Blue on Center

Home Archive for April 2015

The Fireplace

So, the basement fireplace. I've been vacillating between painting it, cutting the stone mantel off, taking off the steel hood, or covering with paneling or drywall.

It's rustic & huge and it's hard for me to envision how to make it "fit" into the overall finished space. We decided to remove the brick hearth in front of the fireplace and I wanted to replace the brick with some tile that would be flush with the rest of the floor.

My original inspiration for the fireplace was this:

via

It's vintage looking, fresh with just a touch of ethnic funk. Love it. Unfortunately, the price tag reflects its cool factor. Which is high.

So I went searching for some tile that would give that look, but with a friendly price tag.

These tiles were all cool, but the price point was still too high.

And then I found IT.

And the price? Oh so friendly.

I plan on repeating the full pattern three times in front of the fireplace.

Oh yeah.

First, we knocked the slab of bricks in front of the fireplace out. The brick came out easily at first, but then it started chipping off and it was slow and tedious.

We started with a sledgehammer and then my father in law helped with the hammer and a chisel. He used the chisel to get underneath the brick and eventually he was able to remove the rest, like a magician.

I am so glad it's gone! It makes the space feel bigger and now the kiddos won't trip over it when they're running around. Now I am not sure what to do with the rest of the fireplace. I got a quote to drywall the whole thing, but it was too expensive. But it would have been so pretty! Sigh.

On the more cost effective tip, I could whitewash it.

via

I could plank it. Or plank it and build a mantel. Or just paint it all.

via

The only thing set in stone (get it?) is that I am laying the tile down in front on the floor. I plan to wait and see how it all looks once the walls are painted and the flooring is in.

The drywall is going in this week and our whole house is a dusty mess. I start painting the trim this weekend and the walls next week. We're getting closer!

post signature

Keep Reading

basement, fireplace

0 Comment

Boston

Greg & I went to Boston last week for the Q Conference. Q's aim is to "Stay curious. Think well. Advance good." Speaker after brilliant speaker gave voice to their stories: a journalist covering ISIS, university leaders, artists & performers, those on the front lines of racial reconciliation & immigration, entrepreneurs, activists, health practitioners, authors, and thinkers. My brain is still throbbing from each of their contributions. I took notes as fast as I could keep up. A potent moment for me was a talk given by Boston marathon bombing surviver, Jeff Bauman. Jeff lost both legs from the bomb and walked onstage with his two prosthetic limbs. Seeing him in the city where the bombing occurred, blocks away from the courthouse where the sentencing of the bomber was ongoing...all I can say is that it overwhelmed me.

Jeff shared that he experienced some discouragement as he learned to walk again with prosthetic limbs. Part of his story was when some Marines came into his hospital room because, they too, had lost their legs to war. They told him he would walk again but Jeff felt he wouldn't because they were big tough Marines and he is just a regular guy. Jeff laughed as he told us the Marines grabbed him by his shirt, pointed at his face and told him "HE WILL WALK AGAIN" and Jeff was forced to agree with them.

I was introduced to Land of Thousand Hills Coffee, whose fairly traded coffee benefit communities in Rwanda.

I was also introduced to fashionABLE and scored a lovely new scarf named after one of the women they partner with.

There's so much more I could say about each speaker and each experience, and about each incredible person who attended the conference, but my brain is still absorbing it all. But here's what I can say: I want to be the kind of person who thinks deeply about shaping culture and has the courage to step out.

On that note....

Keep Reading

life,

0 Comment

Basement Frame Up

The basement project began last week.

It's hard to show in these grainy basement photos what's taking shape because it just looks like a bunch of wood sticks everywhere. You'll have to take my word for it that my little brainchild is looking pretty darn good. The laundry room:

Family room:

The wondrous sewer pipe before a fresh coat of matte black paint:

Utility room:

We had a couple of original doors left from the upstairs remodel and we've been able to reuse them downstairs for the utility room and a closet which makes me happy. I also bought a door at Restore to use for the laundry room. This week, I've been working on painting the laundry room door, stripping & sanding two pocket doors, and tracking down cool light fixtures on a budget. I found this one at Lowes for the girls' playspace. It'll likely get a new coat of paint because I just can't leave things alone. It's a medical condition.

I've also been trying to remove the raised fireplace hearth. It's a trip hazard for the girls, plus it's just not that cool. The tile I want to use instead is cool, so that's that.

I was able to knock out the first couple rows of brick without much problem. I highly recommend wearing eye protection if you ever tackle a project like this because the rock chips and goes flying! I delegated the job to Greg who used a sledgehammer and crowbar.

Apparently he developed a relationship with the sledgehammer. We're probably not even halfway done with the hearth project. Apparently whomever laid the brick didn't intend for it to move. Ever. Tomorrow the water heater will be relocated to the utility room and the washer/dryer will be moved to their new home in the new laundry space. My little plan is coming together. [Is there supposed to be an evil laugh inserted here?] post signature

Keep Reading

basement,

1 comments

Lessons from a Yellow Couch. Or, Why I am a Chicken.

So. The paint color for the exterior. Last week I posted on Facebook that I was going to choose a color, paint my house and move on with my life. I spent that morning analyzing colors, bought a couple more sample pots and had a revelation (a revelation which halted any actual choosing of a paint color). You guys are great because some of you have told me you're in the same predicament of color paralysis. Others of you have been sending me photos of houses with my shade of brick with color ideas. And some of you are holding my feet to the fire and telling me just to commit already. There's a story behind my indecision. Ten years ago we were shopping for a couch. This was my first big purchase as a real live grown up and I didn't want to mess it up. I found a couch I liked (and happily still like) and chose a fabric in a color I love (and still love).
It's a mustard yellow color and it's warm and inviting and just a little different than you'd see on a couch. Although I do appreciate the color, it's been extremely challenging over the years to find a paint color, pillows or rug that goes with this couch. In retrospect, I should have chosen a neutral couch and purchased pillows or rugs in colors I love to go with it. You see where I'm going with this right? I wanted a dark, inky blue for my house. I tried probably every shade and hue of that color on this house. I have the paint pots in my basement to prove it. But the colors didn't look good with the brick, or with the shingles, or with the pink mortar. Yes, my mortar is pink. The solution? Neutral trim and a rocking door.

via

The good news is that I can paint my door every year for the next 37 years or so (because that's how many paint pots are in my basement) and I can have the color I love but in a small and unoffensive dose. Boom. Problem solved. Sorry for the complete letdown. After all this fuss, I'm just choosing a shade of white and cream. How original, right? You can call me a chicken if you like. But I am a wise chicken with a yellow couch.

Keep Reading

exterior, paint

0 Comment

How I Designed the Basement (With No Training or Skills!): Laundry Room Edition

Designing a laundry room isn't terribly exciting because the focus is solely on function (as it should be), but there's a little bit of room to inject some cool factor.

The difficulty factor in this space is an 8 or 9. It's quirky. It's small. There's a very low ceiling, lots of overhead conduit & pipes, fuse boxes to hide, small windows, and an unfortunate vertical pipe to deal with. Plus there's a hole in the ground where the very old toilet used to be that still emits a very unpleasant smell.

Of course I have been looking for inspiration on Pinterest for countless hours. And guys? I think I've seen the end of the internet. There's a leprechaun there named O'Malley who likes apron sinks but thinks they're dreadfully overpriced. We high-fived in agreement, as one does with leprechauns.

Currently, my laundry situation is this: clothes get thrown down chute and land into giant laundry bin. I pick out pieces to wash, haul load across the basement to washer and throw in. I am not a pre-sorter. My laundry style is more of a crisis intervention specialist.

Because my laundry overflows the bin from time to time, the dirty clothes get mixed in with wood chips on the floor from our wood pile, which means I have to pick the occasional wood chip out of my washer after the cycle.

Just keeping it real here, people.

Perhaps this design is my chance to become a better, pre-sorting, organized kind of person. Perhaps the laundry room holds the key to me fulfilling my organizational, pre-sorting potential?

Or not. But it's worth a shot.

I began by writing out a list of all the things I would like to store in the laundry room. The room will certainly hold all the laundry essentials, but I'd like it to be a multipurpose storage space for sewing materials, gift wrap supplies, craft stuff for the kiddos, extras for the house (paper towels, cleaning supplies, etc), and so on. I planned out the cabinetry to hold all the things on that list.

Then reality hit, as it often does. I have a fuse box in that space and I thought I needed 30" of clearance for it. It turns out the fuse box requires 3 feet of clearance, which squashed plans of cabinets in front of the fuse box. The laundry room is already tiny, so losing that space was a bummer. I already had given up hope of wall cabinets and tall cabinets because of the low-hanging pipes.

The laundry room will have an exposed ceiling and there's a craaaaazy amount of pipes amassing there. I know my room will never be as perfect-looking as these rooms, but here's my inspiration images.

Subtle pattern, dark cabinets, and industrial lights: