Home Office Makeover - From Dark and Dreary to Light and Dreamy

Why do we wait to remodel the rooms that we spend the most time in?

Our home office had very humble beginnings. No overhead lights meant we had to use a floor lamp and table top lights to see.

The walls were a deep burnt sienna color that didn't bounce much of that light around.

I had a big computer armoire that was dark inside. But, worst of all, Pretty Handsome Guy and I worked together in the room with our backs to one another for 3 years!

I dreaded sitting and working in that room. As a graphic and web designer, I had no inspirations, no creative energy. And being the light obsessed person I am, I was depressed by all the darkness in the room. I took frequent breaks just to escape from the office.

I dreamed of a home office with one wall of built-in bookcases and storage and a work surface that jutted out in the middle. I tried to sell the idea to my better half, but Pretty Handsome Guy just couldn't picture it.

As luck would have it, three months later, Sandra at Sawdust and Paper Scraps just completed my dream office in her home!

Sawdust and Paper Scraps Built-in Dream Office Come to Life

She posted the pictures on Remodelaholic. Hey Sandra, thanks for taking too long to finish it. Just kidding. But, If she had posted her pictures three months ago, our office may have looked very different.

Sometimes fate is a good thing, and in this case I am thrilled with the end result of our home office and it is all thanks to an inspiration I had when I found two of these:

$15 for a pair of solid wood doors with beautiful cherry stain on one side. 

I snatched them up at a church yard sale! You can imagine the look on Pretty Handsome Guy's face when I came home with these hanging out the back of my car. "Um, don't we already have doors on all our doorways?"  I answered with one word, "Potential."

We didn't do a thing to the doors except to remove the hardware and use the hinges in other rooms of our home. The stain color was a perfect match to our existing furniture. 

If you look back at some of our earlier posts you have been privy to some of the changes we made in the office.

The upholstered rattan backed chair: 

 

The bistro table with custom slipcover:

And the bookcase face lift:

Well, we finally put the finishing touches on the room, and I'm ready to show you the results.

New window treatments, and freshly scraped and painted ceilings.

 FIVE! Yes, count them, five ceiling light fixtures.
4 can lights + 1 drum shade pendant = 5 glorious ceiling lights
where there were ZERO, ZIP, NONE before!

A corner bistro table where we can sit and have coffee.
I can meet with graphic design clients. 

But, mostly so the kids can color, work on homework or
someday start a blog called MyMomIsPrettyCrazyGirl.com

Enough about those crazy kids. This is where I blog!
So, do you see my inspiration door?

Here is a hint: There is a layer of custom cut glass on top,
and a keyboard tray mounted underneath.

Plus a hole to run the cords through.

 How about now? Do you see it now? The doors are our desktops.

This is where I blog, design, and work! 

So open and airy.

We simply stacked the two doors on top of one another.

 And bought two pedestal file cabinets from Office Depot.
(I had to cut the legs shorter on this one to accommodate for the
difference in height with the two doors stacked.)

And voila! Two desks in an "L" shape.
No more back-to-back working.
Plus, lots of natural light bouncing around. 

In the corner under the two doors, is an $8 yard sale bookcase that holds my computer, back up drive, CDs, books, and more supplies. It is hidden underneath, which is a good thing, because it desperately needs a little TLC.

The doors may have been my inspiration then,
but having a view out this window brings me loads of inspiration now!

This room is so special to us. We can sit and work, talk, catch up, and the boys have a great spot in the corner to color or practice reading on Starfall.com

The color paint we used is: Benjamin Moore Aura paint in Hot Spring Stones. It is the perfect warm gray beige color (in my opinion). The rug is from Home Goods. Curtains from Overstock.com. And fabric on chair, bistro table, and bookshelf back is called Fermini Sky. The drum shade pendant was from Amazon.com.

Curious where other bloggers blog? Check out the "Where do you blog? Party"  at Centsational Girl's site today!

Want to see more amazing Before and After Transformations? Check out the Before & After Competition on the CSI Project today.

Message Center for the Mudroom

If you came by for my mudroom tour, you saw this message center made from a curbside window frame.

This was a super easy project and I built it in about 2 hours.

First, I gave the whole window a fresh coat of white paint. Then, I taped off the edges of the upper left and lower right windows and used 2 coats of chalkboard paint in those panes.

While the paint dried, I cut two pieces of foam core to size for the upper right and lower left panes. Then added some batting and wrapped the fabric around. I used a hot glue gun to attach the fabric to the back of the foam core. Then positioned the black ribbons on top and glued them to the back of the foam core as well. While the glue gun was still heated up, I ran a bead of glue around the edge of the window panes and inserted the two upholstered foam core pieces in place. (Pictorial directions for the upholstered foam core can be viewed here.)

Next, I had some leftover cheap mirror glass* that I used for the the mudroom coat rack. I used my glass cutter and cut those two panels down to size. Then I put some E-6000 onto the window pane and inserted my mirrored glass. To seal and hide the edges of the mirror, I used white bath and tile caulk around the edges of the mirror.

* Cheap Mirrored Glass Source: Find those $10 back of the door full length mirrors. Buy one at Walmart, Kmart or Target. Just peel off the glued frames and paper backing and cut your mirror pieces from it.

To build the little curved shelf, I actually already had the curved board leftover from another project. But, you can cut a piece of 1" x 6" with a jigsaw. Then use a router to give it a decorative edge. Then sand it, prime it and paint it.

To attach the shelf, I used 3 L-brackets on the underside and painted them white to be less noticeable. I also nailed a piece of 1" x 2" (painted white) to the bottom of the window so I could screw the brackets into it.

Once the message center was finished and dry, I located the studs on our mudroom wall and hung the window with two L- brackets on the bottom (see pictures above) and one on top.

Now I have a cute place to welcome guests, hang postcards and birthday invites, and check for ORT (object remove from teeth) before heading out the door.

Installing the Antique Heart Pine Flooring

Welcome back! If you are just joining us, we are on the fifth step of a five part series on our living room. A living room that started out as a dark cave of a room:

Before picture shot during daytime with a lamp lit. VERY DARK!

Previous steps can be viewed here:
1. Faux painting brick over a previously painted white brick fireplace
2. Lightening up a room in 5 steps
3. Painting decorative graphics on a wall
4. Preparing to Install Antique Heart Pine Floors (and living to tell about it!)

It has been four days since Christmas and we've been working like busy beavers on our living room. Only a few more days until Pretty Handsome Guy has to go back to work. Our boys are getting antsy and tired of being shooed from the living room.

Keeping the troops from getting restless:

I came up with a spur of the moment idea to keep them busy for a little longer! Painter's tape and a coin made for an instant hop scotch game on the kitchen floor!

I quickly duck into the living room and start the installation process.

When choosing the direction to run the boards, I had to look under the house from our crawl space to see which direction the floor joists ran. We wanted our wood floor to run at a 90 degree angle (or perpendicular) to the joist direction. (This isn't a rule, but it helps with the stability of your floor.) If you can't get under your house (or want no part of that underbelly) then study the nail pattern on the plywood subfloor. The nails that are nailed into the floor joists will be in straight lines across the floor.)

To lay the flooring straight, I drew out guide lines in the living room.

Marking Start and End Lines:

1. Mark the green line first (with chalk line) as your starting line.
2. Measure the width of the room at the top and bottom.
3. If these values differ, choose the lesser amount or close to it and mark that distance at the top and bottom of the room.
4. Snap your chalk line between the two points.

Figuring First and Last Board Widths:

Before you nail in that first board (because I know you are itching to get started). You will need to do some math to figure out how many board widths you will use across your room. Take the total width of your room, divide it by your floor board width.

For example, our room is 187" wide. My board widths are 5.5 inches wide. So, here is my equation: 187 ÷ 5.5 = 34"  Oh happy day, a whole number!!! I have room for 34 full width boards in our living room.

This very rarely occurs! Normally you end up with a number that has a fraction, let's say .3 for example. You will be left with 1/3 of your board width at the end. This board won't look good being so narrow, and it is harder to work with. If you had .5 or larger, you might be fine depending on your board widths. You will need to be the judge.

So, in the case of the .3 excess, you will need to split the difference between both your starter and end boards. Find out what .3 of your board widths is: 5.5 x .3 = 1.65. Then you will add that width to your standard board width: 1.65 + 5.5= 7.15". Now divide the 7.15 in half: 7.15 ÷ 2 = 3.575. So, now you know that you need to rip your start and end board to be 3.5" wide. I hope you followed that. 

Time to learn two new glossary words:

• Rip - ripping a board is cutting with the grain along the length of a board. This is usually done with a table saw, but can be done with a circular saw and a straight edge.
• Cross cut - a type of cut that is perpendicular to the grain or along the width of your board. Cross cuts are usually made with a miter saw or circular saw, but can also be made with a hand saw. (I've been known to make this cut using my band saw before I had either a miter or table saw. Okay, I'll have to give you a lesson on types of saws at a later date. I promise!)
  

Remember how I said we had a whole number, meaning our room will take full width boards. In other words, no ripping needed (guess we didn't need that table saw after all. But, no way was I returning my Christmas present!)

Cutting and Dry Fitting the floor:


I started by laying out all the boards across the room. Sounds easy right? WRONG!!! It wasn't really difficult, just time consuming. I had to cut each board to size with the miter saw (this is where I really learned the value of the old adage "Measure twice, cut once."  Then, I moved to the next board. Several rows took two board lengths. I was careful to stagger my seams randomly. I also had to take more time to cut the profiles around door jams, fireplace, heating vents and bookcases. Also, be sure to cut a hole where your heating and A/C vent is (more detailed information on cutting profiles can be found in this post.) Cutting around a vent instructions can be found at OneProjectCloser.com here. Measure, cut, check fit (and repeat about 100 times).

I chose to create a mitered frame around our fireplace. This took a little more measuring and time, but the results were well worth the effort.

Phew, that only took a day and a half! I laid out ALL the floor boards without nailing. Moved a few to stagger seams or put prettier planks in a more prominent spot. When everthing fit, I lightly numbered each board with chalk and stacked them up near the end side of the room.

FINALLY! Install Your Floor:

Okay itchy fingers, now it is time to install that first board! Grab that huge pneumatic nailer, right?! What? No?! The nailer won't fit close enough to the wall for your first (or maybe even second or third row.) Time to bust out the power drill and predrill your nail holes. I put holes approximately every 18" about an inch in from the edge. Then hammered the nails in using a nail set to countersink the nails. Before you sand, you will need to add some wood putty to fill and hide the nail holes.

Ah ha, NOW you can grab that nailer! I have to admit I was a little nervous. I had never actually used a floor nailer (although my Dad has pictures to prove otherwise).

Please, please, no comments about my topless internet photo!
I was 5 people! And a tomboy, what can I say. 

It is true, I had watched my parents lay wood floors. But, that was many many years ago. Luckily times have changed, and the tools are better. We rented a pneumatic nailer with a compressor so that the nailer would do most of the driving with forced air.

We lined up that second board. Used a scrap block of wood and a hammer to tap it firmly against the installed board. Then Pretty Handsome Guy gave me the nod letting me know I could proceed. I trembled a little as I lifted the rubber mallet. Then stopped, moved my feet wider and clear away from the nailer. Then raised the mallet. It was now or never! And {{WHAM!}} The mallet hit smack in the middle of the black button and a loud bang filled the room. Woot! What a rush! I just love power tools :-).

Back to work, one floor cleat in and about 400 more to go. Plenty of {{WHAM}} for me and Pretty Handsome Guy to share.

When we reached the end of the room, we had to ditch the nailer and predrill holes and hammer in the nails by hand again.

Ooo la la! Step back and admire that beautiful floor!

Because our floor planks were custom planed, they had varying heights. But, that wasn't a big deal because we were planning on finishing our own floor.

Well, at first we were so scared of ruining our beautiful wood floors that we almost paid a professional to come finish them for us. But, Mark Kegler (the guy who planed the wood for us) reassured me that I could definitely do it myself.

He gave me a few tips on Refinishing Your Own Floors:

• Rent a drum sander (rented at Home Depot.)
• Watch some videos on YouTube for using a drum sander.
• Practice on a sheet of plywood to get the hang of it.
• When you reach the end of your row, gently raise or rock the sander up and of the floor.
• Whatever you do, DO NOT stop moving while the sanding drum is in contact with the floor.

• Rent an edge sander (rented at Home Depot.)
• Again watch a video on YouTube for how to use it.
• Again DO NOT STOP moving it while it is in contact with the floor.
• And hang on tight to that puppy, cause it will pull you into the next county if you let it.
• A side note on the edge sanders, this thing will really give you a good glute and hamstring workout (just in case you were looking for some added results. Okay, yes, I added this last bullet point.)

• Then rent a Square Buffer (or Random Orbital Sander). It will give you your fine sanding and buffing finishes. (Rented at Home Depot)
• Yup, you guessed it, watch a video on You Tube. Seriously, how did people learn anything before YouTube?
• Buy the most expensive floor finishing system they have (it will last much longer than a cheap polyurethane.) We used ProFinisher Water-Based Floor Polyurethane.
• It can be a water based system.
• The system should include a sanding sealer and a sealer (polyurethane or varnish).
• Follow the directions on the bottle.

This site: www.easy2diy.com has some a great video and information for the whole finishing process. They left off the square buffing step, but it's your DIY project and you can buff if you want to!



After following all the directions for finishing the floor, we were left with....

Ta Da! Droolingly Gorgeous Antique Heart Pine Floor

I hope you noticed that I didn't mention the stain color we used. That is because we didn't use a stain. This is the actual color of antique heart pine wood! No stain, just glorious amber red heart pine.

Which we had to cover up with a rug. But, every once in a while I pull back the rug and admire this:

You can just barely see that little spot of turquoise paint in the nooks of this knot. 

It is just whispering, "I'm old and I have a story behind me."

Before I reveal the room to you:

Do you remember the before picture?

 

Here are a few more:

And this was before we moved in:

Here is the final reveal of our living room:

I should note that it took another few hours to cut, install, and paint the quarter round molding to hide the edges of the floor. And I had to wait a month for custom transition strips for the doorways and special heart pine quarter round for around the fireplace. But, I'm one proud and happy Pretty Handy Girl now!

You can also view some other blogger's amazing Before and After renovations at the CSI Project competition: