Fireplace

One of the last projects remaining in the house was the fire place area. This was another part of the renovation which we decided to do on our own in order to save some bucks.

At this point we were scratching our heads with what to do with this wall...

We had an existing fireplace which was complimented with the surrounding room's wonderful particle board paneling. Of course all the paneling came down during the renovation and we found that the entire wall was made of brick. Sweet.

There was also a large iron box - which we gifted to our masonry guy (for doing such an awesome job with our brickwork). The other funny thing was that someone glued fake bricks around the fire place... over real bricks! Thats what all the black stuff was around the fire place. This forced me to have to cover up this area with some other type of tile or material.

This build was pretty straight forward. We decided to seal the brick with a soft white paint, stick some black slate around the fireplace, and get a nice modern fireplace door. Here is what we did in order:

1. Clean all debris from the existing bricks (glue, mortar chunks, etc).
2. Used Great Stuff between the brick and drywall to seal up any voids. Used white silicon to seal over this. I also filled any holes and cracks in the bricks with this (the brick wall was in rough shape).
3. Prime the brick with Zinsser 123 Primer (awesome stuff). Do a light coat then a heavier coat.  
4. Mixed grey mortar and slapped on some black slate tiles. To get the tiles to stick on the wall over the actual fireplace opening, I created a 2x4 frame so that the tiles would not slide off the wall while the mortar set. 
5. Grouted and sealed the tile.
6. Order a fireplace door online and installed this when it came. I would recommend ordering this before tiling so that the tiles can be laid (if necessary) to the exact dimensions of the door. Ours was an inch off so that required that I lay tile 1 inch inside the actual opening. 
7. Cut trim for the floor and glued in with liquid nails to the brick. Silicon'ed that too.
8. Taped up the tile/fireplace and painted the primed brick with a flat white color (slight grayish tint). 
9. Installed a shelf from IKEA to serve as a mantle. 

Check out the final product. (still needs some decorating - a little plain now).

Final Product

Hi Juno! 

Hanging out with some friends and drinking beers around the fireplace.

We lit some logs for the first time last night while hanging out with our good friends. It was awesome... warmth, light and that log fire smell permeated through our house while we enjoyed some drinks. CHEERS! 

Gotta Go - Number 2

Okay, so bathroom number two is finally finished in our house. I have been tinkering with it for over 6 months and just completed it this past weekend. I never knew such a small space could be such a large project. During our renovation, we opted to just have the 2nd bath roughed in so we could do the work ourselves and save some money. This meant that it was 2x4's and copper pipes and plywood flooring - a blank canvas.

First step was to choose the faucets and get those put in - we went all out with Kohler purist all around. I had to knock out part of the wall to get the "in-wall" type faucet for the sink. That was fun. The second step was to put up dry wall. I used green board in the majority of the bathroom and wonder-board in the shower part that was later to be covered up by tile. The shower base had to be poured and leveled properly for good drainage. The tiles came next. We initially chose to do 24"x24" ivory colored travertine tiles. I bought 45 and carried them home only to find out they did not match our slate flooring. Ugg! I ended up taking that back and just continuing the slate flooring on the wall which I think turned out pretty good. I have never tiled before but it was pretty easy. Slap on mud and stick the tile where you want it to go. The key, which I learned, is to get good mortar consistency. Make it like peanut butter.


I cut the tiles with a wet saw and hand saw. I also made a little nook for soap and shampoo in the tile as well. When I laid all of the tile, I grouted and finally sealed them.

I decided to make my own vanity. This to me was the funnest part of the whole project. I decided to stick with a contemporary design. I went to the hardwood store and found some very cool pieces of wood to work with. For the legs I used cherry posts. I ripped some cherry planks to create the braces used to connect the posts. I wanted to find a large piece of wood to use as the counter and I got just what I was looking for. I found a 3.5" thick piece of Bubinga (exotic red hardwood that is used to make cigar boxes). I took the milled piece of wood and planed it with a router to get a smooth surface on the top. I put the whole vanity together with dowels and glue, fine sanded it, and finally applied a couple of coats of wax. Check out the final results.

Vanity - Final Product

The last part of the project is the shower glass that will hopefully be installed sometime this week. The next project will be turning my messy crawl space into a sweet workshop. This is going to be a blast. I wonder how many tons of concrete I will use...

Bringing in the New Year

So to celebrate the New Year, we went to our favorite Sushi joint and opened up some bottles of champagne. Correction, sparkling wine - picky French. It was a nice evening. Quiet and relaxing and our dog, Juno, was extra friendly because of all the fireworks going off. They were scaring her into our relaxed company.

Looking back at the old year - many things happened. We renovated our little house. That was a big deal that changed our lives immensely(I will blog about all the projects I am working on as well, don't worry). We went to Napa Valley - this enriched our vino-culture, one tasting glass at a time. We spent a lot of time with family and friends which is something we hope to do all over again in the coming year.

1st Blog

Hello world. This is my first blog. I hope to share the happenings of my life to you as a means of therapy and turn this into a daily ritual. It may be interesting or quite mundane. We'll see how this whole thing goes... stay tuned.