Black Clawfoot tub

(Sorry for the radio silence here - we've been having some technical difficulties! Thanks for your patience! xo)
I've always loved big clawfoot soaker tubs. I've been keeping an eye out for a good deal on Craigslist and I found this big, pretty one for only $200! I had to drive up to Prescott to get it (about two hours), but the drive is gorgeous and it was nice to have an excuse for a little road trip.

The inside enamel is practically perfect, but the outside of the tub could use some work (really, just a good clean up and some paint). I mostly need to figure out the hardware and what I'm going to do for the tub's plumbing. I'm obsessed with Jenna Lyon's tub and hardware. 


The new tub is going in the bathroom under the stairs, next to the playroom. It's where we bathe the girls and it's the bathroom that guests will likely use, since it's closest to the living room and kitchen. You can also sort of see right in to the room from the entry if the bathroom door's open. I'd love for it to be a pretty room, but there's a ton to do!

We're going to just list the double vanity on Craigslist and get it out of there. I've got some fun ideas for a single sink and new tile for the floors and walls.

The HUGE tub is going to be a nightmare to remove and haul away. The nice guy who helped remove our well is coming back out to help with this one!

If we can salvage it, I'll happily donate it, but I'm not sure even ReStore would want the tub. It's so huge.

The new tub is 60" long, which is just about perfect for the space. I can't wait to get it in there! I've been dreaming of black for the outside of the tub, but I'm thinking a super, super dark green or blue would be pretty too.
 
 FJ Interior Design
 source
 Creative Homebody
 
House and Home
Do any of you have experience with fixing up an old clawfoot tub? Any tips would be very appreciated!!

Top - Svelvik bed frame, black from IKEA Bedroom 2015

You can access a variety of characteristic images and new offers and new beds, there are many designs, will be added in the near future and that you receive, as soon as you browse our Web site.
You can get more through the following articles and also before and some of the following images to see

Svelvik bed frame from IKEA Bedroom black

Svelvik bed frame from IKEA Bedroom black

Svelvik bed frame from IKEA Bedroom black

Svelvik bed frame from IKEA Bedroom black

Svelvik bed frame from IKEA Bedroom black

Adding Trim to Closet Doors

There are two closets in my office that hold a lot of good stuff - fabric and trim and wallpaper samples. Since I use these closets often, I decided to make them prettier and I gave the doors a little facelift recently. Here's what the boring hollow core doors looked like on move-in day.

The painters our landlord insisted on using didn't prime any of the doors before painting them black (with latex paint??), so I've been going back one by one and re-coating with primer and oil-based paint. Here's what the doors looked like after removing the old hardware and giving them a light sanding. This was also after I took down the blue wallpaper. (We had a little photoshoot in the space a couple months ago and the wallpaper needed to be removed. It's a long story, but I was fine with it.)

At one point I had installed a big brass knob on the far right door, thinking I had four knobs, but I actually only had three (you can see one of them in this post). Bummer. The knobs were a little big for the closet doors anyway, so I started looking around for a good, but mostly inexpensive alternative. I found these solid brass knobs at Home Depot for $5 each and they fit the bill just fine. A little on the small side compared to the others, but probably a more appropriate size for closet doors.

I sanded the doors down by hand, which was a mistake. I should have pulled out my palm sander or even stripped the doors with my beloved Citristrip. There was definitely a texture left that I hoped wouldn't showed through the new paint, but it did a bit. It's not all that horrible in person, but learn from my mistakes and don't take the shortcuts here like I did. :) Hopefully your doors are smoother than mine were and the whole problem can be avoided.

I had a bunch of pre-cut trim from a few old projects that I decided to use on the closet doors. Since all of it was pre-cut, all my long pieces were ready to be installed on the door with my brad gun and this project was a cinch. I only had to cut the short pieces and the pieces for the small boxes in the center of each door.

I made things really easy on myself and made it so every border was 3" wide. This way I could just eyeball the placement of the trim, hold it up, verify with a ruler that the trim edge was 3" away from the door edge (or the next piece of trim) and then put in a nail with my brad gun. No marking out, no levels. Fast and easy.

Once all the molding was nailed up, I sealed all the seams with paintable caulking and gave that a light sanding when it had dried.

The old hardware holes were patched too and then the doors were ready to be painted.

The only dark-tint primer I had on hand was a cheap brand that I'm not a big fan of, but I used it anyway to prime the new trim. Not surprisingly, it didn't do a great job of sealing the raw wood. So the trim took the oil-based paint differently than the old door did. C'est la vie, I guess. (Note to self: Only buy Zinsser!)

It's hard to photograph super glossy walls and doors, so you'll just have to trust me that it looks prettier in person. :) But I'm happy with how the project turned out.

I love the shine and the bit of dimension that the new trim adds. And I love the new wall color (BM Chelsea Gray) with the black doors too. The masculine neutrals help tone down some of the brighter colors I have in the space (like the neon tetanus console). :)

One step closer to finishing this room that still needs a lot of work!

PS Here's the door in our old loft to my girls room that I trimmed out (without any power tools!) and painted a bright yellow. And another, better shot in this post.

Have you trimmed out any of your interior doors? I love how it can really elevate those hollow core doors so many of us are cursed with! :)

Bavarian Forest Walls and Wall-Mounted Nightstands

You might remember a bit of the history of what is now Heather's room.

Actually, let's back up, since I get lots of questions about Heather every time I mention her.

Heather is my youngest sibling (there are five of us and I'm the oldest). She graduated from college last spring and came to live with us in the concrete jungle where dreams are made. She is working and also helps me with some of my business stuff and she pitches in with the kids (basically, she is saving my bacon. Also she is clever and funny and lovely and a general dream of a person to get to be around every day. We feel lucky to have her.)

So Heather was living down on the garden level for the first few months, but we decided to switch things around in December-ish. Michael and I moved downstairs, which made it so much more convenient for us to be closer to the office where we both log in long hours, and she moved into the small room up by the kids on the third floor.

She was super down with doing black walls like I had originally planned on for that room. So while she was home in Arizona for Christmas I decided to surprise her with some room progress.

Remember those dang shelves hanging above the bed from when the bachelors lived here? Well those shelf rails must have been there for decades because there were probably 17 layers of paint slapped on top, leaving the ugliest deep trenches behind. It was such a pain, but we scraped and sanded and filled up those trenches with as much joint compound as we could pack in there.

Here's the sad, neglected before shot, right after we pulled down the shelves and while we were building the IKEA Pax units (those mirrored doors to the right).

The light from the windows is casting some funny shadows here, but the walls are about a million times better than they were before after that sanding and scraping. They are old, imperfect walls though, so we went with an eggshell finish with the paint (since gloss would only highlight the imperfections). The color is Benjamin Moore's Bavarian Forest. It is the perfect dark teal. Close to black, but a little softer. Heather's favorite color is green too, so I knew she'd be cool with the small change in plans.

   
Since the room is so, so teeny and clothing storage is super tricky, we ended up buying this bed with drawers in the frame. Guys, I don't recommend this route unless you are in dire straights like we were. But the frame itself is pretty non-descript and the drawers actually work well. We ended up screwing the velvet footboard right onto the bed frame's existing footboard, so you can't even really see any of the old frame.

But as you can see, there is zero space for nightstands, especially because of the drawers in the frame (there's one up by the head of the bed). I looked around for wall-mounted options, but I couldn't find anything right, so I ended up buying a pair of these corbels from the hardware store.

They fit the narrow space perfectly. I was on my way back to the hardware store to buy some wood to cut down to act as the table top, when I stopped by Michael's and checked out the wood section.

These little pine boards were about $5 each on sale, and they were the exact right size. Too perfect to pass up, I say!

Two quick drywall screw-ins later and we had a nightstand!

Since the table top was securely attached to the corbel, I could just hang the corbel itself on the wall and it sits there securely. I also filled in the screw holes and the small little pine knots with a bit of wood filler and then I painted out both nightstands in the wall color.

I love how these turned out! They add a little something to the lines of the room, but they also disappear since they're the same color as the wall.

And isn't the wall color perfect with the coral velvet headboard?

More projects from this room to come. Lots to share!

PS Thank you, thank you, thank you for your kind words in the last two posts. I am so grateful for you all.

PPS The Apartment Therapy Homies just went up and I'm so flattered some of you already nominated me in the Home Design and the DIY categories. Thanks a million for your votes! xoxo

Reader DIY: Linen Upholstered Rast

Just try and show me a piece of IKEA furniture that's been hacked more than the $35 Rast dresser and I'd say you were lying. :) There are SO SO MANY hacks and I think for good reason - it's a cheap and super versatile piece! And the Rast is the perfect small-bedroom-bedside-table size.

Kelly from Hello Boudreux was inspired by this Martha Stewart tutorial and wrapped her Rast dresser in a lovely charcoal gray linen.

Kelly gives a great step by step here. And I'm crazy for the results:

Have you done any Rast hacks of your own? We're in need of some smallish nightstands with storage, so I'm thinking of coming up with another Rast project myself.

Thanks for sharing, Kelly!

If you have a project you'd like to see on LGN, feel free to email your submission here. Thanks!