{renovate} back entry: week by week

Bet you thought, from the title, that I'm going to show you the finished back entry?! The good news: The entry is done! For now. The bad news: The photos are trapped on my camera thanks to a faulty card reader. Boo.

In case you haven't noticed, projects around this house take just this side of forever. Or maybe I'm just too close to the situation? Either way, it's hard not to compare myself to the other bloggers who whip up projects like it's their job. Even though a lot of the time it is their job :). But, our back entry reveal is a long time coming.

I'll get a new card reader this weekend and on Monday I'll share with you a full reveal! Today though, I thought I'd walk you through our process and show you  both why it took a while and a few sneak peaks :). We decided, at the beginning of this whole back entry project, that we needed project parameters. Rules, if you will, so that we weren't completely burnt out at the end. We've made the mistake before of working weekend after weekend on projects, which on top of our regular 45+ hour a week jobs, gets to be a little much. It leads to burnt out, cranky, and not very fun to be around spouses. And it's after projects like these that we usually don't touch the house again for months. So we figured, to make this project as fun as possible, plus still have energy for other projects we want to tackle this spring, we'd set rules. The project might take a little longer, but we value our sanity, and our relationship with each other.

Our rules for the back entry (and the hardwood project) was work only on Saturdays. That left me Fridays to play (I work 4-10's), and Chris and I Sundays to play. We had our good friends helping us, so we promised ourselves we'd get up early, work our tails off and then break at a reasonable hour and share dinner with them. This plan worked well! Yes, we were super tired by dinner on Saturdays, but each weekend we got tons done still had a day or two to play. At this point we're sick of the project, but not BURNT out. So, our parameters were a success!

So, let's take a look at how this process went down.

2008

This is what the back entry looked like when I moved in. Horribly ill-fitting (and completely non energy-efficient) door, spare refrigerator (obviously), bad linoleum, and walls that consisted partially of lath and plaster, partially of wood and partially of concrete. Needless to say, the extra fridge was the FIRST thing to go after I moved in.

2010

Baby steps. We had already moved the fridge out, and we replaced the door with one that fits! Yah for less draft and lower heating bills! :)

This (hilariously kindergarten-esq) picture give you a better idea of what we were working with, uneven wall wise. At some point Chris had started to tear up the floor. I can't quite remember why he didn't finish. 

2011
WEEK #1

I, ahem, tore up the linoleum and the 80+ year old tile underneath. More about that here.

WEEK #2

We heart our friends! They began helping this week. Originally I'd wanted to pull out the stairs and built new amazing ones, ala Centsational Girl's beautiful stairs. Once we got going though, it was clear that the walls and floor in the room were neither straight nor square. Awesome. Tearing them out completely was the only part of this project the boys said *no* to. Instead they tore the tops off, stabilized and reinforced them, and put them back together.

WEEK #3

The beginnings of board and batten! We had a couple things working against us in the this room: uneven wall surfaces, and less than square/even walls and floor. It took us forever to even begin working on this room because we thought we were going to have to gut it, and that sounded like SO. MUCH. WORK. One day it occurred to me that we didn't have to gut if we could just cover up the uneveness. Yah! Board and batten was a perfect choice because we could cover up as far as we wanted, and the perfect shelf height covered all the weird surfaces.

I felt pretty bad for the guys though. The internets make board and batten look like a piece of cake. But when you're dealing with uneven walls, there's a lot of piecing together, and reworking to make sure everything is level. They were such rock stars.

WEEK #4

Once the walls were up, week four was all about adding some trim and tile. Tiling was actually super easy (says the chick that didn't tile)! The square tile I picked out fit perfectly across the room.

WEEK #5

More detail work. I mean really, look at the angles we were dealing with here!

WEEK #6

Chris was starting to look like this .... so we took a week off and went to the beach. :)

WEEK #7

This was the only week we broke our *Saturday only* rule. Once I start painting, I have a really hard time stopping. HAhaha! I just realized that sounds weird. But, it's true. So, I started on Friday, Chris and I worked on it all day Saturday and I finished up on Sunday. Phew! It was soooo nice to have done though.

WEEK #8

This week we started moving things back into the space ....

Adding finishing details such as hooks ...

and art!

We love how the space came together and are so, so, so excited to show you the final pictures Monday! I hope you all have a great weekend! :)

{create} chalkboard vase

Update 8/2/11: I'm submitting this post to the Pinterest challenge, because before Pinterest was all the rage, I had this little project tagged on the site to remember to actually make it. And sure enough, a few weeks later, I actually did! I can't say all my *to make* projects have been successful, or even attempted, but I do love this one. Thanks for stopping by! And, if you'd like to follow me on Pinterest, I can be found here. 

Happy Monday all! Did you have a good weekend? I missed you all on Friday! But, the sun was out, the temperature hit 65 degrees in Portland and, considering this was the first nice AND warm day we'd seen since last October, I didn't have it in me to sit in front of a computer. So I went outside and played instead and it was completely lovely :).

Today, I have a fun do-it-yourself project to share. A couple weeks ago I saw that Terrain is carrying these adorable chalkboard vases:

I immediately thought: um, I could make that. Do you guys do that? I do it ALL. THE. TIME. In fact, that thought keeps me from buying a lot of stuff, even though I usually never do make said item. So, I guess that's my internal budgeting feature kicking in :). BUT, I LOVED these vases and I did actually make my own.

I think they turned out super cute, so I wanted to share a quick and easy how-to + couple ideas how to use them, so you too can have cute chalkboard vases this spring.

First, I gathered a few glasses, jars, wine bottles, etc. that we had lying around the house and gave them a good washing.

Then, I coated them with an oil-based primer. We haven't had the springiest-spring (see first paragraph), so I went with a brush and paint route, rather than spray paint. Either would work for this project.

For paint, I grabbed a couple Martha Stewart sample pots from Home Depot and painted a few coats of each on both the outside and inside. I really like the look of the painted inside and outside of the vase.

Then I just taped off where I wanted the chalkboard paint and painted two coats on each bottle. Make sure you read the directions on the chalkboard paint. It gave very specific dry and re-coat times. I was a little worried about pulling the tape off, but it came up great and neither the background paint or the chalkboard paint chipped.

So once you've made the vases, what can you do with them? Here's a few ideas:

1. Use them as a centerpiece.

Put a couple sprigs of flowers in each vase, group them together and you have an arrangement that's both springy and graphic.

This is how my vases are currently hanging out in our kitchen.

2. Place settings

I would love to use these as place settings at my next dinner party or family holiday gathering.

Each person could take their own vase and flower home, which would be an adorable gift to give your family and friends.

I think this idea would also work so well for wedding place settings/favors. They were incredibly inexpensive to make -- especially with the *recycled* glass. And, I, personally, would love to take something like this home from a wedding!

3. Give away to friends to brighten their day.

I've surprised a couple friends with flowers over the last week or so. They're a great *happy new home*, *thanks for inviting us over* or even just *happy spring!*

How would you use chalkboard vases?

{renovate} refinish your own hardwood floors

Happy Wednesday friends! First off, thank you for all the kind comments this week about our *new* floors! We're super excited about them!

I'm not sure how many people are crazy enough to tackle refinishing their hardwood floors without professional help. But, if we're crazy enough to do it, I'm sure there's others out there! For that reason, I'm compiling a how-to refinish your floors. I did a little research (after we'd torn up our carpet!), but there were so many things that reading didn't fill us in on. I'm hoping our experience will help at least one other person out there who wants to save their original hardwood floors.

We chose to go the diy route because this was a completely unanticipated project. In fact, we'd been talking about tearing up our hideous carpet for a couple years, but it seemed like too huge of a project. So, why now? Because a friend and I were bored one day watching the boys tackle the *real* project. Isn't that always the best way to start a project?

I was a little nervous, as our budget really was $0, but this ended up costing us less than $100 to accomplish. How crazy is THAT?! In comparison, when Young House Love paid to have a professional refinish their floors in 2009, they spent $900. And that was an amazing deal! I'm not saying this isn't a TON of work. What I want you all to know though, is that with a little elbow grease, nice hardwoods can be completely affordable.

So how where do you start?

PREPPING YOUR FLOORS

Tools:

• Blade
• Crowbar
• Hammer
• Scraper
• Sander: ours is similar to this Ryobi. It was gift from my parents and it's awesome. If you're doing any work on your house, it's incredibly helpful to have a small electric sander.
• 60 -100 grit sandpaper
• Painter's Plastic

Directions:

• Dig your crowbar into a corner of the carpet and pull up (be careful of your moulding!) to loosen the carpet from the tack strip.
• In small, manageable sections (carpet is actually really heavy), work your way around the room pulling the carpet loose from the tack strip and cutting the carpet into strips. We did the hallway in three sections and the back bedroom in four.
• Repeat step #2 with the carpet pad. 
• Pull up your tack strips. These will take a little work with the crowbar. 
• Repeat step #2 with any surface beneath the carpet. We found linoleum between our carpet and hardwoods.

• Using your hammer, very carefully pull up each nail and staple that was securing your carpet/pad/tack strip/linoleum to the hardwood floor. They hurt when you step on them and they'll wreak havoc on your sandpaper.

• Assess the current state of your hardwood floors. If there is quite a bit of glue, you'll need to bust out your scraper and get to work. This is the part that took us the longest. We just considered it a great arm workout :). If there isn't glue, consider yourself incredibly lucky and proceed directly to sanding.

• Once your hardwoods are clear of debris and glue, it's time to sand. Sand down your floor with 60 to 100 grit paper. We used 100 grit, because it's what we had on hand, and it worked so well. It really pulled up the remaining stains and glue.
• It's at this point that, if you're sanding a huge area, you can consider renting a large sander. This seemed like more of a hassle than it was worth for our small area. And now you're probably thinking we actually are crazy! :)

{Left: hardwoods after carpet is pulled up. Right: hardwoods after removing glue and sanding.}

• My recommendation for sanding is to limit the area in which debris can fly. We used Painter's Plastic to tape off all the door openings. Also, open as many windows as you can. And, of course, wear a face mask. Please. You don't know what nasty chemicals are hiding in your floors. Especially if your house is as old as ours.

REFINISHING YOUR FLOORS
Tools:

• Applicator Pads (3 - 4)
• Broom handle
• 150 grit sand paper
• Sanding Sealer
• Polyurethane: We opted for water-based finishes. This is completely up to you, but when Chris had done the hardwoods in the rest of our rooms - 5 years ago - he chose water based. We wanted to keep things consistent. I will say though, that I would recommend water based to anyone. We've been incredibly happy with the floors in the rest of our house and I had no reservations about choosing this again.

Directions:

• First, vacuum your sanded floors well. REALLY well. I also went over them with a damp rag. Just in case there was still dust that the vacuum didn't pick up. A tack cloth isn't recommended for this, simply because it can leave a tacky substance on the floor.
• Tape off all vents. You don't want dust circulating when your floors are wet.
• Note: never shake the sealer or the poly. Air bubbles will ruin your smooth finish.

• At this point, you would apply stain. We didn't apply stain. Again, we were going for consistency and the rest of our wood floors are unstained. Make sure you read the directions very carefully on your stain. It's recommended to wait 72 hours between stain and poly.
• If you aren't staining, now is the time to apply your sealer. This helps keep this wood looking great, and also raises the grain so you can start sanding and achieving the smoothest finish possible.
• To seal: start along a wall. Plan your route so you're sealing yourself towards the door. Don't seal yourself into a corner! Going with the wood grain, pour the sealer the length of the room in small puddles. You'll see that a little goes a long way. Pull the applicator at about a 30 degree angle, the length of the room. Repeat until you've finished the room. Make sure to overlap the rows.

• Let the sealer dry for up to 2 hours. Ours took closer to 3 hours, but I was a little heavy handed with the sealer in some areas. When it's fully dry, lightly sand the entire floor with 150 grit sand paper. Then vacuum, wipe down with a damp rag and you're ready for poly.

• Apply the poly the same way as the sealer, described above. Use a new applicator pad for each coat. We applied three coats, letting each dry for about 2 hours in between. We also lightly sanded, vacuumed and wiped after each layer. Except the last layer.
• Once you've applied your third layer of poly, do not walk on the floor for 24 hours. 
• You can start moving furniture back in after 72 hours, but we actually waited 5 days. Paranoid. Rugs should not be placed on the floor for at least 14 days.

TIME LINE

We had two people working on this project every Saturday for 5 weeks and this included painting the back bedroom. I really think that we could have completed the project in two full weekends, if we'd wanted to finish them up faster.

RESOURCES

A very nice Home Depot employee photo copied this packet about hard woods floors when we asked some questions about supplies. We also talked through the process with a Lowe's employee one day (we're equal opportunity home improvement store customers). The back of the Minwax Poly we used also gave incredibly clear directions. Minwax's website also has a TON of useful info. 

WELL, if you've made it this far in the post, congratulations! I know this is an incredibly LONG post. If you decide to refinish your wood floors and have any questions, please let me know.

Make sure to check back on Friday. I finally finished my TURQUOISE lamps! :)

{create} fabric silhouettes

Remember how I tend to ignore trends? This is another instance. I love silhouettes.  I've just never figured out where I could fit them into our house. Until recently. Since I *finished* our bedroom, I've been looking for something to put above each of our nightstands. I just had no idea what I was looking for really.

I mean, technically, the bedroom was great! But for some reason those two spaces were really bothering me. So I decided to put silhouettes above each of our nightstands ... you know, to designate a *his* and *hers* side of the bed :).

So I whipped up these babies in an afternoon.  Silhouettes are usually made with paper, but I wanted to add my own spin on the traditional silhouette and decided to make them out of fabric. I love fabric and stitching and think it adds a little more dimension than paper. Plus it's a great way to use up fabric scraps.

And here's the same space after they're hung! I love it. And I can finally let the bedroom be *done*. You know, for now :). I am still thinking about curtains for the windows ... but that's a story for another day.

Want to know how to make your own fabric silhouette? I know the answer is YES! :)

First, gather all your supplies. You'll need: silhouette pictures, paper, fabric for the silhouettes, background fabric, thread, Wonder Under (this is a link to A LOT of the stuff ... you can find it at your local craft store for less quantity and therefore less expensive) or your favorite fusible web, foam core and frames.

First, take a side photo of your head. I blacked them out because I wanted to play in photoshop one day, but since you're actually transferring them to fabric it isn't necessary. Print and carefully cut out.

Next, take your Wonder Under and attached the fabric to the sticky side.  If you haven't used Wonder Under in the past, they actually give very specific directions on the roll for how to best use.  Next, trace your paper pattern onto the backside of the Wonder Under and cut out the pattern.  Take the paper off the back side of the Wonder Under and iron your silhouette to the background fabric. The Wonder Under is great. It keeps your two fabrics in place when you're sewing, and it keeps the cut edges from fraying. Fraying can be great in some projects, but you don't want something as intricate as a face fraying. You could chance looking like you have booger hanging out your nose. Bad news.

Next using a straight stitch, trace around the outside line of the head. I used yellow thread for the contrast. The best part of this is you don't have to use your sewing machine. I default to my machine, but I had to go so slow that it actually probably would've been quicker to hand stitch. Use whichever you're more comfortable with.

When you're done, you're silhouette will look like this. Except with your or your loved ones head, not Chris'. :)

And now for framing. Of course, I have 45 empty frames in my basement, so I grabbed two of the same size. Then I cut two pieces of foam core to fit the frame.

Then wrap your fabric around the foam core, as you'd wrap a gift. I've found that tape actually secures the fabric incredibly well. But, of course, now that I've discovered my staple gun, I'd probably use that next time. You know, just for fun.

Once up, I had a hers ....

.. and a his.

And art that adds a great amount of loveliness to our bedroom.

Thanks for stopping by today! I'd love to hear .... what are you up to this weekend? We'll be working on our girls and boys projects. Of course! :)