PCH - Basement Redo

I'm not even sure where to begin in describing the scope and reasons behind this whole business.

We moved into our house and unpacked, settled in.  Then we started noticing an odor...a stinky one, coming from the basement.  It was an amalgamation of many different odoriferous sources.  Cat urine (my personal favorite), dust, and must.  Our basement had thick, luxurious nap carpet.  It was so soft and fluffy, but unfortunately when your basement is really damp and you have some kitties who are mad at you for moving them, you have a recipe for stinkification.

So Mr. LIH packed up all my our stuff and moved it into the smaller unfinished part of the basement and proceeded to rip up carpet.  Our plan was to do half of the room and lay down some vinyl.  Well, as we pulled up the carpet, the kitties moved their pee place further and further to accommodate the lack of the cushy, urination location.  UGH!  So he put the vinyl all over the room.  Well....now we decided we might as well paint and pretty it up, but not until after we get the new basement windows installed.  Oh, yes...this was part of the plan too.

Finally, last week the windows were installed and we could paint.  But I had another wrench to throw in.  What about board and batten????  I loved it, and it would add so much character to a boring, rather dark basement.  I scoured the web and found all these wonderful sites, this one, this one, and this one, also that one.  Let's not forget this one.  I think that ours will be a mixture of most of these.

Now we have begun. (I apologize in advance for the photos, but the lighting down there is dreadful)

Here's my basement.....see the carpet?  So nice and fluffy....and full of kitty excretions.

Here are the walls after painting the top (already primed).

Here they are after putting up the chair rail and battens (you can see where we "staged" some of the battens).
You can also see that the carpet is gone, replaced with vinyl flooring.

The color on top is Benjamin Moore Hazlewood in Satin Finish and we used Benjamin Moore Gloss White on the bottom.




Ok, that's all for now, but I will be back with some finished pictures and a final tally.

Monthly Menagerie - April 2013

APRIL 2013

PCH - Countertop Faux Granite Finish DIY

I spoke a little about this project in relation to my "built-ins" in our library.  We bought a hutch from Overstock with a wooden counter top ...wood was not fitting into my ideas for this room as we're going with yellows, turquoise/aqua, silvery/nickel metals, and white.

In comes a faux finish that resembles granite.  I have to say that it looks pretty danged good.  Now, I have to preface that by saying, Mr. Hollybroke is not the most creative/crafty man, but we put him in charge anyway to do the "painting".  It looks awesome.  I'll quickly go through the steps, because if you think you can't do this, you absolutely CAN.  If my husband can do it, then anyone can (not to say he doesn't have talents elsewhere, just not when it comes to crafty home projects).

Here's what he did:

Supplies
Granite kit (see below)
Counter top
Scrap Cardboard
600 grit sandpaper (painting section of the store)
Papertowels or a rag



1.  Get a counter top that you want to paint (wipe with water to make sure it's clean).

2.  Buy this : Giani White Diamond Granite Paint Kit for Countertops - it seems pricey, but if you compare it to the cost of a granite counter top, even one this small, it's negligible.

3.  Prime the counter top with the primer and primer brush (if your wood is not pre-finished then you must sand it first to get it smooth).  Let this dry.

4.  Lightly sand with 600 grit sandpaper, wipe clean

4.  Take the provided sea sponge and get it good and wet, then squeeze it out and let it dry.

                         A.  Practice the dotting/spotting on a piece of cardboard to get a feel for the paint.

5.  Apply the various colors included in the order that they are numbered...unfortunately Mr. Hollybroke didn't take a picture between each color, but they provide you with a sea sponge and paint that is numbered.  You must sand with the 600 grit sandpaper between each coat and remember to wipe it clean.

6.  Apply the clear coat. 

7.  Sand with 600 grit sandpaper.

8.  Repeat steps 6 & 7, two MORE times.  Your final sanding is very light.

Tips

• Make sure to get around all the edges
• When you wipe the sanding off, use some water to pick up debris
• Once you start priming or clear coating, do not stop because it dries quickly
• Be patient with the stippling and the drying, it will be worth it

Here's the hutch in all her glory (and filled up with our stuff):

Monthly Menagerie - March 2013

MARCH 2013

Being Crafty - Home Edition - PCH

I'm all moved in and ready to start morphing this house into our home.  We've completed the fireplace in the family room (posted about that here), had the TV mounted on the wall, and bought a rug to compliment the space.  I will show pictures once we finish selecting paint and hiding the cable paraphernalia.

Although this is not a knit or crochet WiP Wednesday, here is a work in progress on a room in our home.

Here is the room that I had the most brainstorming about so far, the formal living room.  Formal living rooms are treated very differently now than they were when people entertained guests in a much different fashion....FORMAL.  What this really means to people now, is a fancy room with "do not touch" stuff in it that you never ever use, not even for having guests over.  I wanted this room to be useful to us and our growing family, so Mr. Hollybroke and I decided to make it a sort of library, office space.  We have bigger plans in the future for this room as we want to convert it to our formal dining area and use the dining room to expand the kitchen, but this is many moons and lots of $$$$ away.

I started with just pinning things and creating a sort of rough inspiration board on Polyvore.  The room was dark gray with a greenish tint to it....the color itself was ok, but the room gets no sunlight and so remains quite dim and I decided we needed to go with a bright, saturated yellow.

Here is the living room, originally:

Here are the colors I chose, I will not put what paint brand I used, as I was not happy with its performance, but I'd like to recommend to spend a bit more money on your paint as this means you will only need one or two coats to cover instead of 5 or more.

Sunny Summer for under the chair rail and Summer Harvest for above.   The chair rail is white.  You can see here what I mean by several coats of paint and still the color below is coming through.

Next we had to decide on the "built-in" situation.  We don't have the kind of money required to hire a professional to make custom built installations, so we decided to do some extensive internet searching.  Ikea and Overstock had the best options for us and we purchased a wine rack from Overstock and the Liatorp bookcase, desk, and bridging shelf from Ikea.  Everything is white (wood tones are too difficult to match and white fits the idea better anyway).

We are now in the present.  Painting is complete and some of our "built ins" are together and in position. We used the largest Liatorp bookcase to give the illusion of floor to ceiling.  We are still investigating about removing the decorative molding on all the pieces and then adding some of our own molding so that it all matches.  The desk came next and we love it.  It's really quite large and looks so pretty in the space.

Here is a shot of our "Library".  We are still very much "in progress" as we look for more furniture, a rug, and some trinkets to tie it all together.  I'll show you the other pieces after we get them in place and loaded up with stuff.

We also had some DIY projects to do and I will post about those as well.  But, if you notice in this picture, that ugly vent register...?  

Being Crafty - Home Edition (PCH Plans)

I have been reading this blog for a while, Cherry Heart, and Sandra (blog author) has really been an inspiration to me.

Here is a link to the starting point of this project for her.

I suppose I should preface the outline of this with the fact that I'm getting a new house and I want to take the time and energy to showcase and use my crafting as well as have some fodder for my blog.

I will be labeling my posts with the PCH (Pretty Crafty Home) acronym, so keep an eye out.  It might be some time before this gets going, but I'm so excited about it, that I wanted to share it here.