Basement Bookshelves

http://www.morethanthemulberries.com/2011/04/basement-bookshelves.htm

lIt's been a looong road to get the basement to where it is so far...

Let's take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

Two years ago this month...Dan's first wall of framing.

Fast forward a year to drywall and paint.

Dan painting shelves

Assembly

Will they all fit?

Maybe?

They fit! Just need the middle section for the flat screen now!

A few last minute touches before carpet.

My super cute handyman Dan!

And here it is this morning!

I love that I showed Dan a picture and DONE! He's SO talented - it's just what I was picturing and it he did such a fantastic job on it!

Thanks baby!

Dan will be building some doors for the bottom shelves this summer as we get all the tools moved up from downstairs.

This week is touch up painting, waiting for the projector to arrive, hanging doors and moving lumber out of the laundry room!
Linking up to SAS over at JAG!

Picture Ledges

http://sugarnspiceinthelandofballsnsticks.blogspot.com/2011/04/diy-picture-ledges.html

Remember that sneak peek I gave you a couple of days ago?

Well, they're up!

Let's rewind a bit. I started a gallery wall when we first moved into this house 10 years ago. I added to it as family members were added on, and new memories were made.

Not only was it time for a change because 10 years is a long time to have any decor item stay the same, but also because we acquired a piano. Ideally upright pianos should sit on an interior wall of a home. This was really one of the only appropriate walls for it, and it covered up the bottom row of pictures. So I took the gallery wall down, patched, sanded, primed, and painted. I drew up some picture ledges, and Computer Genius built them.

These floating shelves are made with 1x2s and 1/4 inch plywood. CG cut the 1x2s to length.

And butt jointed the returns(the sides). He glued & nailed them.

He ripped 1x2s in half to create the wall cleat and the internal spacer.

He glued the spacer into place,

using a scrap piece of plywood to keep it properly spaced, and nailed it.

He glued & nailed spacers to the sides also.

CG cut the plywood to fit, and glued & nailed it to the bottom

& top. Notice the lip that is formed at the top. This'll keep my pictures from tumbling off the shelves.

He used a nail set to set the nails below the surface of the wood. I love that my hubs is a Computer Genius, a woodworker, and still can wear Hello Kitty bandaids.

He filled the set nail holes with wood putty,

and sanded them smooth.

The mercury finally hit 50, so I took these outside and spray primed and painted them. Ignore the snow. I painted these last week, it's all melted away now.

The cleats were mounted to the wall first.

Then the ledges just slipped right over them. Obviously I still need to work on what's going on them. But that's for another day. Today is for saying hurrah for this guy.

Thanks for popping in and DIYing with CG & painting with me. I'm linking up to Between Naps on the Porch's Metamorphosis Monday, and Just a Girl's Show and Share Day.

Here's our Picture Ledge Gallery Wall as it stands today.

Kitchen remodel

http://www.justagirlblog.com/2011/04/sas-day-and-dreamy-kitchen.html

I pretty much fell on this kitchen remodel tonight, and it just had to be shared. It moved me, simply put. See the befores…

Are you prepared for the after? Yeah well, I wasn’t so I had to check. Here you go.

There’s a couple of reasons I’m so madly in love. #1. The white. You know how much I love white. #2. It actually looks like a realistic home. I’ve never been so in love with a home that had such a great kitchen without 14-foot ceilings and a whole wall full of windows.

It’s such a magazine-worthy kitchen without looking like it has to be in a magazine-size space. I LOVE that. I want to ask…do you think these are 8 or 9 foot ceilings? They’ve gotta be 9, right? Please tell me they’re 8. :)

If you’d like to see more, go visit Jenny Springer Photography. As you can see, she’s basically a photography blog, but she does offer a few design posts--this one being one of them.

Basement Stairs - brighten things up

http://thatsmyletter.blogspot.com/2011/04/b-is-for-batten.html

"B" is for Batten

Board and batten (without the boards) on the basement stairwell.

Previously this stairwell was an eyesore.

The door to the basement is right off the newly renovated kitchen and every time we opened the door all this ugliness was in plain sight.

Not any more!

This was my chance to try board and batten, I jumped on the bandwagon and freshen up the
neglected stairwell.

There's lots of tutorials out there on how to tackle this project but my favorite and most informative comes from Pink Toes and Power Tools. Click here for her multi-step, nitty gritty, extremely detailed posts and you'll know everything you need to know about board and batten.

One problem I had that Pink Toes didn't have, EXTREMELY WAVY WALLS! The house is 60 years old and settled so the bulge at the base of the first floor and top of basement is clearly evident here:

To combat this and work with the bulgy wall I planed down the back of the 1x3 almost 1/4" and I adhered my boards with construction adhesive, wood screws and mollys:

It really only evident in certain lights and it was something I couldn't change about the wall so I worked with it. After all the caulking and painting you really can't tell.

Here's a few progress shots of the process:

1. Rip off old board with hooks, unfortunately chunks of drywall came off too:

2. Cut straight lines for drywall repair:

3. Patch with drywall and mud.

Sand, mud, sand, mud, until it's smooth.

4. Paint.

The eyesore is gone and the stairs are complete.

If you're curious about how I painted the faux runner on the stairs check the how-to here.

One last side by side:

That was worth it, now should I do it to the upstairs?