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)

Kitchen Renovation Project About to Begin

Kitchen Renovation Project About to Begin
Well we’ve signed the contracts and the kitchen renovation / house rewiring project will be starting soon.  It’s going to be quite a mess here for who knows how long. I have to clear all the art work off the walls, pack up all the small stuff & move all the furniture to the center of the rooms to access all the electrical outlets & switches for the rewire. Then after that, the demo of the kitchen will begin. We can’t wait to clear out those rotten old cabinets & the old floor. But I’m not looking forward to the hassle of peeling that disgusting wallpaper off the ceiling (what were my in-laws thinking when they put that up there?)

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