Living Room Remodel Part 1: Installing Baseboards

<---- Remember this?
While sitting in my living room early one morning, looking through various remodel blogs and photos, I decided we needed to tackle the living room. While we have wanted to replace the baseboards throughout the house for some time, I thought, why not take it one step further and install board and batten? So, I asked Jace for a few weekends of his time, and here is the story of our remodel.



We followed the following outline of steps for this project:
1. Baseboards
2. Chair rails
3. Stair woodwork
4. Board
5. Batten
6. Paint and Electrical.

We started off with the basics, our 1980 home has 2 inch wood baseboards without design. Just plain ol' simple wood. Simple wood that's been kicked, beaten, painted, bumped into, and abused over the past 30 years. It was time to go. I also really, really, like the look of board and batten, and felt it would give the most focal room of our house a much needed breath of new life.

As you all know, the first step to any good remodel is to make a HUGE mess. This happens to be my favorite part--- trashin' the place! This part is always fun, taking down the artwork, sconces, window treatments, not stepping on the dog. You know, the usual.

My first step was to paint over the pretty green wall I had-- Sorry soothing green wall.. I'll revisit you when I re-do the laundry room, but for now you must skeedaddle....
I decided on "Wheat Bread" and "Polar White" Behr Ultra Premium paint. I swear by this brand, and have used it in every room I've painted. It has the paint and primer in one, and generally makes every project easier. I didn't bother taping off the lines, and just painted roughly the same height throughout the room.

The next step was FUN.
 Removing the old baseboards.
Here's how to do it:
1. Take a utility knife and remove the old caulking seal along the top of the baseboard.
2. Using a putty knife, gently pry off the baseboard along the length of the board, taking caution to not pull off any wall with you. (I did this in one small section... my bad!).
3. Jace swears by the nail punch method, which is essentially the same first step, then using the nail punch and pry bar.
4. Remove your baseboards and chuck em'.

Installing the new baseboards was a breeze: 
How to install new baseboards:
**Wear safety gear! Jace is demonstrating the latest fashion: Safety glasses and a mask**
1. Measure twice and cut once using a miter saw. Measure out the lengths you will need for your walls. I recommend measuring, cutting, and installing as you go, rather than cutting all at once. This will help you in your corners, and to maintain equidistant lengths of board, so you don't end up needing a small 5 inch piece. Those can be tricky to install.
2. Cut all of your non-corner pieces using a straight cut.
3. Cut all of your corners using a 45 degree angle. Again, measure, cut, go look at the joint you've created, fit the pieces together, and cut again. You may find, like in our house, that you don't have a flat, straight walls. Yes, that's right... we had crooked walls, chances are- you do too. This meant some angles had to be cut at 43 degrees, others at 47 degrees. We didn't know this could be a possibility, and slowed us down for a minute as we reassessed the wall. You want the tightest joint possible, so reassessing your cuts may be needed.
4. Mark all your old holes above where your baseboard will be going, so you use preexisting holes. This makes installation a lot easier.
5. Line up your piece that you are installing flat onto the base of the floor. This means pulling up the carpet a bit.
6. Using a nail gun, (we used a fuel-cell powered one, and did not have to deal with a compressor: awesome move on our part- and much easier). Line up the markings to where you will be installing the new finishing nails, and hit the trigger to release the nail. Install your nail about an inch above the bottom, depending on how large your baseboards are.

"Say hello to my little friend..."

7. Using your finger, place a small amount of white caulk on the hole you've just created, and wipe off the excess using a wet rag.
8. Once the caulk has completely dried, sand down any excess, tuck your carpet fully in, and paint the baseboard. We used a left over plank while painting, and tucked in a plastic sheet throughout the length of the room, instead of taping. This way, we were able to fully paint the baseboard without damaging our carpet.
I also recommend using a satin or glossy finish paint here, as eggshell will scuff and be hard to clean and remove.

And Voila! There's the finished Baseboard, installed, gorgeous, beaming, and waiting for board and batten.....

Homemade Vanilla Extract

A few weeks ago, Jace and I received 8 vanilla beans in our Bountiful Baskets food co-op order for the week. Since we never know what we're going to get, I was challenged to find something amazing to do with these delicious pods. I'd never dealt with vanilla beans before, and was somewhat intimidated to make an extract, but had a gorgeous bottle, just waiting for some love.

Homemade Vanilla Extract:
1- Small Bottle of GOOD vodka (you can use the cheap stuff, but again, isn't the point here to make yummy, better-than-store-bought extract?
1- Pretty, air tight, clear bottle. (The prettier the better).
5-8 Vanilla Beans

Step 1: Slice the vanilla beans lengthwise and remove the beans from the pods. The vanilla beans I had did not have large beans, so I ended up keeping most of the beans in there. If you choose to do this, just be prepared to strain through a cheesecloth in a few months once your extract is ready.

Step 2: Place your beans into the bottle. 

Step 3: Using a funnel, pour your vodka into the air-tight bottle with the beans.

Step 4: Label for 4 months later. (The extract takes about 4 months before it is fully cured, so labeling helps you remember when it is "good". Within one week, your bottle will smell of pure vanilla, so you can't just go off of smell :)

Step 5: 4 months later- enjoy. You also just saved yourself a ton of money, and have pure, real vanilla extract. Start baking!


Simple, easy-peasy,  and super yummy.

Until next time,
Cassandra

Composting, Co-oping, and self-sufficent living in Utah..

Believe it or not, there comes a time when you realize there is such a thing as too large a shoe or purse collection. Follow me here, because I don't think I've completely delved into delusion yet. I'm not necessarily sure if I've fully reached this point in my life, but I certainly have started to look for something more significant and sustainable. I received a gift card for Christmas, and like any self-respecting woman would, immediately jumped onto Amazon.com to look at shoes (you can't blame a girl for trying).. and yet, nothing resonated.
For some reason, I looked up from my keyboard, and found I was looking at tumbling composters... Really Cassandra? Tumbling composters? Wow. How the mighty have fallen. A few years ago, you would have bought a pair of designer sunglasses and called it a day. What is happening to me? Wait, did I just ORDER that composter? AND a book?! The joys of composting? Oh God, it's a downward spiral.
I'm excited to embrace a more sustainable lifestyle. Where did this come from?   I'll be honest, some of this came from living in Utah... but I place most of the blame on my future mother in law. Year after year, she pumps me full of ridiculously delicious homemade canned goods from the farm. Wait--You mean I can just go out to the garage and grab beans, fresh from the farm? In December with 3 feet of snow outside?  Organic beef that I know every single step of how it was raised, and how it made it's way onto my table? Corn so sweet and delicious, having never been touched by a pesticide? Oh my God... I'm a farm-fresh junkie. Give me the good stuff. Give it to me now, and no one gets hurt. If slow food is a drug, my mother in law is my pusher man......
So. Now I've certainly been bitten by this bug. I want to know where my food comes from. I want to spend my grocery budget supporting local farmers and businesses, and people who are interested in keeping food local. I want to dabble in this through food co-ops and composting to make my garden this year great. I found a great link through the Slow Food Utah page, "http://bountifulbaskets.org/", and will be trying it out this weekend.

My composter arrives next week, and I've picked up a few books to help get me started:
"The Urban Homestead" by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen.
and
"Your farm in the city" By Lisa Taylor.
I'm filling my cranium with as much garden knowledge as humanly possible in the desperate hope that this years bounty will resemble more of a bounty, and less of a morsel. Admittedly, ending the season holding the single, small pumpkin I managed to grow, up to the sunshine with tears in my eyes, (tears of joy.. thank you very much)... was probably not my finest moment; but a learning experience I truly needed. I learned that a garden cannot grow on love alone.. and that sometimes you honestly, truly just need some crap.

=)

Brown paper packages tied up with strings...These are a few of my favorite links...

In the quest to find some great inspiration for both my home, and my life, I have dug through countless websites and looked at goodness knows how many different great webpages. There are a handful, however, that I visit quite regularly- and wanted to share them with you. I'm also excited to post next week part one of my Christmas project. I will be making ALL of my Christmas gifts this year, and am determined to have them be amazing!

One Kings Lane: Amazing Ideas

Sweet Pickins: A local Utah furniture refinisher- (cute, cute, cute!)

Home Talk: GREAT feedback and tips from people who have done it themselves. I have gotten ideas for everything from composting to painting..

Happy Hunting!
-Cassandra

Our Engagements and the "Kitchen facelift" project

I've been frantically knocking projects off the to-do list, as though I am being chased by a tornado. This is half accurate, as the weather will soon turn and I won't be able to accomplish much in terms of reno. With Jace and I's wedding coming up in 9 months, we simply don't have the option to redo our kitchen the way I would really like it. I envision a complete demo and rebuild. This is financially about 5 years out for us right now, so I HAD to do something to the kitchen to make it work. (Side note: I cook between 10-20 meals a week in my kitchen, and am most certainly one of "those" people, where I feel the kitchen should be the focal point of the upstairs. In our forever home, I would love a large open concept kitchen with an island that has bookshelves on the side, power, and a small sink... THAT project is probably 10 years out, haha!)
Since work has been quite busy as of late, I have been staining a few kitchen doors at a time. I will take photos next week, and can't wait to share the redo. It isn't a full renovation, but what I'm calling a "kitchen facelift". Just what the cabinets needed before heading into the busy cooking season of Utah winter, holidays, and many nights gathered talking around the kitchen with a glass of wine and great friends.

Until then, I wanted to share the great photos our wedding photographer took for Jace and I for our engagements. We had such fun taking them! Sometimes I'm not sure how I got to be so lucky.. to be marrying my prince charming, and have an absolutely blessed life. Also, I turned 30 yesterday, and am excited to be starting this new chapter of my life. :)

-Cheers!     xoxo- Cassandra