Home Design Cool

Well HELLO! Oh happy day, the kitchen island is done! I busted my butt yesterday painting for hours to get it finished up so I could show you this week. It’s so freaking awesome, I love it! Love it love it love it.

I’m always proud of what I create in our house but this one may be one of my favorites. I keep looking at it thinking, I DID THAT. And it wasn’t crazy expensive either. It’s a wonderful feeling.

If you remember, last year during the family room renovation we pulled up the island to patch the floors. I wanted to move it away from the cabinets a little bit and we had to fix the floors to do that. They had to tear it apart to take it out of the kitchen:

And my “art” project was created. ;) The squiggles are just old glue from past island projects. If you’ve followed along over the years you know this little island has undergone a LOT of redos. This is the last one. I’m not touching it again. Ever.

I used the original island and built off of it – first by making a wine rack out of scrap wood:

I’m sure at this point some of you were like, uhhhh…OK…

You need to TRUST! :)

Next came the cabinet at the end of the island that will house a microwave eventually:

I just built a basic box with screws and wood.

It sat like this for a while – I hosted a party, had friends over…all with the interesting island on display. The best part of it so far was the new size and the butcher block countertop – I LOVE having a larger island. It is fantastic my friends. I added about two and half feet to it in total.

Next up came the supports I built on the side:

I know some of you have mentioned that the chairs are close together – there’s actually five inches between them and it’s plenty for us. I didn’t want to make the island any bigger – that space at the end where the table used to be has grown on us and we love having it open now. (Before it felt massive, so funny.)

Also, in the 11 years we’ve lived in this house we’ve never had two grown adults sit down at the island next to each other anyway (when it was just a two seater). When we have parties one person sits, one leans, and our last party I actually pulled one of the seats off to the side by the new cabinet and sat there so I could talk to people. So the spacing works fine for us – but if you try this you will have to figure out what works best for you!

I planked the whole thing with the same cheap underlayment I used on the fireplace in the family room. And to tie to two areas together even more I painted it the same color – Peppercorn by Sherwin Williams. It ties the whole space together beautifully!:

I’ll take you on a tour of my island. ;) The cabinets were part of the old island, obviously. Everything past that is new. The wine rack is seriously awesome and I need to go buy some more wine to fill it up. (I may have celebrated with a glass last night.)

The new cabinet at the end will have a shelf eventually – I won’t install that until we get the microwave that will go in here. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the bottom shelf – for now it holds cookbooks and I love that we have extra storage!:

I still need to pick up a cover for the outlet, but otherwise the part is done for now. I used plywood for this cabinet since it is cheaper -- you can see the grain of the wood but eventually most of it will be covered with the microwave:

Yes, our Valentine hearts are still up. ;)

I told you more about the stools and how I cut them down here. I was originally going to keep the original color of our island, a lighter blue/gray, but the stools looked awful with it. So I went with the darker and I love it!:

All of those cabinets will be built up to the ceiling and will be painted eventually. In the full light like this the Peppercorn color goes a little blue in pics but in person it’s more gray. There is a definite blue undertone though.

I’ve been trying to figure out a good accent color to use in the kitchen -- I realized in the family room and our bedroom (where I have a wall painted the same color) that I love green with it. So green it will be…with some blue mixed in – I’m loving blue against all the white on the new window seat:

The plan is to take down those cabinets (the microwave will be replaced with a hood) and do shelving in that spot. I think this view will be pretty incredible when that’s done:

I have another idea for that wall that came into my head the other day. I’ll have to see if it will work. That’s like phase six out of ten phases of this kitchen, so it will be awhile. :)

But for now we are enjoying the first two phases that have come together better than I could have dreamed – the window seat and the island:

The new larger island makes me want to cook and bake all the time! I may have to make some brownies to celebrate. It’s so wonderful and turned out even better than I could have hoped.

I found this super old picture and had to share, just because it’s fun to see the changes over the years:

I’ll share a few more details and how I used one of my favorite tools on this project tomorrow! For now, I rest. I may just take a nap on top of it. :)

 

Want to know more? See all the details of this island redo here.

First of all, I need to shout out to the world a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our not-so-little man! Can you believe he is eight today? I know some of you have been following along with me for years (thank you for that) and I simply cannot believe that he was only 18 months old when I started this blog. We are truly the luckiest parents ever – he is such a sweet, respectful, fun, happy child. He is growing so, so fast and I love him so!

I’ve mentioned before that this month kicks my BUTT. Like, a swift kick. We celebrate birthdays for my brother, husband, son, nephew and now grandson all in the first two weeks of the month. And ten years ago (setting the tone for this crazy month) we went and got married in late December. Plus the holidays…and I know it’s all coming every year. It’s not a surprise. I just can never get caught up enough from the month before to get ahead during this one. ;)

So this weekend I was trying to decorate my house and clean it (which is just a losing battle) while taking care of bday plans for the Bub. I’m sharing our Christmas house tour tomorrow and I still have bins and garland and ornaments strewn throughout the main level…I’ve got some work to do.

All that being said…this is the most special month of the year to me and our family and I absolutely love it. And after this week I will be able to slow down and bask in all of the Christmas joy. ;)

So me being me…Friday night I pulled out more Christmas bins and instead of decorating I decided a dresser needed to be painted. Makes sense. Do you ever look at something for a while and the more you look at it the more it drives you totally crazy? Like you just can’t stand it all the sudden? It doesn’t happen often with me but when it does I can’t get it out of my head.

For some reason I have wanted to paint over this color on the dresser in our foyer lately, like, big time:

It’s a really gorgeous color called Aubsusson Blue (chalk paint) and I truly loved it when I did it two years ago and for a long time after.

But lately – just in the past two months or so -- it’s seemed so bright (it’s a little more subdued in that photo) and out of place with the rest of our house. This shot shows the color a little better:

Literally every time I walked past it I just wanted to paint over it right that second. I couldn’t figure out what color I wanted to use though. I really wanted to do a gray, but we’ve got enough of that going in our house right now. I couldn’t decide what else I would like. So Friday night I walked past it, couldn't stand it one more minute and head for my paint stash.

I found the navy blue I used in the Bub’s room:

It’s a beautiful blue called Admiralty (Lowe’s color I had mixed at Home Depot) and I knew it would be a nice change. What I’d really love to do is take the dresser down to it’s original natural wood – but that will take a warm day and more time. :) I bought it on Craigslist already painted but the insides of the doors look gorgeous.

I painted it over two nights – both when it was dark. Brilliant I know. The morning after I started I realized it was so not coming out that same navy blue as the walls:

Isn’t that crazy? Not the same color by any stretch. Scroll up and look. I’ll wait. :) But I kept going because I liked it and it was almost done anyway. It’s this color instead of a deeper navy because the Aubusson that was already there.

It really toned it down and I quite love how it turned out:

When I look the color in the can it does have a “dusky” tone to it – so it more natural light maybe this is just how it looks? My son’s room doesn’t get a ton of light so who knows.

I wanted to simplify a bit so I centered the mirror and took down all the decor on there as well. Right now it just holds a lamp (I’d love to find something different eventually), a poinsettia and our nativity:

I don’t think anyone would even notice the color changed if they just walked in – but I’m just so happy it’s not that bright color anymore. I can now walk past and not twitch:

Next up…the tile. That’s another thing that I want to change out so bad but that one I can’t really do on a whim. It will take some planning, dang it.

Here’s a before and after – a brighter blue, beautiful! But just not what I want anymore: 

And as it looks now – a more subdued look and a lot less stuff, which is welcomed in life right now:

For the whole month of January I’ll probably have the lamp on there and nothing else – I crave clean and simple after the holidays. :)

Is there a project in your house that you’ve started at a really bad time? When you have a million other things to do? But it was driving you so crazy you just HAD to? Or is it just me? ;)

I’ll be back tomorrow with a tour of our Christmas home! :) Until then, check out last year’s tour here.

Welcome to a new week my friends! Hope you had a lovely weekend!

Yesterday I finished up the last DIY project for the family room – I think I keep saying everything is the “last” project and then I realize I have another one. For for real – this is it. We’ve been able to rework most of what was in the room before in the new set up and I’m pretty excited about that. I’ve only made one purchase for the “new” space – a gorgeous chair I found a HomeGoods a few weeks back. I’m in lurrrve with it.

In our old set up we used a dresser as the entertainment center:

I use dressers all over our house for storage – they’re pretty and functional. Most of them are Craigslist finds – well, pretty much all of them actually. The one above is one of my favorites but it was too long for the new spot in the family room set up.

So I switched that out for one that’s been in our bedroom for years. I’ve always had a plan to paint it but I bought it because I LOVED the lines:

Most of my dressers I would never paint – even with some damage I love the warm feel of the wood. This one though, I’ve never loved. The finish was a “fake” look – it’s an odd look that I didn’t care for. It had almost a spattered finish on the wood, I’m not sure how else to describe it. Let’s just say it wasn’t a pretty wood finish. And I’ve always really disliked the hardware on it as well – it’s felt too frilly for me.

So I didn’t feel bad painting this one. I considered just sanding it down to a more natural state – I’m loving that trend lately. But the new chair that sits in front of it already has a lighter look and I knew it wouldn’t be enough contrast.

AND sanding it down would require a ton of work – taking it outside and trying to get into all the little detailed areas of the piece. I prefer sitting on my butt and painting inside. ;)

I started by wiping it down well – I’ve used tsp cleaner in the past but over the past few years I’ve realized just regular cleaning wipes work just as well. You just want to get any residue or dust off of whatever you’re painting.

I primed it with my favorite primer:

I have this tinted gray because I use it on all of our interior black doors. It’s a super thin primer and SO easy to apply. It always goes on incredibly well and dries really fast.

Because I wanted to replace the hardware I filled the holes on the top drawers (they were a different type of hardware than the rest of the drawers):

After the coat of primer I made sure to give the flat surfaces a really quick sanding:

I kind of loathe sanding but this is just a light, fast sanding to knock it down just a bit. You’ll want to do that between each coat of color too – if you don’t (I skipped it once or twice this time) your surfaces won’t be super smooth. Not a big deal but it feels better with a smoother finish.

I knew I was going to like it when it was all primed and ready for paint:

I swear sometimes painting a piece really helps the pretty details and lines shine.

I found this AWESOME brush at Lowe’s that I used for most of the painting:

It’s a square brush and I’ve never seen one like it. It’s made for painting window panels but it was perfect for getting into all the grooves in the dresser. Loved it!

I’ve said many times over the years that I believe every room should have a touch of black. It’s grounding and gives some great contrast. I used to paint ever.y.thing. black but I’ve stopped that. ;) But I knew this one would look striking in a darker color so I went for it. I used the Graphite color by Sherwin Williams that I’ve used for our interior doors.

I found hardware that matched the wide (five inch) span of the old hardware but it was a brushed nickel and kind of basic. I didn’t love it. So I held up the old hardware against the new dark color and feel head over heels with it:

Well huh! I’m not kidding when I say I really didn’t care for these handles before – and now I absolutely positively LOVE them. I gave them a good cleaning with my brass cleaner and they are looking so much better than before. (Yes I had to knock out that filler I had put in the top drawers.)

You can see all the pretty lines of the dresser here:

I am obsessed with it now. Obsessed:

It’s so beautiful, I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out! 

On our doors that Graphite color looks more black but you can see it’s true color better here – a dark, dark gray:

I haven’t dressed it up yet – I just threw stuff on it for the pictures.

This dresser serves as my “office” storage. Or at least it will soon – I have some items in it but need to switch out my supplies from the dresser that used to sit in my office.

The best part – I spent $7 on a new brush and that’s all this redo cost me. WHOOT! I had the primer and paint so that’s always a bonus. I haven’t distressed it at all yet – I’ve said before that distressing stresses me. :) After all that work I hate to mess it up on purpose. So I’ll probably just let that happen on it’s own. And soon I’ll put a couple coats of satin poly on the top to protect it against scuff marks.

I am still laughing about that hardware too – I can’t believe how much I love it against the darker color. I think this may be my favorite painted piece ever and it’s the handles that put it over the top for me. Have you painted furniture? Do you have a go-to color?

I’ll be back on Wednesday with the whole space! I’m going to work hard over the next two days to get all the smaller details finished up.

Hey hey all! It’s about time to get some DIY going up in here! With the family room under construction, our blogging conference a couple weeks ago and just basic summer slug-ness, I haven’t done much lately.

I’ll have plenty to do starting later this week – the big stuff is almost done in the family room. Then it’s my turn. :)

We haven’t had a coffee table in that room for a while – I took out our square one about a year ago and loved how open it felt, so it stayed that way. (It now lives at my sister’s.)

When I moved the furniture around to the way I’ll have it when all the construction is done I realized I really wanted one again. But I needed it to be long and skinny. I don’t have any long and skinny so I’ve kept my eye out for something that might work.

A few weeks back I found this at a local antique/thrift shop and it had me at WHEELS:

You know how I love wheels. They are my jam.

The top of the table was a mess though, and I couldn’t figure out what to do with it as I stood there, so I left it. (No returns so I had to make sure it would work.)

Fast forward a few weeks and I couldn’t get that table out of my head. I went back, it was still there and it came home with me. I still didn’t know what I was going to do with the top but I had to have it.

Initially I was thinking of sanding it down lightly and restaining the damaged parts, but when I got it home and took a closer look I realized it was a real mess:

 

I thought about keeping the leather top – for a minute. Then I got it cleaned off and saw it was beyond repair. The leather was cracked, which didn’t really bother me. But it also had paint and what looked like burn marks on it as well. And when I got it cleaned off I realized it was a very unattractive puke-brown color. Not so sad I couldn’t salvage it after that. :)

We have enough natural wood in the family room anyway, so my next plan was to paint it. I turned it over and realized I could take the top off:

Then I cleaned the heck out of the thing:

Grody. I lightly sanded it to get more grime off:

Then took it outside to spray prime it -- I just used a basic gray primer. By the way, I mention this a lot but it’s worth saying again – make sure to clean any piece you’re going to spray paint! If you don’t you’ll get the dreaded crackle.

I picked up another gray spray paint called silver fox by Valspar for the main color – I figured it would be easiest with the detail on the table.

Outside it looked decent, but when I brought it in I realized it was BLUE. Like, baby blue. What the??:

ARGH. Spray paint lids not matching the color are quickly becoming one of my biggest pet peeves. DIYer probs.

So I grabbed some chalk paint, which is what I should have done from the start. (But I still would have primed – these reddish stains can bleed through.) I used my CeCe Caldwell gray that I already had:

I shared my thoughts on this paint and how to apply it here – I really love these paints. It dries much lighter:

But when you apply the wax it gets richer and darker. I did have issues with the wax this time though, more on that in a minute.

I came up with a plan for the new tabletop – first I grabbed some scrap luan and cut it size with my jigsaw. I stained it just in case you’d see it under the new tabletop:

I used my nail gun to nail it into the edges where the old top sat. You can see there how much darker the chalk paint gets when you apply the wax by the way.

Then I used some very thin boards from Lowe’s (they are called craft boards) that I stained dark walnut by Minwax (one of my favorite colors):

 

The boards were more than I planned to spend but I needed a very specific thickness and they also had to be decent, stainable wood.

I put a little bit of glue down on the luan and then laid the craft boards down:

And nailed them in as well:

I took the old tabletop with me to the hardware store so I was able to find a combination of boards that fit the top almost perfectly. These boards aren’t all the same size – two are the same, the other two are different sizes. It didn’t bother me and I actually like that they aren’t all the same:

I’m not thrilled with how that skinny board stained up – I used conditioner on all of them and that one doesn’t look as good as the others. But it looks rustic…that’s what I’m going with for anyway. If it bugs me I’ll replace it. Or live with it. :)

The top is super smooth – I stood back when I was done and was SO happy with how it turned out:

I LOVE it:

The sectional will be moved soon so ignore the rug placement and all – this will get flipped to face the fireplace when the TV can be moved over. Hoping this week!

WHEELS:

I’m bugged out by the wax this time – this wax has done this the past two times I’ve used it. It gets blotchy and doesn’t dry well in some spots. Most of it looks great – it’s just certain areas. Usually this happens when you use too much, but I wiped this sucker well so I know it’s not that.

It’s frustrating because I’m going to have to sand down a couple spots and do another coat of paint and wax to correct it. But I LOVE the look – the dark wood combined with the gray is luscious. So it will be worth it. :)

There were a few issues along the way but I ended up with a coffee table I love in just the right size. The table was $20 and I spent about $25 on wood (those smaller pieces get expensive!) – not bad at all! Don’t overlook those pieces that are a mess – they can be turned into beauties!

Have you made over any messes lately?