the mantel

Finally to the mantel- the project Ben has been dying to finish up.  I definitely don't blame him.. after all, the stone was done in January!

In previous posts I'm sure you saw that I had wrapped the old crown with burlap as a temporary fix..

We spent many months staring at the mint green molding below- it's much mintier in real life!

Over the last few months we really went through all of our options- what we wanted the mantel to look like, what the finish should be and what materials we wanted to use.  Eventually we decided to wrap the existing crown with a large, clean beam that we would then stain. 

I don't really have good pictures of the cutting process (or the assembling process) since all hands were needed on deck.  But after cutting the three sides (with mitered corners), Ben sanded them all thoroughly..

After some trial and error we discovered assembling it and then installing it as a single piece was the easiest, so we fastened the sides to the front using brackets.  This was taken right before we got ready to lift it into place..

After the sides were screwed in place I was able to let go and take the picture below..

From the side view you can see that the new mantel is higher than the existing- leaving about a 2" lip.  We haven't really agreed on what to do with it at the moment- I'm pushing for a metal lined insert, Ben would prefer wood.. I'll keep you posted on who wins that battle.

 

That morning Ben said he wanted to finish up the mantel and move onto other projects since it would take "no time" to install.  Five hours later the mantel was up..

But like all of our projects we aren't quite done yet.. the wood still needs to be stained.  If only we knew what color stain the floor guy used..

updated house pictures.. before and afters

I finally finished painting the bathroom trim last week- of course a few touch ups are needed here and there, but I thought now would be a good time to post a few before and after pictures..

BEFORE

AFTER

I apologize for the weird angles- it's hard to photograph such a small space!  Either way, this makes the thousands of progress pictures all worth it.  Just love seeing the improvements.


And while I'm at it, might as well post some more finished shots. While the office has yet to be furnished (pull out sofa is on order and desk is in progress) these pictures still show a vast improvement over the yellowed wallpaper and horrible blue carpeting..
BEFORE

AFTER

And the kitchen.. while we have yet to install the tile on all surrounding walls, or even paint the trim, at least this gives you an idea of the look we are going for..

BEFORE

 

AFTER

 

Next on the list?  Finishing up the mudroom built ins and kitchen window casings, installing the fireplace mantle and then hopefully stripping all of the doors!

mudroom progress

Unfortunately the bad weather prevented us from accomplishing too much last weekend- not to mention we were also still recovering from the 4th.

But here are a few quick updates..
The mudroom is almost done!  All that's left is caulking, sanding and painting.  Since we're expecting lots of fun visitors for the next couple of weeks I'm afraid it's unlikely I'll be posting the completion pictures anytime soon.  But here are some good shots from this past weekend..

This time I'll admit I didn't help much.  The mudroom was tight (and hot) so Ben got to work on facing the boxes while I started caulking other rooms in the house.

I didn't take pictures of the caulking- it's one of those things that's tedious and not much fun at all, but still has to be done!  For some reason we hadn't gotten around to doing the bathroom or a corner in the living room where the base molding was replaced, so I decided to suck it up and just finish it!


Henry was exhausted by the time Ben was done!

Some pictures of the almost final product..

The corner unit

The back unit

And one last update to share (one I'm particularly proud of).. we have the beginnings of yellow cherry tomatoes!

the mudroom.. a sneak peek

If only our calendar called for three day weekends every week..

We did absolutely no relaxing this fourth- we were way too busy tackling one of our major "to-dos"- the mudroom built-ins.  I think we're both totally exhausted and the work week has just begun!

When we first moved into our house there was a teeny-tiny underutilized space right off of the kitchen that we immediately started calling the mudroom.   Perhaps you remember it from this previous post. 

It does have a door that leads outside, though we never really use it to get in and out of the house.  Instead I had high hopes of turning it into a catch-all space- think outerwear storage, recycling center and dog treat mecca!  Before our kitchen was even installed I had drawn up a plan of what our mudroom should look like- though with all of the other house projects to complete I had no expectations about when we would actually start to tackle it.

But low and behold last weekend I convinced Ben to put aside the mantle work and move onto something bigger.. so we started to "pre-cut" all of the boards, thinking it would help speed up the installation process scheduled for the long weekend.

Pre-cut is in parenthesis simply because everything obviously had to be cut again before it was installed- about ten minutes into the job both Ben and I agreed it all would have been a lot easier if at least one of us was decent at math.  Thank goodness for construction calculators (is that what they're called?)

Anyway.. on Saturday Ben cleared out the mudroom and we started putting everything together.  Little side note: I'm very aware that in all of the pictures it looks like Ben does all of the work with me on the sidelines snapping pictures and drinking margaritas, but that definitely is not the case.  It may surprise those who know me but I actually have learned to operate a jigsaw and am very handy with a nail gun.

I had designed two pieces- one to run the entire length of the back wall and one to sit in the front left hand corner.  A little diagram to help..

Back Unit

So for both units we started with a base.. The ceiling height in the mudroom is 8'4" so we built up 4" to start.

We opted to use wainscoting for the back and literally just attached it to the wall- as we were putting it all up Ben mentioned there was no taking it down unless we wanted the walls to come down with it.

With the paneling up we started building the structure..

Like most old homes we had a few sloping floor/wall problems.  But nothing that couldn't be hidden with a little extra trim!

The wainscoting panel below the upper shelves is for lots of hooks- we desperately needed coat storage.

And the not quite finished shot.. we still have to add a 2" face to the outside edges of everything- then we'll caulk and I'm painting everything dark.  But what I'm most excited for is filling them up.  Here's a little taste of what's going inside them..

With the main piece done we only had the corner shelves left to do..

Corner Unit

Originally the mudroom had a small corner cabinet (pictured below).  

It felt like unusable space to us- I didn't think I'd really be able to fit anything in it, not to mention we were planning on gutting the room anyway to insulate the walls so we had no choice- it had to come down. But when the corner cabinet was removed we discovered there was actually no hardwood installed underneath it- it truly was built into the room.


We had planned on building in that corner anyway, so it wasn't a big deal to "mask" the lack of flooring.  This time around while we opted to go triangular again we decided to do full height open shelves instead.  

Because the floor had to be built up before we even installed the base there was a little bit of an extra step..

We installed the wainscoting again..

And started placing shelves where we wanted them..

Again we still have to install the face, but it's still a huge improvement over what was there..

It felt like as soon as we were done the weekend was over!  

We still have to finish up the window and door casings- maybe we'll get to it this week.  I'm hoping next weekend we'll face everything, caulk and then I can get painting!

the garden

At least somethings benefiting from all of this rain!  We have a wet basement, but I can look past that since we have a few cherry tomatoes coming in..

let there be light

Finally we installed some light fixtures!  It's amazing what you get done inside when the weather is crummy.  Ok so we didn't really accomplish that much- our workspace (aka the driveway) was rained out, but considering these light fixtures have been sitting around the house for 5 months, it felt like a lot more.  I'm just thankful we don't have to jump over the boxes anymore..

We had to swag the bathroom fixture to allow clearance for the medicine cabinet to open..

A few touchups are needed but I'll get around to that.. eventually.

And it's amazing what a difference the sconces make in the living room.  They're a huge improvement over the holes in the wall I've grown so used to.  Not to mention the extra light was needed.

Next up we'll be installing the real mantel- I wrapped the old one in burlap because I just couldn't bear to look at the mint green molding anymore.