Author: Heather

My basement remodel part 1

When I bought this house, one of the things I dreamed about turning the dark, outdated dirty basement into one of our favorite rooms in the house. When I started I didn’t think it would be that much work…boy was I silly 🙂 This German Smear technique really did begin the transformation from dark and scary to cozy and bright!

The basement was a real mess. I might have been better off with an unfinished basement compared to what I had! The ceiling had these fiber tiles that were yellowed and sagging, the lights flickered, 1 1/2 walls were brick, 1 wall was shingles, one wall was a cement drip effect and the other 1/2 wall was shingles and wood lattice. The floor was cement with the cheapest, thinnest medium brown commercial carpet. There is literally nothing I liked about this room, other than the wood burning stove. I grew up with a wood burning stove in the basement; I love sitting so close to a cozy fire in the winter!

Well here she is! Even in this picture its dark and just looks dirty. The lighting is so poor, and the walls so dark, it’s very gloomy. In this picture I’ve already removed all the old ceiling tiles. (I will post more about that once I have some after photos to share, I’m going to paint the rafters white to give the ceiling the effect of being higher.)

I searched Pinterest for weeks looking for the best way to paint this monster, and came across a technique called the German Smear, that added a lot of white to the brick, while still maintaining the brick-ness. I’m sure that’s not a word, but I didn’t like the effect that painting brick has, the color was too flat and looked like you wished the brick wasn’t there so you tried to hide it (cheaply) with paint. Brick should have character, but I wanted it significantly whiter, cleaner and brighter! This technique did just that.

I only needed one bag of mortar from Home Depot, and a 2 gallon bucket from the dollar store. I had the rubber gloves and a 5″ putty knife. Here is a link to the Versa Bond White I used, but its much cheaper at your local hardware store.

I started behind the stove, since I didn’t have any way to practice the technique. I mixed a small amount of mortar and water until it made a peanut butter consistency. Then I would rub the mortar into the cracks, leaving some extra that I then smeared across the face of the bricks in a random pattern. I would then go back and re-wipe the cracks to grab any excess.

I repeated these steps until there was no excess mortar in the cracks or on the face of the bricks and my glove marks were erased.

I ended up mixing 2 buckets for the entire wall, and it took in total about 3 hours to do just the back wall. Its not hard work, but I moved along in small sections. The mortar is actually very forgiving and doesn’t dry too fast, I found I could go back over my work and the mortar was still malleable even after 30 minutes or more.

I finished up the hearth the following day using the same technique.

Since the hearth bricks used the larger face of the brick I think I will go back and do a second coat to whiten them up a bit more. These still large amounts of brick left visible. But either way it already looks so much better! Its so much brighter already.

There is still another wall of brick, and an old hearth you can’t see in these photos. I still haven’t totally decided what to do with that, its so much brick and I really wish it was not there at all 🙂 I may just do the smear until I have the resources to demo it and remove it at a later time.

I’ll be posting more on this renovation as it progresses, so check back for some nice after pictures!

Update: I made some progress, check out the painted ceilings in this post.

I saw so many posts from people who were building their own furniture, I figured, hey I’m pretty handy I can do this! For a Christmas present I got a Kreg Jig, and I went straight to work building this Farmhouse X Desk! This tool is awesome and makes building furniture so easy for beginners. Here is how I made this custom desk! * Disclaimer* This page has affiliate links to the products I used. These links do not cost you anything and I may make a small commission if you purchase a product using one of these links.

**Update**

I finally created downloadable instructions in a pdf format. This was step by step and the measurements I used to create this desk. You can get the free plans here.

I really needed a larger desk, and since my house is small, custom was really the best way to go. I found inspiration on Pinterest and set out to build the perfect desk. Here is my supply list:

• 2 x 4’s (for most of the legs and structure)
• 2 x 3’s (the x’s)
• 1 x 4’s (the desk top)
• 1 x 2’s (the trim for the desk top)
• Kreg Jig
• Kreg screws
• Wood glue
• Table saw, miter saw, hand sander

I built the top first. This let me make the top the largest possible for the space I needed to fit it into, then I could build the legs to the exact size of the top. You can see I angled the feet to give this a more finished look. I also sand bevels on the feet to smooth the edges and really make it look professional. Every piece is sanded, beveled, glued and then screwed together with the Kreg Jig.

I made 2 ends the same size for the short side of the “L,” only putting an x on one end made from 2×3’s. The other end was made the width of the longer side. I connected the short side together first, then connected on the long side.

It was really starting to come together. And yes I built this in my dining room, it was December and very cold in the garage 🙂

I really like this desk in white, but my furniture and decor in the room was already off-white so I chose a robins egg blue chalk paint.

I trimmed out the top with 1×2’s, and attached it with wood glue and finish nails. Sanded the whole thing down and stained it with a minwax honey stain. Then finished it with 3 coats of minwax gloss polyurethane.

I felt that the paint was a little too bright and perfect, and wanted a worn look. Sanding it alone didn’t give the bottom enough character, so I dampened a rag with the honey stain, and rubbed that into the chalk paint and sanded areas to give it a real rustic look. I love how it turned out!

I also built an matching shelf and plant holder from scrap wood, and matched them with the same stain and poly.

I spent a lot of time researching styles and features of coops before I began this DIY chicken coop. I first decided on my must have features; easy access to eggs, food, water and easy cleaning access! It had to be raised and everything had to be accessed from the outside. I wanted my coop to make having chickens easy. I also wanted something cute, but I didn’t want to spend a lot of money or buy a lot of new materials. I enjoy my outdoor space and having chickens had to keep in line with my ideal back yard.

I was lucky that I had some access to materials. I had a basement full of plywood with cedar shingles that I knew I wanted to tear out, and there were several treated wood planks that the previous owner used as garden edging. That meant I only needed some screws, 1 – 4 x 8 sheet of plywood, 2×4’s, metal roof and some chicken wire.

I started my design on paper, planning carefully to make the coop the right size to use with my 4 x 8 sheet of plywood and shingles. The coop was 4′ x 4′ with a angled roof. Egg nesting box off the back, 2 double door that opened the entire front of the coop, and a door that was operated from the outside.

I made a stable base to start building the coop on. This base will sit on top of pressure treated 4×4″ rails in my yard.

I moved my piece outside and began planning the layout and build as things were going to get too heavy for me to carry. I put 4×4′ plywood at the base of the coop. From here I could start building the walls and roof.

It was starting to look like a coop! Its hard to see but I do have some supports off the back for the nesting boxes to sit on. I tore out some of the shingled walls from my basement and cut the top at an angle to match the pitch of the roof line.

The back wall has a large window and nesting boxes. I had a 4 x 4′ piece of plywood left and I made the nesting boxes. Three boxes that are level with the interior of the coop for easy cleaning. I also planned and cut out an east facing window and the door to the run.

I built up the run, and bought 3 pieces of 12′ corrugated metal roofing sheets. I cut them in half to 6′ using a jig saw and metal blade. I also attached the top of the nesting boxes with hinges to access to eggs from outside.

I put wire over the windows and stick tiles. The wood closing off the nesting boxes it snug, but removable to make cleaning easier. I also found white plastic boxes at the dollar store that fit perfectly in the boxes to keep that area especially clean, no one like dirty eggs! (After a year of using the coop the stick tiles haven’t lasted. One sheet of laminate might work ok, but the chickens scratch so much the tiles get lifted and have mostly come out with cleanings. )

I made front doors out of shiplap boards and attached them with exterior grade hinges. I also built a sliding coop exit door.

I built a ramp for the chickens to enter and exit the coop and the perches with sticks from the yard. And I finished attaching the wire and metal roof.

This lovely (coughs) wicker set was left by the previous owners. The colors (and the pictures don’t do it justice) were so awful they reeked of old junk. Wicker wasn’t my style but I had seen some of those gray resin chairs and wanted to try to achieve that look. They needed a little TLC but were solid and comfy.

To start: I hosed them down, rubbed them with a plastic kitchen brush and allowed to dry completely. These chairs also had some serious paint flakes so I was careful to wash these on a sheet that caught the chips to be dried and tossed later.

Sanding wicker isn’t really effective, but I lightly hit it with a 220 grit. ( I always makes sure to sand any piece I work on, it really makes the finish that much more professional. )

Since the paint job was in such poor shape and these chairs were going to be outside, I used a oil based white primer painted on. My mother helped me paint these and she complained the whole time that we had to use oil based primer. She say to spray paint them and be done with it. Well…I had a plan in mind and carefully researched this as I don’t like re-doing projects in a year or two because they didn’t hold up.

After they were good and dry I made a watered down mix of acrylic craft paints. I used dark brown, gray and black. The paint was quite thin, enough to leave pigment behind but also soaked onto the cracks and joints. To my horror, they looked awful! I was waiting for an “I told you so” from my mother, but instead we laughed to tears about all our hard work and how it looked like really dirty, moldy chairs!

Well, I left these chairs half done for a while, discouraged at the finish. Somehow I got the determination to finish them, and I’m so glad I did! Somehow after a few coats of the thinned out acrylic paint and after applying clear gloss spray clear coat they looked exactly like I wanted! The paint dried evenly instead of just in the cracks and the clear coat tied it all together! I made these a few years ago, and I have re-sprayed their clear coat once just to maintain the finish and they still look great!