Details

Did you catch that brass and white ceiling fan up there? I have a very strong dislike for brass and eventually one way or another it all leaves my house. This brass is no exception.

 This is the new ceiling fan in the living room.  It's not the same one, but one we purchased at a garage sale for $3, with a brand new paint job. The globes are some I found lying around the house when we moved in. So much better than the tulips.Problem is, I can reach the switch without stretching (I'm 5'3). (Oh, and please excuse work attire and hair)

 And it's close to his head. Guess that pole was a little too long?

So we (he) had to steal the one out of the bedroom so we could use the short pole and then had to convert the one in the bedroom to a hugger.

And TaDa! Here it is in motion (well, stop motion once I clicked). The original fan in here also got a new paint job though and it will eventually find it's way into the guest room.

Speaking of the guest room, I can almost see the top of the bed again.

I can almost see the top of the table too. My house was covered in things from the project and things from the living room.

The kids used to be in black frames. These now are some I had lying around. I haven't decided if I like this or not yet. I also haven't decided if I like one color over the other. And I'm not sure if I used white if it would be too much white. The lampshade is also temporary.

I am happy with the way this corner turned out though. And yes, I'm aware I have spring and fall flowers on display, LOL. This weekend we will hopefully install the crown molding and trim around the fireplace to complete the room. I will probably never finish the details, I'm crazy like that.

How about flooring?

Nothing is straight in this house, floors, ceilings, walls, etc. We've decided to go with it, gotta love an old crooked house, right? It's only horrible when you have to do flooring or try to measure up or down from a wall. But yet, I hated the carpet and it had to go. With 2 dogs and 3 cats carpet is so not a good idea.

 Here is the horrible matching carpet and walls. Keep in mind that ugly box step to the kitchen for later.

My rug even looks horrible against it.

So one day while browsing pinterest, I came across a flooring post that would be WONDERFUL for my floor! The idea came from Quarry Orchard, even though they didn't even know what it would be when they started. I was happy to learn from them and took it all to heart!

 We ripped up all the carpet and padding. Gross huh? We (he) then removed all the carpet tack strips and together we pulled out the 5 million staples from the padding. The couch stayed in here the entire time because I ran out of room to stash furniture, it was like a maze in my house.

They didn't know they were staining the planks, we did. So when we found minwax stain for $2.50 a quart at ReStore, we knew we would stain the sub floor a darker color than our planks to show through the grooves. And it dries much faster than paint, so it was perfect! Somewhere along in this mess, I decided the horrible already painted to look like brick fireplace had to go, and before I knew it, I was priming it too.

Since this was a big job, we went to Sutherlands for the plywood and had THEM cut it into planks. We used 1/4" sanded red oak and had it cut in 5 7/8" strips so they would come out even. The living room joins with the guest room, sun room, kitchen and our bedroom/parlor. The kitchen has allure flooring in it that was chosen so it could get wet. The guest room has original hardwood floors that are kind of dark. The sun room floor is hard wood that is painted red. The bedroom/parlor has carpet but oh what a surprise I found under it. We weren't trying to be all matchy matchy so we decided to go with wide planks and a light stain because of the dark walls. We chose 1/4" so it would be flexible with our crooked floors.

We used ipswich pine for the plank stain, also purchased from Restore KC, nice huh? We did all the staining outside and between the 2 of us it didn't take too long because it dried quick. We also did the poly outside but it took a lot longer because we didn't have the room to lay it ALL out to dry between coats. That and it finally rained here on and off all week the week we decide to work outside, figures huh? We used 3 coats of poly on each plank. We used a poly made by Rustoleum that was only $24 a gallon versus twice that for other brands. They didn't have much feedback on it at Home Depot but since it was Rustoleum, we thought why not? It looks good and I see NO problems with it so far. I'm sold!

Now that's what I'm talking about! It looks 2000 times better in here now!

Remember the little box step? I told him my vision for the new step and he made it come to life. Even better than I imagined. Yep, that's one of the things I love about him! Isn't it fabulous?

I'm off to take care of some more details in the room now.......

I'm partying at:

Flaunt it Friday
and
Show and Tell Friday
and
It's a HodgePodge Friday
and

Lets start with baseboards

So traditionally "back in the day" as I always say, baseboards were called mop boards and were wide to prevent the mop from touching the walls. Now of course we don't really worry about that now, but I do like the look.

I don't remember if I saw it here first or on pinterest, but it is/was a fabulous idea! FAKE IT! We set off to gather supplies. First stop was a little place near here that sells Valspar since I refuse to visit Lowe's again. Second stop was Habitat for Humanity Restore to buy trim ($1 each piece). We also ended up buying 2 cabinet doors, 2 cabinet bases, a piece of plywood and a tabletop, but that's another project. (well, except the doors).

I painted the top trim.

I painted the existing bottom trim and a strip of white paint above it.

I used this handy dandy measuring device to measure the width.

I didn't get much help from the dogs who kept throwing things in the floor and ripping up the tape.

And of course laying in the way.

I then proceeded to paint the rest of the walls. It's a blue neutral called Deep River Green.Isn't it gorgeous? And it only took me a year to pick it!

 This is what it looked like before, horrid isn't it? The walls matched the carpet!

We then started ripping up the carpet and padding. I would like to personally thank whoever secured the padding with 5 million staples, but since I don't know who that is, I'll say it here, good job guy!

It was now time to paint the 2 cabinet doors I got from Habitat for Humanity Restore KC.(Also $1 each)

Added a trim frame around the windows and added the cabinet doors underneath.

I then primed and painted between all of that.

So now we skip over the flooring (I'll tell you about that later) I painted the bottom piece of trim we also got from Habitat for Humanity KC and we added that as the final layer after installing the flooring.

Excuse the sideways picture ;)

Isn't it gorgeous? And how about that lovely view out the windows? LOL

I am not in love, what should I do?

I wasn't really ready to talk about it yet, but I need help or reassurance or SOMETHING!

We painted, added trim, painted some more, ripped out carpets, laid floor, painted some more, moved things around and Noooooooow, I have some horrible ugly wirey mess to hide on the left side of the fireplace. All along I thought well, I will just place this picture screen that I recently acquired and haven't used yet next to it and all will be well.

But it's not.

Is it the look I hate? Is it the color of it? I just don't know.

What do you do to hide those ugly needed wires?

I shouldn't have googled that

Just when I finally finally finally thought I had reached a decision, I googled. I shouldn't have done it, but I was searching for a word that wouldn't come to mind and instead found inspiration. More inspiration. I think I'm on inspiration overload. I was sitting here having a perfectly lovely day playing with Valspar's virtual painter thinking I only had one final decision to make and now *sigh* I don't know.

It actually all started with Pinterest, isn't that everyone's complaint lately? Well add me to the list. I might actually be on DIY overload there is so many good ideas over there all cram packed in one space for my visual inspiration! Anyway, it just happens to be the living room I'm working on. I've never really liked it, and I think the carpet matches the walls.

The other day (meaning anywhere from yesterday to 3 months ago) while playing on Valspar, I came across a color I thought I'd never use but it compliments the rug and couch perfectly and I fell in love with it. And yes it would make the ugly carpet look better but the other day while on Pinterest, I found a floor that called out to me.

It's from Quarry Orchard and they have a fabulous tutorial on how to make this floor........from PLYWOOD. Yep, plywood. After reading this tutorial and her hindsight, I'm more than ready to make this floor mine. We are going with wider planks so it doesn't look like we are trying to match any other floor in the house and are hoping for something like this.

So now those decisions are made and I've already decided to paint the ceiling fan a nice oil rubbed bronze, the only real question left was the ceiling. VAULTED was the word I couldn't think of. I googled ceilings and this is what I found.

Tissue paper what? Isn't it gorgeous? She has many more designs she's done on her blog, it's called The Magic Brush if you want to check it out. I had already decided I wanted molding.

And was only really trying to decide if I wanted to leave the entire ceiling white OR paint part of it the same color as the walls.

 All White

Not all White

 All White

Not all White

Don't you just love the color? Well I do. And what do you think about the ceiling? Should I stick with what I've decided or fancy it up some more? Or maybe I could save the tissue paper for the same ceiling I have in the kitchen with the wall color I hate so much? Hmmm, so many decisions. And if I decide for only color, should it be all white? Or half and half?

Oh, and excuse the mess, thank you :)