Gold Table For Airbnb

Well there she is.  Lately I've been working on a no-longer-secret project, this gold tiled table.  I was approached by the people of makeably, who had a client, who had their own client, that needed a Gold tiled table.  Top, Sides, legs... all of it - gold. They asked if it could be done, and the collaborating began.  So yesterday when makeably.com did their article on it, I was surprised to see that the table was actually for the offices of airbnb.com!  You can read more about it on Makeably.com, or click here.  But the jist of it is that airbnb wanted to celebrate their success by decorating their new office in the themes of some of their popular apartment rentals. This table, was apparently in someones apartment in Berlin. Neat! Some close ups:

This was not the easiest table in the world, but it also wasn't the hardest. I learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and was really happy how it all came together.  Finding gold tile was the hardest thing in the world, every company I talked to said "no one ever asks for gold, so we stopped carrying it years ago".  Special thanks to Opus Mosaics for really pulling through for me here! 

The company I was working with also asked if I could tile up a table they would send me, which is this:

 Yes, it's missing it's legs! Haha. They will be attaching those later on.

Special thanks to Jessica over at Modwalls, she really helped me out! See, in order to get a custom blend of colors, you usually need to order at least 20 sq. feet.  Well, I clearly only needed about... two square feet? So she lent me the tray, and I hand placed the color tiles one by one.  It's a multi-step process but worked out well. Check out Modwalls when you can, they are a local company (Aptos!) but ship all over the place.  The custom tile blender is awesome!

So that's done.  Dropped them off yesterday and swung by IKEA on the way home.. it was a Tuesday so it was EMPTY. Best time to go EVER.

Thanks for checking in, have a good one!

-Jesse

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How To: White-Wash the Fireplace

Roughly 1 million  years ago I asked all of you for your opinion on whether or not we should whitewash the fireplace.  The results were pretty mixed but a lot of you leaned with us towards whitewashing - so one brave evening, we took to it. It was SO much easier than I expected!

So much brighter! We aren't completely done with our front deck yet, but it turns out both Ralph & I prefer to balance too many projects at once - and we started in on the living room.  The fireplace was the perfect kickstart we needed to get to work.   Here's a side by side so you can really see the difference:

If you think you can't do this, you're wrong. It was simple! I took a few process shots to share.

The process is simple. Take diluted paint, and one person brushes it on, while the other follows behind with a rag to remove the excess.  I thought we would have to be really fast about this, but to my surprise - the paint was really forgiving.  In fact, we had to let it soak a little longer on the brick to get the white we really wanted.

Pretty straightforward - dust & clean your fireplace as best you can.  If you want some more darker bricks to show through later, this is the time to paint some of them black, or brown, or deep red or whatever.

We skipped that step, as we already had some dirty bricks. Then, mix up your whitewash.  This is a simple half & half mix: 50% Water, 50% white latex paint.

 Yum!

Then you get to work! Brush a small area on, then wipe it off.  You can always repeat if it's not as white as you'd like. 

We started with the mantle first to get the hang of it, but I guess it would have been smarter to start somewhere LESS visible.  Luckily it came out fine, but you can see we wanted it a little lighter than this:

So we started leaving it on longer, and got this:

We found that wiping less vigorously helped too - gently removing the excess paint vs. scrubbing the bricks to death worked way better.

Stand back, take a look:

And just keep going. We did this in about an hour.

We chose not to tape because we figured we could be careful enough (and we were!) and we also had planned to paint the wall behind it another color someday (Update, we painted! Click here to see), to really make the fireplace pop. (again, click here to see!) And finished:

It dried so fast we were able to start playing decorator, and decided that our mantle needed a mirror, even if it's sliced in half by that chimney.  Can't really fix that, but I love the extra light the mirror brings!

So refreshing! We also have another crazy idea for this area, not sure if it will work... we want to get grey river stones, medium to large size, and cover the brick area around the stove.  We'll put a wood border, and just let the rocks be loose. I think it will bring a modern touch.  Have you ever seen anything like that before? I've been looking all over for tips (or warnings!) about doing that, but we might be on our own....**UPDATE** 10/3/13, we did it - we added river rock to the fireplace,  and it's great!

Well I guess it's Monday again, back to work, huh?  Have a great day & a productive week ahead!

-Jesse

P.S. Here's a sneak peak of the fireplace with our new wall, click here to go read more about it:

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DIY Security Sticks

There's been some robberies in our hood lately, which moved this DIY project to the top of the list.  Granted, I understand these sticks won't completely save the day, but they won't invite anyone in with open arms either.  But safety doesn't have to be boring, am I right? Break out the paints!

I don't know what these things are really called, so I'm gonna go ahead and name them Security Sticks, which is the best name ever.  This is an extremely easy DIY project that doesn't even warrant a tutorial.  You can look at them and already know what to do. So easy you can get the kids involved.  For the adults this project pairs nicely with beer, wine, and good music.

See? Simple.  We have the type of windows that those little screw locks BARELY hang onto, and ya know what? Those are a paint to screw and unscrew each day.  I like to have a little breathing room while we are gone at work, and these puppies fit the bill.  OK here's my super quick security stick project, that I think came out kinda cute.

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1000+ Fans Giveaway WINNERS

Whoah, Memorial Day Weekend just flew by!  I fell off the bloggin' bandwagon since we were so busy not only prepping for a fun camping weekend, but then recovering! Hope you all had a great one too.

In other news, we have 11 winners from last weeks giveaway! Thanks to all who entered, and a big HELLO  and WELCOME to all the newbies who've joined us - so glad to have ya here.  If you won, check your inbox - I sent you an email with all the details.

And the winners are...

Free Custom String Art Winner:

Jennifer K. !

Coupon Codes for 50% off ANYTHING:

Stuff F.

Anacani 

Julia M.

Aunt S.

Jill Z.

Kelsey H.

Ashley E.

Jacki B.

Heather P.

Vidya S.

Congratulations everyone - again, you should have received an email from  me but if you didn't, get in touch with me for your prize: 9redinfo@gmail.com  I've heard from some of you but not everyone.

That's all for today, We decided on a whim to paint the living room which unleashed a whole world of projects, and we weren't even done with the front deck completely yet.  Balancing multiple projects seems to be the way around here...

Have a great one!

    -Jesse

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Curb Appeal: Wonderful White Paint

In my past, white has been the most under appreciated paint color in my book. We totally fought.  I used to think it was boring, and just avoided it as much as possible.  Maybe that's because I always lived in apartments where I wasn't allowed to paint, so everything was stark white.  I was surrounded by it during a time when I craved color, big time.  Then in our last house, the landlord gave us the all clear to paint whatever we wanted, and I about exploded. Color everywhere, which you can see an example of in this old post.  And you can see even then, with the white trim, that I was just starting to embrace and appreciate white. That was a beach house in Santa Cruz, so wild colors went over real well & matched the 'hood.

Then I started to try white a little more. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE color (yea, seen the guest room? hehe..) but I've really come to appreciate the difference a little white paint can make.  When we painted the pergola we constructed out front, we bought a gallon of that white, figuring we would use it all over the yard.  In attempts to make the house a bit more welcoming from the street, we decided to tackle this crazy retaining wall along our driveway:

Come on white paint, save the day, please.

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