Trim and Finishing Work Archives - Page 3 of 3

WAYYYY back in the summer of 2013, before we had even begun the home buying process, I had started looking at home blogs for ideas of what sort of style I want to bring into my own home. One of my favorite blogs is thehouseofsmiths.com – go check it out. Everything that they do is so clean and sleek. It was while pursuing their site one day that I found the inspiration for our next big DIY project. A front entry bench (check out the inspiration).

So here is what we started with. While I don’t think our front entry closet was by any means useless, it just wasn’t necessary. We’re also lucky that we had a full-size closet to begin with, as the inspiration blog did not and removing wall was necessary in their case.

Before

“I’ll just make it smaller than all the rest.”

I questioned whether or not I wanted to post the picture on the left of the inside of the closet, but whatevs – you needed to know my plight (and we’re all family here -right? – so no judgement).

Empty and ready for inspiration!

Mike is having geometry flashbacks.

Using the inspiration blog as a guide, we started with creating a simple frame for the seat. You can see in the photo below we also nailed up a 2×4 as a guide for the height of the bench.

It was at this point that the one man frame-placement turned into a two-man job for accuracy and I put down the camera.

After the frame was in place we added four more 2×4 beams to further support the weight of the sitter. Lots and lots of giant nails and screws were used in this part of the build. My biggest fear is that I’ll be showing the bench off and the admirer will bust the seat off the wall.

All set and sturdy!

Now with pine seat boards fitted into place. You can see we were quick to take advantage of the new storage space during the building process!

We wanted the walls of the interior to have some texture, as it really helps break up the “look” of the design so that you don’t notice that you’re just looking into a closet that’s missing its doors. The inspiration bench had a thick beadboard backing and we were able to find a similar look when out searching for our own materials.

You can see here that our boards are a knotty pine, which we did debate just whitewashing as opposed to painting. Ultra-pure white paint ended up being the winner.

Screwing in the supports for the shelf. Fancy, huh?

Ready for paint!

The color we’re using on the walls is called “Wood Smoke”

It looked much more gray in the inspiration blog, but here it has more of a mushroom tone. Men who are reading this are going, “What?”

We stained the bench seat in the same color as the banister, “Black Cherry” – it really is a beautiful color, and wish I could use it on all the wood surfaces of our home – but that might look a little like an Adams Family set, “Everything is blood red!”

Painting the upper shelf in Ultra Pure White (semi-gloss) which we’ve used on all the trim in the house.

The inside of the bench is also painted in Ultra pure white.

Mike used a very thin quarter round in the corners, which really helped make everything look much more polished when complete.

Adding the decorative hooks.

We were able to find these in the oil rubbed bronze (ORB) finish, we’ve slowly been switching out the existing gold finishes in this home with ORB and its always a nice contrast on clean white paint.

This was a very exciting project for Mike, as he got to use his new Makita circular saw. Cue the Tim Taylor grunt.

First “mistake” – which was not at all our fault nor was it in our control. The trim piece we bought for the front of the seat was warped beyond use and we had to scrap it and purchase a new piece. The process of picking out trim is beyond my skill set – I have no idea how to tell is a board is perfectly straight when put up against a million others like it.

Warped and useless. GRRRR.

New front trim piece is perfect. Its starting to look complete!

Mike recessed all the nails so that we could hide them under another coat of paint.

AFTER!

By far this is one of the projects I’m most proud in this home. The new bench is so much more useful than the closet. We’re lucky that this home had other storage closets that absorbed our other seasonal jackets/parkas/vests. We’ve realized that we only wear one or two coats on the regular, and having a plethora of others in a closet elsewhere is much easier to deal with!

Thanks so much for stopping and reading about our closet transformation!

In earlier posts, you have seen the transformation of the trim throughout the house from stain to painted white. We had discussed doing this to the banister which separates the raised living room from the dining room and kitchen, but knew it would be a much more difficult job than just slapping a coat of paint on top of it.

A good picture showing the banister behind the furniture still has the light stain that we replaced everywhere else in the house

The ultimate plan was to have the uprights painted white and stain the top railing. But doing this would mean removing the railing and a lot of slow steps. The first thing I did was prime and paint the uprights with the railing still attached.

Next, I removed the top railing and continued to paint the railings.

It was sort of scary walking down the stairs for several weeks as we feared we would be impaled if we lost our footing.

Yikes

After setting the railings on saw horses in the garage, the next step was to clear away the coats of paint and stain to get the wood ready for staining.

I first thought I would need to use a belt sander to clear the stain, but we visited my parents in Iowa and my dad introduced me to a tool I had never even heard of: An Electric Planer.

Planer borrowed from my dad (this thing is really loud)

This planer was great! It did in seconds what a sander would take hours to accomplish.

Wood is planed, sanded then cleaned to get ready for staining

We decided to go with a black cherry wood stain to match other furniture in the house.

Slow application process. Many coats.

It took about five coats to get the color the way I wanted it to look. Next step: clear coat.

Notice the awesome key-shaped folding knife. A random find at Harbor Freight

I added about four coats of clear to the wood. I went too fast on the first coat and got bubbles, which I had to sand down. I went slower with my brush on later coats to avoid this problem.

With the railings stained and clear-coated, the next step was to attach the railings to the uprights.

The best way I figured to do this was to pull off the uprights and nail them to the railing on the floor. It would have been too awkward trying to nail hardwood while hanging over an edge.

These are the tools I used. Hammer, drill, finishing nails, a nail set and a rubber mallet covered in a sock to pound off the painted uprights.

I drilled out each hole before pounding a nail into place.

Sara sanded rough areas from my paint job on the uprights while I secured them to the railing.

After we had all of the uprights removed, Winnie and Robert enjoyed some play time in the living room.

We had some help securing the finished sections into place. Sara’s parents and brother came up for the afternoon to lend a hand. They helped hold the sections while I nailed them in.

After the banister on the top was in place, we were left with the ugly problem of cutting a piece of wood to cover the hardwood floor the previous homeowner put on the stairs. If you look closely at the picture below, you can see the edges of the hardwood are exposed.

I measured a bunch of times then cut out a piece of 1/8″ plywood underlayment. I had to use a coping saw and cut it by hand because the wood was so thin that it would shake apart if I used an electric jig saw.

Cutting the wood by hand, there were imperfections, which I sanded down.

After several rounds of holding the wood in place, marking it and sanding more off, it was ready to be nailed into place. This means nail gun time!

I pained the new piece of wood white then secured the banister the same as I did with the others.

I used a combination of nails and screws to hold the uprights to the railing. I used screws where I thought it needed some extra strength. But this left a big problem: Ugly holes all over the banister.