The $86 Remodel

Five and a half years ago, we bought our house.  It was ugly, neglected, repossessed, and had been empty for almost a year.  The roof leaked.  The bathroom floor was rotted and had to be rebuilt.  The story of Our House is a long story, one for which I am very thankful, but I'll stick to The Cinderella Room.....

Tucked down a hallway off the kitchen is, what we have referred to as, The Study.  AKA 'The Cinderella Room'.  It has been where all of the mismatched, odd furniture has been 'sent'.  You need it but don't really like it, so you have it go sit by the fireplace and be quiet.  :-)  This room has been our school room.  Two of the four walls had cedar paneling.  The kind that was glued on board by board.  Individually.  At one point we thought we would take it down, but arduous paneling removal was a low priority after reroofing, bathroom repair, window and door installation, exterior painting of the Rather Tall House, etc.  The Cinderella Room was a light sucking vortex with the only window being a large north-facing sliding door.  There was no overhead lighting.  The dark, cedar walls literally absorbed the indirect north sunlight and lamp light, even full spectrum lamp light.   El Professor, who believes that anything worth doing on the house should be 'done right', felt that we should sheet rock over the paneling, texture, and paint.  I knew that on the priority list of Necessary Projects,  this meant the light sucking vortex was going to remain as such.  

The summer before last I convinced El Professor, who believes that any work done on a house should be done right, that slathering light paint over the cedar paneling would create a light, barn board effect.  He was skeptical.  Cedar bleeds through paint and takes several coats to successfully cover.  We painted one cedar wall.  Several coats later, the room was lighter.  One wall remained.  

This fall, as my the-day-after-Christmas-birthday approached, I informed El Professor that I would simply LOVE, love, love a gallon of paint to tackle the one remaining, light sucking, very ugly, cedar paneled wall in The Study.  Maybe we could paint the fireplace, too.  I had this idea that the light-sucking-vortex effect could be conquered with  lighter 'barn wood' walls achieved by painting the cedar, and then hanging artful, old windows with glass that would reflect the meager light from the north facing window.  El Professor was open to the idea, and the $86 Remodel began. 

The fireplace was so ugly that I have never bothered to photograph the kids' Christmas stockings, which I lovingly sewed,  hanging up.  The whole thing was awful.  

The beginning of several coats of primer.  It took several coats before the cedar quit bleeding through.  

After the wall was sucessfully painted, El Professor put the awful, cedar beam/mantle back up. Awful.  This is where 'the accidental' part of the remodel began. I had been rallying for a total redo of the fireplace as a part of this wall painting project.  Initially, El Professor had simply set out to repaint the wall and humor me with the window hanging idea.  End of Project.  The cedar beam awfulness, however, convinced him that more needed to be done and he agreed to a fireplace redo as well. As a matter of fact, he decided the whole adventure could become his birthday present as well. ( His birthday is exactly a month after mine.)  We headed to our favorite recycled building materials mecca and began The Hunt for a new mantel.   The fun centered around redoing The Cinderella Room by hunting for fun salvage and keeping the cost to a minimum.

The recycled building materials covered area and lumber yard is a Treasure Trove.  The kids love it there. 

Old windows galore.....on the day I purchased these  they were two for the price of one. 

El Professor found this weathered beam chunk behind a stack of wood.  Cost of the new mantle--$8

I should have photographed the process....He had to bolt a 2"x4" to the wall and then carve/chisel a 2"x4" space in the backside of the mantle, ultimately mounting the mantle to the 2"x4" on the wall.  Impressive.  Even if it's salvage, he likes to do things right.  

Putting it all together....

Oh--the project would have come out for much less than $86 had we not had the CRAZY idea that we should, maybe,  paint the fireplace a color.  WHAT WERE WE THINKING?!  Enter, more paint costs to quickly cover up the evidence of a Very Bad Idea. 

Some good friends gave us a futon they no longer needed/wanted....that was the end of the mismatched furniture that had been sent to The Cinderella Room.  They even delivered  and installed it!  Such a blessing. 

A few months ago I posted that I wasn't sure we'd be able to pull the fireplace remodel 'out of the fire', but I'm pleased with the end result.  The room is light and inviting, and we had fun salvaging our way to an $86 Remodel Double Birthday Present.