branch by branch. We even had fresh garland greenery flown in overnight from Indiana, and lots of last minute packages coming in from all over. Making your home look convincingly like Christmas in February means serious business. Fortunately, I had a great team to work with and they made our home shoot a very positive experience (Although I think the house is still recovering, and I’m still finding bits of garland greenery in my socks).

Warning: the following low-quality image was taken with my iphone camera. Can anyone recommend a killer camera app for better iphone pics? Please help a girl out…

I wish I had taken more (and better) photos of the two day shoot, but I was so involved in the process, especially working Gayle, the photo stylist. She was so great. She collaborated with me and really allowed my “look” to come through in the shots we did without imposing her own personal style, which I would imagine might be a hard thing to do. And when I wasn’t busy sharpening my styling skills, I was closely observing Michael Garland, the photographer. He was so patient and really fun to work with. I was admiring all his fancy lighting tools and equipment, especially his camera. My little canon rebel xt looked like a toy next to his big-mack-daddy camera.

Oh, and in case you’re curious, the tree was dismantled the second they called it a ‘wrap’ and it took 5 hours to officially pack up Christmas and return the house to normal.

.      .      .      .

In other news, I was so excited to have my blog featured in the February issue of Romantic Homes:

And I’ve also learned that I have much to learn about photographing for a magazine. To be honest, I was a little disappointed in the quality of my photos in print. Here are the originals (below), which to me looked pretty clear. Guess it’s time to hit the books and study my camera manual once again. Anyways, I’m really excited they chose to feature me. Thank you Romantic Homes!

    By the way, it seems a bunch of you are curious as to where I bought my lamp with the burlap shade. I got so many inquiries about it from this post. I found it at an antique store in Agoura, CA. And thanks for all your nice comments on my new birch side table! You guys make my day : )

While on the subject, I also seem to get tons of inquiries about my farm table and my dining chairs, and where I found them. I bought the farm table at an antique store, and the dining chairs came from a local flea market…

I recently updated my house FAQ’s page, which I encourage you to check out if you’re curious about my home. Not only are there tons of updated pictures (cause you know how often I like to decorate, and then redecorate) but I’ve also included info and sources as to where I bought everything! Click here to check it out. And if I’ve missed an item that you think deserves a place in my FAQ’s, just leave me a message in the comments.

Note: I’ll be adding a new section for our master bedroom, which in the meantime you can read about here and here.

Hope the rest of your weekend is great!