August 24, 2015

Big Creek Progress

Martie Big Creek Farmhouse Remodel Big Creek Progress Update, Old country home, paint, stained concrete, stained trim 2 Comments

Good Monday morning from Big Creek!  It’s time for a little progress update on the renovation of our old country home!

The newly re-framed sun room has been stuck in ‘pause’ mode for a couple of weeks now.  The bare sheetrock and naked trim has been looming over us like a cloud.  We bought the stain, the paint, and even rounded up the supplies.  We had everything we needed…except time.

With the start of school came Pooh’s three-day-a-week band practice, Girl Scout meetings, Coach’s first round of morning bus duty, and scads of homework.  Tigger is rocking fifth grade, and has already been invited to her first sleepover this Friday night.  Pooh has gotten her feet wet marching with the band at the first football game of the season, and she is absolutely loving it!  We’re slowly finding our groove.

It was challenging to determine which color stain to go with on the new trim.  All of the trim here at Big Creek is stained instead of painted, and I love it so much.  We needed the new stuff to match the existing stuff, but had no clue what color to buy.  Coach snapped a picture on his phone of some of the stained trim, and we took off to Home Depot.  We chose two different colors based on that photo, and we tried them out on a scrap piece of wood.  Thankfully, the Red Chestnut was a super-close match!

I showed you what it looked like midway through, remember?

Coach and I spent several hours each, carefully staining those tight edges with a tiny brush, being very careful to not get any stain on our new windows.  

He meticulously did the same on the molding, and once it was finally done, we were ready to prime and paint.  We decided to go with the same brick-red pain that is in our kitchen, for a couple of reasons.  First, I love the color.  It’s rich and homey! It also provides a good backdrop for Coach’s Alabama Football memorabilia (he did most of the work, therefore he got a say…RTR!).

You may be thinking that it will be too dark in there, but the opposite wall is actually actually papered with a much lighter, but neutral-colored wallpaper (that will be an upcoming project,which I will surely share).  With those four windows providing tons of natural light, I think it will be perfectly lovely.  The room will be like our ‘den’, or family room, and also my sewing room/home office.  We’re going for cozy!

Coach, Madre and I tore into the project with a vengeance!  Then, as usually happens, Madre and I fizzled out after day one, and Coach kept on painting.  I could barely move the day after painting!  I truly don’t know how he keeps going, but he does.

As of last night, every square inch that needed paint is covered, thanks to my hunky hubby.   I can’t wait to take the tape down!

 

Today, my job is to throughly scrub the concrete floor.  I’m excited to announce that I was successful in talking Coach into getting the floor stained!  [If you want to see what stained concrete looks like, click here.] I got an estimate last week, and the price was no different than putting down vinyl.  After looking at our color options, Coach agreed that he liked the look of the stain much better than the vinyl.  I just have to get all of the sheetrock mud cleaned up so we can call our guy!  Once the room is all done, I’ll do a big reveal (although I probably won’t be able to resist some in-between pics of the stained floor)!

There is still lots to be done here, and I’ll be keeping you updated in the coming months (years?).  I’d love for you to leave a comment and let us know what you think!  I have a feeling I know what some of the comments will be, especially since we don’t actually live in Alabama.  Please be gentle…I’m not the Tide fan in the house.

But ya know, Kentucky Blue paint would be pretty hideous….

X,O,X,O,    Martie