Post Part Two

Welp, I know it's been a month since I last posted about our post in internet land.  But really it only took two weeks of wait time, two tubes of caulk, a few cuts of cedar, and two coats of primer- we have a chunkier post!

Cedar cuts waiting for caulk and primer.

I think the balance of the post itself with the rest of the house is much better.  One problem though.  I think the head trim is too low.  It makes the post look shorter than it should, don't you think?

Lopsided?

Eventually we'd like to plank the overhang.  Remember the seepy mess that was there before we repainted last year?  Surprise, it's re-seeping through the new paint job.  And since there's so much gray going on out there, we'd like to brighten things up by painting it white, along with the trim around the ceiling.  I'm trying to decide if I should take that head trim off the post and re-caulk the top to seal it or if I should just leave it as is until we're ready to plank the overhang.

Off with the head?

What do you think?  Does it stay (for now) or does it go??

A Post About a Post

When I spilled the details about our long-term plans for the exterior of the house here, I mentioned that we were planning on bulking up the post that supports our front porch overhang.  Hence this post about our post.

Pre Post.

We just thought the proportion looked funny.  We had this cute octagon window happening on one side of our little porch along with the expanse of the rest of the east-facing part of our house and this puny, ugly support post on the other.  Things had gotten a little better since we painted last year, but we still longed for a way to balance the proportion and dress things up a little.

The top of the post (plus Steve measuring).

The bottom of the post.  Someone needs to mow those dandelions!

Steve used cedar because we knew it would withstand the abuse it'd get outside and because we wanted it to match the texture of the trim on other parts of the house- since eventually the post will be painted white like the rest of our exterior trim.  He opted to do mitered corners for a nice polished look.

Checking the fit.

Once Steve had all four pieces cut to size, he nailed them in.

Any excuse to use a nail gun.

At this point you can see how much better the proportion of the overhang looks with the post bulked up.

Steve's on a roll with the nail gun.

Once Steve was done with the hard parts, he turned things over to me to do the easy and tedious parts (being a linear-sequential person has its benefits).  My first job was to sand all sides of the post to make sure the corners met tightly and knock all of the splinters down so things were nice and smooth.  Since it's hard to use a palm sander and photograph the process at the same time, you get this photo instead.  I'm sorry.  But obviously not that sorry.

Super dork.  Yes that is sawdust in my hair.

After that I filled the nail holes and corners where the sides joined.  Note to all- mitered corners are super pretty and a total pain in the you-know-what to seal with caulk.  Seriously, it took me about four times as long to seal this post as it took Steve to bulk it up.  Our plan is to make the post look a little more finished by adding a foot and maybe a crown (similar to this), but I decided to go ahead and prime the post as is.  I figured it'd save me a little work after the fact and the high contrast would allow me to see if I needed to re-caulk any areas.

Primed.

Nevermind the still-naked planters down the north side of the house.  Don't you think the proportion looks better?  It added some much-needed balance.

Ohm.

Our next step will be finishing off the post.  Crossing our fingers we'll get it done before I go back to work full time!

Shelf Reliance

I mentioned in our McListerson that we were considering installing a countertop in our laundry closet.   Leave it to Pinterest to spur me into action.  Well, Pinterest and dropping one too many items behind our washer and dryer.

{via}

I knew it would be difficult to install a large countertop that would cover the tops of the washer and dryer because we needed the open space next to the dryer for our ironing board.  So a small countertop to cover the gap between the back of the appliances and the wall, where I could set the garbage can and maybe use a little storage space, became what we were shooting for.  I asked Steve if he would be willing to help me do this and he not only jumped at the chance, but teased me because he suggested doing this waaaayyyy back when (although I conveniently have no recollection of that).  And the best part is we already had everything we needed to build the shelf.

First we cleared off the clutter that seems to congregate on top of the washer and dryer- clothes that need to be ironed or mended, cleaning supplies, rogue small kitchen appliances.

Ready to roll.

We were going to need to find a way to work around the water valves and the outlet that the washer and dryer plugged into.  Steve was sure he could find a way to work around it.

Ready to roll 2.0.

Steve took some existing shelving material and some 1x3 MDF and cut it to fit.  Just to be sure everything would work, we placed it in the closet.  Success!

Hurrah, it'll fit!

Then Steve screwed the wood that formed the lip into the wall.  He drilled a hole through the board that would become the countertop for the electrical cord to snake through, and then we simply pushed it into place.

Secure!

You can see that I still hadn't gotten around to covering the screws in the board that supports the upper cabinet, even though we installed that bad boy almost two years ago.  Whatever.  So out came the spackle and the semi-gloss white paint.

Buh-bye, screw heads.

We were just going to leave it at that, so that we could easily pull the "countertop" out  if for any reason we needed to access the water valves.  But I just couldn't stomach seeing the big gap between the 1x3s and the shelving board.  After talking with Steve, we decided that I could caulk the gap and the water valves would still be accessible... if a little trickier to get to.  I just had to be aware that if we needed to get back there, we'd either have to slide the washer out or cut the caulk.  Fine with me!  The caulk really made a big difference in making it look finished, don't you think?

How very countertop-like.

So not only will I end up losing less things behind the washer and dryer, I've now increased my storage space.  The garbage can for lint and used dryer sheets had to stay there, but I wanted a way to corral items that made sense to be in a "laundry" area but didn't necessarily want to have sitting out.  Enter lined baskets from Target!

So much storage!

These babies look nice, and each basket has a designation.  One holds items that need to be ironed, another hods items that need to be mended, and the third holds clothing to be donated.  I love having these things visible without having them look messy or taking up space on top of the washer and dryer.  And I also love that between the baskets and the garbage can, the exposed cord for the washer is completely hidden.

I love how little projects like this can really make a space feel finished!  The only thing we needed to purchase was the baskets from Target's Threshold line.  And other than waiting for caulk and paint to dry, this project took about 2 hours of cumulative time.

I'm thinking of making labels for the baskets, just so Steve can remember which is which.  What tips and tricks do you have to make your laundry area feel inviting and organized?

PS- check out this project at Beneath My Heart's June Linky Party!

We've Been Framed!

I am so excited to write this post because it means that we have reached a milestone in this house.  Another room has been finished!

The last project on our list for the guest bathroom was to frame out the builder-grade mirror.  We already had some MDF trim pieces from redoing the base trim in both the bathrooms.  It's nice and lightweight and pretty inexpensive, but we have learned the hard way that the stuff does not paint well.  So we thought we'd give ourselves a leg up on things down the road by priming the MDF before we did anything else with it.

Magic potion.

I rigged up a painting station in our garage.  We put two coats of Kilz on each side of the MDF before we did anything else.

High-tech paint station.

After everything was dry,  Steve got to do all of the extra-manly technical stuff (measuring and power tool operating).

Marking off mitered corners.

Action shot!

Checking the measurements.

Checking the angle of the cuts.

Ready for assembling!

We used some liquid nails and a stapler to assemble the frame and used some more liquid nails to adhere the frame to the mirror (they actually make liquid nails for mirrors and glass!).

Stapling.

The fit was perfect!  We used some painter's tape to hold the mirror in place while the liquid nails cured.

Mirror augmentation.

Once everything was nice and dry and sturdy, we removed the tape.  At this point, I started to get excited.  It looked so much more polished than it had before!

Don't mind the oddly draped towels.

But there was still some finishing work to be done.  The joints in the corners were pretty raw looking and the process of cutting and stapling the MDF had left some small imperfections that needed to be spackled.

Lookin' rough.

So that frame got three passes with spackle and then sanding.  I tried to make everything super-smooth because not only was this frame at eye-level, it had lights shining directly on it, and if you're using the mirror, you're gonna see the frame.  Imperfections would easily draw your attention.

Spackle drying, before sanding.

After the third coat was as smooth as I could get it, I applied three coats of off-the-shelf semi-gloss white.  It's the same color we used for all of our trim in our house as well as the bead board in the bathroom.  The paint really cleaned the frame up and made it look better.  I can still tell where my spackle and sanding job was excellent and where it was still not quite smooth, but I'm quite pleased that it came out as well as it did.

Looks pretty good!

Looks a little less good.

Overall though, I'm very pleased with how this turned out.  The bathroom looks much more polished and the total cost for this project rang in at $7 (we had everything we needed except the liquid nails).

So much better!

Cameo!

Just for fun, let's do a little before and after, shall we?

August 2011

December 2012

So much better!  So we are sticking a fork in this room.  We are done, finito, put a bow on it because that's a wrap.  WHOOP!

Wanna see what we did in that bathroom from start to finish?  I'm weird like that too.  Here's the projects we tackled to transform that bathroom from sad cabin to cottage spa.

Paint, beadboard, towel storage, lights, and corralling soaps with a cake stand.

Spray painting picture frames to match and Etsy art.

Concealing a plunger (and keeping it off the floor!).

Prepping the vanity for paint.

Painting the vanity white.

More painting the vanity white.

More progress on the vanity and selecting knobs.

Vanity reveal!

Framing the mirror.

Mantel Madness: Measuring Up

Guess what we started working on yesterday?

Game face.

Yep, we were itching to get started on the over-mantel project.  We wanted to get the wall marked to our dimensions and record all the measurements we'd need so we'd have a good idea of how much wood to buy at the hardware store.

There's a column.

Really, that's all we did, though.  Marking and talking to make sure the picture in my head matched the picture in Steve's head and that we were on the same page about how it would be accomplished and what to do about the details like what type of crown to use and how thick to make it and does it matter to us if it runs exactly up to the ceiling.

One of the benefits of marrying someone who's 6'4".

This part of kicking off a project is always so tedious.  And dangerous- this is the point at which disagreements always seem to come out.  But it's also super-helpful.  As we were talking through the depth from the outer edge of the mantel to the inset in the overmantel, we realized we had a small problem.  How were we going to secure the mantel to the wall and still have it be sturdy enough for me to put pretty stuff on it without risk of it pulling out of the wall?  With our new plan, the mantel would need to sit a little over 2 inches further away from the wall than it did before.  We talked about and sketched up a few ideas.  Anything would could think of would end up being difficult, look funny, or wouldn't totally eliminate the problem.  So we came to the conclusion that it would be easier for Steve to make a new mantel to fit than to try to find a way to creatively attach the existing one.  Don't worry though, we found a spot to still use Steve's mantel (more on that later)!

The result of our efforts was pencil sketches all over our wall.

Shaping up!

And a notepad full of measurements.

Yes, I misspelled columns.

We're ready for the hardware store!

Mantel Madness: Again?

Oh man.  The decorating ADD has kicked in big time.

I LOVE the mantel that Steve built for me.  But after looking at it for about a month, I began to feel that it didn't quite look right.  The scale was still off, somehow.  So I asked Steve to move the mantel down the wall, closer to the top of the piano.  He dutifully agreed and retrieved his power drill from the garage.

Power tools?  Steve's in.

Steve held the mantel up to the wall while I stood back and looked.  I thought bringing it closer to the piano would help fix the scale, but it actually made it worse.  So we sat and stared at the blank wall, trying to think of a way to improve the proportion of piano:mantel:wall space.

Itty bitty piano, big giant wall.

I always hate suggesting ideas that would mean extra work for Steve, but I had a thought cross my mind and I just couldn't ignore it.  What about an overmantel?  As long as we were sticking a mantel over a non-fireplace, why not just go all the way and make it even more fireplace-y looking by adding an overmantel?  Surprisingly, Steve was all for it.  It still amazes me that this man will take on extra work when I get hare-brained ideas like this.

I went to find images and tutorials of DIY faux fireplaces and Steve began sketching some diagrams of his plans.

Here's what I found on Pinterest:

Remodelaholic has a lengthy tutorial that includes lots of less-than-glamorous (but very useful!) photos of the process.

 

From Remodelaholic.com

A Place For Us had a short tutorial, and their mantel looks pretty similar to the one that Steve built.

From A Place For Us Blog

Remodelando La Casa had a short tutorial as well, but I really love the way their overmantel looks, with the super-thick crown and the large set-in panel in the middle.  It's just begging for a big art-deco style round mirror, don't you think?

From Remodelando La Casa

Steve looked at these and agreed that he liked the way the one from Remodelando La Casa turned out the best.  He also said that he had already figured out most of the how-to details while I was busy searching the interwebs.  Here's his diagrams.

Front view.  A 3-D rendering, even.

Side view.  I could've helped if the diagram called for stick people.

Looks pretty nice, huh?  You can see in both pictures that we'd end up attaching the mantel to the built up overmantle, and adding a little behind the existing mantel on both outside edges so that the mantel will still be flush to the wall.  We also considered bead board or planking for the inset panel in the middle, but I think I'd rather just have it appear smooth- it'd be more versatile if and when we redecorate.

Essentially, we'll hang the mantle just above the piano (like an inch-ish, to ensure the piano won't bump against the mantle when I'm playing loudly), and continue a little bit of the backing down under the mantle so that it looks like it takes up the whole height of the wall but is partially hidden by the piano.

So when we're done, hopefully we'll have something that resembles this:

Less horribly photoshopped, please.

So the mantel madness continues.  Steve is itching to do some woodworking, so we will probably at least have progress to share in the next week or two.  Cross your fingers for us!