If you hate the look of a bare concrete floor, no matter how practical it might be, here’s an idea — why not stencil the concrete to look like a luxurious carpet?

Perhaps not as comfy as a fine oriental rug, but certainly more durable, is this concrete “carpet” created by faux finisher Kim Longo. Inspired by an aged tile look she saw in villas and palazzos in Italy, Longo has used templates and trowels to create unique patterns in concrete surfaces.

Planning out the design and colour palette for a stencilled concrete faux carpet comes first, of course, as with any project.

After that, The Concrete Network (www.concretenetwork.com) lays out the basic how-to on stencilling concrete:

1. Scrub the concrete surface
2. Apply two coats of primer.
3. Measure off the area to be stencilled (Longo chose the Barcelona stencil from Modello).
4. Tape off an extra width all the way around to create a border, if desired.
5. Mark a centre line and place your stencil, sticking it down firmly.
6. Carefully lay your colours into the cut-out areas in the stencil.

   You might choose to stain the concrete substrate, or trowel on a coloured cement product like Skimstone — it might be tempting to use paint for an quick and easy fix, but paint on concrete is simply not durable and will inevitably flake off with time and foot traffic.

7. Remove the stencil and finish with two or three coats of sealer.

“What began as a blank concrete canvas had been transformed into an inviting room where my youngest does his homework and reads in the afternoon with his dogs and that becomes a spot to relax at night with the ocean breezes,” Longo says.

I don’t think I’m going to pour this much DIY creativity into my concrete basement floor — which is the only flat interior concrete surface in this old farmhouse — but what about stencilled concrete for jazzing up a patio, a 3-season sun room, or even the standard mid-century concrete front step?

Very uptown!

Renovation adventures make for lively reading — it’s all the fun of a full-blown home makeover, only someone else does the work and pays the bills!

Somewhere out there in rural Indiana, USA, a 1920s foursquare house is getting a major makeover.

Although is is in very good shape structurally, the previous previous owners (PPOs) had very bad taste and strange ways of making improvements. The last owners started to straighten things out, but were forced to relocate before they got very far. My husband and I are working on finishing the job and restoring our home to as much of its original appearance as is possible and practical.

The homeowners are DIYers with ambition, fair skillls, and a good sense of personal style — but even with a clear idea of what you like, aesthetically, and what you want to achieve with your home… sometimes it just comes down to trial and error.

Case in point, redecorating the living room.

Here, the planned colour scheme is just lovely — rich and home-feeling and appropriate to the vintage and character of this old house. But when the gorgeous copper-red paint paint went on the walls, something just didn’t feel quite right about it.

Instead of feeling warm and cosy, the red room felt dark and a bit oppressive. Stripping layers of white paint off the trim and stairs to reveal the beautiful old woodwork was an attractive choice to bring out the character of the house, but it also added to the sense of dark enclosure.

Solution?

To stay with the same great paint colour scheme, but to change the proportions in which the colours are used.

(And we’ve talked about this before, how playing with the proportions you use can alter the look of a room so dramatically.)

A mid-range “Hubbard Squash” gold colour replaced the red paint on the walls — or it’s in the process of doing so. Even with just the one coat of the gold paint on, so far, it’s enough to see where this room is headed… and what a lovely room it is going to be!

Follow this real-world renovation at Life in the Prairie Box.

Technorati Tags: renovation, paint, colors

Sun rooms, three-season rooms, Florida rooms, whatever you want to call them, more of us are finding ways to bring a little outdoors inside.

Fancy iron-work (think French cafe style) or comfy cottage wicker are popular furniture choices, with a pillow-heaped day bed for lounging with a lemonade on a hot summer day.

Now, imagine if you could extend the blend of outdoor-nature and interior style, to blur the line between home and garden. Add a jungle of potted house plants — over-sized, grouped in corners or on either side of the patio doors, with a single lovely piece of garden art nestled among the greenery.

Appeal to all the senses. Scented candles, or simply a few arrangements of aromatic herbs and flowers, are a soothing delight. And what about a delicate set of windchimes near an open window, or the soft water-music of an indoor fountain, perhaps wall-mounted if space is an issue?

Keep the colours light and airy, to continue the sense of space and freedom you draw from outside — with a rich splash of accent colour to mirror your favourite flowers.

The back wall, facing the garden, might feature a textured finish (faux stone?) or even a wall mural to continue the illusion.

Try a little trompe l’oeil painting if you’re artistically inclined. Or consider a pre-printed wall mural, as durable and easy to install as any good quality vinyl wallpaper. MuralsYourWay.com has a terrific selection from Monet’s poppy-splashed masterpieces to the frankly fantasy garden, and will also print custom murals from your own photographs or original artwork.

Okay, now I may be just bragging:
Look, Ma, I painted this cute little birdhouse all by myself!

This church-shaped birdhouse was a gift for an elderly friend, made following a pattern in Making & Painting Victorian Birdhouses, which I picked up for $5 last year, during an excellent Amazon sale.

My friend’s son did the woodworking and I did the painting.

It was the first time I ever painted something as small as those tiny little flowers that climb up in front of the stained-glass windows. My hands really were shaking!

But it was just so much fun to make something like this, myself, at home!

And a very frugal gift, too, as well as a very personal one.

Some of the hardware stores have blank wooden shapes for decorative painting that would be fun to play with if you don’t know anyone who likes to make little objects out of wood.

I painted a smiling little bee for a sign this summer. There’s a picture of it somewhere around here… I’ll post it later if I can find it…

The church birdhouse has a coat of clear weather-proofing stuff on it, but my friend thought it was too pretty to put outdoors so she keeps it on display on a wide windowsill in her apartment.