Naomi, Sage – Author at Plaster & Disaster

We are SO EXCITED to welcome our very first non-relative guest poster today! We are big fans of Bigger Than The Three of Us, a blog by Ashley filled with modern DIY projects and home renovation tales. When she agreed to do a room tour as a guest post for us we were thrilled.

One of the things that we love about Ashley is that she tells the whole truth about her home and projects, not just the perfect stuff. She writes occasional posts sharing what is going on behind the scenes of the pretty pictures of her home, and just has a real, straight-forward tone. She also gets up to some hardcore projects, like installing drywall, building a mid-century inspired bed, or learning how to use fiberglass to make her own bullet planter (did you even know you can do that?!).

Check out her pretty, modern, and happy formal dining room tour below, and then go check out her blog for more awesome content!

Hi! I’m Ashley and I blog over at Bigger Than The Three Of Us where I share lots of modern DIY projects, house renovation trials and successes, and room makeovers that evolve over time. I love thrifting, mid-century modern, making my house feel like it fits our family and all of those things just naturally fell in place to create Bigger Than The Three Of Us.

I’m huge on sharing the process of how we got to where we are and also the “ugly truths” behind the pretty pictures. Today, I want to share our formal dining room with you. It’s not a finalized room reveal, but we have made some progress and it feels like us. When you’re decorating and DIYing, it’s so important to realize and enjoy when you have made progress. Sometimes, it’s easy to see all the the little things that aren’t done but when you can step back and enjoy the things that are done… it makes the whole process feel more rewarding and enjoyable.

Ready to get to it?Guest Post: Pretty, Cheery Dining Room Tour by Ashley from Bigger Than The Three Of Us

Here’s the before (like right after move-in).

When we moved in to our house three years ago, I hated the formal dining room space. The built-in was definitely not my style nor was the wall coloring. I painted the walls gray first thing. Next, I tackled all the trim and the built-in. They both got a coat of bright white. I found a vintage credenza on Craigslist as well as some mid-century chairs. I paired those with an old table that we had and some garden chairs. Instantly the room had life. I kept adding more layers to make it my own. My husband painted the ikat painting for me and that helped anchor the space.

The dining room didn’t make any changes from the above for quite some time. Over the course of a year, I thrifted another table and put that in there. I scored some West Elm chairs on a a great sale. They weren’t originally meant for the dining room but I loved them in there. Then, again the dining room stayed the same for a while.

Fast forward to about six months ago and we get neck deep into our kitchen renovation. We decided to take half of the wall down that separates the dining room from the kitchen. That changed the room layout.

I had to get rid of the mid-century dresser and relocate the bar cart to another wall. As we renovate, I try to keep the surrounding spaces as clean and nice feeling as possible. So, this room has gotten some new decor pieces and an air plant or two to help it feel cohesive and warm.

The room feels inviting, but it definitely needs some work. You have to look for it, but it needs some DIY love here and there.

If you look closely in the above photograph, you can see a strange line on the carpet to the right of the bar cart. Yep, we cut the carpet there. We needed the access when we were taking part of that wall down (you can see the half wall to the right). We plan to replace the carpet with hardwood flooring at the first of the year. Another thing, is that baseboard totally doesn’t match the rest of the baseboards in the room and it’s not even tacked in. Ha. I’m cutting corners to make it prettier. Actually, I just ask myself, why should I tack a baseboard in when I’m replacing the floors in three months time?

I’m not one of those people who just get rooms right the first time. I’ve found that I have to slowly decorate a space over time to really make it fit.

I hope you’ve enjoyed our room tour and the evolution of how we got to where we’re at. I’d love for you to stop by my blog and see more!

Isn’t that great? It is so fun to see rooms change and grow over time, and this one has definitely turned out beautifully. It is hard to use color while keeping the space feeling calm, but this room totally pulls that off. We love the pretty details grounded by more masculine pieces, like the solid wood table and high contrast rug. Naomi’s favorite is the cool swivel chairs with the awesome stripes. Sage’s favorite is that ikat painting — could my husband please paint me something like that?!?

You should totally check out her blog for more! To get you started, here are a few of our favorite projects:

(I know it will be hard to contain yourself given how awesome they are, but if you want to pin or share these images, please visit Ashley’s site to pin from the original source!)

First up, this awesome mid-century inspired teardrop planter. This should go in every room, ever.

Next, you won’t believe how little she paid to DIY this light. It looks like it should cost $700 from a high-end boutique!

Finally, we love her calm, modern bedroom:

So cool, right?! Thank you for sharing your home with us, Ashley!

When a posted a little while ago about sealing and patching holes in my garage, I conveniently left one small thing out of the narrative.

Or, rather, one very large thing: a huge hole in the cement wall that separates our garage from our basement. Here it is with Brad for scale.

It is kind of a not very good thing. It is pretty bad for energy efficiency to have big holes from the inside to the outside. Through willful ignorance, we hadn’t even known quite how big it was all the way through, because the previous owner had it stuffed with exposed fiberglass insulation and covered with a bookshelf on the other side.

I was very worried about this step of the garage project. I had no idea how to fix a big hole in a cement wall, and was afraid that this might be a structural issue for the house, especially since there were some cracks visible in some of the cement blocks once I cleared away all the old insulation.

However, I emailed the extraordinary contractor who did our renovation before we moved in, and he wasn’t worried about the structural issues and said I could go ahead and patch it up.

But patch HOW? I considered a lot of options. The guys at Home Depot had a lot of fun lamenting the fact that the hole existed to begin with, and then suggested that I build a mold on one side of the wall and fill it in with a pour of concrete. After hearing that, I seriously considered just gluing a piece of plywood over it and calling it a day.

Instead, I decided to split the difference and fill it in a way that would be more accessible for a beginner DIY-er like myself, but also solidly still a wall and not a random piece of plywood. My plan was to brick it in and then cover the bricks with a thin coat of concrete so that it would mostly blend into the wall once everything was painted.

I gathered a bunch of random bricks that we had laying around in our yard. I also picked up some mortar mix, cement sand, and a trowel for a total cost of about $16. (If I had to buy the bricks, it only would have added about $7 to the total cost.)

I pumped myself up by telling everyone that I work with that I was going to learn masonry over the weekend, in hope that they would consider me to be daring and interesting. (I’m really popular.)

I also read a lot of tutorials and watched a lot of YouTube videos (this one was the most helpful for working with mortar and laying bricks). It turns out that I didn’t need to be nervous, because this project was super easy!

I started by mixing the mortar. I did this in relatively small batches so I could be sure I was getting the right consistency and that it wouldn’t be too hard to mix.

I could tell it was a good consistency when it looked wet and clumpy, and when a glob of it would easily stick on the trowel at a 90 degree angle.

It was a little tricky to get the bricks in neatly because I wasn’t starting with a flat surface, but that didn’t really matter since this would be covered with cement anyway.

To lay them, I applied a layer of mortar with the trowel.

Then, I used the trowel to apply a small amount of mortar to the side of the bricks (apparently called “buttering the brick”).

And then pressed it into place, scraping away any excess mortar that seeped out.

It took about an hour to get them all up, and I was going very slowly and wasting time by only mixing a small amount of mortar in each batch. But I was so pleased when it was all bricked in!

I let it cure for a week before applying the cement.

That process was very similar (surprise). I mixed batches of cement, going for a pretty thick consistency that would stay up on a vertical surface.

I used a soaked sponge to wet the bricks and mortar, making it easier for the cement to get a good bond.

To apply the cement, I grabbed a good handful, and worked it into the right shape, breaking up any clumps.

(Always wear gloves when handling cement. It will burn your skin, and you won’t feel the burns until later after a lot of damage has been done.)

I then smooshed (technical term) it against the wall and blended the edges.

Finally, after I had done this over an area, I smoothed it with the back of the trowel to a nice flat surface.

It wasn’t possible to get it totally flat. My skill level was certainly involved, but the previous owner had also done some rough application of cement around the outside of the hole, which wasn’t flush with the wall. I did my best to smooth these spots out and to patch in chipped areas, but it was still somewhat imperfect.

Still, I’m betting that once it is covered in paint it will look pretty good!

What a beautiful after photo! (You might not think so, but I certainly do.)

This is the first of the garage projects that really feels like progress. This was a major barrier between us and getting to a point where we can paint this space, and we weren’t sure we’d know how or be able to pull it off. It feels great to have it done!

While I was at it, I also cemented in the interior wall (for if we ever decide to finish that space) and caulked around the edges (because cement won’t flex as the house shifts).

The interior wall has a bit more of a bulge, but, once again, I’m betting that if this gets painted it will still look pretty good.

Hey, it is definitely better than a big gaping hole!

I know this garage project feels like it is taking forever (is that just me?), but it is tough when you only have a little time each weekend to work on the big projects. Still, I feel like we just took a big step forward!