Quick DIY Secret Mossy Hiding Pail

Well I guess not so secret anymore now that I've blasted this all over the internet.  Oh well, I guess if you come to my house you'll know this secret spot & head straight to it. 

Good thing for me that I don't keep anything in it! Yea, I've always had some weird obsession with hiding places. I used to hollow out books, just because it was cool. And then I'd put them on the shelf. Empty. I don't have anything to hide really, no gold coins & cash burns a hole right through my pocket.  But, during this fail-fix I couldn't resist the opportunity.  

It all started during that long winded downstairs bathroom redo, one of my accessories was to be ferns. I chose ferns, because that room is "light challenged" and I figured they'd fit right in. Look how they did:

Mind you, this is not a case of not having a green thumb, I have a bunch of healthy plants that will tell you otherwise - I gave this puppy everything I had, and he quit. Fast forward to problem #2 - I used a wood bucket.  Even though I had the fern in a separate plastic pot for drainage (I thought I thought of everything!), and sealed the heck out of the bucket, the water seeped on through.  But whatever, we all have fails & new things sprout from those, right?

I wanted to rush out and buy (see what I mean about the cash problem) something else to go here, but in an effort to try and use-what-I-have-around-here, this is what I came up with. And it's what I should have done in the first place. (sorry lil fern...)

Step 1: Paint the bottom half of the bucket. This was dual purpose, it hides the horrible water damage to the bucket, and looks all color-blocky.  Unsuspecting people will think this was the plan all along - good!

Step 2: Raise up the floor so I don't have to literally fill this bucket with moss.  This is where the secret hiding spot came in at the last minute! I hoard keep all those jars from finished Bath & Body works candles & freeze the wax out (freezing the candle is the easiest way to get the wax out - just take a butter knife to it to crack out the wax). They are super handy, and this one fit perfect:

A little newspaper padding to keep it steady......pop the lid on....

Step 3: Fill her up with moss! This is my favorite moss, it's about $26 on Amazon (find the link here) for a HUGE box of it, but you can find smaller packs too.  I use it all the time, I cover the soil in my other houseplants with it, just to make them even cuter. Because, why not? Back to the bucket:

Done! Much cleaner. I love that fluffy lime stuff. I still get my touch of green in here without having to buy a fake plant, and a hiding spot too. Again - because, why not?

From failed to fixed in like, 15 minutes. And it didn't cost me a thing since I had it all here.

Back to work on the backyard brick patio for me...  enjoy your summer!

-Jesse

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Before and After: The Downstairs Bath Official Tour

Should we finally tour this bathroom or what? When we started the bathroom in...oh.. mid, November? The idea was for it to be a 1 to 2 weekend project.  Then of course Thanksgiving happened, and oh - all of December is pretty much devoted to the holidays, and then we were able to get back to work.  I'm pretty proud of our lil makeover, we did it on a budget ($300ish?) and changed the room drastically.   You can see the the post that started it all here,  or you can browse the many posts throughout the process by clicking here.  Quick refresher of how it looked BEFORE:

Keep that image in mind as I do my best to photograph the AFTER photos. I really, really love how it turned out.  I'll share two sets of photos, one in our fabulous vintage yellow light, that casts a warm glow all over the room - which by the way - makes your skin look amazing & clear. Yellow lights from now on, haha... Also - find project links under each photo. Get ready for a ton of photos...

Rather than replacing the existing stand, we decided to save a little cash & add some personality by giving it a face-lift.  This was a simple job, paint & rub in a stain.  Since we wanted a wall size mirror in here to make the space feel larger, we had a custom mirror cut & we built the frame ourselves.  Adding a mantle gave us room to put a few plants & trinkets, while providing a space for people to set things.

• Quick Sink Cabinet Makeover
• DIY Mantle & Mirror

The towel rack used to be to the right of the toilet, which, was pretty awkward.  Adding a slim towel rack the width of the window provided ample hanging space while bringing yet another metal into the room. 

• Copper Towel Rack

The plan was to make some art, but by chance I spotted this at Ross & knew it would fit perfectly.

A few thrift store scores in woods, metallics & browns + my ferns cozy up this space.

• DIY Mantle & Mirror

One more shot of that mirror.......

The floor was originally peel & stick linoleum, and once we started looking around on Amazon for flooring we realized peel & stick has come a long way! These were simple to put in, and give the illusion of a wood floor that I dream of. You can find them on Amazon here, we used 2 boxes totaling about $30.

• Really Easy Wood Look Flooring

Man that room is hard to photograph! Here are some daytime shots, it's been super rainy so it was STILL a challenge getting good light, but I didn't want to wait until summer to share this with y'all.  So here we go:

• New & Old Light Fixture Redo
• DIY White Wood Ceilings

In a better lit bathroom you could totally see how awesome that rug is, I got it from an Etsy Seller (click here!). Here's a better shot:

So in love with that ceiling! The trim, was a... .let's just say, "learning experience". We used fence lumber (not treated with chemicals!) to achieve the rustic look (I'm too lazy to dismantle pallets, plus I hear they have super chemicals all over 'em), and did a simple whitewash before installing.  I'd say it cost us around $40.

• White Wood Ceiling Tutorial

I had wanted something in this blank corner since you could see it in the mirror, doubling it's blank-ness. It had to be small, it had to be light, it had to be living. Tah dah!

• Newest Favorite Project: Air Plant Sphere

I'm really happy with the bathroom! I think we are coming in at around $300 total, which is pretty good considering we repainted, bought a new mirror & added a frame, built a mantle, redid the floors, added a custom whitewashed ceiling & scouted out all new accessories.  Thanks for touring!

-Jesse

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Downstairs Bathroom Details

We're done. We're done! The downstairs bathroom is done, and I'm just waiting for the right time to take the tour pics. Bear with me, it's hard to get good light down there. We wrapped up the finishing touches, which was all about trimming. This was our first time with crown molding, and WOW - what a learning curve! I thought it would be pretty simple, you know - corners are 45 degrees, duh.  What I didn't expect was the corner moldings shape when you buy it.  It's not a full corner, it's kind of.. empty behind it once you put it up. If that makes sense. And it threw me for a two hour loop of flashbacks to geometry.  We finally got it figured out, in a very primitive way - I had to pretend the base of the saw was the "wall", and the back of the saw was the "ceiling". It was the only way I could conquer all these angles.  For the rest of you, until I master this technique - I won't even try to explain - here is a fantastic tutorial from Sawdust Girl, that I totally should have studied before I started. Ha!

Picture time.

This is a picture of what I was doing wrong. Can you see the problem? Now that we're done, I totally understand what was going on. Before, it was a mystery.

Here's the room without the crown, it's very.. unfinished looking.

We peeled back our rope trim & got to work (should have waited on the rope trim until AFTER all the crown, no biggie)

We tested each piece in it's place to make sure it was a fit, and then used our new nail gun to throw in some brad nails. We used this nail gun because it was affordable, and it totally did the job. Nail guns, are my new favorite tool. Why did I not try these sooner?!

It all went up pretty easy, then we wanted to fill in the tiny gaps.  We used Wood Filler to fill in the nail holes and cracks, but I've heard a lot of people use paintable caulk, especially on uneven walls like ours.

After the wood filler dries you can paint, and then that's it. The crown really adds a finished touch, and since it was getting dark ALL my photos are night shots. That's winter for you... dark! Oh well - stay tuned for cute daytime shots soon. Sowwy.

Did a little hot glue action for the rope trim, like we did in the Entryway Command Center post.

One last little detail was bothering me, the inside trim on this light fixture:

 This rope I found at Beverly's was the perfect touch, and easy to add while the glue gun was out.

Ok done.  With the final details taken care of, we can wrap up this bathroom. That took way longer than originally planned, but I absolutely love how it came out, and that's the most important part.  So if you're struggling with a project that was supposed to be short, just keep on truckin'. It's worth it.

-Jesse

Leftover things to do in the bathroom:

• Whitewashed Wood Ceiling
• Door! 
• Tear the place apart and patch up the damage
• Paint the back wall dark grey, other walls light grey
• Get a huge mirror & build the frame.
• Build Copper Pipe Towel Rack
• Build distressed wood mock mantle under mirror
• Herringbone Peel & Stick Floor, except, no longer Herringbone.
• New light fixture, something fun & yellow!
• Paint or replace sink & stand.
• Tie it all together with accessories, and ferns! FERNS!

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DIY White Wood Ceiling

We're done! Well, sort of. We have to add some trim, but that can be another post. This was so much easier than I expected.  We'd been brainstorming wood ceiling ideas,  and felt pretty confident in tackling this.  I'm so happy with the results, I want to do it to every room in the house!

It's really rustic, but clean, & adds to our mountain-ey, cabin-ey home... while staying light & fresh.  If you want to do something like this in your house, I say do it. It's amazingly easy & satisfying. Here's what you need:

• Wood planks - we were going to use bender board so it would be lightweight, but I couldn't find it. So, we used lightweight cedar fence boards instead.  $1.38 each!
• White Paint (Semi Gloss, Paint + Primer in one)
• Paint gun (optional)
• Nail gun + 2" nails (ours connects to the air compressor)
• Air Compressor (if you'll be using the nail & paint guns)
• Saw (we used our DeWalt Miter Saw, my favorite toy)
• Measuring Tape
• Stud Finder
• Drill + spade bit, if you need to make a hole for wires to come through.

First up, you want to paint your boards.  You could cut your boards first if you like, but we chose to paint them first, so that while they dried we could go in the room and do measurements, etc.

Here's Ralph:

We've had some amazing weather lately, which is good for working outside, but really really bad for California. We are now in a drought, yikes... 

Anyway, everyone all lined up on a giant dropcloth:

I adore my paint gun. It attached to the air compressor, and makes painting 3 million times easier.   Here's the one we use: HVLP Paint Gun.  Not paid to tell you that either btw, it just really has saved me hours of time! You want to mix a little floetrol in with your paint first, so it runs out of the gun easier & spreads out on your surface better.

It's about a 1:4 ratio.  1 part floetrol to 4 parts paint.  

• TIP: If you want stark white boards, seal or prime your boards FIRST.  Cedar fence posts are amazingly thirsty, and sucked up a LOT of paint. Luckily we liked the look, or it would have been frustrating.  I think any seal would do, even plan white glue would have been fine I bet.

 Boards all done, see how thirsty they were:

Now while that dries, pop back in the house and start planning out the space.  You want these  boards to stay in the ceiling, so find the studs.  Our boards will be going the shorter distance of the room (across), which is perpendicular to our studs, which go the length of the room.  This way we can nail through the boards at each stud, making it sturdy.

***If your studs are not going perpendicular to the way you want your boards, put a few small pieces of wood before the planks that DO nail into the wood. In short, you're making a second set of studs, that connect to the ones under the drywall, but these will be outside the drywall, giving you a strong set of beams to nail into. Email me if that totally didn't make sense.

Here's our nasty ceiling, with our matching nasty light: 

 The texture wasn't sitting well with me, and Ralph agreed. Nast.  But makes a great before shot.

Use your stud finder to find your studs. This is a great time to make jokes about the stud finder. Heh...

Run the stud finder along the ceiling, and when it beeps to tell you there's a stud, make a mark. Doing this over and over all over the place will quickly give you an idea of where & which way the studs lie. Draw lines along the studs so you know where to nail. 

Paint dry on your boards? Great. Start measuring your ceiling and cutting boards. You probably want to cut one at a time if you think your room isn't exactly straight, like ours. Hold each piece in place before you nail, to make sure it fits. 

Now gear up with lots of protection.  This was my first time using a nail gun, and I was a little nervous after reading the warnings.  They really put the fear in you in those manuals! 

Safety first.. ha! So dorky, but at least I have my eyes and ears unharmed.  I tested the nail gun on a few scraps to make sure my settings were correct (read your manual), and then nailed each board one by one. 

Nail guns are amazing! So fast.  Our studs were on the sides (pretty common) and one down the middle. 

Once we reached the light fixture, we paused, turned off the power to the room, and finally took down that hideous fixture! 

Beautiful. 

Now we were going to keep the electrical box in it's place, and run a chain to our new fixture.  So, with the power off, we measured the distance from the wall as well as the adjacent board, to the wires, and knew that was where we needed a hole in our next board. And, it worked:

Don't turn that power on until your wires are sealed up! Don't risk it with electricity. After we ran the wires through the hole, we put the new light up & temporarily connected it.  We sealed everything in electrical tape, so we didn't accidentally touch it. 

Then, we just... kept going... here's a thousand pictures:

I love it! The only things left to do is add some trim so it looks built in, and put a mounting plate over our electrical work. Did you notice a few paw prints in the photos? Yea... while our boards dried, a lovely raccoon came by and walked all over them. This was also after we cleaned up all our paint, of course! We figured we'd paint over it later, but now... I kind of want to keep them? Hehe...See if you can find them.

So that's it! This was really easy, and the crown will be the perfect finishing touch.  What do you think? Wanna do it?

Have a great one!

-Jesse

Leftover things to do in the bathroom:

• Whitewashed Wood Ceiling
• Door! 
• Tear the place apart and patch up the damage
• Paint the back wall dark grey, other walls light grey
• Get a huge mirror & build the frame.
• Build Copper Pipe Towel Rack
• Build distressed wood mock mantle under mirror
• Herringbone Peel & Stick Floor, except, no longer Herringbone.
• New light fixture, something fun & yellow!
• Paint or replace sink & stand.
• Tie it all together with accessories, and ferns! FERNS!

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