After getting back home from Cape Disappointment, I tackled some chores at home that I’d been meaning to do for awhile. As much as I love camping, I also enjoy working on projects at home and making my home feel more comfortable for me.
The first project was slow getting started because I didn’t really know what I wanted. I didn’t like the look of the brick behind my wood stove in my living room, but I didn’t know what to do to fix it. I didn’t know how I DID want it to look. I just knew that I really didn’t like the orange and black and white and grey colors of the brick.
One of my neighbors had painted her full, large fireplace a lovely dark gray. It was stunning! When I told her I thought I might copy the color, she loaned me the can of paint she used and said, “use as much as you want”. She had used less than 10% of the paint in the can; my project was much smaller; so I happily borrowed the can of paint.
But it didn’t seem quite right when I applied the same color inside my home. Where it looked handsome and stunning on my neighbor’s full fireplace, the color was just too dark and somber behind my wood stove.
So I left the project alone for a few days. Talking with another friend a few days later and explaining the project to her, I heard her say, “you’re painting the bricks white aren’t you?”
Ha! I never thought of that! At first it didn’t seem right, but this particular friend is quite often spot on with her ideas of interior design and color and landscape design. Sigh … so ok, I’ll try white. In truth, I simply used wall paint. In my house, the wall paint has a tinge of yellow to it. Rather than use a stark white for the bricks, I thought the bricks would look best if they matched the wall color.
I started with just a few bricks.
That looked ok. So I kept applying my wall paint on more of the brick.
Golly gosh, I think this is working nicely.
I love it! Painting the bricks a lighter color worked perfectly. I cleaned out the ventilation holes at the bottom of the brick half-wall, and I cleaned out the ventilation holes along the top rank of bricks as well. It’s best to have those ventilation holes clear in order to let heat rise and not set the wallboard behind the bricks on fire, yes? 🙂
And then Christmas came later in the year, and I really, really, really loved those light colored bricks.
What a nice, bright, happy setting.
The only down-side of painting the brick wall was the physical chore of painting bricks and mortar and getting in between every brick and being sure to cover every bit of the grey mortar, and every edge of each brick, the top side, the bottom, each end. And applying a second coat on all surfaces. At one point, I considered removing the woodstove in order to make it easier to get in behind and beside the wood stove, but removing (and then reinstalling) the woodstove would have taken even longer. I can say that, as much as I love the color of the bricks now, I swear I will never paint another brick wall in my life!
But I’m sure happy with the end result and glad I tackled the project and followed through. And I’m ever so grateful that my friend said, “you’re painting the bricks white aren’t you?” Thank you, Jan!
Next project … the dining room.
Here’s a photo of the dining room with the furniture and ceiling light and curtain and patio glass doors used by the former owner of my home.
Obviously, she took the furniture with her when she moved out, but she left the ceiling light that was too busy for my taste … and she left the curtain rod that was no where near level!
So first I removed the curtain rod and repaired the wall (there were lots of extra holes). Then I had the sliding glass doors to the patio replaced with super thermal doors. And then I installed an inexpensive set of vertical blinds, just until I can figure out what I do want to do to cover those glass doors. And of course I moved in my furniture. And finally, I replaced the ceiling light fixture with my own ceiling light fixture. This house was wired “backwards” … the hot wires go to the ceiling fixtures, not to the light switches, so even when the light is off, the wires to the fixtures are still hot. I’m very careful, the entire circuit gets shut off at the breaker box and, even then, I always triple check the wires with a tick stick.
I’m ready for dinner! Who’s coming over?
For the third and last project, at least for now (there will be more), I hung a gorgeous piece of wood on the wall above the headboard of my bed.
Friends of mine had given me this one-and-a-quarter-inch thick slice of wood. It had been cut from an old water-logged tree trunk, but had been cut on the diagonal so it had this fantascially wonderful shape. It was cracked in a number of places, and chipped and worn in other places, some of the finish was scraped off, but I love wood and I was eager to make this piece happy again. It took me a good deal of time to research the original finish, and to repair the cracks (one was so bad that I simply broke off the wood at the crack and then re-afixed the entire length of the wood where it had been cracked). I then sanded and refinished the entire piece. And then I had to figure out how to hang the piece. The piece wasn’t cut flat! I eventually settled on some D ring picture hangers that were almost flat so the wood could hang as closely to the wall as possible. I also put a few very tiny nails in the wall under one end of the piece to keep it “level”.
When I show this piece to friends, there have been all sorts of things that people see in this piece of wood. Some people see simply a beautiful piece of wood. Some see a bird perched on a tree limb. Most folks see a whale. Whatever one sees, I’m really happy with it. And I swear I sleep better at night with my friend keeping watch above me.
Gorgeous changes!
Thank you. 🙂
These are very cool changes you’d completed! I love the white brick, but having never painted brick myself I’m sure I don’t apprediate how much work it was. And I love your dining room table way better than the one the previos owner had in there! Like your bookshelves better than her hutch too. And I LOVE the wood in the bedroom!D
As I was painting the brick, at one point I realized that the word “pain” is part of the word “painting”. I wasn’t in any physical pain, but the work was incredibly fussy. Thanks for the nice words. 🙂
We love the white bricks behind the woodstove. So cool looking! One of us has painted a brick wall by hand before and knows the pain. Really excellent job you did.
We keep trying to see what’s in the shelves in your dining room, looks like interesting stuff. Would you show us one day? Please? 🙂
Thanks for the support on how tedious it is to paint bricks by hand. yuk.
Oh, interesting thought about seeing what’s on those shelves in the dining room. Those shelves hold a few of things that I’ve collected from my travels around the world over the years. That would indeed be a fun blog post … ok, it’s on my list for the future. 🙂
I knew something looked quite different but didn’t realize that it was the bricks. They are really obviously different. (and very nice, too!) Some people just aren’t very observant. 🤔
And aren’t you lucky to have friends who break your nice new doors?😄
WWWTD (woman who walks through doors). Oh gosh, I forgot to mention the woodstove brick painting when you and your daughter were here the other day. Some people just can’t remember things!
Readers … when this friend of mine was here at my home the other day, I had the sliding glass door to the patio wide open, but the screen door was closed. There was nothing on the screen door to bring attention to it however, and this friend of mine walked full tilt right into the screen door and took the entire screen door right off the door frame … wham! Thank heavens my friend was ok, but it did take me a little bit of figuring to finally figure out how to get the door back in and to get it to work again. So … I thanked my friend for giving me something to wrap my brain around. Life is very good. 🙂
When a visitor walked through your front door before you painted the bricks, the stove and the background bricks were very “in your face”. They definitely dominated the landscape. Now the stove is merely an accent, a much cleaner look. The Christmas picture says it all. (Is the train a Lionel? )
It looks so natural that I stood there and commented on Charley horse and didn’t even remember that the bricks had been different, not even after you asked if we noticed any changes.
Glad the door is okay. I figured that it must have been meant to pop out, because I really didn’t hit it that hard. I blame these darn transition lenses! Still, I felt bad, but not as bad as I would have had I not known how competent you are at fixing things. I had complete faith in you. And I was right!
I’m glad to hear you had the same reaction to those UNpainted bricks. I hated them, just didn’t know what to do. Finally figured out that if I did something, even if it subsequently changed to something else, then the energy would change and something nice would happen as a result, eventually.
Yes, the train is a Lionel … good eyes.
Thanks for your faith in me. 🙂
I agree that the original bricks look splotchy and detract in the room–the white paint was perfect. Your improvements made a much cleaner, calmer look. I appreciate your craftiness and interest in your home.
Thank you, Mary. That’s a right neighborly thing to say. 🙂
Welcome to the blog!
The painting on the left wall in your bedroom looks like Australia, maybe a Fred Klix painting? I lived there for a year and have one of his paintings. What a great job you did on that piece of wood, really looks good, makes me think of doing something similar.
Indeed, it is an original Fred Klix painting from Australia, good eyes, Ben! A friend of mine who had traveled to Australia a few times gave that piece to me.
Thanks for the nice words about the wood. I hope you find just the right thing for your own wall. Part of what I like about my wood is that it isn’t something that I simply ran out and bought and hung on the wall … I took a damaged piece of wood and made it beautiful again. It feels good to have done that work.
Those changes were well thought out and really accent your home.
I see a Whale in that piece of driftwood.
Be Safe and Enjoy your next project.
It’s about time.
A friend of mine said to me … “that’s a whale of a nice-looking piece of wood!” I groaned appropriately. 🙂
Love the changes, that white wall of brick is really nice…. i also have a brick wall and wonder all the time what to do with it.. painted walls grey and now it looks a bit better, were yellow b4, what was i thinking? Oh, well, we all change…. eventually it will come to me if there is a change to be made, for now i just sit and look at it… and wonder, yours looks really, really good. as does the dining room!!!
I wondered a long time too, Dolores, and finally decided that no matter what color I painted it, at least that would start the process. I could always paint over the part that I’d started with, which is exactly what happened. And color looks so different on a small swatch vs. on the wall, doesn’t it?
Thank you for the compliments! And … welcome to the blog!