Before and After Archives - Page 25 of 25

Preparing to Install Antique Heart Pine Floors (and buying antique lumber on Craig’s List)

While writing this post, I thought about some alternate titles.
Here are some of the contenders:

1. How to entertain your kids while installing hard wood floors
2. How to cover your screened porch with debris from demolition
3. When you really should rent a dumpster
4. How to signify that Christmas is over
5. When getting a good deal on antique flooring from Craig’s List really isn’t a “good deal”
6. How to convince Pretty Handsome Guy that I really need a table saw
7. How to use up all of your husband’s Christmas vacation time

I hope you’ve enjoyed our adventures while renovating our living room. This is the fourth step in ~~the ever growing series~~ renovating our living room. Previous parts can be read here:

1. Faux painting brick over a previously painted white brick fireplace
2. Lightening up a room in 5 steps
3. Painting decorative graphics on a wall
4. Preparing to Install Antique Heart Pine Floors (and the Craig’s List source)
5. Installing Heart Pine Floors and the Final Reveal

And now, without further delay,
4. Preparing to Install Antique Heart Pine Floors (and our amazing Craig’s List source!)

When we last left the Pretty Handy Girl Family the stockings were hung with care and Santa had left his tell tale magic snow boot prints.

One day later, December 26th, and we threw out the tree, put away all the decorations, emptied the room and let the demolition begin!

Our living room rug had seen 3 families, 3 dogs, and 6 children. Do I need to say more? It was time to say goodbye to that stained carpet. It seemed like a good idea to vacuum the rug before we removed it. A complete waste of time when we saw the dirt underneath, but whatever, if my son wants to vacuum, who am I to stop him!

To remove carpet, grab some plyers and start pulling up the carpeting from the edges. Then, take a utility knife and cut the carpet in three foot strips, roll them up, try not to gag as you see the stains underneath, and toss them out (we tossed them on the porch adjacent to the living room.) You will notice that I was wearing a mask. I highly recommend wearing gloves, mask and while you’re at it, maybe a hazmat suit!

For some reason, this activity was irresistible to our two boys (notice the cheering section with their chairs pulled up for a front row seat.)

We were thoroughly disgusted to find that one of the dogs (at least I think it was a dog) had been using the fireplace as a fire hydrant. The stench immediately released as we tore up the carpeting.

Next we removed tack strips with a hammer and pry bar and gloves (be careful not to get poked by those tacks! Ouch!) Removed the carpet padding by cutting it into strips too. Threw it on the porch.

We had standard under-layment (particle board) under our carpeting. This is that type of wood that is made of tiny chips of wood and it flakes very easily. You CANNOT nail a floor into this stuff (unless you want your floor to bow and squeak, don’t do it!) We used a long digging bar (see below) to get some leverage under the under-layment.

Heavy 6′ long digging bar

The boards broke into small 2′ chunks which we also threw onto the porch.

It was at this moment, (while gazing at the 3′ high pile of debris) that we realized that maybe we should have rented a dumpster. I wondered if we would ever see our porch floor again!

Luckily, we were able to fit all the trash in the back of a neighbor’s truck. Pretty Handsome Guy and our oldest son made a trip to the dump. I was told it was quite an experience driving up Mt. Trashmore and pushing the debris out the back as seagulls swooped and swarmed. Yuck!

Back at home, I removed all the nails leftover from the particle board and swept and vacuumed the floor.

After we cleared the porch, we started setting up shop and taking inventory of what we needed for the installation.

Several sheets of 3/4″ plywood to build up our subfloor to the same height as the kitchen
Screws
Tar paper to act as a vapor barrier
Chalk line and chalk (already had)
Staple gun and staples (already had)
Rent a pneumatic floor nailer and hammer
Flooring nails
Miter Saw (check)
Table Saw (hmmmm, I didn’t have one, and I would probably need one to rip a board or two when I got to the end of the room. Let’s just say that I got my Christmas present a few days after Christmas!)

Courtesy of HomeDepot.com: order your own here!

We began by measuring the floor and cutting our 4’x8′ sheets of plywood to fit in the room. This is a small room, so we only needed 6.5 sheets of plywood. Then we screwed about a ~~gazillion~~ 500 screws into the plywood until it was squeak-free and wouldn’t move in an earthquake.

How did we ensure that we had removed all the squeaks? Well, we had our oldest son test it out with his new roller skates he got for Christmas.

After the sub floor was built up, we stapled down tar paper over the whole floor. Did you know that tar paper can also become an instant blackboard for two boys? Scribbles and race tracks instantly appeared.

So, speaking of scribbles, you may notice some writing on the left hand side of the picture below. I always like to leave a little note or a story about the renovation for some future homeowner to find. (Although, curse the person that even thinks of removing my beautiful floors!)

This is the message I left:

“These heart pine floors were laid December 2009. The boards were reclaimed from the second floor of an old farmhouse just north of Oxford, NC in Virginia. The nails are antique square cut nails leftover from the construction of my grandfather’s house in Troy, NY.”

This is only part of the whole story about these boards. We have wide plank heart pine floors in most of our downstairs. They are original to the house, and add so much character! We wanted to try to keep the integrity of the house when we added wood floors in the living room, so I had spent hours scouring the web to find a source for wide plank heart pine flooring. The cost for reclaimed lumber with the same width was crazy expensive! $10 – $12 per linear foot. Worth every penny I’m sure, but unless we won the lottery, those floors were going to have to wait.

One day I stumbled across some wide plank heart pine lumber on Craig’s List. Yes, Craig’s List! I agreed to buy the lumber, basically sight unseen because the seller hauled the lumber to our house from Virginia (about an hour and a half away.) My heart sank when he pulled in our driveway. This lumber was filthy! Covered in dirt and grime. I really thought I might be getting ripped off. But, then he pulled one board from the trailer that he had sanded down and showed it to me. That one board was beautiful. It was a gorgeous amber color and had pretty knots in it. He told me that he demolishes old buildings and the owners let him sell anything he can salvage. He promised that this lumber was probably gorgeous underneath the dirt and grime. I took a leap of faith and paid for it.

The wood sat in our garage for months until we finally decided to get the ball rolling. We started by scraping the tongue and grooves of the wood. 100 years of dirt and grime poured from the cavities in the boards. Then we removed as many nails as we could find. These were not round nails, they were hand cut and forged square nails.

3 Days of scraping, prying and pulling left a dirty floor and a dirty Pretty Handy Girl and Pretty Handsome Guy.

Next we sent the lumber off with our handyman, who safely removed all the lead paint from the one side of the wood. These were floor boards from the second floor of a farm house, the owners had painted their exposed ceilings (the undersides of the floor boards!) Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to plane the wood (even the tops and bottoms of boards by shaving), since the wax used to finish the floors 100 years ago kept gumming up his planer. (Thank you Steve Bartholomew for your hours of labor on our wood and the numerous blades you ruined for us.)

Enter one fabulous woodworker, Mark Kegler from Kegler’s Woodwerks. He and his father were so wonderful and gave me many tips and words of encouragement since this was my first time installing wood floors. They planed the wood and put new tongue and groove on the boards, which I know helped my installation process tremendously!

When Mark and his father returned the wood to us, I was weak in the knees. I have never seen wood like this before. The patterns, wood grain and coloring was BEAUTIFUL!!! I knew then that the time, effort, and extra money spent planing and removing the paint was well worth it. We had saved a piece of history and preserved wood that few will see in today’s lumber industry.

I love the grain variations!

See just a hint of the paint still in the knot.

Some of the grain has a bluish cast to it!

Next up on the blog: How to keep 2 kids out of the room you are working on. And the process for installing wood floors, sanding and final reveal!

August 25, 2010/16 Comments/by Brittany Bailey

Before and After, Home Tour, painting, Painting & Antiquing Techniques

Painting Decorative Graphics on a Wall

On Monday I showed you my fireplace painting from white paint back to brick. This was only one step in our major living room renovation. I hope you will hop back again this week to see some of the other transformations we made to this room:

1. Faux painting brick over a previously painted white brick fireplace
2. Lightening up a room in 5 steps
3. Painting decorative graphics on a wall (this post)
4. Preparing to Install Antique Heart Pine Floors (and living to tell about it!)
5. Installing Heart Pine Floors and the Final Reveal

Step 1 was a magical transformation of white painted brick to brownstone brick using paint!

Step 2 was actually a 5 step program to lightening up the room, we dubbed the dark cave.

Before

And as promised, we’ve arrived to Step 3 in our Living Room renovation.

So, I admit it, I’m gaga for those silhouetted wall graphics. Some of my favorites are from Leen the Graphics Queen.

Because I have a background in illustration, I didn’t think twice about customizing the wall behind our bookcase with a design. If you have a super shaky hand, definitely stop here and head over to Leen’s!

If you are up for a challenge, keep reading. After clearing my built-in bookshelves, I started by lightly outlining where the bookshelves met the wall with pencil or chalk. Then I took out the bookshelves.

Next I used chalk to draw the outlines of my design. I was careful to avoid having a bird where the shelves would meet the wall.

Don’t think you can draw freehand? Try this trick (it works for enlarging a design also):

You can always print something you find online or make a copy of a design you see in print.

Legalese: Please be respectful of other’s artwork and
don’t try to sell anything you put the image on.

That is copyright infringement! Technically even copying the image from

someone else’s site or from a book is too. But, we’ll bend the law just this once.

You can take your print out and draw a grid across it (see above). Then draw your larger grid on the wall and focus on drawing one box in the grid at a time.

Now get your good brushes out. Make sure you have at least a small round brush with a good tip. And a flat brush will help too. A good brush really makes all the difference.

I used my Benjamin Moore Aura wasabi powder paint leftover from this project and over my chalk outlines.

So, here is something I didn’t tell you yesterday. I actually left the dark pine green behind my bookshelves in the living room. So, when I used the lighter wasabi powder green it showed up lighter on the pine green. It is an optical illusion that the graphics are lighter than the rest of the room’s color.

After the paint dried I used a damp rag to remove the pencil and/or chalk marks. Then put the shelves back in.

See, no birdies were harmed during the creation of this wall treatment. By tracing the shelves from the start, I was able to ensure that the birds were not covered up by the shelves.

I love the whimsy that the graphics add, don’t you?

When I style my shelves, I TRY to keep it sparse.

And that was it! The cost was next to nothing since I used the same gallon of paint for the walls in the room (from yesterday.)

I hope you will stop by for my next post on preparing the floor for hardwood flooring. And installing BEAUTIFUL antique reclaimed heart pine flooring. I am so excited to show you this!

August 19, 2010/16 Comments/by Brittany Bailey

Before and After, Benjamin Moore Aura, Home Tour, painting, Sconces

Lighten Up! 5 Ways to Bring Light into a Dark Room

1. Faux painting brick over a previously painted white brick fireplace
2. Lightening up a room in 5 steps (this post)
3. Painting decorative graphics on a wall
4. Preparing to Install Antique Heart Pine Floors (and living to tell about it!)
5. Installing Heart Pine Floors and the Final Reveal

After the bricks were painted, I enjoyed the results for a few months, but I had bigger ideas for this room. The first was to lighten up the room. This room has no windows, only a sliding glass door that opens to a screened porch. No ceiling lights except two eyeball lights aimed at the fireplace. Add to that a deep pine green paint on the walls and this room was one dark cave.

These pictures were taking before we moved in:

Years ago Pretty Handy Guy and I learned that the first thing you need to do to increase light in your room is to scrape the popcorn ceiling and repaint it using Valspar’s Ultra Bright Flat White Paint.

Photo courtesy of DIYNetwork.com

This always makes a dramatic difference in how much light is reflected (as opposed to being absorbed by the popcorn texture and dull builder’s white paint.)

Okay, so if you are thinking that I scraped the ceiling myself, think again. I may be pretty handy – and there isn’t much I can’t do – but this is one job I choose NOT to do. I scraped our pantry ceiling and it was easy, but my neck hurt for days! Do yourself a favor and hire someone to scrape, spackle and sand for you if you have neck or shoulder issues like I do. Then you can prime and paint with a roller on an extension pole.

Ceiling scraped, spackled, sanded, primed, and painted with ultra white paint. Wow, that is bright white!

Just kidding. I didn’t take a picture of the ceiling.

Most people know that adding a lighter color to a room increases the amount of light. Dark colors absorb light while lighter colors reflect them. (Remember the wisdom of not wearing black on a hot sunny day).

After much deliberation*, (because I liked the green color that was already there) I chose a lighter green for the walls. Wasabi Powder by Behr. But I had my favorite “paint guys” at Ace Hardware match the color in a Benjamin Moore Satin Aura Paint.

*When I deliberate, I bring home about 50 different swatches from many brands for each room I am trying to decide for. Then I put up a few at a time stuck in door jams, light switches, etc. I move them around on different walls at different times of the day. Then weed out the ones I don’t like. I live with the colors for at least a week, taking time to narrow my choices down to three. Then I run to buy the little sample paint jars of the colors I chose or have the paint department at Lowe’s mix one ($3 for a sample of ANY color! Woot!)

At this point I am so gung-ho about painting that I grab my brush and paint big 3′ x 1′ patches of the finalists on all four walls right up against the white trim (so I have one edge against white not the existing wall color). But, If you aren’t quite ready to paint on your walls, you can paint your swatches on big pieces of poster board instead. Usually within a day I can decide on “The One.”

Since this was my first experience with Benjamin Moore Aura paint. I was shocked when the paint covered the deeper green with only one coat! Pretty Handy Guy and I are perfectionists about painting, so we have always used two coats on any room we paint. We both agreed that this time we couldn’t see ANY spots showing through with this paint!

Legalese: Of course, your results may vary.
We have since painted the office from a dark sienna color
to a light stone color and definitely need the two coats.

One more thing about Aura paint, it really is super low odor. It is more expensive, but you don’t have to use as much since it covers better, no roller marks, and …hey, it is good for you and the environment!

The new color made a difference, but the biggest unexpected change in light happened when we widened this doorway:

This was a measly 4 feet opening from the kitchen to the living room.

I had been trying to convince Pretty Handy Guy for eons months that we really needed to open up the doorway. I wanted to be able to see what our two screaming boys were up to while struggling to pull dinner out of the oven. Or be able to participate in conversation with guests when they sat in the living room and I was busy in the kitchen.

I tried taping up cardboard to show him the new width. But, he just couldn’t see the potential. Luckily, he finally gave in.

The next day, I hired a contractor to open up the doorway. This guy was worth his weight in gold, especially when he proposed a brilliant idea:

“Why not add sconce lights to each side of the opening in the living room since I have to cut holes to move the wiring in your wall anyway?” YES! I yelled. I could kiss that contractor. To this day, I still love those sconces and the light they add to the room. But, most of all, I loved the expression on Pretty Handy Guy’s face (sheer quizzical skepticism) when he heard “sconces”. I found out later that Pretty Handy Guy didn’t have the same vision as I did:

Opening up that wall had an unexpected bonus. It allowed all the light from the kitchen bay window to spill into the living room. So, to recap, here are the light altering changes we made:

Scrape Ceilings
Repaint Ceilings Ultrabright White
Repaint Walls Lighter Green
Add Sconce Lights to both sides of the wall opening
Open Doorway

And the results speak for themselves!

Before shot: Living room during daylight with table lamp lighting

After shot: Nighttime room lit by fireplace lights

(gotta love Santa’s magic North Pole footprints made with baking soda!)

After shot: Nighttime room lit by fireplace lights, sconces
and (okay) a few Christmas tree blinkies

Before shot: 4 foot doorway looking into living room

After shot: Same doorway widened to almost 8 ft. (doorway looking into kitchen)

Final shot: Way too early Christmas morning!

Stay tuned!

Tomorrow, how to paint decorative graphics in the back of your built-in bookcase.

And then…Dec. 26th 2009…Christmas is over, take down the tree and remove everything from the room. Make way for reclaimed antique heart pine floors! You gotta see this (coming soon.)

August 18, 2010/25 Comments/by Brittany Bailey

Before and After, Do It Yourself, Home Tour, painting, Painting & Antiquing Techniques, ReNew

Painting Brick Fireplace – From White to Beautiful Brownstone

This is the first in a five part series on renovating our living room:

1. Faux painting brick over a previously painted white brick fireplace (this post)
2. Lightening up a room in 5 steps
3. Painting decorative graphics on a wall
4. Preparing to Install Antique Heart Pine Floors (and living to tell about it!)
5. Installing Heart Pine Floors and the Final Reveal

I know the trend lately is to paint fireplace brick white. Especially if the brick is an ugly bright red or some other ugly color. I’m pretty sure that is why our fireplace was painted in the first place.

Before Shot

Painting Brick Fireplace

But, the fact that our fireplace, mantle and the built-in bookshelves on both sides of our fireplace are white, made for an overwhelming amount of white on that one wall. I thought about painting the mantle, but only briefly. I really wanted the warmth and contrast of bricks to set off all the white in our living room.

I stumbled across a few websites showing painted brick here and here. Then I thought, “If someone can do it, then there is a 95% chance that I can do it too!”

I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but in the end I am amazed by how real it looks. And, how easy it was to do! The true test came when I fooled the builder of our house (he has lived on our street for over 30 years) into thinking I had stripped the paint off the bricks! Sweet success.

This is a relatively easy project. It took several hours, but can be done in sections.

Painting Brick Fireplace Materials Needed:

TSP cleaner
Scrub brush for use with TSP cleaner
Drop cloth
Newspapers
Painters Tape
Paint Roller and Tray
Stiff 2″ paint brush
Car wash sponge or large 6″ x 3″ sized sponge
Spray bottle with water
7 paper plates
Rags for clean Up
Acrylic Paint (see below for colors)

Before you do anything, buy some TSP (tri-sodium phosphate) cleaner at the hardware store and follow the directions to clean your brick. Be forewarned that you may actually like the color of your bricks once they are clean and dry! If you still hate the color, proceed…

After working up a test board by playing with several color combinations, I chose a warm brown brick color. I also tweaked my mortar color before painting it on my fireplace.

I covered the mantle and bookcases by taping newspapers to them. Then, covered the floor with a drop cloth.

I mixed up a small container of my mortar color. I used some leftover latex satin taupe paint from our other house and added some black and a little dark brown to achieve the perfect mortar color.

My color looks like this warm gray cement color:

I painted all the mortar areas between the bricks with a 2″ paint brush.

As the mortar color dried, I mixed up a bucket of my base color for the bricks. Then poured it into a paint tray.

Then, I laid out my seven paper plates and filled the first one with a deep chocolate oops paint (Valspar Latex Eggshell Chestnut).

And poured a half dollar size of the following colors onto the other plates (one color per plate).

I used a paint roller to roll the base color onto small 3′ x 3′ sections of my fireplace. (Don’t worry if the paint doesn’t soak into all the grooves. Some of the white showing through made my bricks look old and rustic.)

While the base color was still wet, I covered my sponge with the Chestnut color. Then dipped the sponge into one or two of the brick tint colors. I sponged one brick at a time using the same color tints sporadically around the wall. Keeping the brick colors varied and random make them look real!

When the sponge needed to be reloaded with paint, I began with the chestnut color first, then added one or two new color tints to the sponge. You will have to refill the paper plates as you use up the paint.

I kept working in small sections, to be able to work while the base color was still wet (use the spray bottle of water to lightly wet the bricks if it dries too quick).

The best part was that if I didn’t like a color, I could go back over it and try a different tint. Notice how I randomly dispersed the darker brown bricks. This is key to having a realistic look.

On the hearth I had to press more gently with the sponge since the mortar lines on our hearth were almost level with the bricks. I kept a wet rag near by to wipe up any wandering brick paint.

Close up picture of the bricks.
Notice how the white specks showing through really make the bricks
look like they are re-claimed and rustic.

After Picture

Daylight picture after decorated for the holidays.

I can’t believe what a huge difference painting the bricks made in our living room. It warmed up the space and actually made our fireplace recede into the room. Let’s take one more look at the before and after:

Side note: The latex and acrylic paint has held up great (even after several fires using our gas logs.) If you need to paint the bricks inside the firebox, you will need to use paint that is heat tolerant.

And for those wondering how long this took. Including the prep work (cleaning, taping, mixing colors) it took about 5 hours total. Not too bad since I’m a night owl and could watch DIY network while painting!

Be careful not to put anything heavy on the hearth for a few weeks while the paint hardens.

Next up in the series: 5 Ways to Lighten up a Dark Room.
Followed by: Painting Decorative Graphics on Your Wall.
And I saved the best for last (coming soon): Installing Antique Reclaimed Heart Pine Flooring

August 16, 2010/140 Comments/by Brittany Bailey

Before and After, Guest room, Home Tour

My Home Tour – The Guest Room

Having guests over is such an exciting opportunity to catch up and show off your home. Here’s a tour of our guest room for you to enjoy. Come on in, kick your shoes off and stay overnight if you wish!

The room had humble beginnings. These are the before pictures.

Not a bad color, but just not what I had in mind.
There were several holes that needed patching in the walls.
That gave me another reason to re-paint.

What was I thinking?! That little ikea dresser just does not fit!

Before I show you the after pictures, I have to explain. As the mother of two boys (and the only female in our home), I am careful to keep my decorating from being too flowery, frilly, and – well – girlie. But, after a week of sleeping in the guest room because everyone had the flu except me (you know Mom’s can’t afford to be sick!), I decided to throw my femininity into just this one room. I told Pretty Handsome Guy that it was the one room that I needed to be girlie! He knew better than to protest. I guess he figured it was better if I got it out of my system in just this one space.

So, here she is, all gloriously girlified:

Fresh roses, I wish you had smell-o-vision. Freshly cut roses, displayed in a recycled jelly jar.

Detail of doorknob from the nightstand made from a curbside door and picket fence.

Better view of the nightstand. The lamp is from Goodwil

The center pillow was a sack of birdseed that I ordered from here.
Then I washed it and stuffed it with stuffing and just re-tied the top.
The patchwork rose pillow was purchased in a gift shop during our visit here.

The painting over the bed was painted by the very talented, Shari MacFarlane (who also happens to be my Mom.)

The bed frame was rescued from the curb when we lived in Charlottesville, VA. The side rails were broken, but I found sturdy new ones at a rummage sale the very next week!
I sanded the rails down and stained them to match the headboard and footboard.

You can just barely see this piece of art from the previous picture. I purchased this little painting from a gallery in Asheville, NC on my first getaway weekend after having kids. The artist signed it Cap Man 2005. It is painted on a salvage floor board.
I just love it and the Jimi Hendrix quote

Spray painted floral vases and a peek at my birthday gift from a dear friend.
It was her grandmother’s hand towel!
She was the recipient of this present for her birthday a few years ago.

Daisy, the rescued chair and an adorable kidney shaped desk. I think it fell off a pick up truck because it was busted up and upside down on the side of the road.
The desk matched the style of my bed perfectly!

I glued the broken pieces, and re-stained it. Then added a ribbon and bead pull.

Salvage windows. The larger one was a gift from a friend and fellow blogger. I cut mat board to fit in each individual pane and then used double stick tape to mount family photos on the boards. Then pressed the boards in the back of the window and hot glued around the edges.

Close up of chipped salvage window. I painted one coat of flat white paint on top of the window and then used packing tape to peel off some of the paint.

Sweet smelling soaps in a bowl. Pitcher and silver tray from Goodwill. Top view of the upholstered bench.

Can you believe it? The bench was also a curbside find!

This concludes my guest room tour. Did you enjoy? You can view my full home tour here. Thanks for visiting.

PHGFancySign

August 12, 2010/42 Comments/by Brittany Bailey