After getting back home from Cape Disappointment, I tackled some chores at home that I’d been meaning to do for awhile. As much as I love camping, I also enjoy working on projects at home and making my home feel more comfortable for me.
The first project was slow getting started because I didn’t really know what I wanted. I didn’t like the look of the brick behind my wood stove in my living room, but I didn’t know what to do to fix it. I didn’t know how I DID want it to look. I just knew that I really didn’t like the orange and black and white and grey colors of the brick.
One of my neighbors had painted her full, large fireplace a lovely dark gray. It was stunning! When I told her I thought I might copy the color, she loaned me the can of paint she used and said, “use as much as you want”. She had used less than 10% of the paint in the can; my project was much smaller; so I happily borrowed the can of paint.
But it didn’t seem quite right when I applied the same color inside my home. Where it looked handsome and stunning on my neighbor’s full fireplace, the color was just too dark and somber behind my wood stove.
So I left the project alone for a few days. Talking with another friend a few days later and explaining the project to her, I heard her say, “you’re painting the bricks white aren’t you?”
Ha! I never thought of that! At first it didn’t seem right, but this particular friend is quite often spot on with her ideas of interior design and color and landscape design. Sigh … so ok, I’ll try white. In truth, I simply used wall paint. In my house, the wall paint has a tinge of yellow to it. Rather than use a stark white for the bricks, I thought the bricks would look best if they matched the wall color.
I started with just a few bricks.
That looked ok. So I kept applying my wall paint on more of the brick.
Golly gosh, I think this is working nicely.
I love it! Painting the bricks a lighter color worked perfectly. I cleaned out the ventilation holes at the bottom of the brick half-wall, and I cleaned out the ventilation holes along the top rank of bricks as well. It’s best to have those ventilation holes clear in order to let heat rise and not set the wallboard behind the bricks on fire, yes? 🙂
And then Christmas came later in the year, and I really, really, really loved those light colored bricks.
What a nice, bright, happy setting.
The only down-side of painting the brick wall was the physical chore of painting bricks and mortar and getting in between every brick and being sure to cover every bit of the grey mortar, and every edge of each brick, the top side, the bottom, each end. And applying a second coat on all surfaces. At one point, I considered removing the woodstove in order to make it easier to get in behind and beside the wood stove, but removing (and then reinstalling) the woodstove would have taken even longer. I can say that, as much as I love the color of the bricks now, I swear I will never paint another brick wall in my life!
But I’m sure happy with the end result and glad I tackled the project and followed through. And I’m ever so grateful that my friend said, “you’re painting the bricks white aren’t you?” Thank you, Jan!
Next project … the dining room.
Here’s a photo of the dining room with the furniture and ceiling light and curtain and patio glass doors used by the former owner of my home.
Obviously, she took the furniture with her when she moved out, but she left the ceiling light that was too busy for my taste … and she left the curtain rod that was no where near level!
So first I removed the curtain rod and repaired the wall (there were lots of extra holes). Then I had the sliding glass doors to the patio replaced with super thermal doors. And then I installed an inexpensive set of vertical blinds, just until I can figure out what I do want to do to cover those glass doors. And of course I moved in my furniture. And finally, I replaced the ceiling light fixture with my own ceiling light fixture. This house was wired “backwards” … the hot wires go to the ceiling fixtures, not to the light switches, so even when the light is off, the wires to the fixtures are still hot. I’m very careful, the entire circuit gets shut off at the breaker box and, even then, I always triple check the wires with a tick stick.
I’m ready for dinner! Who’s coming over?
For the third and last project, at least for now (there will be more), I hung a gorgeous piece of wood on the wall above the headboard of my bed.
Friends of mine had given me this one-and-a-quarter-inch thick slice of wood. It had been cut from an old water-logged tree trunk, but had been cut on the diagonal so it had this fantastically wonderful shape. It was cracked in a number of places, and chipped and worn in other places, some of the finish was scraped off, but I love wood and I was eager to make this piece happy again. It took me a good deal of time to research the original finish, and to repair the cracks (one was so bad that I simply broke off the wood at the crack and then re-affixed the entire length of the wood where it had been cracked). I then sanded and refinished the entire piece. And then I had to figure out how to hang the piece. The piece wasn’t cut flat! I eventually settled on some D ring picture hangers that were almost flat so the wood could hang as closely to the wall as possible. I also put a few very tiny nails in the wall under one end of the piece to keep it “level”.
When I show this piece to friends, there have been all sorts of things that people see in this piece of wood. Some people see simply a beautiful piece of wood. Some see a bird perched on a tree limb. Most folks see a whale. Whatever one sees, I’m really happy with it. And I swear I sleep better at night with my friend keeping watch above me.