English Cottage Inspired Office / Family Room

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Testing, testing. Is this thing on?

This is my first blog post on Holland Avenue Home in over a year. I’ve missed this space a lot. I’ve shared about our new Kentucky home here and there on Instagram, but my heart has always been here on the blog where I can tell you the whole story and share all the photos, you know?

There have been a few projects in our new home over the last year, but I’m sharing the first one with you today. Our English Cottage inspired office/family room combo. We’re affectionately calling it “The Snug” (a British slang term for “enjoying or affording comforting warmth and shelter especially in a small space”).

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Patio Makeover with Better Homes & Gardens

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*This post is written in partnership with Better Homes & Gardens. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own! I love partnering with brands who share my passion for affordable and accessible home decor. *

Hi, friends!

If you’ve been following me for a while, you may have noticed that this is pretty strictly an interior design blog (with a heavy focus on interior, and convenient exclusion of anything considered “exterior”). Outdoor stuff is just not my forte.

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Low Budget Pantry Makeover with Leftover Paint and $20 of Organization Supplies

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Hi, everyone! Today, I have a quick and easy, low-budget pantry makeover to share with you. I see gorgeous walk-in pantries all the time on social media and in magazines, and I have to admit they usually make me jealous. The beautifully organized and meticulously labeled containers have previously seemed like a reality that only exists in my pantry dreams. We have this closet-like cabinet as a pantry, and it has been a source of frustration for me. It is dark, deep, and food seems to disappear, never to be seen again (until I inevitably discover it long after it expired, where it then takes a one-way trip to the garbage). I didn’t have smart organization for our tricky pantry, and it was causing me to be wasteful.

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Flooring, Trim, and Furniture: One Room Challenge Week Five

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If you’re finding me through the One Room Challenge, welcome to my home on the internet! I’m Avery and I live in a charming 1910 Craftsman style parsonage in rural Iowa with my husband, Ben. You can learn more about me here, and see some of my previous design work in my kitchen, my High Style, Low Budget Sunroom from the Spring 2019 One Room Challenge, and my Cozy Eclectic Master Bedroom from the Fall 2018 One Room Challenge. My design style is warm, whimsical, and collected. I love sharing real-life home inspiration for people like me who want big style with a tiny budget. You can follow along with my homemaking adventures and thrifting trips & tips on the Holland Avenue Home Instagram.

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For this round of the One Room Challenge, I will be finishing our unfinished basement to create a cozy family game room. You can catch up on my design plan through the link below!

Basement on a Budget: One Room Challenge Week One

Basement Demo and Waterproofing with Drylok: One Room Challenge Week 2

Catch-up and Ketchup: One Room Challenge Week Three

The Power of Paint: One Room Challenge Week Four

Week Five: You are here!

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We are almost finished. I can’t believe I’m able to say that, but in just one short week I will be sharing the final reveal of our finished basement! This week, we finished painting, installed flooring, trim, the minibar, and built almost all of the furniture. I will give you a few photos of the finished, empty room, but I’m saving all of the furniture reveals for next week!

I hadn’t finished the paint touchups when I took these photos, but the trim looks even BETTER now that I’ve touched up the wall and trim paint. Ben’s brother-in-law, Kirk, is a trim wizard. He came to stay with us on Friday and Saturday to do the trim. I intended to help and learn how to install it, but we ended up needing more trim than I initially estimated so I spent most of the day sanding and painting trim. Kirk did an impeccable job installing all of the trim, which we created from dimensional pine lumber (more on that later).

Here’s a reminder of where we started only four weeks ago, and a glimpse of the completely finished space!

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Like I said before, the edges look a little messy here because I hadn’t painted over the caulk yet. But can you believe the difference between these photos? I am completely overwhelmed by the finished result, and feel so undeserving of this space. We wanted to finish the basement so that we could have a large hosting space, and we aren’t wasting any time putting it to use. Ben is currently hosting a friend for games as I write this post! We will have an open house for our church members to come and hang out next weekend. (We live in a parsonage, which is a home that our church owns and maintains for the pastor and his family.)

Flooring

The flooring adds so much warmth to the room, and was incredibly easy to install. It is a loose-lay vinyl flooring that was generously sponsored by Iowa Floor Covering in Bondurant, Iowa.

Our exact flooring was recently discontinued, but there are many other options available from the manufacturer, Engineered Floors.

Why Loose-Lay Vinyl flooring?

Loose-lay vinyl is a floating floor that can be installed directly over concrete floors. Unlike vinyl plank flooring, loose-lay does not lock together. This allows for the product to adapt to a base floor that is not perfectly level. Our basement floors are not perfectly level, but the loose-lay is bendy and can compensate for this imperfection. The flooring does not need to be glued down, and can be removed if there were ever serious moisture issues in the basement.

How do you install loose-lay vinyl?

While it is not 100% necessary, you can secure the perimeter of the flooring with a pressure-sensitive vinyl flooring adhesive. This is a semi-permanent glue that holds the flooring in place, but could be removed later if you needed to. We used a small plastic trowel to apply a border of the adhesive around the perimeter of the room. The adhesive is fairly runny, and will be wet when you apply it. Wait until the glue is tacky and has changed color. When it is tacky, you can lay down your first strip of flooring. Some people recommend starting in the very center of the room with a pre-drawn straight line to ensure that your flooring is level. We were confident in the level-ness of our walls, so we used a chalk line to snap a guide onto the floor for our first row. Lay the planks snug against your guideline, and continue laying planks until you reach the wall. Measure the length you will need to fill the space.

Make sure to pull your planks from three different boxes while installing so that there is more variation in the woodgrain pattern on the planks.

We were able to cut the planks by scoring with a knife. Use a level and square to mark your line, and then score the plank with the knife. Once you’ve cut your end piece, you can lay it down with the factory edge against your previous plank (placing the scored edge against the wall where it will be covered by trim). You can use the remainder of your cut piece to start your next row.

It won’t hurt to use adhesive throughout your whole room, but it isn’t necessary. Loose-lay vinyl is designed to fit and lay snug without any adhesive. We were skeptical about this, but ended up being very surprised and pleased with the result! You just lay one plank next to the previous plank, and give it a little push to make sure it is as snug as possible. If your first row is level, you shouldn’t have any problem keeping the rows nice and snug.

If you come across an area that is not level enough for the plank to lay flat, you can use more adhesive to secure the ends of the plank. We had to do this over an old drain that is not necessary for the space. The floor just barely angles down toward the drain. We applied adhesive around the drain, and floored directly over it. We held these planks down with heavy objects until the adhesive cured completely.

The flooring we used is bendy, but very sturdy. It is a commercial loose-lay vinyl that is used in highly trafficked areas. We have no doubts about the longevity and durability of this product.

Ben and I had two friends helping us with the installation, but we could’ve handled it by ourselves if we had to. It took about four hours from start to finish to install the 400 square foot room, and a lot of that time was just sitting around waiting for the adhesive to become tacky. We had a cocktail break in the middle of this time lapse video while waiting for adhesive to dry around the drain. 🙂

How much does the flooring cost?

The retail price of this specific product is around $3 a square foot. It is a commercial grade product (nicer than residential grade), and does not require any underlayment to install. The flooring adhesive was around $20, and we did not use the whole container.

Trim

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To save money in the budget, we decided to use precut pine lumber for our trim. We sourced all of our drywall and trim from a local lumberyard. They offered free delivery, which was excellent! Kirk wanted to have some extra lumber on hand so we didn’t run out, so we decided to take a quick trip to the lumberyard before they closed on Saturday morning. When we pulled up to get the 16ft boards, the employee said, “You’re gonna put it in that thing?” We said, “No! We’re gonna put it on top!” (People hire Kirk to do trim work in their homes, and he has done this many times with his CRV! It was strapped down very securely and we only had a very short, rural drive home.)

How did you prepare the lumber?

Before installing the trim, I sanded and painted every piece in my driveway. I first sanded with 80 grit sandpaper using an electric sander. Then, I painted one coat of Sherwin Williams Emerald Interior Latex in Alabaster with a satin finish. After the first coat dried, I sanded with a fine sanding block. This step was sooo worth it, and helped me achieve a really smooth paint job. I gave each piece a second coat, and then they were ready to be installed!

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What size boards did you use?

Baseboards: 1×6

Doors: 1×4

Windows: 1×3

I ordered the largest lengths for each of my walls so that there would be minimal splicing of multiple boards. For example, I ordered two, 16 ft baseboards for our 28 ft wall. I ordered one 14 ft baseboard for each of our 13 ft walls.

The Minibar

Kirk and I also built a countertop surround for the DIY minibar. I found a cabinet at our thrift store for $5, and got lucky enough to find a mini fridge on Facebook Marketplace for $30 that is exactly the same height! We built this counter surround out of one 4×8 sheet of 3/4″ thick MDF.

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Here are the cabinet and mini fridge, painted with Sherwin Williams Waterloo. I will paint the counter surround the same color, and will cover the counter with marble contact paper. Kirk built the floating shelves out of plywood, and I will finish them with a light stain and clear coat.

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I prepped the mini fridge for paint by cleaning with mineral spirits to remove any grease and oil, then primed with Rustoleum Self-Etching primer. This was very easy to apply, and had a great coverage. You apply 2-3 thin coats, allowing 2 minutes in between coats for dry time. I used a small foam roller to apply two coats of paint to the cabinet and fridge.

Here is one sneak peek of furniture in the space! This is the sitting area in the game room, next to the mini bar.

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Before the big reveal next week, I still have quite a few projects to complete. However, I am completely confident that we will finish with plenty of time for me to style, shoot, and edit my photos!

Week Six To-Do’s:

  • Paint stairs
  • Paint door leading to storage room
  • Touch up paint on minibar backsplash
  • Install marble contact paper on minibar
  • Finish floating shelves with stain and clear coat
  • Paint game table
  • Hang artwork
  • Sew pillow covers
  • Stock minibar
  • Style, shoot, and edit photos

You can follow Holland Avenue Home on Instagram for plenty of behind-the-scenes progress before it comes to the blog next Wednesday. Head to the One Room Challenge blog to check out the other Guest Participants’ and Featured Designers’ posts for Week Five!

Don’t forget to check back next week for the big reveal!

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avery- signature

The Power of Paint: One Room Challenge Week Four

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If you’re finding me through the One Room Challenge, welcome to my home on the internet! I’m Avery and I live in a charming 1910 Craftsman style parsonage in rural Iowa with my husband, Ben. You can learn more about me here, and see some of my previous design work in my kitchen, my High Style, Low Budget Sunroom from the Spring 2019 One Room Challenge, and my Cozy Eclectic Master Bedroom from the Fall 2018 One Room Challenge. My design style is warm, whimsical, and collected. I love sharing real-life home inspiration for people like me who want big style with a tiny budget. You can follow along with my homemaking adventures and thrifting trips & tips on the Holland Avenue Home Instagram.

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For this round of the One Room Challenge, I will be finishing our unfinished basement to create a cozy family game room. You can catch up on my design plan through the link below!

Basement on a Budget: One Room Challenge Week One

Basement Demo and Waterproofing with Drylok: One Room Challenge Week 2

Catch-up and Ketchup: One Room Challenge Week Three

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Week four is finished and we almost have a finished basement as well! Since last week’s post, we’ve been working hard to finish the drywall and get everything painted.

I chose our main paint color, Sherwin Williams Pewter Green, after seeing and loving it in Emily Henderson’s Portland House Kitchen. This kitchen is full of natural light (unlike my basement), but even after sampling the color in our low-light space, I knew it was the one.

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(image credit: Emily Henderson)

After choosing Pewter Green as our main color, I decided to pull other colors from the Sherwin Williams Colorsnap Color ID Naturalist palette.

Colorsnap Color ID consists of eight exclusive palettes that have been thoughtfully curated to reflect your personality. The colors are perfectly coordinated, allowing you to mix and match with confidence. Simply choose the colors that move you and watch any room come together effortlessly.Screen Shot 2019-10-23 at 8.32.20 PMScreen Shot 2019-10-23 at 8.32.30 PMIf you’re not sure which palette fits your personality, you can take the Colorsnap Color ID quiz to find your perfect match.

For our basement, I’ll be using three colors from The Naturalist palette.

SW PAINT COLORS

We primed everything yesterday, and today we accomplished the step I’ve been looking forward to the most… PAINTING!

I was originally planning to have a dark accent wall (SW Pewter Green) and three lighter greige walls (SW Gossamer Veil) to keep things feeling bright. But when I thought about why I wanted “light and bright”, it was because I didn’t want it to feel like a cave, and I wanted the space to photograph well. Newsflash- those aren’t good enough reasons to choose a paint color. When I filtered the greige paint color through the “Do I Love It?” experiment, the decision became obvious. I did not, in fact, love the greige paint. (Sorry, greige. It’s not you, it’s me. You’re beautiful in other spaces, but you weren’t The One for my basement.)

I thought about how I wanted the space to feel instead of just focusing on how I wanted it to look.

It is a basement that we will use for watching movies and hosting friends and family. I wanted it to feel warm and cozy, like a hug. We live in Northwest Iowa where winter lasts for basically half the year. I know we will be spending a lot of time down here, so I wanted it to feel warm and inviting.

Those factors led to the decision to paint all four walls the same dreamy, dark, moody green. I don’t know what I was thinking before, messing around with the idea of greige. I would’ve had to rename my blog “Greige Avenue Home” and turn in my “Color Lover” card to whoever is in charge of auditing people who claim to love color. Don’t worry, though. I’m still a card carrying Color Lover and I have four green basement walls to prove it. I broke up with greige before placing the paint order, and brought home multiple gallons of Sherwin Williams Pewter Green.

Before I show you the dreamiest of all dreamy paint colors you’ve ever seen, allow me to remind you where we started four weeks ago.

IMG_9507Are you ready to see it? Behold, the Magical Enchanting Wonderland that is covered in Pewter Green (also known as my almost-finished basement).IMG_9604Want to see another before and after? Ok, I’ll show you another because I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT THIS IS THE SAME ROOM. Except I can, because I’ve seen it transform over the last four weeks through one drywall nail, brushstroke, and ice-pack-on-my-neck at a time. IMG_9512

IMG_9598The other side is just as green, and just as good. It is just slightly more “entirely full of tools and stuff”, and other things. 92CE1E61-0931-4FED-A00B-DCAE8B09230FIMG_9603IMG_9551We used an extra door that was being stored in the basement to block off the storage room. I will sand it and paint it with Sherwin Williams Alabaster (the color of the stairway walls, stairway risers, and eventually trim). I have one coat of Alabaster on the risers, but I’m waiting until construction is finished to finish painting the stairs. IMG_9601Alabaster is also the color we used for the ceiling, and it is perfect. It is a warm white that is excellent for low-light spaces. IMG_9611

We’re using Sherwin Williams Emerald Interior Acrylic Latex Paint and it has changed my painting life forever. It goes on like butter, and dries so smooth. I used two coats because the green is so dark, and the coverage is incredible.

Ben is currently painting the exposed pipes to match the Alabaster ceiling. They are the pipes for our radiators. We possibly could’ve framed them in and covered with drywall, but it was less work to leave them exposed, and would make for easier repair if they ever needed to be accessed. I went back and forth on whether to paint them the ceiling or the wall color, but we decided the ceiling color would be best.

We have two weeks left to finish the rest of this space, and we are on schedule to meet that deadline! We decided to Drylok the floors since we have so much of it left over from the walls. It is an extra step, but it will seal the concrete floors to prevent any moisture or concrete dust from coming through onto the new flooring.

Here’s our schedule for Week Five:

  • Day One (Thursday): Drylok concrete floors and begin installing flooring
  • Day Two (Friday): Finish installing flooring and paint trim
  • Day Three (Saturday): Install trim and paneling/shelves for minibar with Kirk (my brother-in-law)
  • Day Four (Sunday): Rest
  • Day Five (Monday): Paint minibar cabinet and mini fridge. Begin building furniture
  • Day Six (Tuesday): Build furniture
  • Day Seven (Wednesday): Build more furniture

Next week, I will probably be sneaky and only share a few close-up shots as I prepare for the final reveal. We have a lot of furniture building ahead of us, and I am counting down the days until I can lay down on our new sofa and take it all in. Until then, you can find me lovingly admiring our green basement and considering which room I want to makeover with our leftover paint. No room is safe from Pewter Green.

Thank you to my partner, Sherwin Williams, for sponsoring this project!

You can follow Holland Avenue Home on Instagram for plenty of behind-the-scenes progress before it comes to the blog next Wednesday.

Head to the One Room Challenge blog to check out the other Guest Participants’ and Featured Designers’ posts for Week Four!

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Thanks for reading!

avery- signature

Catch-up and Ketchup: One Room Challenge Week Three

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If you’re finding me through the One Room Challenge, welcome to my home on the internet! I’m Avery and I live in a charming 1910 Craftsman style parsonage in rural Iowa with my husband, Ben. You can learn more about me here, and see some of my previous design work in my kitchen, my High Style, Low Budget Sunroom from the Spring 2019 One Room Challenge, and my Cozy Eclectic Master Bedroom from the Fall 2018 One Room Challenge. My design style is warm, whimsical, and collected. I love sharing real-life home inspiration for people like me who want big style with a tiny budget. You can follow along with my homemaking adventures and thrifting trips & tips on the Holland Avenue Home Instagram.

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For this round of the One Room Challenge, I will be finishing our unfinished basement to create a cozy family game room. You can catch up on my design plan through the link below!

Basement on a Budget: One Room Challenge Week One

Basement Demo and Waterproofing with Drylok: One Room Challenge Week 2

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Week Three is finished and we are still making great progress! This week involved a whole lot of catch-up and a little bit of ketchup (keep reading to see both). My progress photos from this week may not look like much happened, but we are light years ahead of where we were at the end of week two. I’ll give you an update on what we did this week, and then a share a bunch of photos I took throughout the week.

Here’s a list of all of the things that happened (with the help of Denny and Don, two members of our church who each worked multiple afternoons or all day):

  • Finished hanging drywall on all four walls
  • Finished mudding on all four walls
  • Don finished wiring the sconces, all of the outlets, and even installed outlets in our sunroom living room (which previously only had one). This had to be done before we drywall the ceiling, because he had to wire through the basement ceiling up to the living room on the main floor. Having a second outlet in the living room is a game changer! #oldhouse
  • I scraped all of the old carpet gunk off of the stairs, removed all carpet nails, filled nail holes with wood filler, sanded stairs, and got the first coat of paint on the risers. This took an entire day’s worth of work!
  • I painted the stairway walls and trim with two coats of Sherwin Williams Alabaster
  • Denny and I hung the new glass paneled door at the top of the stairs. It needed to be trimmed, chiseled, and have the hinges moved in order to fit in the door opening
  • I polished antique brass hardware by using ketchup and a brush. It worked great!
  • Denny and I stripped the glass paneled door of its old stain and varnish (this took hours of gross, goopy work to scrape multiple coats of paint stripper to remove every last bit of finish on the door)
  • I sanded the glass paneled door, and got the first coat of paint (Sherwin Williams Waterloo) on the side that will face the basement. I will stain the side that is in the mudroom to match the other oak doors and trim
  • Don finished wiring and installing all of the recessed lighting boxes
  • Denny, Dan (another church member who is also our neighbor), and Ben hung three sheets of drywall on the ceiling!
  • I swept the floors like ten times and you wouldn’t even know but I KNOW

We are so much closer to being finished with the drywall even though we still only have three sheets on the ceiling. We’ve been waiting on the wiring to be finished on the ceiling, which we have not wanted to rush. Don, the church member who is doing all of the wiring, is a retired electrician. He has had TWO knee replacement surgeries this year, and the most recent one was only about two months ago! He is a machine! He’s had physical therapy most mornings and comes to work on the wiring after therapy. We are so grateful for him and his expertise. Wiring is no joke, and it takes specialized knowledge to do it right. He has gotten so much accomplished in such a short amount of time! Now that he’s only one step away from being totally finished, we can fly with the ceiling drywall! After the ceiling is installed and mudded, we will sand all of the drywall. After that, we just need to prime, paint, and install flooring and trim. I say “just” as if those are small and easy tasks, but they will take a few days minimum to complete. Next week, I hope to be able to show you painted drywall (if not the start of flooring!)

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Here’s a “before” of the stairs to refresh your memory.

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And here they are today, with a fresh coat of Sherwin Williams Alabaster on the walls. I scraped off all of that gunk and removed one million carpet nails. That meant there were one million holes to fill and sand. Then the risers got one coat of Alabaster. I’ll wait to do the second coat until we’re closer to being finished with construction. The treads will be painted with Sherwin Williams Porch and Floor Enamel in Rock Bottom.

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This $30 Facebook Marketplace door needed to be trimmed a few inches and chiseled in a few spots in order to fit perfectly. The door frame isn’t perfectly square, and the floors aren’t perfectly level. Denny was able to make the door fit perfectly in the frame by trimming the top and bottom on a slight angle.

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We took this brass hardware off of an extra door in the basement. It had seen better days.

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You can obviously use brass polish, but I didn’t have any on hand so I used ketchup instead! The vinegar and acidity of ketchup are effective brass polishers. I covered the plates in a coat of ketchup and let them sit for about 15 minutes.

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This is the result after rinsing off the ketchup and scrubbing the grime off with a bristle brush.

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Ta-dah! In the words of an Instagram follower, “I am shooketh”. This is the beauty of antique materials like brass and real wood. They can be restored!

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I didn’t take any photos of the door stripping process because it was very messy. We used Citrustrip to strip all of the previous varnish and stain off of one side of the door so that I can restain it to match the other doors in the mudroom. The other side, which I’m painting, just needed to be sanded in order to get rid of the “shine” of the varnish.

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After one coat of Sherwin Williams Waterloo.

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At the very end of the day (Day 7 of Week two), these guys were able to put up three sheets of drywall on the ceiling! They were the most difficult ceiling sheets to install because they had to cut around the radiator pipes, which go up in the ceiling to the dining room radiator. The rest of the ceiling should go much more quickly this week once Don finishes the wiring tomorrow morning.

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I’ve never been so excited about a piece of drywall!!! It’s happening!!!

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I’ll leave you with this incredibly hopeful photo of a drywalled corner and ceiling. Hopefully next week, this same view will have beautiful green paint and maybe even the start of flooring!

While it may not look like a ton of progress, it’s important for me to remember where we started only three weeks ago. This is that same corner pictured above. We now have one less wall than when we started, clean and mold free cinderblock that has been waterproofed with Drylok, drywall on the walls, new wired outlets, almost wired ceiling lighting, a painted stairway, a mostly refinished glass paneled door, and a good start to drywall on the ceiling. We are flying! It feels crazy to think that we only have three weeks left, but when I think about the progress we’ve made in the last three weeks I am confident that we are close to a beautiful finished basement!

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Thank you so much for your excitement and support of this project. I am very thankful for all of the encouragement and cheerleading you have offered to me during this project that has the potential to be stressful and overwhelming! We are having fun and learning a ton of new things every day, and I’m happy that I get to share the process with you.

You can follow Holland Avenue Home on Instagram for plenty of behind-the-scenes progress before it comes to the blog each Wednesday.

You can head to the One Room Challenge blog to check out the other Guest Participants’ and Featured Designers’ posts for Week Three!

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Thanks for reading!

-Avery