Crafting with Duct Tape

It's a foggy and cold Sunday so we started a fire and worked on a project for the basement. This post is about David's version of crafting which involves a lot of patches, some duct tape and a bit of patience. We stopped at Rugby the other day, so sad that they are closing, but their awesome patches were on sale for a steal, so we swooped and bought as many as we could.

When we were last at Ikea, we bought a few shadow frames. Took the mat out and removed the backing....

We had some left over Linen to cover the backing of the frames....

Cut the linen out to the shape of the backing. No measuring, just cut it by eye. 

Quick steam...

And now on with the duct tape...black duct tape no less....

Pesky corners were cut down and then re-taped.

All done and ready for patches....

The glass will just sit right on top of them, so no adhesive....

One done!...

We had enough patches for 1 more frame....

Finished product!



They were installed above the downstairs computer. Voila!

We're done, we're done!

The basement is complete! And right on time. We said that we wanted to watch the ball drop on New Year's Eve from downstairs and it looks like we've made it! With about an hour to spare. So, here it is....

Remember what it looked like when we first started?

Here it is now from the exact same angle....

The photographs above the sofa are from our camping trip this summer, the pillows are Ralph Lauren and the sofa is a surprisingly very comfortable piece from Ikea with a white slipcover (it was the only sofa that we could fit down the stairs!).

This is a Pottery Barn unit that holds our beast of a TV which will be so fun to have downstairs for movie watching now. It fits perfectly under the vents which we ended up just painting white.

One of Grandma's wooden Noah's Ark toys in the wall unit.

And of course, the reason we finished the basement in the first place is David's new office. So much more space! He can finally move around and the bookcase in the back really made such a difference. It holds all of his vintage Whitman books plus all the rest of his books. I grumbled that we were taking an entire half a day to make the bookcase, but it was worth it! He'll get a bigger desk in the future and we're on the hunt for additional prints to hang in here.

As you round the corner from the office you come to the little cozy nook that greets you as you come down the stairs.



This turned out to be one of my favorite areas but it is such a mish-mash of things. An old chair we had re-upholstered in black watch tartan, a Pottery Barn console and a bunch of really fun prints by Sydney Roark passed down from my Mom, Aunt and Grandma. I need something above the lamps but we haven't found that perfect thing yet...

Here's a close-up of one of my favorite Sydney Roark's..."View of the Great Pencil Mountains". These are tiny little drawings that you have to get really close to see.

One last shot looking out from David's office. As you can see, we decided to keep the ceilings open for now. We don't even notice it anymore. Maybe someday we'll finish it off, but for now it's fine as it is. We also didn't quite finish the staircase, but I have a new idea for this and we'll get to it sometime this year.

Cheers to a happy New Year and thanks for following us through yet another renovation!

Custom Built-in Bookcase and New Floors!

Yesterday was a very productive day of constructing David's built-in bookcase. When we started, we thought the bookcase would only be about 2 feet across. But, after punching out the hole in the wall...

...we discovered that we had more room between the studs, so the bookcase became 29" across. Now, if we had known this before going to Home Depot to pick up the supplies, it would have been helpful. But oh well....

Here's the actual space for the bookcase. It's 12" deep.

We bought 3 8' pine boards for the bookcase and shelves. So, after making the cuts....

We had all the pieces for the bookcase. David laid the pieces on the subfloor for assembly.

And yes, we forgot the peg board to make the holes for the adjustable shelves so away we went back to the Depot. This shot is right before I distracted David and he messed up the alignment of the holes. Oops!

Once everything was nailed together and the backboard was added. It was time to see if it fit in the hole. After a bit of wiggling, it was a perfect fit.

Next came painting of the box as well as the shelves. Of course, the whole thing is painted Deep in Thought, semi-gloss.

We added fancy trim on the outside and have our new built-in bookcase! (Bear with me...the shelves aren't quite dry yet).

Once that was all done, we worked on the floors. David had them put down in a matter of hours. Laminate floors are so easy! After installing the hard wood throughout the rest of the house, this was a breeze. We bought 5" wide plank, Hampton Bay hickory laminate flooring. The upstairs is wide plank distressed hickory, so we love that it kind of matches.

They just click together, no glue, no nails...heaven!

I really like the wall color with the floors. I think it will look great once the baseboard is up.

Winnie approved of the new floor and tap danced all through the space.

And then felt like she needed a treat for all of her hard work.

We're taking a quick break from the action today but more to come...

Is it brown? Is it green? Is it grey?

Nope. It's Burlap...by Ralph Lauren. A very strange but chic paint color that gives the basement a masculine vibe without going too dark and turning it into a cave. We primed the drywall first using all of the half-full cans of white paint we had in the house. Waste not, want not.

A ton of primer later...

We were ready for the Burlap paint....look how greyish, greenish, brownish it looks up front with light and how deep brown it looks back in David's office. Same color.

We also got the interior doors painted Deep in Thought by Ben Moore which is what all of the doors and trim are in the house and a few of the outlets installed. Notice the beautiful subfloor. Yeah....that took longer than we thought to put down.

Tonight or maybe tomorrow morning, we'll finish adding all 8 of the 3" ceiling lights that are installed on metal brackets.

Tomorrow is all about painting all of the trim and working on David's homemade built-in bookcase. Crossing our fingers that we can lay the hardwood floors tomorrow too.

Subfloors and Spackle

The basement reno is in full force. We have been waiting for the Christmas Break to really jump in, although David has gotten a ton done over the last month. As a recap of where we are....all of the framing and drywall is up (except for a few little pieces of drywall). All of the wiring is done and the two interior doors...one for the laundry room and one for the equipment room...are installed. He also moved the sink into the laundry room which was a big chore.

This weekend is all about finishing up the spackling and letting it dry, then sanding it down and getting ready for paint. We will also finish laying the subfloor. Although we could have just put the laminate wood floors right over the vinyl tiles, the floor is a little wonky. The subfloor will make a smooth surface. Also another very cool thing about these subfloor tiles is that they allow air to move under them in case of moisture. Well worth the added expense. Here's what the underneath looks like.

When they are placed down on the floor, they fit snuggly together.

I wanted to give a little "before" tour of the space...but you'll have to use your imagination with these photos. There are basically three areas to the basement and while it's a decent size, it's not huge. The most important part of the area is this nook that is tucked in towards the back. This is where David's office will be. We're storing the basement sofa back there now. It can give you some scale.

The area in front of the office nook will be for the TV that we are moving from upstairs and a sofa. This picture really takes some imagination to see past the junk that we're still cleaning out. The TV media unit will be on the wall on the right where you see all the outlets.

The last area is this corner where we've started laying the subfloor. It's actually a nice big space. Could be good for a chair and some bookshelves...or something. David's building a bookshelf in his office so don't really want more of them, they just collect dust. Will have to think about what goes here. Every bit of our house has to be functional since it's so cozy. That area at the top is one of the last little bits of drywall installation needed.

The stairs will be re-painted at the very end, backs added to the steps and a new bannister. We'll rip off those black treads. The far wall as you're coming down the stairs is cement cinderblocks painted white. It's too hard to drywall this wall and we really don't want to move the stairs so will just repaint the cement. Not ideal, but maybe I'll hang a picture or something there.

One of the quirkiest parts about the current basement is this light that doesn't have a light switch. It's on a pully that you pull down to turn on. It's kind of cute, but not functional. I ordered a new lantern for this area, David made a lightswitch and we'll brighten it up with some new paint.

More to come. Hopefully the next blog will be during painting. Now back to work!