FRIDAY FINDS & A RENOVATION UPDATE

It's the first  Friday Finds of the year, but first a quick update on what's happening in the back room / office (I really need to just figure out a name for that room and call it that once and for all). Drywall is up, including on the ceiling, which was a surprise to me. Since we're putting wood planks up, and since we discovered a stained plywood ceiling up there, I figured the planks would go right on top of that. But apparently there has to be a fire barrier and I guess drywall fits that bill.

They are also fixing the damaged drywall around our chimney so the living room has been rearranged and full of ladders all week. All of that gives the house a very "under renovation" feel that seems to be bringing some issues to the surface. I'm starting to think that Mr. Much More Patient has PTSD from our big renovation because he can't wait for this to be over and really this is small potatoes compared to what we've done in the past.

What I know for sure is that it will all be worth in the end. It always is. If you want to see more as this progresses, follow me on Instagram, where I'm pretty much putting up at least one picture a day that shows what's happening.

That's what's happening in my house ... here's some things happening in places that are presumably much less dusty.

This story from Erin from Floret Flower Farm (the gardening blogosphere's latest, greatest success story) about how she realized that SHE was her own brand is fascinating and it spurred all kinds of ideas for things we should probably be doing differently at work (and a few things for the blog).

Great advice on seed shopping. Add it to the list of things I need to get going on.

One of the things I love about the end is everyone's top posts lists and years in review. Taking a look at what is popular on Margaret Roach's blog is sort of a bellweather of what's happening in the gardening world.

I also liked Hooked on Houses top renovations of the year.

And Grow a Good Life had a great year-end round up as well.

You're going to be hearing a lot from me on seed starting soon, so brush up on your grow light knowledge here.

The weekend plans at my house depend entirely on how far things have gotten by the end of the day. With luck I'll be painting the wood planks for the ceiling and maybe a door or two. What are you up to?

KICKSTARTING A PROJECT THAT'S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING

So last week, I signed off on Friday Finds by saying that I didn't know what I was going to do this weekend, but that it wouldn't be cleaning a fireplace. So imagine my surprise when, just 48 hours later, I was crawling around in a firebox doing just that.

A dirty old fireplace never looked so good.

Let me back up. As I've mentioned here plenty of times. I've been trying to get the finished portion of the basement cleaned up so I can fix it up enough that I actually like the space (and we might actually use it) enough to not allow it to become a dumping ground. This involved clearing out 13 years of clutter and collection. It's not fun and the process has been slow.

But I was thrilled when I sold an armoire we've not used for several years (other than to hide Christmas gifts to each in; which became ironic giving that we were both hiding them in there) Saturday morning. That cold, hard cash felt great in my hands, and every dollar I can scrape up will be very helpful for a very low-budget reno. In fact, I was so inspired, that I started posting all kinds of things on the Facebook rummage sale where I sold the armoire. Within half an hour I sold a stereo we've been hanging onto for ages for $50.

Here's the old fireplace with the insert. On the periphery you can see just a small amount of the stuff that has accumulated down there. I'm too embarrassed to show you any more. 

I also listed the fireplace insert for the basement fireplace as free for anyone with enough strong friends to get it out of my house. This cast iron thing weighed at least a couple hundred pounds and, although a mason told us they were highly valuable for both use and scrap, I just wanted this ugly thing gone. The flue for that fireplace was capped when we bought the house, so using that fireplace was never an option. It really wasn't a great hardship as hauling wood into the basement didn't sound fun.

These four guys responded to my Facebook post (more accurately, one of their wives did) and spent a long time prying that thing out of the fireplace. This is where they are spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to get it out of the cellar doors.

So Sunday morning, four big guys came to liberate this insert from our basement and reuse it in one of their houses. The deal was that they could have it for free so long as they did all the work and didn't damage our fireplace. That thing put up a fight—it must have taken them 45 minutes to get it out and another  30 minutes to figure out how to get it out of the basement—but it's gone.

Look at that pretty little arch that has been revealed.  We can take a moment here to reflect on the horrible pink and blue vinyl floors as well. Obviously those will need to be changed.

And for the first time, I saw the basement firebox unencumbered by the insert. And I was delighted to see that it has the same slight arch that the upstairs fireplace does.

Then I was in there with the shop vac sucking out all sorts of corruption. And yeah, I'm going to have to wash the surround at some point too.

At this point, the plan is to clean out the rust metal-lined firebox and paint it black, clean up the stone surround and put some candles in there for ambiance. A mantel and a few other modifications would also be nice, and I'd tie that in with planking the walls. The ceiling is very low down there—7 feet would be my guess—so that brings some challenges.

All of that is a way to say that with all the stars aligning this weekend, the basement project finally got a jumpstart that it's been sorely needing.

HOW TO CLEAN A FIREPLACE SURROUND

Have you ever cleaned your stone fireplace surround? I bet the answer is no. I mean, how are you supposed to clean craggy rocks? We're been in our house for more than 13 years and I know we've never cleaned our fireplace surround. My guess is that no else in the 70 or so years previous to our ownership did either.

What spurred me into action on this completely unfun project was some photos I took in the living room. One thing stood out: There was a big soot streak in the middle of the fireplace surround.

So I did a little searching on the Internet for how to clean fireplaces. As far as I could tell, there are two options, pay a professional to come do something that sounds super messy, or go at it yourself with a variety if different cleaning methods. Turns out that what I did worked pretty well, but I'll warn you now that this is a job that's going to require your best Cinderella (pre-ball) impersonation. There's some serious elbow grease involved.

A before picture that shows how much soot had built up over the firebox.

Here's what I did:

1. First I moved all the furniture and taped off everything with plastic to make my living room resemble a scene from "Dexter."

2. Then I mixed a powdered TSP substitute with a little water to make a paste. I found that making it slightly more liquid worked better. I used the entire box and wished I had another, so plan on using quite a bit. I smeared the paste on the stone and mortar with the most staining. I wore a respirator and rubber gloves for this. Then I let it sit for a good 20 minutes to really soak in there and hopefully do some of the hard work for me.

Scrub and then scrub some more.

3. The next bit required safety glasses. Unfortunately the only safety glasses I could find were ones with bifocals so I was feeling a bit woozy. Anyway, then I took a really stiff bristle brush and went to town on all that paste. I mean I scrubbed, and hard. A lot of the paste fell off onto the hearth, which was fine since that was plenty dirty too.

Take a close look at the mess I have going there. It's ugly.

4.  It was clear to me right away that a lot of built-up grunge was coming off and I didn't really want to stop with just the part over the firebox. So I mixed up some dish detergent (Dawn, which I keep in the house for cleaning but not for washing dishes for some reason) and a little liquid Barkeeper's Friend with a bunch of water and used that to scrub the rest of the surround under the mantel, just to get the dust and regular dirt off. I made a point to not go over the areas that I had used the TSP substitute on with the soap solution because I'm no chemist but I know bad things can happen when you start mixing random things.

I had to change out the water at least five times before it wasn't this color anymore.

5. This all created a huge mess, so if you do this, be prepared. It gets a lot worse before it gets better. Then I had to rinse all this stuff off. The garden hose or a pressure washer would have done a fine job, but since I don't have a drain in my living room, I had to use a bucket and rags (I tried a sponge but the stone just ripped it apart). So I rinsed, and rinsed, and rinsed, changing out the water every time it got dirty, until the water in the bucket wasn't dirty when I rung out the rag.

Ah ... that's better. 

Then I just towel dried off what I could and left it to dry.

Isn't it amazing what a difference that made? Look at the hearth, which I only scrubbed with soapy water; it's a completely different color. You can see that I didn't scrub close to the edges of the hearth because I was afraid of water damaging the wood floor, even though I had protected it. 

Isn't it so much better? Now I just need someone to come clean the years of dust off the 15 or so feet above the mantel.

So fess up, have you ever cleaned your fireplace surround?

New table, even newer color

Sometimes I think about my DIY journey and it sort of blows my mind. Six years ago I was scared to try to improve anything I didn't totally hate for fear of screwing it up. Now I have to restrain myself from NOT trying to improve things that are perfectly fine the way they are.

I think the first time I painted something brand new was when I took the can of spray paint to the speakers. By the way, they still work fine, they totally blend in with the wall and I don't regret doing that for one second.

Now I really have no problem painting something new if I can't find what I'm looking for. I've been wanting to get a new side table for between the chairs in front of the fireplace for ages. I had an overly contemporary el cheapo thing there for the last 10 years or so. What I really wanted to find was an old spindle table or maybe something with some faux bamboo that I could paint a fun color. I looked for a LONG time and found nothing that was the right size or in the realm of affordable. 

I orginally saw this side table on Joss & Main. And then I found it on Overstock for significantly less. Those daily sale sites are not always such a great deal, it turns out. 

Even at a really low price, I have to say I was not happy with the quality of this Safavieh table. It is really cheaply made. The top and the shelf on the bottom are made of luan and sort of feels like glorified cardboard. Still, it was cute and I was sick of looking (of course I found a table at Home Goods two weeks ago that would been equally good and was less expensive). 

It came in this perfectly fine gray color.

But you know it wasn't staying that color. I gave it a good dose of Benjamin Moore Cornwallis Red (which I also wrote about here), which is the most lovely orangey tomato red ever. I really have a thing for this color. 

I'm not going to give you a tutorial on how I painted it because you know the drill: Sand, clean, prime, two coats of paint, sand with 400-grit in between coats. Done.

And here it is in its new spot. With all the blue, white and gray in the living room, I think it's the perfect accent and it since its in the red family it works with the ikat dot chairs on the other side of the room too.

It's hard to get shot of our very long and skinny living room that give you an idea of what it looks like, but with the help of a tripod I was able to get one of this view, which is one I don't think I've shown you before. This is what you see when you walk out of the kitchen into the living room and it's what sold me on our house immediately. The lights you see on the mantle are from the track lights that hide on the backside of that beam. I'm still moving them around to figure out where to point them all. By the way, speaking of that painted speaker, there's one in this picture. Can you find it? Also, I am officially the worst mantel decorator ever. I'm actually thinking about making a temporary wood mantel sleeve to put over the stone mantel because I think it would be a lot easier to accessorize up there.

So have you ever painted or otherwise seriously altered something brand new? It's funny how once you just suck it up and do it once, it's not so hard the next time. Yet another slippery DIY slope.

Giveaway winners and little changes that make a big difference

Hey, it's Friday again. I love how that keeps happening. I have a few items on the agenda for the weekend including ordering some fabric from Calico Corners before their 25% off sale ends, cutting down just a few more things in the garden and putting cages around the plants that need protection from deer or dogs during the winter. If I were smart I would also put my winter greens in my containers before the soil freezes.

I want to take a quick moment to say thank you to everyone for entering the giveaway for the vintage botanical chart.

The winner of the chart is Becky W. who says she's going to hang the chart on her "big empty dining room wall." I hope you share a picture when you have it up, Becky!

And here's some exciting news. Linda from Bonnie & Bell was so excited about how the giveaway was going that she contacted me yesterday to tell me to also give away a $50 gift certificate to her Etsy store! So I have another winner to announce and that is Claire who said she would hang the chart in her living room over her sofa. I hope you find something you love at the Bonnie & Bell store, Claire!

Congrats to you both. Check your e-mail!

I recently made to small changes at the house. It's nothing earth-shattering, but both changes remedy small things that came with the house that I never really loved.

The first was in the kitchen. The house came with small (34-by-38-inch) island with a maple butcher block top on it. The problem was that the butcher block wasn't made very well. There were butt ends all over it (it's edge grain vs. end grain) and because of that they had to frame it out. But of course wood expands and contracts, so the mitered corners of the frame had split. I love the island and I really liked the butcher block countertop, but I didn't care for that particular one.

Old butcher block island ... meh.

Here's what it looks like in a prettier picture (and if the difference between those two pictures doesn't demonstrate my need for a camera than nothing does).

Oh, I know you're thinking that the roman shades match that butcher block perfectly. I know ... I'll have to deal with it at some point.

I also thought that a warmer wood might work well when we finally get around to sprucing up the working side of the kitchen (whenever that is). My plan is to keep the cabinets white, install a nearly white backsplash and get either white or light quartz countertops. But all that can look a little sterile, so I thought walnut would warm it up a little.

I shopped around for custom walnut countertops. What was amazing to me was that going up in thickness by even a quarter-inch massively increased the cost. So we ended up with a two-inch thick top. I'd have preferred something thicker, but it became cost prohibitive and at two inches it still looks plenty chunky.

It was also a good opportunity to give the island base a fresh coat of white paint. Because of that, we were without the island for about three days. It was horrible. I had no idea how much we relied on that island and how little counter space we really have in the kitchen when that is gone. Also, the island is about 34.5 inches tall and I learned that as a vertically challenged person, it's much more comfortable to work on a counter that's that height vs. the 36-inch counters.

We went with an oiled finish on the butcher block, which is what we had on the maple top (which I sold very quickly on Craig's List for $35; I just wanted it gone). I like the sort of dull, antique look that you get with an oiled finish vs. something like Waterlox, which I used in my office. That is a gorgeous finish, but it's very "new" looking. And even though we pretty much always use a cutting board (I love the Epicurean cutting boards ... thin, wood and dishwasher safe), we do occasionally slice a lemon or something right on the butcher block and you can't do that with a hard finish. Plus, I like knowing that if something happens to it, fixing it is as easy as a little sanding and reoiling.

New walnut butcher block and fresh white paint. Ahhhhh.

The other little change happened in the living room. The fireplace screen came with the house but was definitely one of those things that was purely about function. The tri-fold black screen had zero style, except maybe the arch in the middle that matches the arch on the firebox. Also, some of the screen on it was sort of pushed out. We use the fireplace pretty regularly in winter so a screen is a necessity for us. But have you ever looked at the price of fireplace screens? Oh my gosh, it's crazy. It's not uncommon to find them for $175 and much, much more.

Old fireplace screen: Blah.

So I was pretty jazzed to find this screen in Target's circular last week on sale for $39.99. Even better, it was in a aged bronze sort of color, which goes with the copper/bronze metal color we have going in the living room. And it looks pretty similar to this fireplace screen from Crate and Barrel for $179.

New fireplace screen: Much better, but now the tools don't match.

I love how much more room it gives us on the hearth since it rests flat against the fireplace. Of course it would look much better with a roaring fire, but you get the idea.

Looking at these pictures I just remembered on other item on the list for the weekend: scoop out the ashes in the fireplace.

So what changes have you made to your house lately and what's on your agenda for the weekend?