Basic Farmhouse / Cottage Style Trim and Beadboard Tutorial

Happy Monday morning, everyone! I hope you had a beautiful fall weekend! I don't know about you, but we had to turn the heat on for the first time this morning. The weather is delicious!

Just a quick note before our beadboard update: All of the blog sale packages were mailed out on Saturday with the exception of four - I ran out of bubble wrap and packaging supplies over the weekend but am all stocked up now. I'll package those up today and mail them out tomorrow. Thanks again for all the blog sale support...I never imagined that I would find new homes for so many of my items!

Slowly but surely, beadboard and trim work progress continues here. Many of you have asked "How does your beadboard look all painted white now?". {insert awkward pause with crickets chirping in the background} Hmmm, well, we haven't gotten to that part yet because we are having to do the work in phases - first the baseboards,

I thought I would walk you through the steps we are taking to achieve the farmhouse style trim I've dreamt of having for so long. It really is simple, simple, simple.

beadboard, and beadboard caps, then the finishing trim. Shoe moulding will come last. It has taken us a while to accumulate the trim work for the kitchen, dining area, living room, foyer, and hallway {and we aren't finished "accumulating" yet!}, so as we get it, we install it. And of course, all of that has to be done before painting can start in earnest. It is an exercise in patience, to say the least, but so is this entire remodel. :)

I thought I would walk you through the steps we are taking to achieve the farmhouse style trim I've dreamt of having for so long. It really is simple, simple, simple. You'll need the 6 different elements I mentioned above: baseboards {pine boards, almost 6 inches wide}, beadboard {we use real wood beadboard panels because I love it's texture and hardiness}, a beadboard cap {again, just the same wide pine trim that we used as a baseboard}, finishing trim that goes right under the beadboard cap, finishing trip that goes right on or above the beadboard cap, and finally, shoe moulding {we haven't gotten to the shoe moulding yet, so I have no photos of this step.}

First we installed the baseboard. Again, just simple wide pine boards. You can go even wider than what we used. You can see that our floors aren't even so this is why it is extremely important to use a level when installing your beadboard. Otherwise everything will look very wonky by the time you are finished. Don't worry about gaps. Those will be covered by shoe moulding and finishing trim.


Then we put up the beadboard panels. The beadboard panels are sold in 4'W x 8'L sheets. We simply cut them in half so that our beadboard was 4'. I wanted the beadboard to be taller, but it was cheaper to go with 4' beadboard panels and then just have wider baseboards and baseboard caps to achieve the height that I was looking for. This added almost another foot to the beadboard height.


The next step was to install the beadboard cap, the piece that sits right above the beadboard. The cap is exactly the same pine that we used for the baseboards, but you can choose narrower or wider pieces if you prefer.


Normally, we would work our way around the room, but with the living room, we had to skip the wall that our fireplace is on since we will be rebuilding the mantel. It will be taller and chunkier {like the new dining room mantel we built a few months back} and really would have to be done before any beadboard goes on that wall. So we moved on to the window wall, saving the fireplace wall for another time.



Now to fancy that flat beadboard cap up a bit with some finishing trim! We haven't gotten to most of the living room finishing trim yet but we have started on the hallway and foyer, and as of this weekend, have completed the finishing trim in the kitchen and dining room. As you can see from this photo, it is installed first right under the baseboard cap. This will cover any unsightly gaps between the beadboard and the cap, too. Try to choose finishing trim that has a nice contour so as to add some interest and to soften the chunkiness of the beadboard cap. You can also add this at the bottom right above the baseboard, but we didn't so as to save a little money.




Next, we added more finishing trim right on the face of the beadboard cap. Again, we chose a different trim that had a nice contour. These are a few photos of the work we did in the kitchen/dining area this weekend.





The last step would be the shoe moulding, which we will be a future project for us. But what did I tell you...Simple, simple, simple!

I will be up to my eyeballs in more puttying and sanding in the kitchen/dining room, followed by caulking before we can paint. For now, I'm putting that part of the kitchen remodel on hold for a few weeks while I work on my shop and building inventory. Yep, I kind of feel like I'm losing my mind with so much going on at once, but I've figured out that things may just never "settle down" and I'm just going to have to get use to living and working in my little cottage circus environment! How do you balance everything?

Thanks for dropping by today and have have a lovely week!

Photos of Beadboard Progress and Important News Coming Tomorrow

Good morning, everyone! I hope this beautiful spring day finds you doing well. Somehow between our vacation and the family dinner we hosted this past weekend, hubs was able to install more beadboard in our main living areas. For this phase of the remodel, we are concentrating on beadboarding the kitchen, dining area, hallway, foyer, and living room. Though we still have the foyer and living room to go, I'd like to share with you the areas that we've covered so far. Please keep in mind that all of our beadboard and trim will be sanded, primed, and painted white.

I should note that I have lost *both* my memory card reader and my

Our hallway is starting to remind me of an old hotel...

memory card for my good camera. I think I put them somewhere when we were getting the house ready for company, but I don't know where. So I used my daughter's little point and shoot for these photos. I wish they were better!

We've gone through and added some smaller accent trim pieces at the top of the beadboard under the wide pine boards. For the top of the pine board, we will be adding more accent trim. Here is a mock up of the top piece I am considering, but I want to look at some more to see if I can find something with a more interesting contour. This one is ok and is cost effective, but more curve would be nice. However, this flatter piece will make hanging framed art over the beadboard easier - a curvier piece would jut out further. {Please ignore all the white splotches on the walls...we are prepping them for fresh paint!}




Here are a couple of progress shots of our hallway. I cannot convey just how thrilled I am to finally have beadboard in this area! The beadboard, along with the wide door trim and solid wood doors just really make the space. I'm looking forward to adding the pine ceiling and crown moulding now...and a light! Our hallway is starting to remind me of an old hotel, and I'm thinking about painting pretty numbers on the trim above each door, from 1 to 6.




Here you"ll notice our little piece of mock up accent trim. What a difference a little trim can make!


See my drop cloth curtains? The curtains in this spot are a necessity - we close them when we let our cockatiels, Sunny and Ginger, out of their cage for smooches and cuddles and playtime - which happens more than once daily. They like the kitchen, but I don't allow them in there. :)



I am loving having a faux fireplace in the dining room...even in it's incomplete state! It completely changes the feel of the space. The beadboard wraps around the fireplace wall and window wall...


around the divider wall between the kitchen and dining area and back to the cabinets...{that's Ruby and her stuffed animal duck sunning on the rug there:)}


and finally past the other end of the cabinets to the back door. From the back door, we will continue to wrap the beadboard around the corner and into the rest of the living room. We have another farmhouse style fireplace mantel to build in there first! {See the chalkboard? Apparently my teen thinks the hyacinths stink. Hmmpphh!}



Here are a few more shots of the dining fireplace. We have just a little bit accent trim to add around the opening. Hubs didn't have time to get to it before he left on a business trip this week.




Can you believe I found my first bell shaped cloche the other day at Goodwill for $1.25? Love it!


{Gratuitous dining room shots}




I'm still mulling over what I'm going to do with the inside of the fireplace, but on our trip, I found this antique Victorian cast iron fireplace surround that I will definitely be incorporating. I'm thinking of doing the rest in brick and for inside of the antique surround, inserting a piece of decorative tin painted black. OR, brick the cast iron opening and using decorative tin for the rest. What do you think?


Finally, here is a shot of the foyer area that I cannot wait to beadboard. We knocked out a tiny coat closet in that area to open it up and I'm looking forward to putting a table on that back wall {the cabinet that is currently serving as our TV stand, actually...you can kind of see it in one of the hallway shots above}. It will be perfect to hold beautiful flower arrangements - and it's a nice sunny spot to boot!


Please come back and see me tomorrow as I have a few very important announcements regarding blog changes here at Twice Remembered. I'll see you then!

Photos of New Hardwood Flooring in Cottage Living Room

We've finished up the hardwood flooring in the living room and hallway, and wow, I'm so glad that's behind us! Things were a little crazy here for a while, though, with our furniture and things crammed into the kitchen and any other available space.


It took a couple of weekends to complete the living room, hallway, and foyer...


Oh look. Yet another back end shot of hubs. He's going to love me forever.


We finally could remove the unsightly tile in the foyer.


The felt that went down before the flooring was installed...


I don't know if you remember, but there was once a small coat closet in this area, but I thought it would look much nicer opened up and a narrow table/cabinet/hutch put in it's place. {I'm dying to put fresh flowers in this sunny little nook!}


A few living room shots before we moved all our furniture back into place...



The kids are loving sliding around on the floor now. We've had a few minor injuries so far, but I guess that's what happens when you purposely go careening down the hallway using a blanket as a sled! {Don't worry...I'm fine!}



Speaking of the hallway, here it is. I think the hallway has a little more going for it now with the new flooring, raised ceiling {from 7ft to 8ft}, and solid wood doors.


The hallway is still an unfinished space as is our foyer, which now holds more boxes of flooring and was a very convenient place to put things while I took these photos, like extra furniture and elderly corgis.


I wasn't going to put a rug down so that I could just relish the new flooring, but I've always loved this wool rug that I've had for a decade now. It's showing some wear and doesn't quite "go" with the red in the kitchen, but it's a cozy place for the kids to play legos or just sprawl out on the floor with a book.


And now I present to you hub's ancient wall speakers. I usually try to crop them out of photos because they are so ugly, but - it is what it is. The weird thing is that we don't even use them, they aren't hooked up to a receiver, and the receiver doesn't even work. {Incidentally, surround sound for tv/movies really stresses me out though music is a different story.} It's true - I really, really hate those speakers. All four of them. But I suppose there is nothing I can do about it until we replace them with something low profile because hubs 'aint budgin'. I understand a lot of things but this doesn't happen to be one of them. I can't complain too much, though, because hubs never wanted a house full of hardwood and was really just as happy with carpet:)

Anyway, our ceiling is pretty high and I look forward to adding some white beadboard to bring down the height a bit. It will be about the height of our fireplace mantel. We've also bought a new, beefier mantel and will be giving our fireplace an overhaul. Finally, I can't wait to hide that popcorn with some pine planks like we used in the kitchen.


But those are future projects...Right now, I'm just happy to finally be enjoying our floors!

Twice Remembered is a Finalist - Still Time to Vote! (Repost)

I am over the moon thrilled to share with my blog readers some very exciting news! All of your votes for our projects that we entered into the first round of the Repair-Home contest really paid off! I entered projects in 11 different catagories, and in 10 of those categories, our projects were voted #1! YOU through your votes made that happen and hubs and I can't thank you enough! I have a feeling that 2010 is going to be a great year for Twice Remembered due to this contest because we are finally going to get to complete projects that we've been putting off for a long time!

I have a feeling that 2010 is going to be a great year for Twice Remembered!Not only did your votes help us to place at the top in individual categories, but it put two of our projects into the final round of the contest. {There are only five finalists' projects total.} This final round ends on December 15th. The winning project receives a prize of $1000 {not too shabby, eh?!}.

So once again, I'm asking for your help and vote. {I appreciate your patience with me and my "like-a-child-at-Disneyworld" exuberance, hehe, but I've never done anything like this before and am thrilled that we've reached this final stage.}

The two Twice Remembered projects that made the final round are our Cottage Kitchen Ceiling project and our Kitchen Windows and French Doors project. You can click either photo below to be taken to the main voting page to cast your vote and to see more of the project photos if you haven't seen them already.

Cottage Kitchen Plank Ceiling

Kitchen Windows and Doors

Thank you once again!