Built-Ins, Crown & Baseboards

The past couple of weeks have been filled with working on the house. A lot! It's insane and exciting how much progress we've made toward finishing the living room and on the nursery. A couple of highlights are below:

1. Living Room Built-Ins
Next to the fireplace in the living room, we will place two cabinets with drawers, and then above those will be shelves lining the exposed shiplap to the ceiling. In order to finish the baseboards around the living room, we have to get these cabinets in place. In order to install the crown molding around the living room, we have to get these cabinets in place. So David has tackled those.

We started with standard builder's grade cabinets from Lowe's. They were a bit too deep, so David cut the backs off of them. We also wanted to build them up in height so the baseboards could wrap around the front of them, so he attached the cabinets to each other and then built a base on which they could rest, raising the height.

He also added trim on either side to extend the built-ins to fill the space. This weekend Dad helped David get the cabinets moved into the living room, then David set them in place, leveled them, and attached them to the walls.

Sliding the cabinets into place. They haven't been painted yet; just primed.

We didn't want to go with the standard grade doors and drawer fronts that came on the cabinets. We'd looked into buying custom fronts, but they're so expensive that we looked into some alternatives. One such was buying a router bit that he could use to make the cabinet doors look like those in our kitchen. He finished the doors last night, and I love how they turned out! Next up we need to sand, prime, and paint!

David made the cabinet doors for the built-ins...can't wait to see them installed!

Prior to placing the cabinets in place, we ran wiring to above the mantel which is where we'll hang the TV. The Xbox, cable box, and all that fun stuff will sit in the cabinets, and the wiring runs through the wall to get to where we'll hang the TV. Progress!

2. Crowning the Windows and Doors

Have you ever found something you really like, can't find it anywhere locally, try to find a suitable replacement, and had no luck? That was us with this piece of trim. Check out Windsor One trim if you are super nerdy and want to see some beautiful stuff! Their catalog is what David based the window and door trim in the living room off of. It's gorgeous! And what makes it really gorgeous is the top piece of header crown. Which is nowhere to be found locally. Or anywhere in the four-state area. Trust me - I called every dealer and distributor. I ended up calling Windsor One direct and had the most helpful gentleman give me the name of a couple stores that he knew would have it in stock and would work with us. I spoke to a nice gentleman at Horner Millwork, and for a very nominal shipping charge, we received six 8-foot pieces a couple of days later from Massachusetts. I'm sure he thought we were nuts, but we love the finished product. 

So now that we've installed it and seen how it's the perfect cap to our new window trim, how will we get it for the rest of this old house? The fine folks at Windsor One have offered to help us work with their local-ish sales team and distributors to find someone who will get it for us without charging us the not-so-nominal shipping price of $250+ that we first ran into (Horner shipped it to us for $40, so much more reasonable)!

We haven't painted the window trim yet, but love the new crown piece we added to the top!

3. Began Installing Baseboard

Trim might be the bane of our existence. David is great at it, but it's tedious work! As you may recall, we took up a couple runs of shiplap around the bottom of our living room walls, allowing us to seal with spray foam insulation and caulk, and allowing the electrician to run wiring to install new outlets. We put sheetrock back over that months ago. Fast forward to a couple weekends ago when we wanted to install the new baseboards. And couldn't. Because we couldn't for the life of us find the studs. Stud finder wouldn't work. Measuring from the windows or known studs wouldn't work. So we got smart. We pulled back off those pieces of sheetrock, cut them down into small strips, and reattached those strips at each stud (had to do this to ensure the wall depth was consistent with the remainder of the wall). And voila! We were able to easily see the studs and attach the bottom piece of the baseboard. Quirky? Sure. Successful? Absolutely!

Our baseboard is a little complicated. David got a router...need I say more? :) The baseboard is actually three separate pieces that attach to one another then attach to the wall. David ripped the main board, then milled two different pieces of trim with the router to create this unique profile. It's so pretty, nobody else will have anything like it, but it stays true to the style of the house. Once we finish the built-ins, we can finish installing the baseboard throughout the room. Like the windows, it will need to be painted once we have it installed.

We love the detail of the baseboard, with its three parts.

Here you can see the the bottom board, the thin piece that sticks out, and then the top piece that rests against the wall.

There are many more projects we've been working on - stay tuned for more updates as we work quickly on Operation: Finish Two Rooms before Nolan Arrives!

Window Work

Well, it's been a while since I've posted, and it's about three months until Baby Nolan should arrive. Cue: FREAK OUT! After working so much on the house before Sagan's birthday party, we were both ready to take a little break from our projects. A "little" break turned into a few months, but I'm happy to report we are back at it and hard at work to get the living room (and the nursery!!) finished before Nolan's arrival.

The living room...here is what we have had left to do:

• baseboards
• crown molding
• windows (re-run sash cord that has broken, reattach weights, replace sills, and replace trim)
• finish trimming out fireplace/mantle
• mount TV above mantle
• build out cabinets and shelves next to fireplace
• hang chandelier
• place rug and furniture and RELAX!
• (I've probably left something out...)

We decided to start with the windows. The trim has been off of them for months and months! We had planned on replacing the weight/pulley system with springs so we could insulate in the openings around the windows, but decided if we could just use caulk and spray foam to stop any airflow, that would suffice. I insulated around the windows while David worked on making new sills and trim for each window.

We've delayed the project for a while because we had some big decisions to make - however we do the trim on these windows is how we'll eventually do the trim on all the windows around the house. So, the first window took us a bit longer than the rest should. Two of the weights on the first window we worked on were detached, so we had to reattach them. It was a simpler process than I expected, albeit a little stressful! We had to remove the bottom sash, so David first had to pull off the parting bead. Once we got that off, the bottom sash came out pretty easily. Unfortunately, it doesn't move up and down very well, so we used a planer, a putty knife, and some elbow grease to remove the paint from the track the sash is supposed to move up and down on. Made a HUGE difference!

Next, strung the cord through the pulley system and one of the weights, then tied a knot at the weight and at the appropriate length within the window box.

Stringing the sash cord through the pulley system.

We did this on both sides, then put the sash back into the window box and pushed the knots and cords onto each side of the sash.

We measured and marked carefully to make sure the cord was long enough to allow the window to move up and down as it should and to prevent the weight from hitting the top or bottom of the frame behind the trim. 

Once we had the cord attached at both sides of the sash, we made sure it would move up and down freely, then reattached the parting bead.

Bottom sash, weights and the new sill and bottom trim all in place!

Then David measured and cut the rest of the trim and attached it. And voila! We have our new windowsill and trim in place and a functioning window!

Next we had to tackle the double windows on the front of the house. These proved to be more difficult because the weights were detached from the top sashes, so we had to remove both the bottom and the top sashes. By the time we got to the second window of this double set, we felt like old pros (HA!).

We had to remove the storm windows off the outside of the house to cut around the top sash, which had been painted shut. David says if we ever sell this house, we will put in our contract that you can't paint the windows shut! (Suffice it to say this was a tough task...)

With both the top and bottom sashes removed, we were able to plane and scrape the sides so the sashes could easily move up and down on their tracks. Unfortunately (probably many, many years ago), the windows had been painted shut and the tracks had been painted - a big no-no when it comes to keeping the windows functioning properly.

This is what it looks like behind the trim - with the weights and sash cords. When we removed the trim off the double windows, we found that four weights were detached, but two were completely missing. We put out an APB for 7-pound weights, and fortunately we have great friends who are renovating another old home in Murray - who just happened to have two 7-pound weights on hand! Thanks Josh and Ashley!!

After all the blood, sweat and tears, we finally have both windows functioning properly!

This is an exciting sight for us...TRIM on the windows!! 

This project went much more smoothly than we anticipated, but was still pretty demanding. We didn't do everything that we'll eventually have to do to the windows (sand, paint, reglaze, etc.) - but at least they are functioning and we now have templates for the windows in the rest of the house.

And, not to be forgotten...we got the trim around both doorways as well!

I can't wait for this trim to be primed and painted to see how it makes the transom stand out.

Next up: cabinets, shelves, baseboards (which have already been milled and primed!), and 10 million other things. But...yay for progress!

Mantle Maven

First off, I am going to let you know that I will be unapologetically bragging on my husband throughout this post.

I will say - David is stubborn. I'm impatient. So I'm more prone to "let's buy it" vs. "let's build it from scratch." When he told me he wanted to build the mantle from scratch, I was pretty sure he was crazy, but we went with it.

Back in this post, I explained how we hired a mason to remove the false front of the existing fireplace and patch the brick. And how we went to a salvage yard to try to find a mantle to go there, but couldn't find any that would fit just right. So, David set out to build the mantle himself.

First, we had to get the fireplace prepped. The fireplace looked like this after the mason was done.

We hired a mason to expose the original fireplace

David next had to frame in the fireplace surround. He cut all his boards to length, then pieced them together in the living room lying down on the floor. We raised it up and voila...we had a frame to attach to the existing fireplace.

Cutting the bottom brace off the frame. Love those socks!

The frame in place

Let's take a moment to admire the beauty of that shiplap that I worked so hard on. Just kidding. The frame! David put two 2x6 boards in the middle of the upper part of the frame so that when we hang our TV above the fireplace, the TV mounting bracket can be attached directly to those boards.

Next, sheetrock. Ugh. Heavy, messy stuff. I may have nightmares tonight just thinking about the mess it made. BUT - it went up a lot easier than we thought.

Sheet rock attached to the frame and with a first coat of mud, getting ready to be primed and painted

David then painted the sheetrock (and the ceiling, and the rest of the room). And then, the fun part - he started on the mantle.

Now, our inspiration. You can't see much of it, and it was filthy, but you get the idea! The grooves, the different dimensions/layers, the corbels, etc.

We found this mantle at Hailey's Salvage in Nashville and used this picture and some scaled drawings David made of it to build the mantle for our house

David started with a sheet of MDF, and ripped it down with a table saw to the size boards he needed. Then, he cut the grooves into it using different router bits. That's the part that absolutely amazes me. He cut all those little grooves into the wood like he'd done it 100 times before. But he hadn't. And it's perfect. 

Check out all those grooves masterfully routed into the MDF ;)

So then, the really difficult part. We needed corbels. We should've traced one at the salvage yard, but didn't. So David found a cad program to use online, drew it out on that program, and then sent it to the genius me. I cut it out of card stock on my Silhouette Portrait (it's a vinyl/fabric/card stock cutting machine that's amazing and so much fun!).

Pattern for the corbel that David drew online and I cut with my Portrait

Back to the real work. He cut out the corbels with a jigsaw, sanded them down with a belt sander to smooth out the edges, and then it was all ready to be painted.

We've quickly realized how important the painting process is to making things look professionally finished. David used bin tinted shellac primer to seal the MDF, then used Sherwin Williams oil-based pro classic semi-gloss with Flood penetrol, which is a dry-time extender and leveling agent. (I just spoke Greek. Questions? Ask David.) The finish is so pretty, smooth, and shiny!

After finishing up the paint job, he brought it into the house and attached it to the sheetrock. We were hoping to just use construction adhesive, but there wasn't enough surface area to make it stick. So we screwed it in, and will be covering up the screws with baseboards along the bottom (which we had already planned on adding) and trim under the top.

The semi-finished mantle!

I couldn't be more excited about the way it looks. It's absolutely beautiful. I'm proud of him and how close to the old mantle we found at the salvage yard this one looks (except in MUCH better shape and the perfect size for our opening).

We still need to finish trimming it out (you can see the exposed frame here, which will be covered), but we want to run the wiring for the TV first (HDMI cables and such).

Next up - the hearth. The brick on the hearth had been removed prior to us buying the house, but we didn't like the concrete slab showing, so decided to cover it with tile. We chose this mosaic tile from Lowes and light gray grout.

David cut the tiles to size using a corded Dremel and a diamond blade, which we were afraid would be terrible but ended up not being too bad (says the wife who busied herself in another part of the house while that work was going on and who did none of the cutting work). We laid the tile out ahead of time to get all the pieces cut, then applied the mastic, and slowly but surely laid the tile sheets.

Laying the mosaic tile on the hearth

I have to say this was a process we were pretty nervous about as it was our first tiling job (well David's first...Dad let me tile and grout a step in their garage when I was in middle school). But it went pretty smoothly!

Applying the grout

The grout looks pretty dark here but dried much lighter. And look at that beautifully routed mantle!

The (not quite) finished product

We love how the tile looks on the hearth!

Next on the hearth, we need to caulk/grout by the firebox and add trim around the outside edges (likely stained to match the floor).

I'm so proud of how this project turned out! It's amazing what David has pushed himself to learn and do since we bought our olive on Olive. This home is so full of character, but it's fun getting to add even more with the transoms, the custom mantle and hearth, exposing the shiplap, and other things we have done or plan to do. I can't wait for the living room to be finished so we can put our feet up and enjoy that space!

And for good measure...here's a photo of what the fireplace looked like before we moved in: