Fixer Upper - Part 1

When we were in Chicagoland visiting my mom over Thanksgiving, she and my stepdad urged Jay and I to watch HGTV's Fixer Upper.  I had heard of it certainly, but we don't have cable, so I had never seen it.  In one weekend watching the show recorded on my mom's DVR, we were hooked.  Jay and I came home and immediately started watching whatever we could on Netflix and online.

Don't we all just LOVE this show?

Then I started looking at my "new-to-us" Minnesota house with what I call "Gaines Eyes."  I love my home!  But it is 20 years old and in need of updating.  We immediately knew we'd want to pull up the disgusting carpets and super-ugly linoleum.  But what I didn't realize at first was how dated this honey oak woodwork truly is.  Fixer Upper taught me that.  It's a nice wood, it is, but there's too much of it in this house.  From floors to cabinets, to doors and trim, to baseboards and window trim.  I could seriously hear Joanna Gaines saying, "You have all this really nice woodwork in the house, but there's just a little too much honey oak going on here." Chip would be nodding his head and making a wisecrack right along with my husband.

I would seriously buy a vacation home in Waco, TX just to have these two renovate it for us!
And we'd become best friends, I just know it!  (wink)
Chip and my husband would be serious trouble together with their wisecracks.

So, I'm not afraid of paint and I started researching how best to paint over this honey oak stuff.  I researched for about a month, taking copious notes and bookmarking multiple websites, while Jay and I were relaxing in the living room after dinner most weeknights.  Jay and I didn't really know what to do for Valentine's Day for each other, so I decided I'd spruce up the honey oak fireplace as a treat for him, for the house, for the family.

Oh, I'd be remiss if I forgot to mention that I chose to do this project on one of the coldest weekends of the year.  Ha!  Not that we couldn't have run the fire because it is behind glass, but still, I just felt it safer to keep the flames off.  Oh well.

Before.
Dated Honey Oak mantle
Ugly Brass Trim

I started late Thursday afternoon.  I really should have started it in the morning, but we had homeschool to wrap up for the week.   I figured out how to take the face off of this 20 year old fireplace and removed the hideous brass trim, washed them down (really dusty dirty) and roughed them up with some steel wool.  Then they got a light coat of high-heat-friendly, black spray paint on the undersides first.  I let that dry overnight.  I secretly hoped Jay wouldn't even notice the fireplace front being dismantled because he had an insanely busy Thursday workday, and he didn't notice when he came home, but would he notice in the morning before he left for work?  Nope.

Rust-oleum High Heat Ultra spray paint
and the first coat going on.

On Friday morning, I went back down to the basement and checked that brass trim.  Nice and dry.  I flipped them over to the front side and lightly sprayed 1 coat of black paint and let that dry all morning.  After lunch, that light coat was dry, so I added a second coat.

After a run to the library, I sanded the entire surface of the honey oak mantle with coarse sandpaper and my electric sander.  I had to take a hand sander to get into the nooks and crannies and that didn't do as great a job as the electric sander, but I did what I could.  Then I wiped everything down with a clean, old, worn out t-shirt of Jay's and I vacuumed up all the dust.  Then I taped off all the walls because I had no intention of painting my living room walls yet.

On Friday afternoon, I took out a small brush and my Zinsser oil-based primer in the gold can from Home Depot and primed the entire fireplace.  I did the little work first with a brush and then brushed the larger areas.  I let it dry overnight even though the can said it would be dry in an hour.  I felt overnight would give it really good curing time.

Love this stuff!

When Jay came home on Friday night, he immediately asked what the smell was.  "It's either the oven or the paint."  I had pizzas in the oven and cheese was dripping.  He turned around to see the fireplace and was pleasantly surprised.  Friday night before bed, I went to the basement to check on the spray painted brass trim.  It was dry to the touch and I gave it one more coat on the front side and hoped that would be it.

1st coat of primer

On Saturday morning, the brass trim, now black, looked fantastic!  No need for another coat.  Yay!  I left it in the basement hoping a little more drying time would cure it in case I had a tricky re-assembly.

Then, after running a quick morning errand, I sanded down that primer on the mantle with fine sandpaper, using just a quick once-over.  Nothing crazy.  Just enough to file down any ridges or drips I might have mistakenly made.  I gave it a quick second coat of primer, something that sounds silly, but came highly recommended by many who had previously painted honey oak because 2 coats hides that wood grain even better.  Then we ran some fun Valentine's errands that afternoon while the primer dried.

2nd coat of primer
We narrowed down the final paint color to those 2 paint chip cards taped to the marble.

On Sunday, after a Valentine's breakfast date with my Jaybird, we ran back to Home Depot for the finish paint color of our choice.  We chose Polar Bear tint and came home with a quart of that in a semi-gloss finish.  So, it was time for grubby painting clothes again, that fine brush and a fresh brush and I carefully spread my first coat of paint on that primed honey oak fireplace.  Again, doing the small decorative pieces first, then the large surfaces second.  What a difference even 1 coat made!  I honestly wondered if it would need 2 coats.

For a fireplace, a quart of paint was perfect.
We chose Polar Bear as our color.

Monday was President's Day so that meant no work for Jay, and no homeschool for the kids, so I brushed out my second coat.  I doubted if it would need a third.  We let it dry all day and all night before making our decision on a 3rd coat of paint.

On Tuesday morning we got up and took a close inspection of my paint job.  Jay and I agreed that 2 coats were enough.  I removed the painters tape and stood back and smiled.

During the renovation, I had also spray painted some decorative vases that we had.  I have teal colored curtains and I love teal and lime green and coral together, but these old vases didn't have the right color.  So with a little fresh paint, I repurposed them.  I found a cute frame with all my colors and made a sweet little Minnesota sign.  I also bought some candles that we had for some stands that were still in a moving box and set those up.

Old vases with a new coat of key lime spray paint.  It photographs a little more yellow than it actually is.
A cute frame from the resale shop and I made a cute little Minnesota sign on it that says "home."

A couple more vases from a box with fresh spray paint.
And cheap candles from Walmart for our old candle holders.
Oh, I hot glued some white felt under my vases so the pottery wouldn't catch my new fireplace finish.

My fireplace is so, so, so pretty now!

Well....

You'll have to excuse the cords hanging from the tv.  A 20 year old house isn't wired for a flat panel TV.  We'll have to have an electrician out for that.  And that might be pricey, so we choose to live with it for now and just do the cheaper updates first.  I also want a shelf to the side of the fireplace for components like the DVD player and the Xbox, but I haven't found anything fun at the resale shops lately.  The hunt for that piece continues.

BEFORE

AFTER!  Ta da!

But for now, I couldn't resist sharing this with you because we are so happy with it.  All in all, from the first sanding to the final placement of decorative pieces, this project took a long weekend and under $50.   I'm ready to do the rest of the house, but gosh, all this honey oak is going to take some serious time.  The only thing that will be left honey oak will be the wood floors and even those I hope to update with a good sanding and darker stain, but that will take some budgeting because I'll leave that to the professionals.

PS... For clean up, I have learned that not all Mineral Spirits are the same.  This is by far the best I've ever used.  And it's one of the cheapest at Home Depot too!  Oh, and you know about putting wet brushes into a ziplock bag, right?  It means you don't need to clean brushes in between the 2 coats of paint.  Of course, wash your brushes between primer and paint!

PPS... This is something I did not know about using oil-based paint in a house with gas heat and appliances.  I learned from Sears online, that when painting with oil-based paints in such a house, the smell of gas will be stronger until the paint cures.  I did laundry while completing the fireplace and fresh, clean clothes out of the dryer smelled like gas.  Gross beyond gross!!!!  I used a little essential oil spray to help thwart the smell and the smell did die down with time.  So, if you fall into this category, get all your laundry done before taking on painting project and maybe use the crockpot for cooking.  That's my plan next time.

Next in the lineup might just be the kitchen island, so stay tuned for that!  I'm secretly hoping for 1 project per month, but I'm busy enough as it is, so I'm not committing to any sort of timeline yet.  In the meantime, what cheap and easy project can you do to your Fixer Upper?  Share your home updates with me!