Family room reveal!

I have finally got round to finishing the family room....wellll....almost....just a few things to go!!!! But I thought it was OK to show you now. I have been searching for before photos but can't find them anywhere so you will just have to use your imagination!!

Ok, so here we go.... picture this, when I bought this house it only had one living combined dining room so I always knew I would have to add a room on somewhere but that is difficult when there is no money! So the obvious thing was to convert the cobwebbed, spider heaven with asbestos ceiling, single unlined brick walls with numerous vent holes, double car garage. After all why does the car need a home when my kids need a family room!

Well it was revolting, for the first year or so, I tried just doing a temporary makeover....hiding the garage doors and junk that we all need to store in the garage behind a wall of curtains (the only cheap ones I could find that were cheap enough to cover the whole wall were a lovely shade of poo brown).I also scraped back the muck off the bare concrete and painted it and the unlined walls. The room only had one small window on the western wall and an old door that was the only entrance into the room from the back deck (apart from the garage doors which I had now sealed off and removed the mechanism so that you couldn't enter there).

Lesson learned in removing the ancient mechanism of the old tilt-a-doors...when using angle grinder (for the first time) make sure you get son to wear tight flame proof top as he holds the mechanism for me. Instead son was wearing loose open necked T shirt as a cascade of sparks fell down the back of his neck and he couldn't let go....very crucial that he didn't ...so he just kept yelping...whilst I struggled to hold back the giggles.

I had the old rear door changed to a glass door to let in a little more natural light but still the kids weren't feeling the love in there! It was freezing in winter, still quite ugly, and that asbestos fibro ceiling just seemed foreboading.... so after saving up some more money I decided to have it fixed up properly.

Enter my ex who is a builder, to help out (thank you) he framed up the walls and with some help from me and the long suffering son (well he wanted the family room too) we gyprocked the walls. As well I had bought from Ebay a second hand window complete with plantation shutters (score!) so cheap, and a beaut pair of french doors which were top half glass from an old terrace house in the city (these doors are now in the internal entrance from the lounge into the family room - so much better than going outside to get in there!!!!)

Here are the new doors leading into the family room, they look like they have been there forever!

Open doors, please come in....

About the only picture I could find of the work in progress. I got rid of the pool table, the kids begged me for it and then never used it!!! Well with the money I bought them a large screen TV instead!!!

All newly gyprocked and painted, just waiting on new coffee table from the competion I won

This is it, cant wait, it was out of stock so I think I have at least another 2 weeks (the other one is so wobbly)

 I love my new red ottomans, they are light weight with little carry straps so the kids can move them round the room as needed for playstation or games or just TV watching.

New TV to keep everyone happy!!! The doorway on the right leads to the storeroom I had built in, it runs the length of the room and is only about a metre wide, just enough for shelving and room to walk down.the side. Most of the furniture, art and accessories in the room I already had. The leather sofa is a least 15 years old and still going strong ( I gave its pair to my older daughter when she moved out) it looks so much better when its mixed up.

 I love this print, it won the Archibold Prize in 2004, I saw the original and it was magnificent.

Craig Ruddy's portrait of indigenous acter David Gulpilil titled Two Worlds

This area gets a lot of use, it's my son's and my studio bench. The cupboards were left over from when I bought the second hand display kitchen for my laundry on Ebay, so free!!!! (well cheap anyway) and then I just bought a laminate bench top for practical studio use. I made the pinboard with some old skirting board I had hanging around and covered some soft board with a curtain panel I had.

It is a great room that gets a lot of use now... no longer the scary spider playground of before. The fibro ceiling was left in place and gyprocked over, safer than removing it. The floor had another coat of floor paint and one day when I can afford it I will have a floating timber floor put in with a moisture barrier underneath it. And when I get round to it the long wall will have some sort of gallery wall when I can make a decision on what to do!

Linking to
Savvy Southern Style

green idea: painting old kitchen cabinets

                                                                       Source: papernstitchblog.com via refresheddesigns. on Pinterest

One of the most economical and environmentally friendly ways of remodeling a kitchen is to paint your existing cabinets. And yes, you can achieve professional looking results yourself if you take the time to do it right. 

                                                        Source: kitchenbacksplashes.blogspot.com via refresheddesigns. on Pinterest

1. Clean the cabinets. Preparation is the most important step in the process of painting your cabinets, and it is very important to make sure that all of the surfaces you are going to paint are completely free of all grease, grime, food residue and whatever else may be stuck to them.When doing this remove the doors and hardware and lay them out flat. Use an all purpose cleaner and a rag and then allow them to dry thoroughly.

2. Sand the cabinets. Once dry, use a piece of fine grit sandpaper - 150 or finer - and make a few passes over all the flat surfaces of the doors. Don't forget to do the thin facing pieces on the cabinet boxes themselves. The slightly sanded surface will allow the primer to better hold onto the surface and greatly increase longevity of the paint job. 

3. Apply primer. After sanding, it's time to prime the cabinets. Primer forms a better bond with the surface than paint alone would.  If your cabinets are already painted and you are re-painting them the same color, it is OK to skip this step and go ahead and apply the paint. If, however, your cabinets are stained and you are trying to cover up the natural wood grain with paint, you must prime them first. The paint will not stick to the varnished surface and the color of the stain will most likely bleed right through your paint.

There are several types of primer that you can use, and which one you choose is largely based on what kind of paint you want to use over the top. If you are using an oil-based paint, an interior oil based primer is recommended. These products tend to have a very strong odor and they are best used when you can properly ventilate the room. 

If you are planning to use a latex paint for your top coat, then a shellac based primer is recommended. This product tends to dry fairly quickly, so make sure that you are ready to go before you begin applying it. The shellac based primers, just like the oil based, carry a very strong odor and caution should be used.

4. Paint the cabinets. There are a couple of ways to apply the paint. A pneumatic sprayer is the best way to get a smooth and glossy finish. If you don't have access to one, however, you can still get a great finish by using a high quality paint brush - 2 1/2" to 3" would be ideal.

The key to achieving a professional finish with a brush is to use very thin coats. It may be tempting to try to coat the paint on as thick as possible just so you can be finished, but DON'T. The best and most durable paint jobs are built up by consecutive thin layers of paint.

5. Sand and add additional coats. In between coats, take some 320 grit sandpaper and very lightly sand the flat surfaces again so that you have the smoothest possible surface for your next coat. Use a tack cloth to wipe away all the dust, and go on to your next coat. You will likely need 2-4 coats. 

Let dry 24 hours and then hang the doors and install the hardware. Viola- new kitchen without consuming new materials.

                                                                            Source: google.ca via refresheddesigns. on Pinterest

                                                         Source: caitlinwilsondesign.blogspot.com via refresheddesigns. on Pinterest

                                                                           Source: google.ca via refresheddesigns. on Pinterest

                                                                    Source: housebeautiful.com via refresheddesigns. on Pinterest

Check out my posts on green backsplashes and countertops as well. 

weekend finds

You may know by now that I love painted furniture. I think that old, discarded pieces from the past that are stuck in basements or dark corners of a room (or given to a thrift store) are so much fresher when painted. Why buy a new dresser or table or chair when great ones already exist?

So I was thrilled to come across a terrific design shop in Calgary this weekend that not only features furniture and art by local and international artists, but also believes in refinishing old pieces of furniture. DaDe Art & Design Lab has these great pieces that have a modern feel due to the high gloss finish and the hardware painted out the same colour. Love them!

So are you a fan of painting old pieces of furniture?

bathroom refresh

Hi all. I wanted to show you another of my refresh projects while visiting my family and friends in East Coast Canada. This bathroom is in a '60's bungalow with the original hand-made cabinets (painted many times over) and built-in shelving unit.  This had to be a low-cost makeover, so no new cabinetry or countertop. But some paint and a few key additions like wainscotting made a big difference.

Here's what we did:

-new tile floor

-added wainscotting (beadboard) panels and painted above

-painted the cabinetry and shelving white

-painted existing light fixture and towel hooks brown

-added a bamboo roman shade

-hung a new white waffle weave shower curtain

Keeping things white with natural accents really ups the wow factor. Low cost and high impact, don't you think?

Got any good tips for a budget friendly bathroom makeover? 

Check out this and other great projects over at:

master bedroom refresh

Well I"m back in Calgary after two fantastic weeks on the East Coast at "home" visiting family and friends. I was busy while there, and one of the projects was refreshing my mom and dad's bedroom. The budget was slim to nil on this one, so I had to get the creative juices flowing. I started with wallpapered walls and a lovely wood floor, a bed with black iron-look head and foot board, and two tired old dressers. And it was quite dark, with only one window facing east.

I was very excited to see what was possible by using the sustainable design concept of reusing and re-purposing. Here is the before picture...

And after...

I wanted to create a brighter, lighter feeling country bedroom. The dresser below was painted a dark sage green (see my previous post on painting the dressers in this room). The curtains were an old shower curtain cut in two to make panels.

Everything on the walls and shelves was either something already in the house or from the yard outside. Birch branches are leaned against the wall as a point of interest and to cover up a bad crack in the wall underneath the wallpaper.

This is the second painted dresser with matching grey-green paint on the back of the existing shelves.

Jewellery is displayed on an old picture frame with a ribbon tied across the back.

The head and foot boards were painted with white semi-gloss trim paint and then distressed with sandpaper.

This bench was an old deacon's bench. We sawed off the back spindles and side arms, painted it out white, and made a foam cushion for the top.

The side table is a block of firewood sawed and sanded with a Varathane finish. 

Snowshoes complete the country feel and were found in the basement, so again, no extra cost for decoration.

This project cost only $100 dollars - for paint and fabric for the cushions. The rest was all re-purposed and reused.  I'm pleased with it, and so are my parents. What do you think?

Stay tuned for more budget-friendly refreshed rooms- including the bathroom and kitchen.

a tale of two dressers

I've been busy while on vacation working on refreshing a few rooms for family and friends. These two dressers were old pieces that were useful, but not very pretty in a master bedroom. Nothing a little paint can't fix! 

I gave this tired old dresser a good sanding, then primed and painted on two coats of a greenish-gray latex Behr paint (I actually didn't like the beige-gray colour that I had picked out, so did some custom mixing by adding some black and dark green paint I had left over from a previous project).  I then sanded the edges to give it a distressed look and let some of the wood come through, and added new hardware. Voila!

On the tall dresser I spray-painted  a high gloss sage green Rustoleum after a little sanding and a coat of primer. I finished off with 3 coats of water-based high gloss Varathane.

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, and I will show you how they fit in the the refreshed master bedroom in my next post.  For now I'm off to paint more furniture. I wonder if my mom will let me at her hutch yet...

I'm also linked up on:

Domestically Speaking

Primitive & Proper

(aka)design

My Repurposed Life

diy: painted floors

Need to get rid of bad carpet or linoleum but can't afford new flooring? Paint your floors! It takes a little work, but will only cost you a can of paint. With durable options like Benjamin Moore deck paint, it will outlast even the heaviest traffic. If you are lucky enough to have plank flooring, you can achieve a great cottage feel. But even the normal plywood subfloor boards painted out can look amazing.

Check out instructions and pictures by First A Dream.

Another great post about a successful floor project that looks absolutely amazing is from Ashley Ann Photography.

Here are a few other examples via Pinterest.

Happy painting!