Mistakes, I've made a few...

Hello everyone. Today I wanted to give you a quick update and highlight some "mistakes" that turned out to be perfect in the end. One was our plaster living room ceiling. To do this ceiling we used an inexpensive veneer gypsum plaster and mixed it with watered down joint compound. The joint compound had been sitting around for....oh..... maybe a year? Not sure. But the plaster when mixed looked like kind of a funny color. And on the ceiling it looked like kind of a funny color. And even the next day.... this ceiling looked ruined. Case in point:

This is after a day of drying. Most ceilings are dry and white by this point. 

So I started freaking out. My husband said it wasn't dry yet. But did I listen? No. 

I had our painter Sam start applying some glaze in a small spot. We decided we could cover up the damage with a little bit of glaze but we didn't have time to do it that day. 

The next day Levi went to the house, and this is what he saw.  (OK this pic is like a month later... but you get the idea.)

Once it was all dry.... this was our favorite ceiling. It has more movement than the others. It is beautiful. So the moral of the story is..... chill out Lauren.... let it dry..... and listen to your husband. 

And I got the unpleasant job of sanding the glaze off that Sam had applied. Have you ever sanded a ceiling? Ugh. 

And then we had ANOTHER little plaster.... EXPERIMENT. 

In our last blog post Levi mentioned the plaster for the walls we had ordered for downstairs was not the right white. We went through a color match process with Stucco Italiano (http://www.stuccoitalianoinc.com/)  and found the perfect white. This involved their color guy Leonardo custom matching a sample of plaster... applying it to a sample board... and mailing us the board. Once we decided the color they custom matched 10 buckets of plaster and sent it to us from Seattle. We started applying it and LOVED it. We got the dining room and living room done. And then we realized we didn't quite have enough of the new white to do the finish coats for the foyer. I make an executive decision to use the old peachy white for the first and second coats and the new white for the final 1/2 coat. I was worried the peachy would show through but I just wanted this room done! In the end..... the peachy white shows through just enough to create a little visual texture and this room is my FAVORITE. This plaster is a coarse plaster that looks like stone. It is called Intonachino.

Here it is wet..... not sure how it would look.

Here is is dry. BEAUTIFUL

Someday soon our slate mantle will be installed. Checkout our plaster ceiling medallions and Serge-Mouille chandelier

All white-white

Mixed peach white in foyer and all white white in background

This is the ALL white-white. 

All white-white

All white- white with antique sconces from Architectural Salvage in Louisville

Our bathroom is also coming along.... no mistakes here! We did a grey tadelakt, also from Stucco Italiano. It is a plaster that is traditionally found in Morroccan Bathhouses. It is waterproof. It's sealed with olive oil soap. It is environmentally friendly and can be cleaned easily with a sponge and water since it is sealed with soap! I could bore you with all the installation details... but I won't. The plaster is smooth to the touch. Check out the pics.

Toilet nook on left, shower on right. Heated limestone floors, bench will be marble. Hopefully calacutta marble but I can't find a source for it locally. A tub will be far right under the window with the wall mount faucet, you can see the pipes coming out. 

The corners on the shower nook were tough! Also you can see our BADASS linear drain in the shower. The floor is slanted in the shower. 

We like clean workspaces. 

A couple pics of the kitchen

Installed some more lighting and a fridge

Did the backsplash in Ardex feather finish, a concrete veneer I've always wanted to try. It's cheap and easy. Search it on pinterest for tutorials. I sealed it with marseille wax from Stucco Italiano. 

Now Levi has turned his attention to our stairs and they are moving right along.... he is so good at this stuff! 

Also.... if you like our house, SOMEDAY (not quite yet) you will be able to hire my husband. He started a company.  And hired an employee. EEK! And made a logo!

I foresee good things for the future. Ciao!