Wall Mounts, Caulk & All The Trimmings!

I’m very excited to say that a great deal of progress has been made on our little built-in project in the family room since I last posted about it over a month ago.

Here’s a quick picture to remind you of what things looked like before we started the project…

…and a picture from my last built-in update.

Well, here’s a picture of where we are with it now!

So what all have we (and by “we” I actually mean “Craig”) done? 

Well, he added trim to the shelves (to cover the brown, unfinished edges),…

…filled all of the cracks with caulk (and finished things off with his handy little finishing tool),… 

…installed the wall mount and the electrical box for the TV,…

…and added crown molding, baseboards and toe kick!

What a HUGE difference these small changes have made! Can’t wait to finish the last few details (add shoe molding, touch up the paint, install cabinet hardware) and fill the shelves!

Another Built-In Progress Report

I realize that it’s be a really long time since my last built-in desk/entertainment area update.  Please don’t think that the lack of posts on the subject is due to a lack of progress though.  Tremendous progress has definitely been made!  I’ve just been too slack busy to blog about it.  I apologize!

Anyway, here is a reminder of how things looked before we ever started this built-in project.

And here’s a picture from when we last left off.

And here’s how things look now!

Still not complete, but definitely much further along than the picture from before.  So, what exactly have we (and by we I totally mean Craig) been up to?

Well… first Craig installed electrical outlets, cable jacks, and internet jacks in the back of the entertainment and desk cabinets.  Thankfully, we knew when we renovated and rewired the kitchen/family room that we planned to later install built-ins, so we made sure to run the necessary wires in the walls before our new drywall went up.  Honestly, I don’t know how he does it, but Craig really makes this kind of stuff look easy!  After cutting a rather large hole in the drywall behind the cabinets, he simply fished out the wires, marked and cut holes in the backs of the cabinets, and installed the electrical boxes.  Then he slid the cabinets back into place and secured them. 

After all of the electrical work was done, it was time to start planning for the shelves.  We discussed a few different layouts for the shelves before we finally settled on our final design.  Then Craig got to work installing the supports that would hold the shelves. 

Once all of the supports were installed over both the desk and entertainment area, his focus turned to building the shelves and countertops.  We decided to use MDF as the main material for this part of the project.  Craig built the shelves by taking two pieces of MDF and sandwiching a piece of wood that had been cut down to size in between.  He made sure to leave a gap on the sides and back to allow for the shelves to slide back onto the supports he had secured to the walls.  The countertops he made by securing two pieces of MDF together and then trimming out the front edge.

When the shelves and countertops were all built it was then time to begin painting.  After doing a little research we chose to use an alkyd paint to help the shelves and countertops hold up better over time.  Craig applied a nice, solid coat of Sherwin William’s Multi Purpose Latex Primer which he then followed with a few coats of Sherwin William’s Pro Classic Waterbased Acrylic-Alkyd in extra white.  To help eliminate brush/roller marks he added a little Floetrol Latex Paint Additive to the paint.  This also helped to extend the dry time of the paint, which was a huge help since alkyd paint tends to dry so quickly.

After everything was painted and dried it was time for the fun part… assembly!  Craig very carefully secured the countertops in place and then slid in all of the shelves.  I guess all of his planning paid off because all of the pieces fit together perfectly, just like a jigsaw puzzle!  It really was a beautiful thing! 

Now all that’s left to do is caulk the cracks where the brick meets the shelves and countertops, add all of the trim (including crown, baseboards, and toe kick), and accessorize the shelves.  Can’t wait for it all to be done! 

Built-In Progress Report

We’ve got paint (for an added pop on the back of the built-ins)…

…and we’ve got cabinets!

Now we just have to decide on a material for the counter tops, build shelves, add the trim, and so on…

But even though we’re still far from finished, if you use a little imagination you can almost see it…

…a completed built-in desk and built-in book case/entertainment area, that is!

Can you see it?  I know we can!  And we’re getting pretty darned excited to get it all done… hopefully before our new little guy arrives!

Built-In Brainstorm

Once upon a time, the view from our family room into our kitchen looked a little something like this…

But, what you may not have noticed from the picture above was the old built-in desk/book case that used to be in the family room.  You can just barely see the corner of it in the picture below (For some reason I completely neglected to take a picture of the old built-ins prior to ripping them out in the big kitchen/family room renovation… obviously, I was more focused on the impending changes to the kitchen than I was on the changes that would take place in the family room). 

Completely out of view of the above picture is a large recessed area (approximately 3 ft. deep by 3.5 ft. wide) to the left of the built-in desk/book case.  The space is flanked by brick on either side and served no apparent purpose, so this is the spot where we had awkwardly placed an old TV and stand to be used in the room.

Anyway, our plan from the very beginning was to swap the “office” and “entertainment” areas.  Before the old kitchen wall came down and the new peninsula went in we were forced to rip the old, built-in desk/book case out to make way for the new walkway into the kitchen.  The slightly recessed area (approximately 1 ft. deep by 6.5 ft. wide) that we were left with was too shallow for a desk, but it would work perfectly for the new built-in book case/entertainment area we had envisioned.

 

And the deeper recessed area to the left (again, I failed to take a “before” picture of it) was the perfect depth for a built-in desk similar to this inspiration picture (originally pinned from here).

Unfortunately, with the expense of the kitchen renovation and the unexpected roof repairs we made last year, we didn’t have the money in the budget to finish our built-in plans.  This left us with a lack of storage and no designated office space in the family room.  Our so-called “temporary” solution has simply been this…

Continue using the deeper recessed area (that we planned to convert into a new built-in desk) for our old, awkward TV and place an old, unused desk in the slightly recessed area to the right (that we planned to use for a new entertainment space).

I know it’s pitiful, but this has been our reality… for about 9+ months now!

Thankfully, however, it doesn’t look like this will be our reality much longer!  Because sitting in our back room as I type this post are a small handful of boxes that look a little something like this…

That’s right folks!  The cabinets required to make our built-in dreams a reality are here!  Now all we need is a free weekend or two to make the magic happen!

Laundry Room Ceiling Repairs

Remember back in March when Craig accidentally stepped through the ceiling in the laundry room on the first day of our kitchen renovation?  Well we’ve finally gotten around to fixing it. 

Don’t get me wrong… we did a very quick, very temporary fix right after the incident occurred.  However, there was still a medium sized section of plaster missing around the duct that connects to the HVAC unit in the laundry room. 

And with winter coming we wanted to make sure that hole into the attic was covered up.  Not to mention the fact that we wanted to add more insulation to the attic and it would be best if there weren’t a hole in the laundry room ceiling for insulation to fall through.  So, a few weeks back we decided it was finally time to fix the ceiling.

Craig went into the attic and moved as much of the insulation away from the laundry room ceiling as possible.  Then he removed a large section of the old ceiling (which the former owners had previously patched with wood paneling and sheet metal) in addition to some of the remaining plaster around the HVAC duct.  This left him with a pretty significant hole in the ceiling.

He then measured and cut pieces of sheetrock to fit.

Next he very carefully screwed the drywall in to place, making sure he didn’t accidentally screw into a water line in the attic (like our sheetrockers did when hanging the drywall in the new kitchen).

Once the sheetrock was hung Craig used mesh drywall tape and joint compound to give the seams a rough patch job.  He also filled in the small gaps around the HVAC duct and wiring with Great Stuff just to make sure that we wouldn’t get any cold air in from the attic this winter.

We’re not going to worry about sanding the ceiling and pretty-ing it up right now.  We’re still planning to move the HVAC unit into the attic (which would free up almost half of the square footage in our laundry room for a mud/storage area!) and we figure there’s no point in smoothing it all out and making the ceiling perfect when we’ll have to do it all over again in a few months.  So for now it’ll just have to do.