Basement, Ceiling, Design, Detailing, Engineering, Ongoing Projects, Rustoleum, Space Efficiency, spray, Storage, Thrifty

Wood Ceiling Beam Straps

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DIY faux wood ceiling beam straps brackets

 

DIY Faux Ceiling Beams Straps

Getting creative with our fake ceiling beams, we wanted to find a way to make them look more like the real deal. So we engineered some metal straps/brackets out of cleats. We’re so happy with the outcome, and even more happy to say the ceiling beams are totally complete. Function meets fashion all the way. To recap, this is the final post out of a three-part tutorial on our faux barn wood ceiling beams. To see how we made and installed the ceiling beams, check out these posts 🙂

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Basement, Ceiling, do it yourself, Engineering, flow, Joe, Ongoing Projects, Thrifty

Installing Ceiling Beams

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DIY hollow wood beams installation header

Ceiling Beam Installation

We deciding faux barn beams were the way to go for our particular situation. I hope you caught the first post where we catalogued the whole process of making and weathering our beams. In case you missed it, we joined together three boards to look like one solid beam. However, it’s hollow in order to encase the retractable movie screen. After building them, bashing them and staining them, we’re ready to install them. It’s time to get these puppies onto the ceiling!

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Basement, DIY, Engineering, Joe, Ongoing Projects

DIY Wood Ceiling Beams

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movie beam header

DIY Wood Ceiling Beams

Back to the basement. There were a few reasons for making ceiling beams. We have a weird, lumpy low ceiling in the basement. Despite having just told you this, we wanted a way to draw attention away from its imperfections, and ceiling beams do just that. They’re also functional – this I will explain in a bit. And lastly, they just plain look good.

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Basement, Design, DIY, Engineering, Lighting, Marshalls, Ongoing Projects, Organization, Paint, Space Efficiency, Storage, wall

DIY Built-in Bookshelves

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movie room bookshelf build 1 header

DIY Built-in Bookshelves

Alright, I must confess: I was 100% all for jumping on the IKEA hack bandwagon for this project. There are so many tutorials about retrofitting the “Billy” cabinet to make floor-to-ceiling bookcases. But when the dimensions didn’t fit our space, we had no choice but to go for a custom solution. And that’s usually where the best ideas are hiding.

Before

DIY builtin bookshelves before

You can ask Joe, this was probably the thing I was most excited about when we moved into the house. It was at the top of my list, but not high priority compared to some other projects.

 

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Basement, Décor, Design, DIY, do it yourself, Engineering, Furniture, Joe, Ongoing Projects, Paint, Space Efficiency

DIY Wood Barn Door

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official movie room header

DIY Wood Barn Door

Welcome to the step-by-step basement remodel! Beginning with the barn door, I guess? Why not start somewhere random, right in the middle? The barn door was the first thing we wanted to build. For no particular reason. I’m glad we did because it informed some of our other choices, like paint color. For a small space or a movie room like this, it makes a lot of sense to build a barn door for privacy, space efficiency, and to block sound and light. It was actually incredibly easy to build this sliding barn door and took Joe only a few hours, including the torching job below.

 

 

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Basement, Design, DIY, Engineering, flow, Furniture, Home Entertainment, house tour, house walk through, Ongoing Projects, space, Space Efficiency

DIY Movie Room Remodel: Big Plans

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movie room planning header

 

I’m as surprised as you are that we’re knee deep in a basement remodel. It sort of just happened.    ¯_(ツ)_/¯  Thanks football season, for spurring Joe on to set up his movie screen. (Shoutout to the Vikings!) We’ve actually been dreaming this room up for, well, since we moved in. We got a head start on the bigger parts of the project this month and will probably wrap things up in the winter. We’re excited to take you guys through our big renovation!

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Engineering, Landscaping, Outdoors, tutorial concrete, Yard

DIY Concrete Trash Station

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DIY concrete slab pour trash cans after header

DIY Outdoor Trash Station

Do you have any problem spots in your home routine? Like the trash station outside? Nobody likes taking out the garbage, but here’s a hack that’s made this chore a little less dreadful around here.

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Basement, Bathroom, Engineering, Joe, Lighting, Ongoing Projects, Water

Bathroom Remodel: Shower Glass

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shower lights header image

DIY Shower Glass Installation

Our shower is done! Well, not quite. We still might frost our shower glass, or add decals to it. But for all intents and purposes, it’s done and completely shower-ready! We knew we wanted a portion of the shower wall to be glass, but no more than that. So we framed it all out and planned to tackle the logistics later. And now it’s later…

shower glass installed LED lights

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Basement, Bathroom, Décor, Engineering, Lighting, Ongoing Projects

Bathroom Remodel: DIY Backlit Mirror

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DIY backlit mirror LED lights

How to Light Up a Mirror

If you have a mirror at home that you want to jazz up, this could be the perfect DIY for you. Adding LED lights behind your mirror adds some ambiance and a hotel feeling to your bathroom, or any other room in your house for that matter. Just be sure there’s an outlet behind the spot you want it!

 

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Basement, Bathroom, Engineering, Ongoing Projects, video, Water

Pouring a Shower Pan

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pouring a shower slope

Pre-Slope

All we do is work work work work work. Thanks Top 40 radio for that one. We’ve been listening to the same 40 songs all spring break due to limited music options. But, back to the task at hand.

This video is lengthier, so feel free to breeze through it at your own pace. The pre-slope is a one night project, but it’s important to give it plenty of time to dry (48 hours to be safe) before advancing to the rest of the shower pan. We’ll walk you through the steps.

 

 

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