One Room Challenge: Week Two + How To Add Fireplace Trim

Welcome back to the One Room Challenge over here! If you are just joining me, I am Katie...a wife and mom that loves renovating and styling our home. For this challenge, we are making over our living room. This is where we spend most of our relaxation time in the evenings...it needs to be functional for our family yet I am aching for it to be tidy and presentable.

You can catch up easily here:

WEEK ONE

And, see my other One Room Challenges here: DEN and HALL BATHROOM.

 We were busy bees this weekend working on various projects all at once. Here is a quick outline of what we worked on {most of the house was turned upside down for days!}

-Added Trim to Fireplace

-Switched out sofa

-Switched out drapes

So let's catch up!

It was a little tricky figuring out how we could add the trim above the fireplace. Hopefully this will make sense as I explain our predicament! We already had crown molding and the husband put his foot down with not removing it to add the trim. It would have been a pain...point taken. Most moldings and trims are a thicker piece of wood than what is at the base of the crown, so none of those would have matched up and looked appropriate. Basically, we needed something about 1/4" thick that could blend with bottom ledge of the crown. We almost threw in the towel after looking at trims for an hour and as we were walking out of Lowes, we came up with a game plan. We found pre-cut strips of poplar that were 4 feet long that we could piece together to make our fireplace trim. Once we got home, Stephen cut them down into the exact lengths we needed. Here is what it looks like now:

Here is Stephen using the nail gun to attach the trim...

I made this graphic so you could easily see the order of how the trim went up. Stephen made really precise measurements to make sure the pieces met up as accurately as possible and they really fit like a glove. I think the order was key in making it fit as tightly as possible. Note: Pieces 3 and 6 are wider than all other pieces to add some weight to the design.

Here it is after the wood was all up:

I caulked every edge {huge believer in the power of caulk, especially in an old house}...Then I filled the joints and the nail holes with wood putty and sanded once dry. 

And primed...

And gave it two coats of semi-gloss trim paint. Here is a close up of the wall. I still have to touch up the wall paint, as you can see.

OH. And did you notice anything else?! The old brass fireplace surround is gone. Done. It was in terrible shape and was just a big old eyesore. Huge difference! Stephen said it came out pretty painlessly with removing several screws.

We joked around that the trim project was almost too easy...or maybe we are just getting smarter with our DIY's! ;)

Next up, we took the old sofa that had seen better days to the consignment shop and took down the drapes and rods. I really lucked out because my parents are currently building a new beach house and they are not using some of the furniture from the old house. They had three, beautiful sets of heavy linen drapes and also a wonderful slipcovered sofa that they were not going to be using. I was practically jumping up and down to have a new sofa. The old one had many mishaps, too many spills, a candle soot incident, and endless pet stains from a certain puggle that insists on stretching out on it. I've pretty much come to the conclusion we need to be a slipcover only family for the time being! I'm loving the the layered neutrals with subtle textures!!

I washed the slipcovers to get them really clean, let them air dry, and it is as good as new.

 I'm over the moon.

That is all for me this week! Feeling good about what we have accomplished but we have plenty more on our list before this room is complete. 

Here is the master plan:

More throw pillows {always nice to list the easiest and fun things first}

Add toy storage

Fix ottoman situation

Decide on shelving to the left and right of the fireplace {should it match?!}

New lamps / Decide about painting end tables

Switch out sofa

Switch out drapes and rods

Add paneling detail over fireplace

Update fireplace surround?! May not be an option {its gone!}

Find a new rug

Make sure to check out the ORC here, and the linking participants here. Thanks for reading along!