Mounting Bottle Bottoms in Wood

Bamboo Finish on box to heighten Brick Wall

Bottle Bottom Template for Valance

Sometimes simple ideas are harder to execute than you expect. My idea of mounting glass bottle bottoms into the wood we used to build-up our brick wall to counter height took days & days of planning & practice to figure out how to accomplish it. 
First of all a lot of beer bottles appear the same size, but they vary ever so slightly. Also since we are using LED lights to shine through from the inside of the box, the bottles need to fit snug in the hole so light doesn’t bleed around the edge. The cleanest way to get a nice round hole in wood without chewing up the edges is with a hole saw. Only problem, they come in just certain sizes & the larger ones get pricey. Between the contractor & ourselves, we had quite a few, but not enough for all the sizes of bottles. We splurged on a few additional ones. My husband also found an adjustable hole maker, but it wasn’t cutting through thick pieces of wood easily. So after various practice holes and shaving down of glass bottles, he decided to use the adjustable hole saw to cut holes in a template, clamp that template to the box and use his router to cut the smooth round holes. So we ended up going out & spending almost $25 on the right router bit. In the end it was worth it.

Bob cutting Circle Templates

Adjustable Hole Saw

Hole Cutters & practice cuts in Bamboo

The Circle Templates

Special Router Bit

Box with Circles Cut Out (protective tape still applied)

Powering Through the Old Floor

Well besides finishing up some mud on the drywall today, I spent my time with the hammer & chisel breaking away the bit of old floor adjacent to the brick wall. There's another section at the front of the wall that I tried hand sawing away (the grain is the opposite direction) but the oak floor was too hard for me to power through. Now I need a masseuse.

Work in Progress – Brick Wall

I’ve finally returned to my project of painting the brick wall. I thought I might be able to get it all done last week on my two days off, but it was a bit more work than that, plus I was utterly sore from those days of sitting on the floor and sponging on five different colors of paint. 
    
I’m thrilled with how well it’s coming along. Everytime I look at the side I completed I can’t get over how much more I love it than the white brick it used to be. Now that we have our financing together to finish the kitchen project, I’m starting to get back into the planning mode. Since the project has been delayed a year now, some of my material choices are no longer available, so I have to do some additional planning again. With working a job with a revolving schedule, it’s a bit of a task to find time to stay concentrated on the kitchen. I hope I get it organized soon so I can get a contractor hired and have the kitchen of our dreams.

Brick Wall Attempt 2

Wall attemp 2, a photo by b-a-boop on Flickr.

I've attempted 2 sections of brick painting. The 1st I tried a beige grout color, it came out OK, but I thought it still looked too close to the white. The 2nd section I tried a gray grout (think it's too dull and muddy) and tried to get a bit darker on the bricks. Will be experimenting a bit more in the future, I'm a bit persnickety, want it just so, although I'm not exactly sure what that SO is.

Faux Painting a Brick Wall

We have an existing brick wall at the edge of the kitchen which is painted white. We plan to add a counter on top of it when we renovate the kitchen. Today I’m attempting to paint it back to a reddish/tan brick color. I first used a beige color house paint on the grout lines. Then I’m sponging on some various shades of tan to terra cotta to simulate the brick. Hoping it will look good.

Existing Wall

Approximate Look I'm trying to achieve