Sometimes it’s the little things that can have the biggest impact when it comes to giving a room a facelift. That’s my latest discovery as we work on this year’s remodeling project.

In the three years we’ve lived in our Cottage In The Woods, our living room has stayed pretty much the way it was on the day we bought it. That means builder white paint on the walls and original honey oak baseboards and trim as you see in this picture above.

One day in the middle of this project we decided to remove the grids in this wall of windows and doors. The view is wonderful and the grids almost seemed to interfere, especially since there are deck railings beyond.

Some of the grids were barely attached so within just a couple of minutes we had them all out {by we, I really mean Mr. DH – he took out most of them}. It was an easy, no-cost makeover that made it look brand new. You can see the “after” in this photo below. 

Okay, this is where the “no-cost part” ends. We could have just painted the old trim but since we have been replacing trim throughout the house on a room-by-room basis, we decided to just go ahead and update it.

We are using 1×4 and 1×6 boards with an edging called scribe. It is a treatment you see in older homes. I love the simplicity and how it adds instant character. I also like the fact that it’s not the pre-molded stuff you buy at the big box stores.

For a couple of reasons we decided to use MDF, not a paint-grade wood. This is because: 1) it’s more cost effective than wood and, 2) MDF does not expand and contract with the cold and humidity. That means we don’t have any caulking of seams once or twice a year.

You can find pre-cut MDF in 1×4, 8-foot lengths at your local lumber supply store.

So, our new molding has been painted as have the walls. We’re not finished with the room yet, but here’s the final transformation of that wall. I don’t plan on putting any window treatments on them. We don’t have privacy issues and want to let as much sunshine in as possible. 

The color on the walls is one of my favorites, it’s called Sea Salt.I first fell in love with this color when I used it in an in-law suite I helped design some five years ago.  The color is a very soft blue gray green. I think it should be called sea glass because that’s what it looks like to me.

Within the next four weeks we should be wrapping up this year’s adventure in remodeling. I can’t wait!

Spring is just around the corner, right? I mean, despite the foot of snow on the ground we are less than a month away from the first day of spring which is March 20.

The longer I’m back on the North Coast, the more spring becomes my favorite season. That’s because it’s the season farthest away from winter! 

After six months of being hermetically sealed in our house, there is just nothing like open window season and catching the scent of freshly-cut grass as it wafts in and perfumes the house.

Since moving into our Cottage In the Woods, we have done an updating project at the house each spring. Last year was the kitchen and this year it will be, in part, the living room fireplace.  

 We will be getting rid of our 10-foot brick fireplace surround. It’s just a monstrosity.  (Here it is during one of my projects!) This is one of the rooms that has stayed exactly as it was when we bought it. Aren’t the builder white walls so . . . in need of warming up?!

We are tearing out all that brick and in it’s place we are putting in some very simple built-ins. That means more to decorate {happy dance!}

We have also ordered a sectional for this room which will arrive in April. My husband wants to be able to watch TV with his legs up and since I refuse to have recliners, we got a sectional with a chaise.

Since most of our money will be going for the built-ins, sectional and my husband’s new flat screen TV, I’m on a very tight decorating budget, as in, I pretty much have to re-purpose existing things in the house to dress the living room.

I’m planning on using the lamps from our master bedroom in the living room. I am also reusing our sofa console table but I can’t use our existing coffee table because it’s rectangular and won’t fit with the sectional.

So I’m also scouting thrift stores for a small round table to use as a cocktail table. I love this one from Maine Cottage but umm, as beautiful as it is and as much as I would love this table, $1,590 IS NOT in the budget! I’d like to find something similar and then paint it a color like this “sprout” which is one of 40 custom colors Maine Cottage offers.

I know spring will soon be here, so I’m keeping busy counting down and getting ready for a fun redesign of our living room. Let’s see, just how many days until spring . . . ?

My post on our kitchen remodel has generated a lot of questions and comments so I thought I’d answer them here.

1. What color did you paint the walls?
Greenmount silk (HC-3) from Benjamin Moore Paints.

2. Where did you get the light fixtures over the island?
Finding the perfect light fixtures was a challenge! I looked at more than 400 before finding these. We bought them online from Lighting By Lux in Georgia. #2334-47 Manhattan 4 Light Iron Pendant from World Imports. The only change I made is that I did not hang the amber glass globe at the bottom.

3. Why did you cover the entrance to the dining room?
We did this because having more storage space was more important than two entrances into the dining room. It was space that could be put to better use for  upper cabinets and the corner unit. Our kitchen isn’t large and you can never have too much storage!

The formal dining room is accessible just to the left of the sink and cabinets - about two steps right around the entrance of the kitchen. The new pass through window adds character but  is also perfect for passing plates if we need access. In most new construction around here, formal dining rooms are down the hall from the kitchen very near the front door – much, much farther than the few steps we have to ours.

Also, keep in mind the rest of the space you’re not seeing. Hopefully after Christmas we will start “Phase II” of the remodel – making the screened porch right off the kitchen into our new dining room. The existing dining room will become a “game & music room” for my hubby’s huge CD collection and keyboard.

4. Why did you put a skirt under the sink instead of doing cabinets?
It’s a personal choice, of course, but wall mount sinks were/are traditionally skirted and rarely had/have cabinets under them. While we designed a modern-functioning kitchen, I selected finishes/treatments to create an old-fashioned, timeless appeal.

Brooke Giannetti has a great collection of photos of old-fahioned wall mounted sinks . Toward the end of her post she features apron front, farm house sinks. These are the “updated” version of my wall-mount sink. An apron-front sink just about always has cabinets underneath because the cabinets support the weight of the sink, that’s not the case with wall mount sinks which use wall brackets to support the sink. You’ll see on Brooke’s examples that a few are not skirted – I don’t like seeing the water pipes. I also really like the way a skirt helps to soften an entire wall of cabinets – lots of hardscape. It’s nice to be able to break that up with a punch of pattern and a pop of color.

5. Why didn’t you use schoolhouse pendants above the island?
Well again, it comes down to personal choice but that choice was influenced by other finishes in the kitchen. I actually never considered schoolhouse pendant lights above the island because they are just so predictable and over used. Open up just about any kitchen magazine and there they will be. Plus, the scale of the schoolhouse pendant (even 2 or 3 of them) would just be  too small over the 8-foot island.

As a designer, one of the things I’m most known for is my attention to detail, it’s one of my “signatures”, if you will. Having an eye for detail takes a room from being decorated . . . to designed and there is a major difference between the two.

A major consideration in selecting the light fixtures was creating visual balance in the room. We used a maple cider flooring which is a great anchor for my mostly white kitchen. I wanted to bring that color up into the room to help ground it. I used the blinds (20% off at Bed, Bath & Beyond) and the light fixtures (used my designer discount) to achieve this goal.

The light fixtures function not only as a source of light but also as an ”anchor” of the entire island area. If I had selected schoolhouse pendants, that entire area would be floating. The fixtures I selected bring the floor & wall color to the middle of the space.

6. What size is your finished kitchen space?
The space measures roughly 15 x 17.5

7. How do you like your honed marble?
I love the look of the Carrera marble and it is fabulous for rolling out dough - I can totally understand why you find Carrera in bakeries. The reality of  honed marble, however, is that you have to be willing to live with imperfections. I’ll do a separate post on this at a later date.

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I know the blogosphere is filled with lots of DIY and thriftstore makeovers. If you’re a regular reader of  TDH, you know I love (and do) those kinds of projects both for myself, friends, family and clients. Over the past 25 years I have done my share of those projects in my homes. I’ve taken up carpet and painted subfloor, painted hideous fireplace brick, and given kitchen cabinets that had seen better days a fresh look with primer and paint, etc.

I know how rewarding it is to transform my house into a home by the sweat of my brow and slight of hand. My new kitchen, however, was not that kind of project. It was a project of my dreams. I know most of you are just like me - you’ve spent years looking thru shelter magazines dreaming of one day being able to do one of those projects. So to be able to create my own dream kitchen instead of just doing them for clients was magical. I feel very blessed!

Michelle wrote me asking for an update on our IKEA butcher block countertops. She wanted to know how they are holding up with the Waterlox varnish finish and if I had any other information on application, etc.  I’m happy to help! I know I scoured the internet for information when I was planning our kitchen.

We are loving the Waterlox finish!!  It’s holding up beautifully. We have not had any real problems with scratching, the finish repels water nicely and the counters are still lovely six months later. The finish does not spot and drinking glasses have not left rings.  In one area we did have a very fine surface scratch. I took a bit of fine steel wool and rubbed it out – no problem. That was within a couple of weeks of installation – no other issues since.

About tips on application . . . we just followed the directions on the website. Because our birch countertops were oiled {when we were told that they were not} we had to wipe them down with mineral spirits so that the varnish would adhere to them.

As directed on the Waterlox webiste, we put two coats of the Original Sealer/Finish over all the countertops – top, bottom and sides. Because butcher block will dry out over time, it’s important to seal the undersides since you won’t be able to access them after they are installed.

After we sealed the undersides but before installation we made sure to use the IKEA FIXA Diffuser Barrier on the counter top underside that was directly under the dishwasher. In fact, we bought enough of the FIXA to cover the entire surface that was above the dishwasher even though IKEA suggests only using it to protect the exposed edge from the steam coming from the dishwasher. 

The guys applied two coats of the Original Satin Finish to the top/sides only. It was extremely important to make sure to do it in a place where there was no dust.

So there you have it. I highly recommend Waterlox!

Now, just one note on our selection of the birch IKEA butcher block. We were able to save about 70% over the cost of custom butcher block from a local woodshop which is why we went with the ones from IKEA.

I hope we made the correct choice with our IKEA countertops but only time will tell. Right now they look great but when you run your hand over them I do feel small undulations because IKEA glues pieces and parts together. Hopefully they will withstand the test of time because our upper countertops and crown molding sit on top of them. If we ever have to change them because of a problem, it would be a nightmare!

So, I worry that maybe we should have just bit the bullet and gotten the ones from our local shop. Fingers crossed!

As promised, here are the after photos of our guest bathroom. This was the first room we updated when we bought our Cottage In The Woods.

The before photos are here but here’s a reminder:

The bathroom is small – just 9 feet long by less than 5 feet wide! Needless to say, the large vanity HAD to go!

I wanted to add a window so we could have some much-needed natural light in this small room but windows and showers don’t play well with each other, so it was a little tricky. Using the little octagon window was the perfect solution.

We planked the ceiling and the floors (believe it or not, we just used 1x8s for the flooring and painted them. It was an easy way to add instant character!)

The 48″ clawfoot tub & shower were our splurge. My husband had one of these tubs in his condo and we both really like the character they add to a small, easily-forgotten rooms.

It was hard finding a small clawfoot tub . . . we bought this little 48″ tub online at Vintage Tub & Bath. They were great to work with – love this little piece of the past!

I found the fun chenille striped shower curtain at Land of Nod (it’s on sale for just $29.00!)

The large basket is a clever cover up of the water lines to the toilet, providing extra storage for bath towels and issues of Coastal Living magazine. We have another small basket on the other side of the toilet that holds the TP.

We love how the bathroom turned out and are amazed at how much larger the space feels.

If you’re a regular reader of TDH, you know I’m on a quest to make our “Cottage In The Woods” {pictured above} my southern home. Getting married meant I’d no longer be living in my beloved Southeast anymore. {That’s okay because as long as I’m with my hubby - I’m home!}

Since we live in a Cape Cod style home built between 1991-1993, my imagination and creativity are working overtime to transform this litte yellow house into my southern home {one filled with a sense of warmth and welcoming. Where friends and family want to come and sit a spell while we sip on a glass of lemonade.}

If you’re like me, then you know how hard it is being patient. All this updating takes time and money. . . s0 slowing . . .room by room, month by month, the metamorphisis is happening.  It was two years last month,  that we bought our house . . . it’s like a catepillar that’s been all bound up in its cocoon. Something is happening. You can see it!

All the changes we have been making are adding up to create a new feeling in this old house. In fact, when the closet installer was here, he asked me if this was an old farm house that we were fixing up. {I decided to take that as a compliment!}

You’ve seen the hallway makeover and the kitchen remodel we completed this spring but I don’t think I’ve ever shown you the very first room we gutted – the guest bathroom!

Lovely - I know. {Dont you wish you had one just like it !} It was the only public bathroom on the first floor so we HAD to update it. I mean, how pitful was this 1970s relic?  It was so tight in there with the big vanity that I could barely get photos!

Check back later this week to see how the remodel of this out-dated bathroom turned out!

While I was in Georgia last week, much of my time was spent helping my sister update her new house. We rearranged furniture in the family room and parlor, finished up the boy’s bedroom, and painted the walls in the foyer, parlor and kitchen.

We also started painting her kitchen cabinets!  Typically that’s a job no one wants to tackle, but with the new line of Caromal Colour paints I’m carrying, it’s really so easy!

Above you see a before photo of some of the cabinets. My sister’s last house was done in reds/yellows/greens and she wanted to go change to a more coastal feel with blues, browns, blacks, beige.

When I saw her new kitchen and found out the direction she wanted to take the new house, I instantly thought of Layla Palmer’s kitchen from The Lettered Cottage.  It seemed like a good place to start.

I showed my sister posts from Layla’s blog and she loved the look of her kitchen. If we hadn’t had so much work to do in other rooms of the house, we could have gotten all the kitchen cabinets painted. But . . . that didn’t happen. We were only able to get the ones around the range area started. Still, that was a big start and it looks so good that my sister and her husband are motivated to finish the job.

Working with the Caromal Colour paint made it SO easy. We did not have to sand and prime the cabinets. In fact, we didn’t even take the doors off (other than the two flanking the hood – we aren’t putting them back on). We just had to scrub the cabinets to make sure all the grime from cooking was off . . . that was it.

We applied the “peppercorn” black textured paint right onto the cabinets. We even painted over the hinges! We really could not believe how easy it was. My sister still has to finish sand the cabinets and do a little distressing before rubbing some poly over the cabinets to protect them but above you see our “After – So Far.”

Love the easy back splash we used behind the cooktop. Of course, there’s still more to do. She just has to find time in between home schooling her four kids, working from home and doing all the rest moms do!

Get inspired by other DIY projects today at Kimba’s!

Welcome to y’all visiting from  Melissa’s Beautiful Life Friday at The Inspired Room & Julia’s “Hooked On” Friday party.  Thanks for stopping! Please don’t be shy – your comments make my day. Have a great weekend!

A SOUTHERN KITCHEN – that’s what I wanted.

Since love has me tethered to the North Coast here on the shores of Lake Erie, I have decided to make our Cape Cod “Cottage in the Woods” my southern retreat.

We moved here two years ago this month and have been transforming the house one room at a time as budget will allow. That’s a hard way to go because you know as one room gets a face lift it makes the rest of the house look that much worse.

In April, we completed most of the work on the kitchen. There are still a few tweaks here and there and it can take time finding just the perfect accessories but it’s getting there.

This is “Phase I” of the kitchen remodel. The goal was to take our dated, dysfunctional kitchen and transform it into a classic, timeless, southern kitchen. (Phase II will be to convert the screened porch off the kitchen into a dining room. I’m hoping we can  to do that this winter.)  Here are the before and afters from Phase I.

Before: August 2007
I know. Can you say d-a-t-e-d?  There is no mystery as to why this house sat on the market for almost a year before we came along and snatched her up. . . The kitchen tells you all you need to know about the rest of the house! But I could just see the potential under all that pink and blue wallpaper. ;o)

 After: August 2009
The Major Changes:

1. As soon as I saw the kitchen I knew that the island was positioned incorrectly. It needed to be re-oriented to run the length of the room to open up  the workspace.

2. We had never used the table we put  in the bay window “eat-in” area at the back of the kitchen. I thought it would be the perfect place for a fireplace and a couple of large chairs.

We moved the large picture window into onto the hallway wall (I crave lots of light!)  We repositioned the two small existing windows to make room for the gas fireplace.

Since my days in San Diego I had wanted a fireplace in the kitchen after seeing one at a house that a friend was renting. I knew it would be a good investment – here on the North Coast we fired it up this week on cool August morning (how depressing!) I selected this arched fireplace from Heat & Glo because it reinforced the curved shape I was using as a design element throughout the kitchen.

We all know that the kitchen is THE room in your house where everyone wants to be. It’s the new living room! I wanted to make sure I had room on either side of the fireplace for nice comfy chairs – the perfect place for friends to sit and visit or to relax with a cup of coffee catching up on the morning news.

As you can see in this second photo, there was a lot of wasted space  in the kitchen and I hated having to go around the island to get to the fridge (not in the picture but it was just beyond the right edge of the photo and we kept it there in the remodel.) We fixed all that in the remodel!

I am not a fan of the long, flat kitchen island (they remind me of airport runways) and I don’t like the raised bar with stools either so I designed this raised middle section  as my alternative.   Because you see the entire front of the island when you walk in from the living room the island’s “cubbies” are both decorative and functional and the raised area hides a multitude of messes! ;o)

Another big problem in this kitchen was counter space – every counter was chopped up by either the stove top or the sink. The little bit of counter to the left of the wall oven was where we kept the coffee maker and a few cookbooks and it just wasn’t nearly large enough to be able to use it as a work space.

In the new kitchen we solved this problem. I have 8 feet of uninterrupted counter on the island and I love it! (True story: when my nieces and nephews from Georgia came to visit us, 5-year-old Maddie said of the marble countertop, “Oh, this would be great to lay on naked!)

The contractors asked if I didn’t want to reconsider and have a sink in the island. It was not up for negotiation. I love having this space for prep work:  it’s 2-foot deep x 8-foot long. Making  a salad is easy now that I have room for veggies, cutting board and bowl.  I have a pull-out trash bin right there as well. Part of what makes a well-designed kitchen is knowing what YOU need.

We closed up the entrance into the dining room from the kitchen and made a peek-a-boo window above the sink. I would have liked to have had a bigger window but I wanted space for one set of upper cabinets.

You see that I resisted the stainless steel appliance trend. It always comes down to personal choice and I am not a fan of stainless which has kind of been the “it girl” in kitchen design. Instead, I went with classic white which just seemed to be the best choice to create the feel I wanted in this kitchen. We have a 36″ 5-gas burner, 3-electric oven Aga range, an American Standard wall mount sink, and an LG french door fridge. The range is a showpiece that everyone comments on – I love having three ovens in one tight 36″ package.

Something I knew didn’t need was an under-sink cabinet. Instead, I wanted to skirt that area to bring a bit of softness, color and pattern to break up the cabinets and dish washer. The wall color is HC-3 Greenmont Silk from Benjamin Moore.

Between this area and the workspace I have seven toe-kick storage drawers. Since I’m just 5’2″ it’s hard for me to reach beyond the first shelf of the top cabinets, so I limited the amount of upper cabinets we had and use the drawers and toe kicks for dishes and platters.

Before we remodeled there had been no room for the microwave, so it sat on a shelf  the right on the bay window in the “desk” area. Now it’s in the island along with a shelf lift for my heavy food processor.

When we first moved into the house I had a local builder I work with create a virtual remodel with the ideas I had at the time for the space. He thought I was a bit nuts to reorient the island but he loved the idea of the fireplace in the bay window. Once he completed the computer redesign and played with relocating appliances, he “saw” my vision! His plans gave me a good idea of how to rework the space but I tweaked them along the way and made pencil to paper changes over the past year.

So when we were ready to get moving on things, I asked the talented Layla Palmer of The Lettered Cottage to create a final virtual kitchen for me to show my husband {he couldn’t see my vision}, the contractor and the cabinet makers {the ones the contractor had done earlier did not have the correct colors for cabinets, walls, etc.} Check out the link above to see her virtual design of the space. 

Layla was teriffic to work with. She gave me an option or two of some layouts that I had not thought of but in the end, all the pieces and parts ended up pretty much where they had been on the first virtual design I had done {except we got that sink off the island } You’ll notice changes from her designs to the final result {especially in the island design and butcher block counter top finish} but the virtual designs were so helpful in communicating my overall vision to everyone who was working on the project. It helped make things go much more smoothly because they “got” what I wanted to do! If you have a big project like this, I would sooo recommend having a virtual design done.

We love our new kitchen and look forward to Phase II this winter (finger’s crossed!)

My friend Paula suggested I post my pics on HGTV’s Rate My Space. Want to rate my space? Just click here. Hope you’ll give me 5 stars