Our Family Room Tour - Part 6 {Moldings}

We wanted something easy for the mouldings (base and crown moulding).  So I had found a great product at Lowe's.  Check out this link for all the different kinds of "Moulding Blocks" they have at Lowe's.  They have different kinds to chose from.  They even have moulding blocks for chair rail moulding.

See the corner piece right here in this picture, that made it so we didn't have to do mitered edges to all of the moulding.  Plus we liked how different it looked and gave the room a different feel.  We love how it turned out.  We bought the base moulding at Lumber Liquidators because we had a credit to use up there.  Yup that is right LL carries some mouldings.  We bought the quarter round moulding and the crown moulding at Lowe's.  We bought a contractor pack of the crown moulding, which made it cheaper.  If you like what they have in the contractor packs, it is worth buying it, depending on how much you need of course. Link to Contractor Packs.  It was worth it for this room. (25'x15')  I believe just the crown molding for this room was about $60.

So here you have the outer corner.

The inner corner.

Here is the crown moulding & the moulding blocks.  Where we had long runs of crown moulding, we put one of the moulding blocks in the middle and continued the crown moulding on the other side.  This way you don't have to worry about hidding seams in the moulding.  We loved it. All you need to do after the moulding and the blocks are up is use paintable caulk in between to fill in any cracks.

Here is the middle moulding block.

Here is the inner corner moulding block.

Then we did some window moulding.  There are two windows in this room.

And here are the new shades we bought for the room.  They are bamboo.  We purchased them from YourBlinds.com.  You can get free samples from their site.  They are about 4" x 4" for the sample, but you get to see the correct color of the material.  Plus you also get to see how see through the material is or not.  We added on a backing material, so you couldn't see through these blinds at night time.  Plus it helps when it's really sunny and we want to watch TV.  You can check out my other post here to see my kitchen shade.

You can follow the rest of the project here:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.

I will have to take a close up of the shades when I do my final reveal of the room, so you can see the detail. Sorry I don't have any now.

Note - I was not compensated in any way for this post. I just wanted to share my experience.

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay tuned for more of the finishing details in the room.  We are really close to the final reveal of the room.  I can't wait to show you the whole room once it was put together.

I would love to hear from you, so please leave me a message.  Have a great day everyone!!!

Our Family Room Tour - Part 5 {Ceiling, Flooring & Paint}

We wanted to do something different for our ceiling.  Plus we didn't want to hang drywall on the ceiling.  I'm just sayin'. {haha}

So we looked around at Lowe's, Home Depot & a local store on Long Island called Long Island Paneling.  We were thinking some sort of white wood for the ceiling, we just didn't know what kind of material we wanted to use.  So we settled on Armstrong Ceiling Planks that we bought at Home Depot. 

Introducing Armstrong Ceiling Planks .  This is where I got my inspiration from.  We bought the Country Classic Plank.  You can paint or stain them if you want.  Check out the other products they have online.  The planks have beveled edges and a tongue & groove system to install them.  These aren't your Grandma's ceiling tiles, but they are made of the same material.  But don't worry the planks do not look anything like your Grandma's ceiling tiles...they look like painted wood.  We loved it, we bought it, we installed it.

OK, you are getting a small peek of one of the wall colors in this picture.  More on that soon.

A close-up of the planks on the ceiling.

OK, I wanted to show you the ceiling planks first, now here is how the rest of the room came together.

Here is what the room looked like when we primed the whole room.  We didn't want to paint after the ceiling was up, so we painted the whole room first, then put up the ceiling and laid the floor.

We painted an accent wall at the far end of the room.  It's Valspar "Beach House" color, but we used Benjamin Moore Natura paint.  It's their no-VOC paint and it was great.  Didn't smell.

We even painted the inside of the closet the same blue color as the accent wall.  We put a closet organizer from Ikea in this closet.  More on that soon.

And we painted the rest of the room Valspar's "Swoosh" color, but again we used Benjamin Moore Natura paint.  It's a nice "Sand" color paint.  I was going for a modern beachy cottage look with this room and these two colors represented sand and water.  I wanted the room to feel light and airy.

Then we started on the flooring.  We chose to go with a laminate flooring since this is a cement slab foundation.  We went to Lumber Liquidators and decided on "Dream Home - St. James 12mm African Mahogany" laminate flooring.

We installed the flooring ourselves.  Lumber Liquidators sells an installation kit which includes a block, pull bar and shims.  Only other things you will need is a rubber mallet, a miter saw for the short cuts and a table saw for the long cuts.  You can also buy the blue underlament, molding, quarter round molding & stair treads, just to name a few other things at LL.  LL has a lot of products to chose from.  You can order samples online if you don't have one near you.

Here is a close up.  From one row to the next, remember to keep all seams 6 inches or more apart.

Well the room is almost together at this point.  Next I will show you the moldings we used for this room and I will show you how we hid those electric boxes.

Thanks for stopping by.  I would love to hear from you, so please leave me a message.  Have a great day.

Inspirational Eye Candy - Outdoor Spaces

It's Spring & I want to get outside already, BUT since we just had some snow here on Long Island yesterday morning, it seems like Mother Nature has some other plans for a little while longer.  {haha}  No worries, snow is gone already.  Anyway, I thought we would all like to dream a little more about the warmer weather.  Enjoy!!!

I hope you are looking forward to the warmer weather like I am.  Well you might already be enjoying warmer weather depending on where you are from.  What is the weather like where you are right now.  I'm really looking forward to BBQ's, firepits and relaxing outside.  Stay tuned for a few posts about our own yard....think pavers, green grass, gazebo, seating & dining area!  It was our next largest project we had done at our home.

Thanks for stopping by.  I would love to hear from you, so please leave me a message.  Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Getting It All Together

Yup I've been getting it all together for.....

Family Binder Challenge

I've been shopping around for all the right pieces for this challenge and here is what I have put together so far.  Check out the gorgeous white tray under all the stuff, just bought it from Pier 1.  Love it.....now I have to find a place for it.

Bought some index dividers with pockets.  Same ones that Jen from iheartorganizing bought for her Family Binder.  I loved them so much, I just had to have them.  Plus I love to shop at Target and so does Jen.

I bought these Dry Erase markers for my Pantry & Freezer list that I'm going to laminate and hang on the side of my frig.  I think that is what will work for our home.  So I figured we would give it a try.  {Target}

And here are the fun magnets that are going to hold up the laminated Pantry & Freezer lists.  {Target}

Bought a 3 hold punch.  {Target}

 I also bought this gorgeous paper for another binder that I'm putting together.  {Michael's}

Here are both of the binders I will be using.  The pretty green & white one is going to be the Family Binder and the other one that I will make pretty will be for all the recipes I print out.



Now I just have to finish putting the Family Binder together.  I need to make labels for each tab and finish printing out the lists that I think will work for our home.  Can't wait to finish this challenge so that I can feel more organized at home.

Thanks for stopping by.  I would love to hear from you, so please leave a message.  Have a wonderful day everyone!!!

Our Family Room Tour - Part 4 {Demo, Drywall & Cement Work}

Check out Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 at these links to following along with this project.

When we started to take down the ceiling to make sure there was proper insulation, we found black spots on the insulation......probably mold.  So we took the whole ceiling down.  Then this wall had to come down also because we were worried the mold that dripped down behind this wall.

Here was the mold in the ceiling that came from an in-the-wall A/C unit that we had already repaired the year before on the 2nd floor.

See the darker wood area on the wall, it was only in that area.  But we had already taken down the whole wall.  Oh well.  So all new drywall had to go back up.

This was the only drywall that didn't come down.

So since we found mold, we did do a mold test, we primed all the walls and ceiling with primer for mold.  This way it doesn't have a big chance of coming back.  You can buy a mold test kit from Home Depot or Lowe's.  They are completely inexpensive to buy, so buy one if you think there is mold in your home.  Always better to be safe then sorry.

Then the insulatation went up.

Then the drywall.

When we started to take the drywall down, we found some of the foundation was cracked.  This foundation is where the garage door used to be years ago.  Obviously the previous owners didn't have the right job done, so we had to do the right job.  They dug down 3 feet & replaced all of this cracked cement as well.  As you can see there is a step down into where the garage area used to be, so it all worked out in the end, because we didnt' like the step down area.  So we filled it all in with cement.  Well the contractor filled it in with cement actually.  Worth every penny in our book.

"Before"

"After"

Here we finished the mudding.  I would have to say, I don't love this part of the job.  It takes a long time and a few days to finish the process.  If we ever had to do a room that size again, we might just hire someone for this part of it. ;)    The boxes in this picture are our ceiling product, so stayed tuned for the material we picked.

This is the door to the Laundry Room.

This is the entranceway from the stair area.  {stair area on the left}  Look how big that entranceway is now that there are walls up.

Well stayed tuned for the next part of this tour.  Thanks for stopping by.  I would love to hear from you, so please leave me a message.  Have a great day everyone!!!