Painting the Red Brick Fireplace: Before/After

We have been working on modernizing our red brick fireplace, and are finally finished!

Before

After

How Not to Install a Bathroom Sink

Based on our recent personal experience, I have created a list for anyone preparing to replace their bathroom sink. I'm still unsure of the proper way to do it, but I have a pretty good idea of what not to do:

1. Begin during a mid-summer heat wave with no AC.
2. Give up on figuring out how to shut off water to the bathroom; just shut it off to the whole house.
3. Assume that your sink has traditional size pipes (or that the size marked on your pipes is accurate).
4. Wait to begin until a Sunday night when all of the hardware stores are closed.
5. Be really busy at work so that you're working extra hours instead of fixing the bathroom sink (or more importantly, turning water back on to the house).
6. Don't buy bottled water; there is plenty of liquor in the cabinets to hold you over while you sweat to death.

Living the Dream

"It's nights like tonight that I wonder why we didn't buy a swanky apartment in DuPont," says Ben.

In the next breath, he reminds us both that we're living our dream. We give an exhausted cheers with our $7 wine from the liquor store on Georgia Avenue. Yes, we're living our dream.

Our Living Room Makes Me Feel Insane

We've been working every night for a solid week on scrubbing, patching and painting the living room. Somehow it seems like everything I need is in the middle of this mess:

And after today's 4 hour Home Depot excursion and sink installation fail (more to come on that later...) the living room has also become the new residence of our bathroom vanity. As you'd probably expect.

Sometimes I see before and after pictures and wonder if I will ever live in the after.

Water Leak in the Living Room

Our living room (and dining room) walls had significant water damage to the plaster when we moved in. In prep for painting, I patched, sanded and scrubbed down the walls. Everything has been going splendidly except for an area next to the fireplace where the joint compound hasn’t dried. The patch was thick, but it’s been over a week.

So that leads me to believe that we have a current water issue in the living room. Yesterday I bought some stuff to repair the mortar on the outside of the house and I’m hoping that does the trick. Until we know for sure, I guess that section of the living room will just go unpainted. 

Project Wallpaper Removal Begins

John & Hannah have a major task before them: make their bedroom move-in ready. Most rental units don't come with this challenge, but renting in our old house is an exception.

They came over with all sorts of tools and equipment (including a 6 pack) and set to work. After an entire work day, they made really major progress on removing wallpaper from the walls & ceiling:

Jeremy came over today to help out:

They'll be back for a full day of removal Monday & Tuesday. This is no easy job!!

Drawings for the Back Porch

Ben’s profession is a major asset, especially considering our back porch’s structural issues.

One of the most difficult parts of fixing this structure is that we need to decide our long-term plan for renovations – which feels like a real challenge after only living here for 6 months.

After many conversations between the two of us about potential ideas, he sat down and began drawing. We both worked a full day together at the dining room table- he on our house, and me on launching my company’s new blog.

I love the ideas he came up with. At this point, we’re both leaning towards scrapping both levels of the porch and focusing our efforts on waterproofing and finishing the basement. If we can successfully figure out how to convert it into a rental unit, the rest of these projects should come more easily.  

Modernizing a Red Brick Fireplace

I love having a fireplace, but the red brick color in our living room has a really old look & feel that just sucks the life out of the room. Besides that, it couldn't look worse against the new color of our walls. We're trying an experiment to modernize this red brick fireplace with a new paint job.

Step 1: Wipe down the fireplace with a web sponge to remove dust and cobwebs.

Step 2: Paint all of the mortar and sides of the brick white. The surface is porous, so this will require at least 2 coats:

Step 3: Paint the surface of each brick. We chose a Benjamin Moore semi-gloss paint because we want the fireplace to function as an accent piece in the living room. I recommend using the 1" Wooster paintbrush because it's small enough to get into the crevices of the brick but high enough quality that the bristles don't go astray.

We aren't quite there yet, but I'm loving the way this is turning out:

Updated post 10/16/13:

Here is the finished product:

updated red brick fireplace

More AC Units

Troy and Laura gave us an AC unit from 1989. It's only 3 years younger than me, but I hear it works like a charm. It's the one Troy used in his bedroom growing up, so it's fitting that we'll use it in their guest room.

Then our neighbors joined us for July 4th on the front porch. When they found out we were looking to purchase another AC window unit, they kindly offered us theirs. They just had central air put in a few weeks ago (after 23 years) and wanted to help us out.

Today their son and his friend brought it over, which now completes our set of guest bedroom AC units! Now our family can visit without sweating to death.

Happy Independence Day!

We had a fun start to the holiday by hosting our friends Kristen & Nick for brunch. After they left, we declared today to be full of projects.

This pretty much sums it up:

Mimosas & DIY

I worked on patching up the plaster in the living room, from the little cracks in the walls to the water damage:

Plaster repair in the living room before/after

Then I scrubbed the walls for hours in preparation for paint:

Ben worked on repairing around the electrical outlets from where the electrician tore up the walls:

Then he started painting! The color is Benjamin Moore's Cantaloupe. It's hard to tell, but I think I like it so far:

Family Weekend at the DC Zoo

In 2011 when Ben and I first moved to DC, everyone came down to visit us and go to the zoo. Looking back on it, I can say this time was 100% more fun because we're homeowners. Not having to coordinate with roommates who is using the kitchen, where kids can take naps, and figure out where is a kid friendly restaurant in a brand new city--- this was just such a fun weekend!

There is a park right across the street from our house that the kids love to play on when they visit. This time was no exception:

I love looking back at old pictures, comparing how much they've grown since our last trip to the zoo (and how Lainy wasn't even around yet!):