You’re the Mantel to my Fireplace

January 20, 2016December 22, 2017 / Lauren Harper Newton / 1 Comment

Milk and Cookies.
Waves and the Ocean.
French Fries and Ketchup.
Simon and Garfunkel.
Peanut Butter and Jelly.
Fountains and Pennies.
Lauren and Matthew.
Miss Pepper and Chasing Squirrels.
See where I’m going here, people? Some things just go together. 😉

So, you can’t have a fireplace without a good mantelpiece, am I right??

Our family room fireplace has come a loooooong way, my friends. Early on, we knew this was one of our little house’s “problem areas” considering every time it would rain, water would flood in through the firebox.

This is a very early “before” picture…like, before we closed and cleaned the belongings out of the house…but you can see the water damage has rotted the entire mantelpiece.

Once we tore away the wall, we discovered that the brick fireplace surround had completely separated from the chimney.

As you may remember, we completely rebuilt the wall on which the fireplace sits and we even contemplated cutting our losses and removing the entire thing (chimney and all) during a moment of insanity. But with the help of some professionals, we were able to diagnose the problem, repair the chimney and rebuild the firebox.

With all the brickwork complete, it was starting to look like a proper fireplace again…except we were still missing the crowned jewel, our mantelpiece!

Since our family room is open to the kitchen, we decided to stay with the same simple shaker-style look as with our cabinets. We think it turned out pretty nice:

Bye, wall!

The Newton Nest_Fireplace Reno_IMG_7150 copy

Matthew surveying the scene and contemplating how to remove the very old and very heavy iron stove insert…

…realizing this is not a one-man job.

But that stove didn’t stop him from demo-ing the old brick surround. (The bricks were literally crumbling and disintegrating from the long-term dampness – ick!)

New firebox, flue, surround and hearth!

View from the outside; no more leaking!

Ready for her mantel to arrive!

Ta-daaaaa! She’s back and better than ever!

The Newton Nest_Fireplace Reno_IMG_9393 2

(Sorry about all the junk in the fireplace; I was clearly so taken with our new mantelpiece that I was blind to all the scrap wood and tools! 😂)

Subway Style

November 4, 2015January 23, 2017 / Lauren Harper Newton / 2 Comments

Q: What’s shiny and white and mudded all over?
A: Our bathroom tile!

Honk, Honk! The Nest’s bathrooms just got a little touch of subway flair…tile, that is. We chose a simple white, glossy subway tile for the showers because it suits our style and the era of our home. We punched it up a little by using pewter colored grout and adding a simple accent of “pencil tiles” around the perimeter of the shower walls about ¾ of the way up. We also opted to add little niches in each shower to hold shampoo bottles, etc.

The new stuff is fun and, as it turns out, MUCH easier than repairing and restoring the old… but we knew that already, didn’t we? (Cue my parents saying, “Nothing worth having comes easy.”)

The Saga of the Snaggletooth Tiles

Besides being absolutely filthy, the tile in our nest’s bathrooms was in relatively good shape and because we decided to keep the old cast iron bath tubs, too (taking those monsters out would have destroyed the tile around them), we decided that it was a no-brainer to save the original tile. However, there were a few “snaggletooth” holes to fill where we had relocated doorways and some patching needed around the edges of the rooms where we lost a few tiles during the plaster demo.

The only problem: it was impossible to find replacement tiles that would even come close to matching our original ones [insert “they don’t make things like the used to” comment here]. Our tile professional was ~~too chicken to attempt~~ concerned by the only option left: to “harvest” tiles from parts of the floor that would be covered by a vanity, so Matthew and I were forced to try our hand at chiseling out these precious tiles on our own. Thankfully, it was a DIY success not a disaster…although, it definitely tested our marriage a few times. Whew! Glad that’s over.

Hard at work harvesting tiles.

Mid-jigsaw puzzle.

Grinding away at the space for a new marble threshold in the hall bathroom.

Threshold installed! Not bad for a couple of newbies, right?? (Not as easy as it looks, though…we broke the first one trying to level it.)

Finally starting to clean up the old tiles!

Many hours of elbow grease later…good as new!

Shower niche installed!

This orange KERDI backing is a moisture-proof “wallpaper”that goes right over the sheetrock before tile installation.

Tile selection! Classic white subway tiles and pewter grout (we went with the medium gray at bottom).

Boxes and boxes of tile… here we go!

Eeeeeeek! Major progress!

Master shower’s tile is up!

Hall bath, too!

Tub Transformation

Once the new tile was installed, that pristine white subway tile only accentuated the sad state of our bathtubs. We knew that refinishing them ourselves was not in our wheelhouse, so we called in the professionals. After some research, Matthew found a company called GlazePro in North Carolina that would travel down and – in just two days – completely transform our beat-up bathtubs by scouring, sanding, stripping, patching, and re-glazing. I don’t know much more about the process, but the results are nothing short of miraculous! Take a look-see for yourself:

The miracle worker in action – scraping, sanding, and patching all the imperfections.

Patching complete.

Reglazing in progress… That orange contraption is a portable exhaust system to vent the paint fumes outside. Impressive!

Can you believe how good this looks??? We were shocked by the transformation. It’s perfect. I think I heard angels singing when I laid eyes on our BRAND NEW old tubs!!

No sign of our butler yet…

November 2, 2015November 2, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 2 Comments

… but we sure do like his pantry!

If Jeeves were here, I’d ask him if he liked the burnt sienna backsplash in his Butler’s Pantry… something tells me that his answer would be an enthusiastic “no ma’am.”

The “before” picture — check out those lovely tiles 😉

Burnt Sienna! A perfect match.

Once upon a time, this delightful Crayola color may have been a popular choice, but not anymore! So, we had to bid farewell to all those little orange tiles and give the butler’s pantry a well-deserved makeover.

First things first, I easily chipped away the tiles with a hammer and chisel because the adhesive had lost a lot of its strength over time. Unfortunately, the adhesive kept a very strong bond with the plaster wall between the upper cabinets and the counter top. I tried to chip away at it with every tool I could find, but finally had to resort to our orbital sander and heavy grit sandpaper. It was a dusty, tedious, goggle-fogging job, but I finally got it down to the smooth plaster underneath with only a little damage that required simple patching.

No more tiles!

Close-up of the stubborn glue left behind.

I had to stop every few minutes to wipe out my goggles. Yuck!

Next, we discussed what to use for the new counter top that would complement and preserve the charm of the original cabinets. We landed on the idea of “up-cycling” some of the original ceiling joists we cut out to vault the ceilings in the family room and master bedroom. We took this idea to my dad, the forester and master craftsman, to request his expertise and ask for his help to bring the new counter top to life.

Naturally, he had an ever better idea! Our joists were certainly thick and sturdy enough to do the job, but they were made of pine. As mentioned in the floor refinishing post, pine does not stain well and our “vision” was of a darker, richer wood counter top, not raw pine. It just so happened that my father (the forester, master craftsman, AND wood hoarder 🙂 ) had a stash of beautiful walnut left over from when my parents built their kitchen island. Glory! It was just the thing. We are so fortunate that the Harpers were willing to part with such special materials and my dad created a handmade walnut counter top for our butler’s pantry by joining two large pieces together and lovingly applying coat after coat of tongue oil and polyurethane.

Special Delivery!

Cutting it down to size.

Daddy’s favorite cutting stance. I believe we have seen this move before 😉

Ready to install this beauty!

Wrangling it into place.

Fastening it from underneath, so we don’t mar the wood.

My guys admiring their work…

My dad also made a matching cove molding to give it the perfect finishing touch!

It came out better than I ever expected. In fact, it may just be my favorite part of our nest…

Ta-daaaaahhh! The finished product. Absolutely fantastic.

…and a very special message hidden on the underside. 😉

A Home for our Dishes…

September 18, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 2 Comments

That’s right! Our dishes now have a cozy little place to call home, because…our cabinets are in! In addition to outfitting our kitchen with a special set of custom cabinets, we also designed built-in storage for the laundry room and our master bathroom. So, our laundry detergent, dirty clothes, and toiletries also have places to call home in our little nest 😉 Our cabinet maker took in lots of questions, sketches, and patiently listened to us jabber on about “our vision” for getting the most out of our space, then he brought our sketches and plans to life with the most beautiful cabinets we’ve ever seen!

We decided on a traditional shaker-style cabinet (with a little added “bead” detail in the door panels) painted Sherwin Williams‘ Pure White to match our trim. For a traditional house like ours, keeping things simple just felt right. And once it all came together, our new cabinets seemed to blend right in with those in the butler’s pantry that are original to the house.

While we have done what we can to maximize the floor plan of our nest, we are still working with – by today’s standards – small spaces, so we put a lot of thought into our designs to use every square inch of space! Here’s what we came up with:

Kitchen Cabinets

This sketch was our first pass at a layout for our kitchen cabinets… and it’s pretty close to the final design!

Cabinets going in… no island yet.

Hello, Kitchen!!

Putting on the trim.

Prepping for paint… again. (Working late into the night; Matthew’s halo is shining bright! 😉 )

Trim painted and hardware on. It’s starting to look pretty good around here 🙂

Door Details

Drawer Details

Special thanks to my Aunt Julie who researched the cabinet hardware for us and found great quality knobs and pulls for a really good price!

Sneak peek at the Butler's Pantry cabinets (I'll do a full post on this soon!) With a fresh coat of paint and new hardware, they blend right in with the new cabinets!

Sneak peek at the Butler’s Pantry cabinets (I’ll do a full post on this transformation soon!) With a fresh coat of paint and new hardware, they blend right in with the new cabinets!

One of my favorite things we did in the kitchen was turning the old ironing board cabinet into a place to keep all our spices. The cabinet maker removed the old built-in ironing board (and relocated it into our laundry room cabinets) and added small shelves just the right size for spice jars. I had our cabinet maker restore the little "trap door" used to store the iron and keep that as part of the cabinet -- so cute!

One of my favorite things we did in the kitchen was repurposing the old ironing board cabinet into the perfect place to keep all our spices. The cabinet maker removed the old fold-down ironing board (and relocated it into our laundry room cabinets), then added small shelves just the right size for spice jars. I had our cabinet maker restore the little “trap door” at the bottom that was used to store the iron. It felt right to keep this little piece of history as part of the cabinet — so cute!

Laundry Room Cabinets

Our sketches:

The finished product:

Cabinets over the Washer/Dryer.

Floor-to-ceiling cabinets for all kinds of laundry things…

Like… storage and ironing…

…pull-out folding surfaces…

…and laundry hampers!

Master Bathroom Vanity Cabinet

Installed!

Hardware on!

It wouldn’t be The Newton Nest without a couple of older pieces mixed in with the new…

While we’re talking about cabinets, I’d be remiss not to point out two pretty special ones that aren’t custom, but fit pretty seamlessly into our space – if we do say so ourselves! 😉 Both of these found pieces made themselves at home in our hall bathroom, giving it a lot of character and extra storage space!

1. The Hall Bathroom Vanity

The hall bathroom vanity was just a pedestal sink before we began our renovation. We worked hard to create a more functional space there by moving the doorway and creating an “end cap” wall at the foot of the tub to close in the shower and form a definitive vanity space. This little nook is the perfect spot for a petite vanity, so Matthew and I searched for months for a piece of furniture we could repurpose in this space. After trips all over Greenville and nearby Asheville, and lots of Craigslist surfing, we found ourselves at a little salvage place in Powdersville, SC and stumbled upon a small server that was just the thing! Cute, isn’t she?

2. The Hall Bathroom Built-in Cabinet

The hall bathroom “built in” was a completely different story. We weren’t looking for something like this at all. In fact, my mom stumbled upon this cute little antique cabinet and had the idea for us to build it into the wall (like a giant medicine cabinet) above the toilet in the hall bath. It took her about a month to convince me to buy this from a little antique store in Seneca, SC, but I’m SO glad she did! It has become an adorable focal point as you enter the hall bath and an essential storage space for toiletry items and guest towels.

Here’s the cabinet! This is the picture my mom sent me from the antique store. It’s the only one I have showing the cabinet with the legs still attached.

Making this little gem a reality was no easy task though (what else is new??). Since my mom came across the cabinet back when we were still doing the framing, my dad was able to frame a hole in which the cabinet could be set. Acting like an oversized medicine cabinet, this idea would allow us to use the full depth of the cabinet without having it stick out into the room more than a few inches. Genius! Well, until we realized there was an old iron sewer vent pipe right where the cabinet would go… Luckily, our plumber had planned to shatter all the old sewer pipes and replace them with new ones as part of our plumbing scope. We just made sure to have him route the new pipe in a different location clearing the way for our special cabinet.

See the giant black pipe right where we want to put the cabinet?

Not any more! 😉

Next, the cabinet itself had to be modified. My dad helped us by cutting off the cabinet’s legs. A delicate job that almost came off without a hitch… until one of the glass panes broke. 😦 This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because we replaced the lower panes with bead board which now allows us to use the lower storage space for toiletries that are better kept out of sight. We also had to trim the trim. Yes, we had to cut down the trim at the top of the cabinet, but just the part that would interfere with recessing it into the wall. Make sense?

Holding it up to make sure we like it. “A little higher, Dad!” 😉 😉

The perfect vantage point for trimming the trim!

Look at that concentration!

Lastly, my mom swooped in to put on a few coats of paint before installation. And, voila!

Mom carefully painting both hall bathroom cabinets — what a life saver!

Finally… time to install!

Ta-daaaah!

Prep, prep, prep, PAINT!

July 22, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 6 Comments

Fill. Putty. Caulk. Sand. Repeat… as with the outside paint job, the prepping proved to be the hardest part! To say the least, painting an entire house from ceilings to baseboards is quite a challenging (read: sanity testing) experience. I can’t say that either of us have ever – literally – started from scratch with bare sheetrock and trim in every inch of a house, so it was eye opening to realize just how many nail holes must be filled and how many coats of paint it takes to get to the final coat. We prepped for days before we popped the lid on our first can of paint. Fortunately, our painting crew returned and we had lots of help! Matthew’s father, Wayne, carried the team (again!) through more than two weeks of painting frenzy. He was our MVP for sure!

Endless Prepping:

Putty Man Matthew

(With the help of his momma!)

Power Sanding

Hand Sanding (still powerful).

Baseboards for days…

Caulking all the seams!

Finally, a paint brush… putting on the primer coat upstairs.

How many Newtons does it take to paint one corner?

Thank goodness for good help!

The Boss and The Master. 😉

Scraping all the original doors.

Bringing them back to life!

Bringing out the big [spray] guns!

The fun part, of course, was choosing paint colors and seeing our walls come to life! We chose a pretty neutral palette with bright white trim and we think it brings a crisp-yet-calm look to the inside of our nest.

Nest Neutrals:

Our final selection!

The Transformation:

Our biggest challenge in the painting project was making the formal living room suit our style… the wormy chestnut built-ins were very nice, but the heaviness of the dark wood just didn’t agree with the rest of our house. So, brace yourselves wood lovers, we painted it. (I know, I know; you’re horrified.)

A reminder of what the dark woodwork looked like… not bad, but a little dreary for our taste.

No turning back!

While the whitewashed woodwork certainly brightened up the room, a new problem surfaced… despite many coats, the paint just amplified all the little holes and imperfections in the wood. It literally looked like someone had splattered black paint all over whitewashed wood. It wasn’t pretty. Enter: The Peacock Twins (my mom and her twin sister, Julie.)

Holes, holes, and more holes! Yuck!

As with many times in my life, my mother came to the rescue! She and my Aunt Julie helped me spackle and putty every single hole. Seven hours and 30 raw finger tips later, things were looking much better and my spirits lifted. FINALLY, this disjointed room was coming together. I spent the next few evenings after work sanding away to make sure it was smooth before the final coat of paint.

Peacock twins to the rescue!

Filled, primed and ready for paint!

So, here it is, the big reveal:

Ta-daaah!

Although painting the wormy chestnut was a really tough decision, we feel like this is an improvement that brightens the room and makes it feel less disjointed.

Despite the long days and our struggle with “to paint or not to paint” the woodwork, we are oh-so-happy with the final product! (And overjoyed to retire our brushes for a while!!!)

All the trimmings.

June 15, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 1 Comment

Boy, oh boy, the details are fun!
For two weeks now, the trim carpenters have been busy little birdies trimming our nest and making it look its very best. They’ve been more than patient, too. As with any old house, things aren’t exactly plumb and square around here… so the carpenters had to take a few deep breaths and get creative on projects like re-hanging old doors, dealing with a few slightly sloping floors and installing a tongue and groove ceiling in a room that is slightly off from square (They were within a few boards of being done when this little snag became apparent and had to rip it all off and start again with a slight adjustment to compensate. Yikes!).

But, despite a few old-house hiccups, the trim-work is complete and we are just beside ourselves with the transformation! Check out our nest with all the trimmings…

Trim materials have arrived!

Window Trim! (Guest Bedroom)

Laundry room doors are up! (This wall is new, but these doors are original to the house. We repurposed them from a small hall closet that was removed when we rerouted the hallway to the bedrooms.)

A view of the doors when they’re open — they fit perfectly and lay flat against the walls, so they don’t block the butler’s pantry pass-through.

Baseboards and crown molding are up in the guest bedrooms!

Powder room window is trimmed and looking fantastic…

Powder room doors go up.

The HVAC ductwork that runs through all the upstairs dormers is being hidden with little window seats 🙂

Master bedroom ceiling trim is in place. We are really loving the way this detail turned out!

Master bathroom! (Blurry, but you get the idea…)

Ta-dah! Great room ceiling is in.

What a difference!

Going Gray!

June 8, 2015June 8, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 3 Comments

Hooray — we’ve gone gray!

No, I’m not talking about our hair color beginning to fade as a result of nearly eight months of home renovation (although, the lone long-locked Newton has noticed a few new silver strands). We have finally said goodbye to the patchwork shingles and painted the exterior of our house! We settled on a medium gray color for the cedar shakes and then called in reinforcements to help with the transformation.

The slightly more senior Mr. and Mrs. Newton (Matthew’s parents) joined the painting party and we were able to prime and paint the exterior of our little nest in two weekends’ time. Not too shabby for a bunch of amateurs—well, three amateurs and our fearless leader, Matthew’s father, Wayne, who owned his own paint contracting business for 30+ years… as the sole professional on site, he kept the rest of us from messing anything up! Painting all those shakes was no easy task and start-to-finish it took us a month of weekends if you count the prep work too, but we were strutting around with grins of accomplishment when it was all done!

We began by prepping the exterior (a lot more work than I thought!):

Taping off the windows!

Puttying all the little nail holes!

Caulking windows!

Double caulking!

Triple caulking!

Rooftop refreshment 😉

Here we go! Check out the power of a coat of paint:

Shaking up the paint! (My staring totally helped…)

Primer coat is on!

Mr. Newton – head painter in charge – spraying more primer.

Two Newtons and a dormer.

Three Newtons and a dormer. 🙂

All primed and ready for the final coat!

Revving up the sprayer for the final coat!

Matthew and his Momma taking a little break.

Final coat of gray is on; ready to start painting all the trim along the roof!

Trim is looking crisp and white!

Oops! We almost forgot the garage…

Goodbye, basketball goal!

Hello, Bat who was hiding underneath the goal. (Sorry little guy!)

All done!

Hello, gorgeous gray! All that hard work paid off… we are really digging our Nest’s new look.

Many, many thanks to the Newtons for helping us with such a big job – we couldn’t have done it without them!!!

A few Eggs of Wisdom…

It’s true, many hands make light work.
Happy music and time with family makes even the hardest jobs more fun.
If you have a choice between rolling/brushing paint and using one of those handy sprayers, choose the sprayer every time! 😉

Drywall, y’all!

May 17, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 2 Comments

It feels a little like we have come full circle… the Nest has come so far since we were swinging sledgehammers to take down walls. Now, we are celebrating new ones!

It’s honestly hard to put into words how exciting it is to have solid walls again and see all the changes we’ve made take shape. Not to mention, drywall marks the beginning of the “pretty things” like trim, paint colors, cabinets, and more! Get ready, y’all—we’re about to really start dressing up the Nest!

Great Room/Kitchen (The great room ceiling will be covered by tongue and groove, so no drywall there!)

Kitchen view.

View of great room and kitchen from the back door. Looking good!

Who needs a ladder? Stilts are the way to go!!

Dining Room

Dining room opposite view, looking toward butler’s pantry and stairs to second floor.

Formal Living Room

Powder Room and Office

Office, opposite view.

Looking from formal living room into the powder room (thanks to my dad for adding that beautiful window on a whim — more on that in a future blog post 🙂 ).

Guest Bedroom #1

Guest Bedroom #2

Hallway/Hall Bathroom/Guest Bedroom

Super stilts to put the finishing touches on the master bedroom!

Master Bedroom!

Master Bathroom

…and just because I am so impressed by the stilts, here is a little video of our guy in action:

How Appropriate

April 25, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 1 Comment

Ladies and Gentleman, we have chosen a paint color! (For the outside, at least. 🙂 )

8 paint swatch cards and 5 sample jugs later, we have stood close, stood back, squinted, discussed, and viewed them in nearly every hour of daylight… introducing the color chosen to grace the exterior of our nest:

Ta-Daaah! Sherwin Williams’ Gauntlet Gray it is.

Appropriately named for the “challenge” we’ve endured (Mostly kidding, it has been a lot of fun, too!) to bring the Newton Nest back to its former glory, Gauntlet Gray just seems like a fitting color in which to shroud our bundle of sticks.

Swatch testing!

We hope to paint the outside in just a few weeks—stay tuned!

Windows, windows, windows!

January 21, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 4 Comments

What a day! Not only was it 68 degrees and sunny in January, but our brand new, beautiful windows arrived! We can barely wait for these babies to be installed tomorrow. Stay tuned!

The Newton Nest

Two love birds taking on the project of a lifetime—renovating a 1940s Cape Cod into their dream home.

Yay!

You’re the Mantel to my Fireplace

Subway Style

No sign of our butler yet…

A Home for our Dishes…

Prep, prep, prep, PAINT!

All the trimmings.

Going Gray!

Drywall, y’all!

How Appropriate

Windows, windows, windows!

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