DIY Aged Terra Cotta Pots

Do you add more houseplants & flowers to your home this time of year?

Terra cotta pots are a classic & inexpensive option for plants but the ordinary colour isn’t my style. Doing a quick paint job adds that aged look.

Here’s a look at the before and after – which only took a couple of minutes and hardly needed any supplies.

Supplies:

• Terra Cotta Pot (from a home improvement store, dollar store)
• Paint Brush (any size or shape)
• White, Cream or Grey Paint ( I use my leftover house paint samples)
• Newspaper or scrap paper to dab paint

 

The trick to this look is using a dry brush technique. Dip the paintbrush into a tiny bit of paint, then dab most of the paint off onto the scrap paper. Apply the paint to one spot on the pot and then rub it with the brush and gently spread the paint outwards until no more paint is left. Continue these steps until the whole pot is covered.

Using very little paint is key.

Here they are finished and below is a pot I did a few years ago with white paint. This larger herb pot was left outside over a couple of summers too so that’s what added to the patina.

Well spring may be a few months away still but it feels more lively in here with extra plants & forced bulbs around. 

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Weekend Project – Panel Moulding Feature Wall

Christmas may be over but I am in no rush to take down these holiday wreaths from the dining room.

This wall has become an area that I love to decorate for special occasions and it really was the addition of moulding that finished off this space.

A couple of years ago I partnered with Metrie to add wainscotting to the front entrance, stairway and upstairs hallway and had a bit of extra panel moulding leftover. That panel moulding from their French Curves Collection was the perfect solution that I had been searching for to go above the wall of the banquette in our dining area.

 

This is what the room looked like from the real estate listing photos when we purchased. Bit by bit I’m working to add layers and architectural interest to our builder basic home.

One afternoon I drew up some sketches to figure out proportions and by the end of the day, this was complete.

A small project like this can easily be completed with a few manual tools, including a hand saw and mitre box.

So if you’re looking for a little project this New Year, here is one that is very doable over a weekend if it’s a small space.

Here’s the original post:

Right now Jennifer Flores at Rambling Renovators is in the midst of powder room makeover that she plans to have done before hosting here NYE party and it’s looking so good. See the progress on her Instagram. 

 

 

 

ORC – Week 7 Reveal

The One Room Challenge is now done and it’s time to see the finished spaces for all participants. There were a lot of changes in our home during these past 7 weeks, especially with the addition of our newest family member who was born 3 weeks ago.

Completing this room by myself while being very pregnant and then with a newborn had its challenges. I was able to install the Metrie trim but I  didn’t have enough time to paint the bunk beds — I may have been a bit unrealistic about what I could complete during this time!

The foundation of the room is finished with the new trim, casings, baseboards and new light fixture. With the board and batten on the walls, the ceiling seems higher and these formerly blank white walls have interest even though one side of the room is currently bare.

Remember how this wall looked before when it was just plain white and had narrow baseboards? See the difference now? 

This is the side where the bunk beds will go. In the meantime, here is a clear view of the new, Wide Baseboards and Solid Pine Lattice that I used for the board and batten. It was a new challenge to change the baseboards and I’m so glad I did because it gives the whole room a more updated look.

What I learned from installing wide baseboards is that you need a large blade on your mitre saw in order to properly cut them. That’s just something to keep in mind when choosing a saw if you like the wider moulding profiles.

The board and batten worked well with the awkward angles of this room.

For artwork, I used this painting that was done by my husband and just happened to be the right colour scheme for the room. While mum was visiting in October she made this flannel crib sheet.

Here is my 3-week old son testing out the new space and of course our dog, Cali is right there beside him.

Thank you to Metrie for helping to make this vision a reality! I love when a sketch or an idea comes to fruition.

Even though many elements in the room stayed the same (curtains, curtain rod, crib) with a new foundation the whole room looks new.

To see how all of the other 200 + rooms turned out click on the ORC logo below.

ORC – Week 6

The shared nursery/bedroom is coming together and luckily the One Room Challenge has been extended by one week so that should be enough time to finish installing all of the Metrie trim.

I’m using the garage as my workshop and borrowing my friend Kate’s mitre saw to cut the pieces there. Then, I bring the cut trim up to the bedroom to double check measurements and install it using basic hand tools like I did in my previous moulding tutorial.

I have a sketchbook where I planned the trim and I also use it to keep track of the lengths I need to cut.Removing and replacing window and door casings is new for me and so far it’s going well. Above is how the window looked after I ripped off the old casing. I pried it off with a screwdriver and then pulled out the nails with a hammer. Where there was a build-up of paint from before, I used a chisel to carefully create a smooth surface.

Here is the new Pretty Simple Casing up around the window. Combined with the 5 1/4″ wide Pretty Simple Baseboards,  the room is already looking better.

This side of the room has two doors that I’m still working to remove the old casings from. In the meantime, I have started putting the Solid Pine Lattice up on the top edge of the room.

Once the lattice was up around the top and the baseboards were in, putting up the vertical lattice went quickly.

While I was working in the room these two were napping in the hallway …

That’s it for this week. My sister is here visiting for a few more days which will help me get the rest of this finished in time for the final reveal at the end of next week.

 

To see how all of the other rooms are coming together, click on the link below.

ORC- Week 5

The pieces and materials are all coming together for this room, now it’s just a matter of completing all of the projects. 

This is my son who was born last Thursday and was the reason that I decided to take on the One Room Challenge this fall. This pineapple quilt was made by my Mum and is part of the theme for the room.

Since my last post, I’ve ripped off the basic mouldings in the room so that I can replace them with Metrie baseboards and casings. Since I’m going to be adding board and batten to the walls, I wanted to add weight to the baseboards and casings to make the whole room have more architectural interest.

I am so excited to partner with Metrie again to complete this project. This time I’m using trim from their Pretty Simple Collection because the profiles were the perfect complement for the lattice I’m using as the battens.

This is what I’ll be using in the room:

Solid Pine Lattice 1 5/8″

Pretty Simple Casing 

Pretty Simple Baseboards 5 1/4″ 

This is the current state of the room with all mouldings removed. Before installing the new ones I will paint them outside in the garage. Since I couldn’t wait to see how it would look I propped up the new baseboards to get an idea of how it will look.

We have bunk beds now as well. After searching for months without any luck, I finally found this set of solid wood bunk beds on Kijiji. 

This was the only picture in the ad but it was enough to tell that they were what I was looking for – good quality, solid wood and could be separated into twin beds in the future if we ever wanted to.

This is part of the bunk bed frame that I’m planning to paint white.

After seeing the bunk bed ladder in the room I think I’ll leave it as is for practical reasons and also because the colour of wood works with the white walls and yellow curtains.

 

To see the progress of the other One Room Challenge participants click on the logo below.

ORC – Week 4

It’s week 4 of the One Room Challenge and our baby was born this morning! Even though this room isn’t perfectly finished it doesn’t matter because we have a bassinet in our room to use for the first couple of months anyway.

 

Another announcement is that I am partnering with Metrie to change these plain white walls into ones with more substance thanks to board and batten moulding. Below is the rest of my mood board for the room.
After adding moulding in other rooms of the house, I have seen the sense of character it adds and envisioned it here as well. Since this room is an irregular shaped kids room that will be packed with furniture, the board and batten painted white will add some subtle dimension to the walls.

Image Via: Rethink Design Studio

This image from Rethink Design Studio is the inspiration and I intend to do a similar style. I like how they used the lattice along the top edge instead of crown moulding. After installing moulding on our staircase this should be a simple job.

This is the rough idea of what I’m planning. After doing some sketching and spending time in the room measuring different spacing, I prefer the look the board and batten being wider.

 

That’s it for this week…time to get back to that baby! More updates from the other participants can be found below.

 

Fall One Room Challenge – Week 1

It’s been awhile since I’ve shared any new projects on my blog. Now that The One Room Challenge Fall Edition is here I’m joining in to create a shared bedroom for my son and his baby brother who is due this month.

This photo is from exactly 3 years ago when I painted a simple mountain mural for my 1-year-old. It was a quick and easy project (see the post here) that I still like but, that 1-year-old is now almost 4 years old and with a baby coming I know it’s easier to redecorate now rather than later.

Before I show my plan for this room I’m sharing photos of the whole space as it currently is. The crib has worked very well as a toddler bed but soon we will need it back to use as a crib.

The desk worked as a change table & dresser before and now it’s still used as a dresser. The rocking chair was one of my first chalk painting projects.

 

This little installation I created with some secondhand mirrors as well as canvases and painted them with paint samples.

This is the view of the room from the hallway that I completed with Metrie Moulding last fall. The gallery wall is made of wood secondhand frames that I painted white and distressed.

The pineapple quilt was made by my mum who will soon be opening an etsy shop with baby quilts.

That’s it for this week. All of the other people participating have shared their plans for The One Room Challenge and it looks like a few nurseries are being created as well as many other rooms.

Powder Room – Before & After

This before and after of our powder room has been a gradual project. A couple of years ago I shared photos of how I installed wooden shelves behind the toilet to create a display area and storage for hand towels.

The first change I made to the powder room was to paint it a dark teal because a small space is perfect for experimenting and trying something bold. Next, I replaced the mirror with a vintage one that I had. Below is the listing photo of the bathroom.

This is the only photo I took of the bathroom before because I was pretty quick to get a new coat of paint on the wall.

In September I won a contest and my prize was my choice of faucet from Delta Canada. I chose this single handle Victorian faucet to go in on our pedestal sink. The old-fashioned style of this reminds me of the taps in the bathrooms in the house that my Grandpa’s family built in the early 1900’s when they first came to Canada. I chose the single lever style to make it easier for kids to use and the chrome finish to match what was already in the room.

I chose the single lever style to make it easier for kids to use and the chrome finish to match what was already in the room.

This is what we had before so the new faucet was a big upgrade and like adding shiny jewellery to the room.

For most of my projects I like to use what I already have, so even though I was changing the faucet I wanted to keep the same pedestal sink.

My neighbour kindly installed this new faucet for us one Saturday morning. He bought shut off valves from Home Depot and new hoses to connect it.

 

 

 

 

 

Behind the faucet I added a wide, modern chair rail by Metrie to add interest on the wall behind the faucet. Now that I’ve done it enough times, trim installation is a quick project, especially in a tiny space like this. I did have to use a mitre saw to cut this chair rail because of the 4″ width and 1″ thick profile.

I painted the pieces before installing them. Since I didn’t have a lot of leftover paint from the bathroom I did a basecoat with a different dark paint I had first.

To install I used the same process as my other posts with a hammer and nail setter.

Here’s the room now and another before & after collage with the faucet and trim.

Dining Area Update

After finishing the moulding installation throughout the staircase with Metrie I had a bit of extra panel moulding, just enough to do one more project. After seeing how much depth and interest trim brings to the walls I decided to do a quick project above the kitchen table. It gets so much easier with practice and something this scale could be done with a hand saw, mitre box and hammer, no special tools required.

This is the wall before.

I put scrap pieces of moulding up and tried different placement, taking photos to get an idea of what would look best. Then, I did a sketch with the final measurements before cutting the moulding to size.

These boxes are 54″ in height and since I was only doing three, I put the pieces up one at a time. With the height, I left enough room at the top so that if one day we wanted to add crown moulding that could still be an option. Not every step is pictured here but there are more general instructions in my first tutorial.

This is what the area looked like in the real estate listing.

Related Posts:

How to Install Panel Moulding

Staircase Makeover Reveal

Farmhouse Table Makeover Featured on Apartment Therapy

Staircase Reveal

If you’ve been following along on Instagram or previous blog posts, I’ve been sharing glimpses into my staircase makeover. The wall had been painted for two years, waiting for moulding and thanks to Metrie it has become a reality. There was no major renovation involved. I broke down the steps, starting with painting the walls & staircase spindles, refinishing the banister and finishing with  chair rail and panel moulding that starts at the front entry and continues to the upstairs hallway. The painting and refinishing had a lot of impact, but it wasn’t until I added the moulding that the staircase became a strong feature.

This was a big learning curve for me, but it’s not impossible, it just takes patience and attention to detail. It’s amazing to see how much dimension the moulding brings, and it makes this formerly overlooked space seem larger. Immediately after finishing I made a fresh garland to dress up the staircase since it’s now a main focal point and I was feeling the holiday spirit.

This is the view from the main floor.
That’s the kitchen off to the right.The view from the kitchen.The moulding continuing through the front hallway.

This is a reminder of what it looked like when we first moved in and what I did to get here.

Below are the Moulding Profiles that I Used:

Metrie MDF Chair Rail

Metrie French Curves  Panel Moulding

With this project now completed I definitely have my eye on some other plain walls in the house that could benefit from some architectural elements. Are you thinking about adding some moulding to your home? If so, I have shared my process with lots of photos in the blog posts below.

Previous Posts:

Adding Architectural Elements – BEFORE

DIY Trim Tutorial