Plaster Faster, Please!

You may have read in earlier entries about all the plastering we're doing here at home. It is a real job, especially when you're trying to achieve just the right texture - not too rough yet not too subtle. It really is 'all in the wrist', lol. We have now finished ALL of the living room. We finished the LR a few months back and now we've moved on to the hallway and the kitchen (we need to put some more drywall up in the kitchen before we can move much further with the plastering, though).

Here are a few photos of when we were working on the living room. I do *not* want to plaster again while standing at the top of a 12 foot ladder. *sheesh* It was scary! Btw, the TV cabinet pictured in the photos is one of the pieces we had built from the materials of an old house (see post below).

Farmhouse Furniture Photos

I've been reading a lot of farmhouse remodel blogs and thought I'd reshare some of the photos of the farm style kitchen furniture we had built a few months back. The furniture is actually made from the wood of old, old houses that were being torn down. The island and table tops shown below, for instance, we're once flooring. I ordered the furniture from a furniture maker that I met at the Nashville Flea Market. He lives in Atlanta but has been coming to Nashville, and other cities, for years. I thought the furniture was very reasonably priced - just $450 for the island and about the same for the table. He says that storeowners order furniture from him and turn around and sell them in their stores for twice as much! I also had him built an entertainment cabinet for us, plus a tall shelving unit for our bathroom. The sides of them are made from old shutters...pretty neat! If you're interested in obtaining his name and number...here it is:
Fuzzot Furniture
. Be sure to check out all their photos and their "about" page! Great stuff!

Remember, if you're near Nashville, they are at the flea market every month.

Siding at last!

It is finished! Back in April, we ripped out the entire East wall of our kitchen/dining romm to install a set of French doors and a couple of big windows. We've really been enjoying all the extra sunlight that pours in, but we had yet to finish putting up the new wood siding around windows. Soooo, today Jeff had a good friend come over to help him finish up. We're going to paint out the siding the same color as the rest of the house now (*yawn* blueish grey) but I have big plans to change that boring color come next year. What color, you dare ask? None other than a nice warm sunny yellow with fresh white trim:)

Yesterday, I stencilled a bit more around our entryway into the kitchen/dining room. I should say that when I mention stencilling, I'm not talking about painting out a stencil pattern onto the wall, though I did try that once (not enough depth!). Because I've plastered our living room walls to give them a very old world, villa-esqe feel, I thought that it would be really cool to also plaster on my stencil pattern to create a relief, if you will. The stencil is pretty large, a rather French Provencal styled scroll design. So I just sprayed some spray adhesive on the back of the stencil and placed it on the wall (remember, I'm putting it around an entryway that has no trim...it needed some umph!!!!). With a modest amount of plaster on my blade, I carefully spread the plaster over the stencil in an even manner. If you try this, just carefully pull the stencil off the wall, starting at the top. It will be heavy with plaster, so take it slowly. Be sure to wash the extra plaster off your stencil right away.

You will see that the edges of the stencil design will be slightly raised and a little jagged, but don't worry about it (or touch it) until it's completely dry. (If you get plaster on the wall where it shouldn't be, you can wipe it off with a wet cloth when it's still wet.) When the relief is dry, just sand it smooth and paint!

I just have one more repeat to do and I'll be finished with the entry. The relief around the entry to the little foyer area is complete and I painted it out the same color as the wall. That may sound silly, but I'm glazing my warm yellow walls with a white glaze which will help subtly highlight the relief. I'm going for a very simple, understated look and I didn't want the relief to stand out too much..our living room isn't huge so I didn't want the relief to overpower it.

Yesterday, we also put trim around our previously "trimless" lr window. NONE of the windows in this house are trimmed...I guess the builder was going for a very contemporary look...or he was just cheap! The trim we installed still needs some work though...sanding (should have done before we nailed it up!) and caulking and then painting it a nice shiny white. We've been here for two years and I've yet to ever put curtains up in the living room...I can't wait to finally add either some long breezy white linen curtains or some sweet cotton/linen drape shades like these at Pottery Barn.

And lastly, yesterday I glazed the other "tall wall" in the living room. We have a vaulted ceiling in there and I always dread having to work up so high on the ladder. (Plastering up that high was the pits!!!!) The glazing technique turned out really nice. I'm not wiping any off, just applying it in a nice big "X" motion and just gently softening any edges with a soft brush. The walls look old and lime-washed...Perfect!

I hope to have photos soon...we need to reinstall our digital camera software and we can't find the cd anywhere! I'll add that to my list of things to do this week, lol.