The Kitchenaid and the floors

A few new developments here at the Cottage!

First, I'm still working on cleaning up the Kitchenaid.  It's really kinda icky.  I can't blame the previous owners, I don't think I've ever thought about flour dust and such getting into things while mixing.  But it does!  I'll post pics of how to get a 4C apart after I get ours cleaned up in case you have one and think it might benefit from a good cleaning.

First we took the chrome part off of the top, then the cover over the back where the cord plugs in.  This is what we found:

This is the front where the PTO (where the attachments attach) is:

And this is the gook that fell out onto the counter:

And that is as far as I got with it.

Because we picked up a lot of salvaged wood I found on Craigslist.  It was a garage.  And now the 2x4's will probably turn into a wood shed, I'll use the clapboard on another shed, and the sheathing...ah, the sheathing.  The best part.  It will probably be our new floor in the living room!

Here is what we got:

And a closer look...it was tarped and sat covered for a few years...and got kind of mildewed and yucky:

So I spent some time with a power washer while Mr Eclectic split more of the wood mountain, then laid it out to dry:

And of course now they are saying it might rain tonight, when it wasn't supposed of as of this am!  So we had to bring it all in...and of course, since it was in anyway, we decided to see how it looked:

The flash doesn't show it as well as it does in person, but the icky growing mildew stuff left some interesting patters, and the aging of it makes it basically look like the all too popular (of course because *I* wanted it) barn wood.  Barnwood would be thicker, but otherwise, this is pretty much the same.

We'll probably run a sander over it to touch it up, and then finish it with an oil, like tung or linseed (or a mix of the two).

So, about the floor...

I mused more on the idea of a pallet floor yesterday.  The main problems being: collecting enough pallets to actually generate the needed amount of planks, the taking apart of all of those pallets, and most importantly the fact that most won't be an equal thinkness requiring planing and sanding as well as getting them all to stay put (since they won't be tongue and groove).  I'm not sure face nailing will keep the planks from cupping up in areas where the dog (or the people) might bring in more water on their feet.

So I got to thinking about inexpensive white pine floors.  The problem is, they would look rather...new.  I know they wouldn't stay "perfect" looking long, since pine is so soft, but they would have that light pine color that just wouldn't match the Cottage and might look weird with the ceiling in the living room.

And then I researched old fashioned stains.  I alread figured on using linseed or tung (or a mix of them) oil as a sealer.  So I wanted a similarly toxin free option to make my new floors look old (er).  After looking about, I found this blog about coffee staining and distressing: http://pumpkinpiepainter.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-coffee-stained-chain-beaten-wooden.html with this final photo as the result (ok, so it's not a floor, but same idea)

Not bad, huh?  I also know that iron can leave darker stains (think of old nails in wood) so I am thinking of doing a base coffee stain with bits of iron left on it to darken some areas-or just put some steel wool in vinegar and brush it on after letting it sit.

The flooring might not be settled, but one thing is for sure, when it is, it will be unique and it won't look new or perfect!  Exactly how we like it here at the Eclectic Cottage.

Living Room, Part III, The Rebuild

So now you've seen the ugly truth hiding below the tiles...it's time to see what all that demo led to!

Once we had all the joists out, we cleaned all the debris off the dirt and replaced the sills:

Then it was on to new joists with vapor barrier below on the dirt:

We insulated between the joists so the floor wouldn't be so cold:

And layed new subfloor on top:

Now we had to deal with the ceiling.  It was covered in popcorn, there were several light fixtures we were removing and replacing, and the biggest problems of all-the ceiling was different where the closets were and there was a hole down the center where a faux beam had been.

This is the ceiling:

We had some choices.  Try to repair it, rip it all out, or leave it and cover it up.  We originally tried to cover it with 4x8 sheets of beadboard from the home store.  We got two pieces up and decided it looked awful. Then we talked about drywall, but thought it would look off in the room.  So we went with a product we've worked with before in our old house, tongue and groove pine planks.

By now, you're seeing the white washed paneling in the photos.  It's the same paneling, just sanded and white washed with Minwax Whitewash Pickling stain.  We DIDN'T follow the directions, which is why it has the vintage-y worn look.  We brushed it on, let it sit for 10-20 minutes then wiped it off with a towel.  It dried in some places and not in others, giving it that worn barnwood look.  It has to be done carefully, you don't have to use pressue when wiping the stain off, just let the towel run over the boards.

And now, the more recent "now" photos from the left corner to the right:

Next up, information on the cool stuff you're seeing in the now pictures, and the "what were they thinking" photos of the "framing" of the window you see in the last image.

BLACK?! Really?

Our front door was painted black.  On the inside and outside.  I really don't know why, except for some reason the sink base in the kitchen is also painted black.

This is the sink base, we couldn't fathom why this was painted black (like it needed to be any darker in that room with all the darker wood):

And here's the offending door (I realized AFTER I painted it I had only the immediate "before" photo of it, with the painters tape and all):

My apologies for the paint can and step stool in the pic.  The white "tape" on the door isn't actual adhesive residue.  I have NO idea what WAS taped there in that haphazard manner, but it's actually where the tape peeled off the black paint.  That fun piece of furniture to the right is a treadle base from an old sewing machine.  The machine is long gone, but the drawers are awful handy!

I used a painting technique that I've used before for some book shelves we use in our booth at an antique mall.  It's pretty easy and has a neat effect.  It uses whatever paint type you have handy-we had some "vintage green" around from a previous project so I didn't get a chance to use our milkpaint yet (I use milk paint for some crafts however, it's AWESOME). 

I didn't photograph a step by step, but you really don't need one.

Step 1) If you have raw (unfinished) wood, paint it with a solid base of your choice, preferably a dark color (in this case the door was already black).

Step 2) Tape off anything you don't want painted (such as the knob, lock and windows on my door).  Blue painters tape works best, but you could probably use masking tape.  Lay paper on the floor or work surface.

Step 3) Make sure your paint is stirred well. 

Step 4) Brush on the paint nearly dry.  This is the hardest part if you are used to painting-you just dab the very end of the brush into the paint.  The point isn't to fully cover the project, it's to let the base show though in streaks.  It's best to paint all in the same direction so your streaks aren't all catywhompus.  If you end up wiht a bit too much paint, clean off the brush and dry brush the area to remove a bit.

That's it!  Here's the finished product:

We do have a sweeper on the bottom and it stands out a lot more with the door painted.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that yet.  We're also going to need to introduce more green tones into the dining room and kitchen to tye it together, but it's SO much better than black.  I've been considering painting the sink base the same color, and also putting up some beadboard in the diningroom (wall to the right) and repainting in there.  Time will tell, but I'm happy to get rid of the black hole in my doorway for now!

A new wood stove photo

I just thought I should post an updated photo of my beloved Lopi.  It's been doing a great job keeping the Cottage warm this winter, and now that we've been here a bit I've added more "stuff" around it.  Mr Eclectic Cottage bought me an antique coal hod to use as an ash bucket.  We've added a great green jug with led lights on the wood box along with other things.  This was my "test run" photo session for this year's Christmas card, which is why there's an abundance of Christmas items:

Uh, about that china cabinet...

It's a project in progress for now.  In otherwords, I got side tracked!  It's cleaned up and sitting in the living room, waiting for me to get the time to mess with it.  For now, it's fine as it is-perfectly shabby and cottage chic! 

I got distracted by our wood stove.  We went to Tractor Supply on Black Friday for a couple of new jackets, and I saw cast iron cookware on sale.  It got me pondering....could we just use our stove to cook on instead of the range?  Well, we might just  be doing that!  We picked up skillets, a dutch oven and deep pan and I'm fixing to give it a shot.  Especially after checking our propane tank and seeing it had dropped 10% in a week or so!!  It seems our kitchen range may be on the way out, since we don't use the propane for heat.  We're watching to see if it is just the oven or the range in general.  In the mean time, I'm "cooking up" some recipe ideas for the stove, including chicken soup in the dutch oven.  Lopi has a recipe on their site for frying pan corn bread, I might even try it tonight!

Here's the cabinet as it sits:

A New Project!

So I was going to blog about the paneling or other projects, but I've got a new project I'm excited about and hope to complete this week. 

We were driving down the road and saw this china cabinet set somewhat near the road.  Not on the curb though mind you.  I LOVED it.  But, no one was home and it wasn't at the street so we weren't sure it was really being thrown out.  It was still there the next day, and there was someone home, so we asked.  And he was throwing it out!

So we loaded it up and lugged it home.  Did I mention the other half of the cottage crew (my husband) was less than impressed?  I still loved it. 

So, today in 30 degree weather, I washed it up (it was a bit mildewy and had barn ick).  I wouldn't suggest washing your wooden furniture, but I wanted warm water...and it was pretty dirty.  I plan to paint it in a shabby cottage style and replace the broken glass with chicken wire.

Here's my latest find, from the Paramount Furniture Company in Warren PA in as found condition:

It wasn't originally black by the way...check out how the laminate is peeling on the door:

Broken glass:

Look at the beautiful handle:

See the detail work:

The original shipping label information with the model number:

Jumping ahead a little...

So, I'm going to jump ahead of our MAJOR project of replacing the flooring and floor joists-remember what I said about foundation issues-and land here with building a natural lake stone hearth for our new wood stove.  We put a beautiful Lopi Republic 1750 in to help heat the place, and to add romance to our living room.  I always wanted a wood fireplace, but I'm more than happy with the stove! 

We had a lot of options for a hearth pad.  We could buy a premade one, or make one from tile or store bought materials.  However, in the spirit of living lakeside as well as in the interest of being frugal (we won't say cheap, lol) we decided to take advantage of our own resources.  Granted, we would need to buy the mortor and grout, but we could make it whatever size and shape we wanted AND save $$ on material costs vs buying tile, etc.  Also, it would feel more connected to the location by using materials from our own front yard.

We built it bigger (about 6' long by 4' deep) than needed for clearances, to give us a raised place for wood storage.  The base pad is simply 2x4's built in a square (there are two additional 2x4's inside of the square for support) and covered in Durarock. 

We started by picking a LOT of relatively flat rocks and setting them out on the Durarock to get an idea of pattern and to see if we wanted larger or smaller rocks (the picture below shows the small ones on the left and the larger ones on the right).  If you are building your own hearth pad, be sure to check your local building codes and the stove manufacturer's guidelines for clearances.  We chose the Republic because it has a VERY close rear clearance (4" from back of stove to combustibles with a double wall pipe), and even though our living room isn't small, it isn't large either so we wanted to take up as little floor space as possible with the pad. 

Once we had an idea of the layout, we set the stones using a mortor made for natual stone (there are different types, depending on how porous your material is).  It wasn't really that bad once we got going, although getting it out of the bucket with the notched trowel was a bit of a pain, so I used a paint stick.  What we did was get a pattern laid out for a general idea, then we took all of them off the pad.  I know it sounds like extra work, but we wanted the basic plan laid out-did we want all bigger stones, all smaller stones, or a mix?  We chose a mix.  It would have been nearly impossible to lay them back in the same pattern, so it was just easier to take them all back off.  Then we worked in 2' x 2' areas, toweling on the mortor with the notched trowel, then laying the stones into that.  We did "butter" (put some extra mortor on the back side) some of the stones as well.  I'd say this process took a few hours, and I was the only one laying them, to avoid two different patterns emerging (like certain painting techniques, everyone has a slightly different method of laying the stones).  We then allowed the mortor dry for 3 days, per the instructions.

After all the stones were set in the mortor, we leaned a few pieces of our "reclaimed" paneling up against the wall to see how it would look.  I am in LOVE with the paneling.  I'll blog about that later, it's a take on white washing and pickling on natural pine, and it was done not only to lighten the room, but because we didn't have enough of the old paneling after doing some work in the room.  It's done to resemble chippy, worn barn wood siding.  There is an old barn we pass every day which has weathered white siding and it really reminds me of that.

Once the mortor was dry, we sealed and then grouted the stones.  The sealing was simple-just paint on the sealer with a brush.  This step was supposed to prevent the grout color staining the stones, and it did for the most part.  Grouting still took TEN hours, even after sealing the stones!!  Typically it wouldn't take this long to grout I'm sure, but because the stones are so porous each stone had to be "scrubbed" to remove the grout from them, then the grout had to be finished (I used damp rags for this).  To grout, I used a rubber grout float that had some "give" and fit to the natural contours of the stones.  We used a lighter grey grout called "Delorean gray" (yes, like the car from Back to The Future).  Then we fitted the paneling in around the hearth pad after the grout dried (please excuse the "orbs" in the photo-there's still a good bit of construction dust floating about). 

Once the grout was dry, we got the stove installed, and put a neat vintage crate next to it as a wood box.  I *LOVE* old crates.  If you follow along, you'll see them in other places too.  The brass fireplace tools are also vintage.  We picked up the crate for $2 at a garage sale before the whole crate frenzy took hold, and the tools were bought from an architectural salvage company many years ago (they used to sit next to our gas stove at our old house for that "real" look) for $20.  We had the fireplace distributor install the stove, that was one of the few things we decided not to DIY.

We still have to finish the sides, but we're waiting to do that until we have the floors in.  That will be a while, we've been using the sliding doors to bring in materials, so we figured we'd leave that until the end to avoid doing too much damage to them.