A Little Touch of Fall

Fall is my favorite season. I love the warm colors. I love the cooler temperatures. I love jeans and sweaters. And I love decorating the house with pumpkins and candles and little woodland creatures.

I'm including just a few quick snapshots of our living room and dining room. Some "shelfies" if you will....

The BOO pumpkin was purchased at Pottery Barn a few years ago.

And these little white pumpkins are my favorite. I got a few at Meijer last week. I LOVE the long, green stems.

This dining room shelf is my favorite to decorate in the house. I change it up every season/holiday.

And this little squirrel? Target for $3!!! Target has the BEST Fall/Thanksgiving decor in their dollar spot this year! And this little guy was my favorite. I could buy all the white-ceramic-objects!

Happy Fall, Y'all!

Fireplace Shoe Install

I have a quick update for you on the finishing touches of our living room fireplace. In 2011, we replaced the tile on the hearth, painted the dirty, brown brick white, and painted the brass screen a dark oil-rubbed bronze (ORB). There was just one item remaining … the shoe molding to cover the gap where the brick and tile meets the wood floor.

You can see the bottom of the brick doesn’t sit right on the floor, but rather sits next to it causing a little gap. So, we couldn’t get a perfect paint line along the floor.

Meanwhile, the tile of the hearth actually sits about a half inch above the wood floor. So, the rough tile edge was visible on all 3 sides.

Joey bought the shoe molding in a natural wood grain and got a little bit of stain that closely matched the floors. He stained on the molding and then applied a couple layers of poly on top. He nailed the shoe to the floor and used a little matching wood putty to fill the nail holes.

It finishes the look off nicely doesn’t it? I thought it made an immediate difference. I love FINISHED projects!

Here is a close-up shot of where the tile meets the brick. The tile actually sticks out a hair past the brick. So, Joey had to make the inside of the molding narrower where it ran along the tile and wider where it ran along the brick. It worked well so that the outside edge of the molding was straight all the way around.

Same thing on the other side…

The molding looks like it’s just always been a part of the room since it matches the floor so well. Pretty nice!

And this is one item we can check off the 2012 to-do list!

It's Christmas Time: The Living Room

The other day, I shared some pictures of our Christmas tree, but I thought I'd share a few pictures of the living room, which I finally finished decorating last weekend. I kept it pretty simple - using just some reds, greens, and golds to add a touch of color and that Christmas feel to the room.



The fireplace and built-ins got the most attention. Even though I can't place a lot of decor on the mantel (since the TV gets in the way), I loved hanging the garland down around it this year. Your eye tends to focus on the fireplace and garland rather than the TV when sitting in the room.



And I must say that I still have no regrets about painting the fireplace white this past summer. It's the perfect backdrop for all the red and green. On top of the mantel, I placed a bunch of individual picks across the top. Then one continuous strand of garland hangs on the bottom.



I bought the red and gold ball picks for a few dollars and stuck them in throughout the greenery. They look like ornaments even though they are just plastic balls with a green wire attached to them.



The shelves to the right of the fireplace were just layered with a few simple items. I left the baskets I normally have sitting there. I added some Christmas place mats as a colorful surface for setting the lantern, candles, magazines, and glass hurricane on. I hung the pretty glass ornament from a thumb tack I hammered behind the ledge.



The top shelf has a big poinsettia my parents gave us (we have to keep it up high so the cat won't eat it). I also added one of my favorite Christmas books and pretty candles I got last year. The 2 candle holders I recently bought at Target.



On the right wall in between the windows, I hung a new canvas print I purchased in November. I'm getting a coordinating print from my mom (it's wrapped under her Christmas Tree). The prints are beautiful for hanging during the Christmas season. There are actually about 8 prints total in the Christmas set.



Here's a view of the living and den from the other direction. I love having the tree centered in the doorway.



A few accessories I placed about the room are Christmas pillows, a Tree snow globe, and a Christmas wreath that I made in about 10 minutes using a grapevine wreath, winter-y picks, and a little nest and bird candle in the center. It hangs on the front door in the living room.





So, tell me, what is your favorite thing to decorate at Christmas time? The tree? The mantel? The staircase? Share, share!

Screened In

It's done. Complete. The end.

What's done, you ask? Well, I'm talking about our fireplace. I left you hanging with the paint job we gave it a couple weeks ago (read about that here).



The only thing left to complete this makeover was painting the brass fireplace screen that covered the opening. Here's a picture of the screen before any painting took place...



The brass finish was too out-of-date looking and just not my style. So, I knew painting it would be a great DIY opportunity and save us the cash we'd spend buying something brand new.

Joey took on the painting of the screen and it was a pretty simple process. Since the screen is going to cover a fireplace that will be used to burn wood, it will likely get hot - at least on the inside. So, for the primer, we decided to go with a special high-heat spray paint. We got it at Lowe's.



Joey taped off the glass and put some paper behind the screen in case of over-spray, and went to town. He gave it 2 even coats of primer with only a little drying time needed between coats.



I actually wanted the final finish on the screen to be an oil-rubbed bronze, but the high-heat spray paint didn't come in that finish. So, I settled with black for the primer color.



However, for the final 2 coats of paint (that would make 4 coats total), we did use regular oil-rubbed bronze spray paint (also from Lowe's). Here's hoping the top coat won't melt off/bubble/peel when we make our first fire. Since most of the painted screen faces out away from the fire, I'm crossing my fingers it'll be fine. I'll let you know if it turns out badly.

Sorry, no pictures of Joey painting the final 2 coats because he got it all done and the screen back in place before I got home from work one day. So, I was surprised to see it finished.



Can I say (without too much bragging) that I love it? It looks like a new screen. No hint brass anywhere. The screen blends beautifully with our fireplace tool kit and coordinates with the other metal finishes in the room too.



Here's a larger before picture of the fireplace not painted but the screen removed.



I had considered leaving the screen off and just making the opening prettier (somehow), but now I'm glad we put the screen back on. It looks more polished and somehow makes the TV hanging above it blend better. Plus it covers the ugly/dirty inside and will be keep things safe when little kids are around or we go to bed before the fire dies.



A lot of people struggle with the idea of hanging a TV above a fireplace, but I gotta tell ya that I love it more than ever now. I actually find myself staring at the fireplace instead of the TV because I'm so pleased with the transformation. But when I really want to watch the TV, I'm glad we can face both at the same time. It's a win-win for us.



This is one of my absolute most favorite projects we have completed in the house so far. The risk of painting the brick was definitely worth the reward of a fresh, bright, clean, newer looking fireplace in the end. Total cost for the brick primer and paint and spray paint for the screen was about $90 (and it probably could have been done for less). So worth it! So worth it!

Now, it's time to move on to the next project (because home improvement never ends). What will it be? Hmmm...

Fireplace ReDo: The Breakdown

I promised you a little run down of the fireplace paint-over (results shown here), and so I'm here to try and make good on that promise. Just keep in mind that while this process worked great for us, it may not be perfect for every fireplace and everybody's situation. Just sayin'.

To start out, here are the products we purchased at the beginning of this project - 1 gallon of white concrete & masonry primer and some paint brushes.

I do recommend using a masonry primer to go over natural brick as this primer is made to cover the dirty, sooty, crevice-y surface and seal it so that nothing leaks through. We used the same thing when we painted the brick on our back porch. It worked wonders. You can see we picked ours up at Sherwin Williams, but any home improvement store is likely to sell it.


We also picked up a couple of paint brushes. Normally, purchasing high quality brushes pays off over time, but this is not the case when painting brick. Painting brick destroys the bristles of a paint brush, and you end up throwing it away at the end of a project. So, don't go high end. But you also don't want a super cheap brush where the bristles are falling out as you're painting. Hence, we went with a middle-of-the-road brush set. The big brush was used over the majority of the fireplace while the little brush was just used for cutting down the side edges along the wood trim.


We already owned the roll of paper and tape used to cover the floor around the fireplace. So, that was cheap free and easy.

Now for the painting process... Most experts would advise to try and wipe the brick down with a wet sponge in order to remove as much soot as possible and let thoroughly dry before painting. This is to prevent possibly bleed-through of said soot down the road. Now, this is probably great advice, but it seemed like a lot of work and the lazy side of me said to skip this part. So, I just went right to work painting the front of the fireplace. I used the big brush for the entire project, being sure to cram it into all the little angles of the brick leaving nothing un-painted. Masonry primer is very thick (like glue) and not easy to paint with. So, this alone took about a steady 2 hours (with a break here and there for a picture).


The next step was to tape the trim down the sides of the fireplace and then paint each side. This took another hour and half. The primer did a great job covering the dirty brick. Like a whole new fireplace!


To prevent any paint from peeling down the sides, we removed the tape as soon as the first coat of primer was applied. The edge was pretty straight. Only a few minor touch-ups were needed.


We wanted to give the primer a minimum of 24 hours to dry before assessing whether a second coat of primer might be needed. From what we could tell, no bleed-through occurred, and so the lazy way may have actually worked out (not that I'm promoting laziness or anything).

While the primer was drying, I worked on picking out the actual paint color to use on top of the primer. I went to the local hardware store to pick up some Benjamin Moore paint swatches. I ended up with about 20 "white" colors. You may think, "How can there be more than 1 white?" But trust me, there are about a million whites. And I knew the kind of white I wanted. Not to quote Mrs. Blandings again, but as she puts it, I wanted white, but "not a cold, antiseptic hospital white. A little warmer, but still, not to suggest any other color but white."


With all 20 swatches taped to the front of the fireplace, I was able to eliminate a few of the least-white samples and get down to 15 options in a matter of minutes.


I left the swatches up overnight to see what they looked like in the dark hours when the lamps were on as well as during daylight (since paint colors look different in different kinds of lighting). In the end, I chose the color Ancient Ivory. It was the perfect warm white without looking like a cream or off-white.


Benjamin Moore paint can be kind of expensive. So, you can take the paint swatch to Menard's or Lowe's or anywhere that will mix paint for you in order to pay less. We ended up going with Sherwin Williams paint like we did with the primer because it was convenient in location, not because it was the cheapest option. We bought 1 gallon of paint in a semi-gloss finish so that it would be very wipe-able should it get dirty again.


After putting up some new paper and tape along the sides of the fireplace (in case of paint splatter), we applied just 1 thorough coat of paint, we were done. It took about another 2-3 hours to do. I was shocked it didn't take 2 coats of paint, but it looked really good with just the one. And there is plenty of paint leftover in case we ever need to do some touch-ups.


Once the paint dried and I could see the final product, I was very happy with the color choice. It may be hard to tell the difference in the pictures on the computer, but the final color was exactly what I had in mind for the perfect white. And you could definitely tell the difference in person as the paint was being applied.




Once the painting was completed, we again removed the paper and tape shortly after to make sure no paint dried to the tape causing peeling. We were pleased no paint got underneath the tape either. I also took the tape off of the flue opener. It was still it's original oil-rubbed bronze self. Now it stands out against the white brick.



While the fireplace is about 90% completed, there are still a few details remaining. If you remember, we removed a brass fireplace screen at the beginning of the process. We still plan to attempt a little DIY paint-job on this item in attempt to re-use it without the cost of purchasing a new screen. So, I'll let you know the results of that project when it happens.



Also, we are considering adding some embellishments toward the top of the fireplace where a row of brick is recessed a bit. We're scheming up ideas now, but I'm not sure if we'll implement anything right away. We're gonna bask in the glory of the white brick for now.




So, there's the low-down on the fireplace painting process. In the end, we spent about $80 and 5-ish hours (over a span of 2 days) to get this completed. We feel it was totally worth the investment. I hope you enjoy seeing the final product as much as we do!