Gettin' Comfy

When we last updated things with the basement we were going crazy with distressing shelves, sconces, and a chalkboard.  A few weeks ago the hubby and I were at our wits end with the seating arrangements and decided to buy a comfy couch for the basement.  You would think it would be an easy process since we already knew what we wanted. Nope.  It took THREE and a HALF hours.  I'm not a big shopper for anything, especially furniture, so about 45 minutes in I was over it.  Apparently trying to find a sectional is a difficult process.  They were either too squishy, not squishy enough, over priced, too big, too small, coloring was wrong, awkward, wrong fabric, wrong color.  Until we found this comfortable beauty...

We bought it at Colders and while it took us FOREVER to figure it out, this couch is SO worth it.  It is made by Ashley Furniture, I can't find a link for it, but we are in LOVE.

Furniture can really make all the difference in a room, if you don't believe me look at what we started with:

And after our adventure in furniture buying:
















I think we have Mae's seal of approval, but she's easy to please.

DIY Distressed Sconces

To go with our distressed, industrial-ish theme we are working on in our basement we decided to keep the party going with some sconces.  We did the same thing as here and here and really think this finishes that area.

We found the "candle holders" aka drinking glasses from Target for about $2.00/per and hot glued them to the wood platform that was attached to the galvanized pipe.

The candles, I got from Target and are battery operated  because I really do not want to burn down my house.  They are really nice and have a timer so we have one less thing to worry about!

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One slight problem we ran into was when we hot glued them to the platform, we obviously had issues with being able to get whatever we put in it, out.  So to fix that problem, I added some character to it by adding some acorns to the bottom.  **We will eventually end up gouging out a hole in the platform for the glasses to sit in since the hot glue makes it difficult to get the candle/anything we put in them out.

Tying up any loose ends??

Light and Bright

The door leading down to our basement and the door right next to it leads out to the garage.  I cannot even begin to count how many times people have opened the basement door all like, "okay I'm leaving, see you later", until they realize they would be going down to our basement.

I'm guilty of doing that a couple times myself. The entire time the hubs and I were sprucing up our basement and stairway leading down to our basement I knew that I wanted a different door for that reason and I feel like it would open up our kitchen area.  We did the same thing with our old house and loved how it turned out, so we figured why not?

 When we were thinking of a paint color I knew just what I wanted.  I wanted to bring a little bit of the basement up to the kitchen so we decided to use the same color that we painted the basement ceiling.  After some hesitation from the hubs, I took care of it like I do most of our painting projects....while he was at work and it turned out great!

We bought a pre-primed, pre-hung door (this one, but primed) from Menards and brought it back home to get it painted and installed.    It was relatively easy to put up, the hubs managed to get it done by himself without any causalities.  We would totally recommend going with a pre-hung door, especially if you plan on switching out the trim or repainting only because then your almost guaranteed for a perfect fit.  That was our mistake with our previous house was not purchasing a pre-hung, and we noticed that as the house expanded the door would not stay closed.

**FYI we had to special order this door and it took about 10-14 days to have it delivered to the store**

This is what the door looks like before I got my hands on it...The panes of glass have plastic on them and the entire door is primed, which made it easy for this project to be done without a lot of hassle and cutting in!

I got the door finished, two coats on each side, and once it was installed the hubs installed the door knob.  We just got a standard brushed nickel knob.  We are slowly but surely changing all of them out too!

From there we were ready to rock and take off the paint coated plastic.  We recommend using a sharp knife or blade and to go around the edges of each pain.  That will prevent the paint on the plastic from chipping EVERYWHERE and the sheets come off almost in one piece.

Needless to say we love how it turned out and it opens up the kitchen way more than we thought!  Now all we have to do is replace the other doors and paint 1,000 miles worth of trim...

DIY Chalkboard

We joined the masses and made ourselves a chalk board.

We followed the same stress relief program to distress the boards as we did here.

We also added some nails and bolts into the mix to add a little more character.

We followed that up by staining them with Minwax Red Oak and using a semi-gloss polyurethane to seal the boards.

While the boards were drying we took a sheet of plywood that we bought along with chalkboard paint and went to town.

Two coats of paint later we were ready to attach the boards!

The hubs used a standard wood glue, attached the boards and clamped them in place while they dried and after he screwed the plywood and the boards together from the back of the chalkboard.

We took a mason jar and attached it to the board to hold the chalk.  Since the pieces of chalk were short I added in some bouncy balls as a filler.

Viola!! This project didn't take very long and we love how it turned out!

Installing a Runner

We officially have a runner installed and are in LOVE.  This project took about an hour from start to finish and the difference it makes is huge!

We purchased two of them from here for the project. We also purchased a Bostitch Electric Staple Gun...by the way works AMAZING.  We also used no slip under carpet padding and no slip carpet tape.

We measured out the middle and cut out strips of tape to place on the treads.

Two per tread.  The tape helped keep the carpet pad and the edges of the runner in place.

The hubby then applied the no slip under carpet padding down the entire set of stairs.  The double sided tape helped keep it in place and then came the fun part....runner installation.

This project was ridiculously easy and made a HUGE difference.  All he did was make sure the runner was evenly placed and got to town stapling it in.

***One word of advise:  We used a permanent marker and covered the top portion of the staples black.  That would help hide them within the runner.  If you don't have any black in your runner try to match up the color of the permanent marker with a color in your runner.

When it came to transitioning from the first runner into the second runner we made sure to have the end of the first runner and the beginning of the second come together under the lip where the tread meets the riser.

The material for the runner was SUPER easy to cut, didn't fray much at all and was easy to work with.

See you can't even see the transition between the two runners!!

So far so good, we have had it installed for a few weeks now and haven't had any issues with the runner.  It's definitely dog approved, they love running up and down the stairs and seem to have no problem with it! 

When we moved in this is what we started with:

And once I was sick and tired of it I went to town with my paint brush:

And we could have just been content, but that's not how we roll.  Things are finally taking shape:

We are in love with how this has turned out!!!

DIY Industrial Handrail

I was NOT a fan of our old handrail.  It was just a standard wood one and would have done the trick, but for what I had planned for the hallway it just wasn't going to work.

This is what we started with:

  And after the project was completed we ended up with this:
Please excuse Mae's tush.  

We got the idea for this type of handrail from here:

What you need: 

• 3-1 1/4 inch galvanized Tee's -Red dot
• 3-1 1/4 galvanized 90 degree elbow -Blue dot
• 2- 1 1/4 inch galvanized caps - Green dot
• 2- 1 1/4 inch x 6 inch galvanized pipe -Purple dot
• 2- 1/4 inch x 5 foot galvanized pipe -Orange dot
• 3- 1 1/4 inch x 2 inch galvanized pipe -Pink dot
• 3- 1 1/4 inch x close galvanized pipe -Teal dot
• 3- 1 1/4 inch galvanized floor flanges -Yellow dot

The hubby pieced together the entire rail before attaching it to the wall.

From there he brought it over and got it hung.  One thing, make sure not to tighten things too tight right away, as the handrail gets secured to the wall it shifts and naturally tightens.  If it's too tight things can't be adjusted and makes it WAY more difficult!

The pipe had an grease coating on it, kind of gross, but with a little persistence and some Goo Gone we were able to take care of it.

I'd recommend taking your time with this project.  The hubs was on a mission to surprise me and get this done before I got home from work, which he did, but ended with him slamming his thumb nail and getting a pretty gnarly bruise.  

At least the project was a total win for us which makes the injury somewhat worth it!

DIY Distressed Shelving

If you're frustrated, mad, on the verge of a mental breakdown, upset, angry, having marital, parental, work, kid, family or friend problems, THIS project is the BEST for relieving stress without ending up in jail.

You get to take these:

And take out all of your aggression on boards.  

We scraped, nailed, screwed, hit, gouged and burned the board until we had our way with it.  

Then we went ahead and burned them to add some character:

We had no rhyme or reason for where we burned, or distressed.  We just kept at it until we thought it looked right to us.

We then went ahead and stained it using Minwax Red Oak and sealed the boards with two coats, sanding in between, with a semi-gloss polyurethane. 

Each bracket was made up of:

2- 1 1/4 inch galvanized flanges

2- 1 1/4 inch galvanized nipples

1- 1 1/4 inch galvanized 90.

The plain board is supposed to be the "wall" and was there to make sure the brackets were even.

 We made two shelves, the longest board was four feet long and has three brackets.  The shorter board, three feet, has only two brackets.

The brackets were then secured to the board with screws and hung up.

Bam.  We knocked out two birds with one stone.  Stress relief and this project!

 We are completely obsessed with how this turned out and frankly how easy this project was.

Now we just have to stock it properly...