DIY Fireplace Surround

 I am so excited to share this with you.  

We moved here 2 years ago this past July.  From the first moment I walked into this Colonial Revival home, I have wanted to make a surround for this fireplace.  It just looked incomplete to me....sooo much brick.  

I have been searching Pinterest for ideas since day 1.  I am glad we waited 2 years, you wouldn't believe the design ideas I have gone through and changed over and over in my head....Panels or no panels?  In the end we, hubby and I and our "Architect Son", agreed on a very basic shaker style surround.  This house is very basic in its woodwork and baseboards too.

I am going to share with you our journey of building the surround.  

We are by no means professionals. 

So please forgive us if we didn't do something just right.

First we did research on Code for leaving so many inches of brick and not protruding out so many inches and measured accordingly.  

With 1x2" boards for our 'Skeleton', 

we used screws and liquid nails to attach the wood to the brick.

Next we used a 3/8" sheet of plywood for the "skin" to cover all that brick.

Tacking it in with brads.

 Now for the fun part!

Using a nail gun, we attached a solid piece of 1x12" cut down to 1x10" board for the top part.  For the 'legs' we used a 1x8" board cut to length.  We turned the 1x8" on its side to mock up the baseboard at the bottom of each 'leg'.  

The previous owner had leftover trim for the baseboard which made it super easy to figure out.  This made it match up with our current baseboard. With it being a corner fireplace, we had to cope two of the angles on the quarter round at the very bottom of the baseboard. Our oldest son and Architect son carved and figured that all out for me.

Love Homeschoolers!

 I am a visual person so I'd like to share the different phases in pics.

 We added crown to our Living Room and Dining Room too.

Here it is today!

I painted it in Benjamin Moores' Whipoorwil. (That $10 can I couldn't resist on buying!) 

I love it!...so much brighter!!

I am super excited.  

The fireplace looks like it has always been like this.

If you try to build one on your own, take lots of pics.  

It helps as reference for us nonprofessionals :) 

Building a Corner Wall Cabinet: Before and After

My love for distressed colonial (as my son refers to it)

 had me searching for a hanging corner cabinet from the day our offer on this house was accepted.

As I searched, I soon found the prices of these things was either going to make me creative or just keep dreaming!

I chose to be creative!

It was easier to see it once I found this corner cabinet on the FB Market Place.

I just needed to find a door....right?

The size of the opening made it impossible to just find the right cabinet door.

I decided to make one.  

Taking an old toy box I had and recycling the wood made it look like a possibility.

I glued two pieces together and secured them with some wood lath.

 I had to use my plane to help it to fit.

I have limited tools to cut wood ( skill saw and miter saw), there was a lot of uneven lines.

Still is :)

Here it is before and after sanding.

I really liked it in its raw state, but knew it was not going to go well in my living room.

Using hubby's hand carving tools, I had to hand carve the little "lock" for the door .

Gunsmith gray is the color in our living room.  

This is what I painted the cabinet, but I also stained it with 'Early American' Stain.  

The color turned out perfect!

Down the road it will be nice to have some crown molding.  

It is fun just taking our time and finding just what we want at an affordable price.

I think I paid $25 for the shelf. 

I had the paint and the wood for the door.

Finally, The Stairs Are Complete

Finally!  Our stairs are finished! 

 It took months. but they are finished.  

I just wasn't excited about the idea of dealing with family traffic and staining stairs.  However, looking daily at the contrast between steps and floors, I became more motivated.

It was a process. 

As you can see we did not paint the Risers on the steps when we painted the trim.  

This is the color of the original stairs.  

Oh look at that dusty floor!

 I stripped and sanded the stair Treads and then just painted the Risers to match the trim in our Living Room.

I used Espresso colored stain on the treads to match our new floor color.

 Here is the process they went through. 

The first pic is from the inspection day last year.

We lived at pic #2 for almost three months. 

 Finally they match the floors and the Balusters and Handrail!

The before is on inspection day (previous owners furnishings).

I really love the painted Risers!

Fruit from my Garden

  Last year at around this time I was browsing stands and markets for flowers and herbs to dry just longing for a garden.  I missed my flower gardens so much!  There are so many things that play into making a place YOUR home.

Having your loved ones near is the sweetest thing.  My family is truly my home, but I always wanted to make the buildings, that we dwelt in over the years, cozy, peaceful, and warm.  You know, which truly starts with our hearts.  When Mama isn't right in her spirit then it really reflects on our husbands and children. (I put that in there as a good reminder to me.  Sometimes I can get so caught up into the outward, that I am not taking care of the inward.  We all have good and bad days though.)

Anyway this post is to share my excitement about the smell of dried flowers/ herbs

I hung this ladder in our mud room in hopes that I could dry my own flowers/herbs.

I have oregano, dill and lavender drying. 

 I did not get flowers from my English lavender this year *sigh* maybe next year.

The smell is wonderful!

Oh the memories those smells bring. 

 I have had dried flowers in our home since we married 22 years ago.

So thankful!

Craft Room Change

 After a year in our new home, I decided that I do not like doing projects in the basement.  Even though it is a big open space, I still find myself upstairs with the family and the sunlight.
At first I wanted this room to be like a breakfast nook/office.  I still want to use it as an office, but I am bringing all of my craft supplies upstairs.

This is were the sun shines so brightly, and the plants drink in the rays!

It is also the perfect place for photos.

Yes, I want to work here not downstairs.

I brought my other hutch out here and am in the process of figuring out what goes where and how to store things.  This room is right off of our family room where everyone gravitates; it too is a bright, welcoming room.

We still use this room like an office too. 

I wanted to take a moment and share about this little table.  When Miss Mustard Seed advertised that she was having a moving sale, I wanted to go see what she was going to get rid of.  She has some amazing things.  One of the pieces she was selling was this drop leaf table.  I believe it was her husband's childhood table.  Anyway, I was scared to ask the price. I finally broke down and asked.  She said $10!  I couldn't believe it.  When I learned it was a family piece, I asked "are you sure?".  She said it is just 'stuff''.  She was very generous and polite; a sweet lady.  Glad I got to meet with her before she moved across the country.

I'm not sure what I am going to do with it, that is if I do anything with it.  My daughter likes it just the way it is--all chipped and used looking. The light oak just really isn't what I like, but it does go well in this room.

I'm really enjoying the change and opportunity to be with the family and great lighting.

Gardening with our DYI Cold Boxes

I really miss our gardens!

Moving here,we have to start all over.

One of the things I wanted in my new garden was Cold Boxes.

My son and I gathered all kinds of scrap wood around our house and got started on building our own.  We found three windows on the Facebook Marketplace which is very addicting.

I painted them with some outdoor white paint we had.

We planted some Kale from seed in one and English Lavender in the other.

Here is some squash, dill, and a hanging gourd all from seeds.

So here is the beginning of our new garden.

We have found that too many bunnies live in our yard!

They love my oregano.

Kale is growing and my daughter also is trying to grow some zinnias too!
Hubby also built the stone wall in the background.  A stone wall must have been there years ago, because we found all those stones hiding under the bushes.  Great find for us!

Refinishing Our Floors--Keeping it Real

We refinished our floors in our previous home with no real problems, and people were always complimentary of them.  I loved the dark color against our stone colored painted walls. 

In the picture it looks more orange, but it felt warm and went well with my decorations.  I wanted it to feel warm in our current home without the orange look.

Here is our current home.  This was taken in the fall.  As you see there was nothing significantly wrong with the floors.  We went back and forth on whether or not to stain them.  The previous owner had different layers of poly in the floors ( 3 coats in Livingroom, 2 coats in dining room , and 1 coat in the family/sunroom).  We needed to take everything out of the rooms in order just to add the coats of poly.  Agreeing that we should just totally redo them now, we cleared the rooms on the first floor and decided to refinish them darker. 

BUT OH NO!!!!

The guy at the rental store said that we only needed to use the U-Sander if we were just getting rid of poly.  Hubby knew we used the drum sander on our previous home and was skeptical.  We thought that we got all of the poly and finish off, after all the guy said this was all we needed, but upon applying the stain we realized our mistake.  We ran out of time and did not want to spend more money.  Bad thinking......

I thought maybe if we add the carpet and furniture, it won't look like a leopard left his spots all over our house!

But no!  I lived with it for a week and felt sick to my stomach at how awful it looked and how that whole process turned our living quarters upside down.  I broke down to hubby and said "we need to do it all over again"  He was in full agreement.

So we rented a Drum sander and edger and went through the whole process again!

It was well worth it!
I really love the Espresso color!

Thank you family for dealing with your crazy mama!
We got these finished before the warm weather came.

A New Hearth

Before Spring arrived and the days were colder, we decided to attack some indoor projects.  One of those projects was to refinish the floors.  Before we could do the floors, hubby really wanted to get rid of the tile hearth.  I was in full agreement.  I wanted brick like you find in the homes of Williamsburg, but the then the bricks would have clashed with the 1940s bricks we have. 

We live in Pennsylvania so.....

We chose Pennsylvania flagstone with the rough cut edge.

It definitely makes the fireplace look like it fits.

Will post the adventure of refinishing our floors soon.

It was not a process without a huge hiccup.

New Home Tour # 4: Mud Room and Half Bath

We basically have one more room to paint and the hallway upstairs until we call it quits for now.  Even though it is February the weather is yelling, "Spring Time!".  We are itching to do some landscaping and hopefully plant a veggie garden.  We'll see.

I am sharing with you today our Mud Room and the Half Bath that is off of that room.

 Here is what it looked like at inspection, and what it looks like now.

We took the lovely mirrored bifold closet door off and put a real door on the half bath that actually locks and doesn't allow anyone to play peek-a-boo at an odd moment.  No one wanted to use this bathroom just for the fact that it was a bifold closet door. 

We also took down the 90's wall paper and went with the colonial painted trim look :)  We used Benjamin Moore's Woodstock Tan.

This is the view from our family room/sun room.

 We're using this room to store our school things and our printer.

It is not decorated the way I really want it to be in this corner, but we're getting there.

 This is my favorite corner!  I can't wait to clip flowers from the garden and hang them on my ladder.

I picked this lovely old farmhouse table up on craigslist.  I did have to cut it down and put it all together again and then stain the table top.  I absolutely love it.  I also found these chairs up on craigslist (3 for $20).  Not sure if I want to keep them like this or not.  I really like the way they look against the color of this room.

 Now for the half bath, I made a skirt for the sink with left over drop cloth material.  The curtain is attached to the tiny corner sink using velcro.  For the hand towel, I bought a cute wall hook.  My great uncle's minnow can is being used as a trash can.

 The corner mirror cabinet was there, I just painted and stained it.

We also changed out the fan that was in the mudroom.

All in all with paint and fan it was a makeover totaling less than $150.

Not bad!

Primitive? Farmhouse? Shabby Chic?

Be Yourself!  

Don't worry about what others think!  

I think I have said these very words to my kiddos as they faced the many peer pressures of life.

Now that we moved, I find that my painting and creativity over the past 6 months have been basically for our home not for a sale.  I had to reevaluate my thinking when it came to buying or painting things to fix up for our home.  It is hard to not go with what is popular and to just decorate my home with what I enjoy being around.  I enjoy the colonial, primitive look.  I love the Farmhouse and Shabby Chic style, but I find that I like living with warm, dark colors...not all whites and grays.  I tried lighter furniture and things, only to come to the conclusion that it just gets so dirty too fast.  So unless I live in a museum with a 'Please Do Not Touch' kind of life, it is just impossible for me to live.

I say all of that because I have been able to get two really good deals on primitive chandeliers because that look is not as popular anymore.  I bought this 6 armed Chandelier on Craigslist for $25.  I was able to paint it and make it fit into my decor.

After finishing my kitchen, I was on the hunt for a smaller chandelier to use over my sink.  I priced them at $250-$300.  I knew that was too much, so on to Craigslist I searched.  It took patience and time, but I finally found this one for $10!

 I couldn't believe it!  From the photo, I thought the chandelier was metal, but it is wood.

I wanted to add a pop of color to my Linen Kitchen that I just painted.

Barnyard red and Walnut stain was perfect!

 I was going to hang this where the previous owners had put a recessed light fixture.  The hole was way too big for the crinkled tin plate cover it came with.  I found this tin pie plate at a yard sale for 50 cents.  I knew it would be perfect.  So hubby helped me drill a hole into the center of the plate.

 It covered the big opening perfectly.

Hubby also put a dimmer switch in for me too.

 I absolutely love the pop of color. 

 The chandelier adds a very cozy look to my kitchen window. 

 The faux greens and light help take the place of having a curtain.