cedar lumber | The Weekend Country Girl

Updating the Back Porch

January 18, 2021

Karen cedar lumber, Coldspring, Country living, JJ Lane Leave a comment

Happy 2021 to you and yours. In the last 11 months we have spent a lot of time at home. A. Lot. Of. Time. One of the areas we have worked on is our back porch.

When we bought our property the back porch was an area I did not like. It felt neglected and a bit claustrophobic. There were four foot-wide metal posts across a 12 foot wide porch. The posts didn’t match the rest of the house and there was a lot of things that needed to be replaced.

During this past summer we put in a wooden deck that joined the concrete porch that more than doubled our backyard eating/ shaded space. (You May notice by by comparing what we thought we would do with reality.) We are crazy about this spot but it has been little embarrassing to have it connected to the less than awesome porch. Checkout the seven foot long rolling buffet that gets used al the time. We can’t wait for the pandemic to end and it to warm up a little where we can have our friends and family over more often.

We also really have enjoyed the table and chairs for family outdoor eating.

Right after Christmas holidays were over Mr. Math (Can you believe it wasn’t me this time?) decided it was time to work on the porch. I. Was. Thrilled.

The first step in the process was to determine why in the world a twelve foot span required two corner posts and two single metal posts. There was a every three and a half feet. After removing the vinyl and checking out the header, it was clear that all the metal was decorative. I guess in the 80’s a human birdcage was popular. Once we earned it wasn’t a problem Mr. Math and our wonderful neighbor jacked up the porch, took out the old posts, and put in treated 6×6 posts at the corners. He then wrapped the posts in cedar to match the rest of the house. Down came the nasty ceiling fan and a couple of coats of haint blue paint on the ceiling. The weather has been mild here in the middle of the day but too cold for paint or us to work in the mornings. That means we tried to do one major job a day then clean up the mess.

We replaced the vinyl siding along under the porch with 1 X 12 cedar planks and the underside with cement board soffit and finally on a freezing cold and rainy day my hubby got the ceiling fan and light installed. It was actually much easier than I thought it would be. Sometimes things go our way and sometimes they don’t.

I can’t get over how much more open and roomy the porch feels now.

We aren’t finished with everything. We still have to work on the electrical, caulking the gaps and staining the cedar, we are going to put in a new back door to add more light into the house, fill the holes and paint the concrete, change out the siding on the front of the porch, and paint the soffits and trim. It will be an ongoing project.

The electrical work still needs to be done.

I know it has been a while since I shared our progress but we continue to make slow but steady progress.

Thanks for following along on our journey.

Blessings,

Karen

When a Mudroom Needs a Mudroom

August 2, 2020

Karen cedar lumber, Coldspring, mudroom, Space Saving bench seating, cedar bench Leave a comment

As soon as we bought Providence Acres we added a wall off the carport to creat a Mudroom. We are so happy to have this space. In summer it keeps towels, sunscreen, flip flops, and outside grandchildren toys like bubbles confined. In the winter, coats hang on the hooks.

This space keeps most, but not all the clutter out our the living space.

The problem is that we sometimes have shoes that are so dirty or wet we need to take them off outside. Rain boots, rain jackets… For the last few years we have had a wrought iron and wood bench outside the door but when the vehicles are pulled up, there isn’t a lot of room to get out to the deck. We needed something a little narrower.

The solution to the problem has been sitting in the shop for two years.

I built (with help from Mr. Math) a cedar bench for my parents several years ago. He taught me how to hide all the screws and I was really proud of the little cedar bench. It was rough but I thought they could use it at their deer camp to put on and take off boots on the porch. Parents being parents, my mom thought it was too nice for the camp so it sat in their entry way for three years until Harvey flooded their home. My mom asked me to take home the bench. It then sat in my shop for two years.

Last week I got busy. I sanded down the bench, used diluted bleach to get the flood stains off the legs and then sealed it with Olympic clear outdoor sealer I already had out for the seven foot table. I am always struck by how the sealer changes the depth in color of the cedar. It turned out well.

The bench now sits outside our carport door and it fits well.

We removed the AstroTurf from the porch concrete and have purchased tile to match what we have in the mudroom to install. It is on our long list of things to do.

Now we can easily get from the porch to the deck even when we have vehicles under the carport.

We are making steady progress.

I hope you are all staying healthy and taking care of yourself.

Blessings,

Karen

Hairpin Leg Cedar Desk and Shelves

July 21, 2020

Karen Apartment living, cedar lumber, Coldspring, Mid Century hairpin legs, live edge cedar, Mid century modern, Repurposing furniture Leave a comment

Have you ever held onto something for a long time time just waiting for the right time to use it? I do, probably too often, but this time I am so glad that I waited.

In 2014 my dad gave us a load of cut cedar. I thought at the time I would never use it all, but six years later we are almost out of cedar. We have used the cedar A LOT. Just a few things we have done are:mudroom bench, cedar shelves, and cedar shutters for the 8th and M house.

One of the last large slab sections I had I knew would make a nice coffee table or desk. I even found hairpin coffee table length legs at a garage sale back in 2017. I shared a whole post about the slab of wood, the short legs and my plans, but my heart wasn’t in it. I knew if I finished it then I wouldn’t have a place for it and would have to sell it. So, it all hung out unassembled in the shop. For.Three.Years.

I had three table height legs that I pulled out of a burn pile at our deer camp and really wished there had been four. I even showed you pictures of the three in that old post. This past spring Mr. Math was using his tractor to level the ground around the burn pile when he unearthed the missing fourth leg. I knew the slab of cedar would get to be a desk but I still didn’t have a home for it. I also had this photo saved and have an orange chair like the black in the photo. The site where I found it is no longer active.

In February a relative asked me to start looking for furniture for him. I knew immediately that the desk and chair would have a home.

Mr. Math added plates to a crack in the wood to make sure it would be sturdy and hold up and attached the legs.

I love how it turned out.

I also made a great find on the 90% off shelves at Hobby Lobby. These two shelf brackets for $4.99. They were missing the bolts and boards but a couple more pieces of cedar will go well with the desk.

All together I have a little over $10.00 in everything that is in this post.

It is going to look great in an upcoming apartment bedroom for a young man.

I hope your week is going well.

Blessings,

Karen

Hair Pin Leg Winfall

April 10, 2017

Karen cedar lumber, Coldspring, DIY, Mid Century cedar slab top, hairpin legs 2 Comments

I have a thing for mid century stuff. I particularly like hairpin legs. I never really cared for the Formica topped version of the 1950’s atomic, futuristic, sharp angled tables but I love the bent metal legs mixed with natural elements.

The photo above showed my screen when I searched Google Images for hairpin legs.
Two times in the last month hairpin legs fell into my lap thanks to The Social Planner.

At an estate sale my buddy, The Social Planner found this set of four coffee table legs. It was Sunday afternoon. They were getting ready to wrap up. I am not sure they knew what they were. I got them for $2.00. For the set. .50 per leg.

The coffee table legs are going to get a slab of cedar for a petite coffee table in the guest shed. It is under construction now.

The next set, my buddy found in a trash pile at our little cabin in the woods! There are three table height legs which isn’t that unusual. It was common to have three legs in hairpin tables. I wish I had a picture of her climbing into the pile to get them out. The photo below shows a three legged table off Etsy from Winespirations. I wish I had a wine barrel lid, but I think I will have something even cooler if I am just patient.

See the giant fallen tree below? Mr. Math is going to cut a section of this tree (called a cookie) for me to put on top of theses legs. The diameter of the trunk is 34 inches. I am not sure where it will end up when finished. I may be selling this particular table. It is going to be a fun project.

I sprayed all of the legs with a rust arresting spray paint then flat black paint. The will last forever if they aren’t allowed to rust.

Above is the difference between the legs once they are cleaned up and sprayed.

This is going to be a long process with lots of coats of poly, but I am looking forward to have something to do each evening that is pretty mindless. My life is about to have another twist in the road that even I did not see coming. More later. For now, the weather here is beautiful, the garden is growing, and it is dry enough to paint outside. Now if only the gale force winds would stop. Oh well, we can’t have it all.

Didn’t Mr. Math do a stellar job on the south pasture this weekend? It looks like a golf course.

I hope you had a great weekend.

Thank you for following along on our journey.

I love hearing from you,

Karen

Creating a Mudroom

March 18, 2016

Karen Building a Home, cedar lumber, Coldspring, Country living, Country Style, mudroom, Ranch House Overhaul floating bench seat, live edge cedar, whitewashed walls 14 Comments

Well, after 6 months, we have 99% completed our mudroom.

We started with one large room that at one time was a two car garage. The room was great, but in a home that is on a dirt road, in the country on 15 acres, in an area that gets a lot of rain, with muddy shoes, and a large dog (get the picture?) I needed a place for messy stuff to stop before making it all the way into our main living area.

The photo above shows the room without the wall and the previous owner’s stuff inside.

Before we even started, we installed vinyl plank flooring. I still love it and do not regret the decision. We also added recessed lighting and a cute little schoolhouse light above the door.

1-IMG_8178

The first step was adding a wall to define the space. I am crazy about our tounge and groove pine walls that are whitewashed.

The next step was to add a bench. We hit the jackpot when my dad gave us a 2 inch slab of live edge cedar that is almost 18 inches wide and 90 inches long. It was the perfect bench seat. It is installed into the studs with cleats underneath. I cannot stop staring at it every time I walk in.

We need storage in this home. Desperately. So instead of cute open storage that I could fill with accessories, it was closed 30 inch stock cabinets painted white that are filled with bbq equipment, marshmallow roasting devices, tools, light bulbs and other not cute items. Our thought was that we would put things we keep inside but use outside in the space. The knobs are plain Jane and functional, but I like them.

We also added board and batten walls with a tall ledger board for coat hooks. I bought a multipack of hooks at Lowe’s for the space. I like how rounded they are in case one of the giant men who come in our house should connect their head with a hook.

Because there was a large open wall space and I hadn’t come up with a plan for a mirror or umbrella storage, we moved a very narrow hall tree that was a gift from my buddy, The Social Planner. It has a place for umbrellas at the bottom, a cool round mirror and additional hooks that will hold caps.

I painted all but the wood detail with chalkboard paint. I wanted the piece to go along with the large chalkboard on the other side of the door and the oak table. Don’t hate me for painting wood. I like a mix of wood and color. It was in rough shape at the bottom after years of mopping around it, and the metal umbrella holder needed to have the dents fixed. It will proudly serve us well for years to come.
The other side of the mudroom connects with our laundry room. We plan on adding a broom closet in the corner that currently holds all the dog toys. ( Just keeping it real, folks.) It will have a cool screen door when it is my closet!
We are also planning to add a pocket door to the laundry room so that the current 36 inch door is out of the way.

As soon as the suburban home sells I will be moving the galvanized tubs from the laundry room under the bench. I did bring one so I could make sure it will work. It does. I will be adding felt bumpers to the bottom of the tubs to protect the floors.

We have not been able to find the right ceiling white to touch up the ceiling. I really do not want to paint the entire ceiling right now so we will keep searching and the patch from the lighting will stay unpainted. We may have to take out a section of ceiling to color match if we can’t find it soon. (I have done that before, because I hate to paint ceilings.)

I am calling this room done enough that it doesn’t bug me and can move on to other projects once the ceiling is done. Our next step is to get the barn door in between the mudroom and dining area and enlarge our master closet. Slow and steady progress.

Thank you all for following along on our journey.

Blessings,

Karen

Making a Coffee Bar

January 6, 2016

Karen Building a Home, cedar lumber, Coldspring, Country Style, DIY, DIY Furniture, Ranch House Overhaul, reclaimed wood coffee and drink station, display area, reclaimed cedar, reclaimed windows 2 Comments

My kids love coffee, hot chocolate, and hot tea. I like it all too, but I really love the idea of having everything that our guests need set up away from the kitchen when breakfast/ evening meal prep is underway.

We have just the spot in our home for a coffee bar and we have just the materials to make a rustic coffee bar based on inspiration from The Summery Umbrella. I purchased windows last winter at an epic garage sale for $2.00 each. I brought our stash of reclaimed cedar planks and the storage buildings contain more random wood.

reclaimed fencing

We used the windows as the basis for the front of the cabinet. When we laid out the windows it was obvious that they would have to go into the cabinet horizontal instead of vertical like My Summery Umbrella was able to do. The vintage windows are large and heavy and with them hung horizontally, the cabinet will still be slightly taller than counter height. The length of the bar is 90 inches. It is 12 inches wide and made from cedar we took off our old lake house, Star Hill that we have stored and moved. We really do like our reclaimed wood.

The next step was building the skeleton. We had enough reclaimed wood but a mistake meant we needed two new 2×4’s.

We got a new toy recently…a planer. Oh my goodness, Mr. Math got a good deal on Craig’s List but I was skeptical. I did not know how much I would love it. It makes all my mismatched thicknesses of reclaimed wood play nice with each other and knocks the sanding down to just finish sanding in minutes. We planed two 12 inch wide planks for the top and sides.

Any time you work with reclaimed wood and supplies it means you have to do a lot of trial and error. It feels sort of like we are playing a game of Tetris.

We used outdoor gate hinges and black iron handles for a couple of reasons; the windows are stinkin’ heavy and I liked how the black looked against the white and reclaimed cedar.

The display area will be filled with my pitchers, milk glass, and vintage cookware. I didn’t have everything up at the house but I put what I had in for you to get an idea.

We already used it as a serving counter on New Year’s Eve.

The coffee bar is going to serve a lot of purposes when we have a crowd. Having 90 inches of serving space away from the kitchen counters will be great.

Let’s face it, most of the time it is going to be a drink station.

Left overs from New Year’s Eve.

An all sorts of drinks station. (You have no idea how hard I had to look to scrounge up the drinks above!)

Mainly it will be a coffee/ tea bar, because that is who we are.

Here it is in our daily life. It will be a cluttered mess so my kitchen doesn’t have to be full of stuff. I am going to love this piece. It is narrow and provides room for the front door to open, it provides me 7 and a half feet of additional counter surface, and it looks like it belongs in our house. Be still my heart.

The house is coming along. I am proud of the progress we are making as we make Providence Acres our forever home.

Mr. Math and I are both thrilled to share our journey with you as we go. Thank you for the kind words you share.

Blessings,

Karen

The Guest Bath Makeover

December 1, 2015

Karen cedar lumber, Coldspring, Country Style, JJ Lane bathroom mini makeover, behr pacific mist, paint changes. everything Leave a comment

Well, the guest bath is now 85% complete so I thought I better show you guys something we have almost ready to check off the list.

We have a huge guest bathroom. It was designed with a wheelchair in mind. It is perfect for a house that will have lots of guests over the years.

So far we replaced both lights, installed a place to hang clothes, towels, and extra supplies, we changed out the floor and replaced all the hardware. There is a new towel bar, toilet paper holder and even a new toilet. The walls got a coat of light bluish green Behr Pacific Mist. We replaced all the towels and shower curtain with white linens.

Not yet completed is that all the trim and cabinets needs to be painted white, floating shelves need to be built and painted white for in front of the wood wall and I need to make a curtain for the window.

It will have to wait for now because we are a few weeks from Christmas and need a Murphy bed built.

And a hall painted.

And 2″ blinds installed.

And a tree put up.

And Christmas lights.

The kids will all be at least coming by over the holiday and we need to be ready. Fingers crossed.

Creating a Ship Lap Wall for the Mudroom

October 28, 2015

Karen cedar lumber, Country living, mudroom, ship lap Coldspring, mudroom, ranch house makeover 5 Comments

Eight years ago the second owners of Providence Acres, our weekend home, took in the garage of our rambling ranch. The end result was that there was more room inside the home, space for a dining room and more usable space.

See the beam in the photo above? That is where the garage wall used to be. The garage space is what they used as their living space, as you can tell from the photo. They largely ignored the space around the fireplace that we use.

The downside to the former homeowner’s room configuration was that entrance to the house most used did not have a place to drop muddy shoes, coats, bags, and other assorted items. That door at the end of the room is the most used door in the home.

My solution was to build a wall at the end of the garage addition. Although it was my solution, Mr. Math did all the work to build the wall with a doorway connecting it to the main room.

Wow we have come a long way. No more concrete floor.
The great thing about the location of the mudroom is that we will be able to enter the house go directly into the laundry room and kitchen.

Before the wall was even up, I knew it would be covered in ship lap siding. I could not imagine the wall looking any other way. Oh, and it needs a barn door. An X style barn door. With black hardware…wait. I digress. We are not there yet.

Back to the ship lap. This time we went back to a product we used eight years ago. V Groove pine planks. We used them to fix the ceiling at Star Hill when we realized that the ceiling needed insulation

You can see the ceiling in the photo above. We installed it and allowed the wood to naturally darken over the years.

The wood comes in packages of six eight foot boards and is reasonable. Like less than $11.00 a package. All in, to cover two sides of a fifteen foot by eight foot tall wall it was right at $200.00. We added 1X4 pine boards as trim for the door, ceilings, and baseboards for another $50.00. Mr. Math put it up with the air nailer after he located the studs and marked them so that they could be quickly nailed.

We picked one crazy weekend to get the wall up. A tropical storm blew in. It rained. Buckets.

Insert Coldspring into the red band north of the 13.40

The wind blew. Hard. Our dog was totally freaked out by the air compressor being in the house. She got out and ran to hide at our neighbor’s house. She wouldn’t come home. Even in the rain. Fun times. Add to that a dead battery in the truck Sunday and you can imagine how grumpy we were.

We started by laying a plank on the floor and using it as a spacer. Be warned about this wood. You have to look at every single package. This is not first quality wood. I personally like the look of cracked boards, a bit of bark showing through and knot holes. Mr. Math…not so much. Neither one of us liked the warped boards that we had to convince to lay flat on the wall with a block and hammer.

In spite of everything, the wall got finished,the nail holes spackled, everything put away by dark Sunday.

I love the look. The texture is exactly what I wanted in the house. I plan on adding this treatment to the other end of the room eventually and our bedroom wall. But first, we need to get the mudroom done.

It was my plan to prime and paint the wall, like this room done by House of Smiths

but Mr. Math, the wood lover, has asked me to at least try whitewashing the wall.lie our suburban master bedroom.

He even agreed to sand the walls where I spackled. I am going to give it a shot, even though I see it painted white in my head. We shall see.

After the wall is taken care of, I will be sanding a beautiful two inch thick live edge cedar plank that is going to be our bench and the wall behind the bench needs to have some simple wainscoting and cabinets installed.

After the bench we get to build the barn door.

Thank you all for following along on our journey to turn this home into a place that reflects our rustic, easy care, dog friendly, family and friends welcome, home.

I love hearing from you. What are your thoughts? Painted ship lap or whitewashed?

Blessings,

Karen

Week 5 Progress

September 9, 2015

Karen Behr Paint with Primer, cedar lumber, Country living, Country Style, family, Fun with friends, home decorating, Ranch House Overhaul, Real Life fun weekend, guest room, hanging art Leave a comment

Knowing company is coming can motivate a person to get busy on their home. Knowing several of those guests are active elementary and junior high students really motivates me to get the house de cluttered and ready for the crowd.

Here is the weekend progress:

1. The Guest Room is now presentable. There are still areas that need touch ups.

The walls got painted.
A set of donated shuttered got painted and hung on the wall.
At
Art, a mirror, and a window got hung.
New curtain rod.

2. This awesome light now hangs where the light I lovingly called the pool table light was over the bar.

Before

The awesome after.

3. A section of the bathroom now is under way. The mirror will be framed with rustic wood and the bathroom cabinets will be painted white. The rest of the bathroom needs to be painted still. The color is a pale bluish green. Never judge a color until the old paint is out of the way. Look at them together… yuck.

Before

During… did you notice the name of the bathroom hardware? I did not until I edited the picture.

You have to wait to see the bathroom. Sorry. I want you to see the full effect once it is done.

We also did some really boring but necessary things like mow, organize closets, and unpack boxes.

Then… the fun started.

5 kids and their parents showed up. They played, they explored, they fished, they ate s’mores, they went tubing, jet skiing, they threw the frisbee for the dog, they played nines, the ate… A Lot. Those kids can flat eat.

We were sad to see them go.

This week I am going to give you our tricks for feeding a crowd and a few hints for Christmas presents if you have outdoor space.

Happy belated Labor Day to all of us who get up every day and go to work.

Have a great week.

Blessings,

Karen

Reclaimed Wood Media Center

June 20, 2015

Karen cedar lumber, Country Style, Pottery Barn Knock Off, reclaimed wood media consolr, reclaimed wood furniture 3 Comments

Well hello there! I am feeling accomplished for us today because we have actually finished three projects this past week. By far my favorite is a reclaimed wood media cabinet. This is a project for my daughter’s coworker and friend. The fact that Mr. Math is driving out to Charlotte next week really helped with the whole get it finished process. My daughter’s friend sent me a link to this amazing piece from Pottery Barn and said she wanted something like this. I had to be honest with her. We are working off our suburban back porch right now with most of our tool stored until the big move in less than a month. No way could we make beveled cabinet doors. She was fine with a more rustic look. I also told her we would be using reclaimed cedar so the color would be different. She was fine with that. Finally, I told her that we would be carrying it in the back of our truck so the length had to be no more than 60 inches. Unbelievably, she was fine with that, too.

Her timing was perfect. There was a pile of reclaimed cedar that Mr. Math Had decreed was too nasty to store then move to our new digs. It was making me crazy(er) to see this burn pile. Mr. Math tried to burn it but our recent rains meant he couldn’t get the pile to light. (Yay!)

I was very, very excited to be able to go save some of it for this project. A few of the boards even had scorch marks from the attempted fire. I put those boards in strategic locations so they could be most visible.

The plan was fairly simple. Mr. Math built a skeleton for the project out of new 2X4’s. I sanded, and sanded, then sanded some more on the boards. Many of these boards had been painted when they were on our lake house or my friend’s who gave me a load of the wood when they added on to their house. I sanded through the layers of paint but did not remove it all. I love how the layers of paint provide a sense of history and rustic charm to the wood. We laid out the wood for the top, figured out what cuts needed to be made and which boards needed to be ripped down. After the top was figured out, we got the sides and front done. For the back we added hardboard. The weight of this piece was a deciding factor. Even though we had enough reclaimed wood for the back, it will never be seen and would add unnecessary weight to the piece. After the front and sides were done, we added plywood shelves inside. The doors were the last part built once we had exact measurements of the openings. I love the look of the wood. When you polyurethane the wood, the color depens and it become richer. We The interior is painted a light cream color. Mr. Math picked the color because he said it would be easier to find things in the cabinet.