Saving Water

I snagged this free barrel from work before I quit and it's been sitting on the side of the house for a month. We've had some cooler weather and not so busy weekends so the hubster helped me out and hooked it up! 

It took some wandering around Lowes to find the right parts and cost about $50, but after 2 moderate rainfalls it was full. Probably should have done this 2 years ago and at the beginning of planting season. 

It would nice if it was another row of cinder blocks high but we were worried about the 450 lbs tipping when it was full.  I can still fit a watering can under the spout, it's just not super easy. I also got a soaker hose that can reach the herb/veggie garden. That will be the best option I think. 

Should be perfect for next summer!

Enjoying the New View

Glenn installed a new storm door on the back door yesterday and I love it! Just in time for the 70 degree weather that is suppose to start tomorrow. The new door can be all glass or half glass and half screen.

I can't wait to have a breeze through the back door as well as all of the extra light that comes through. I think Stella is enjoying the sun and the view!

We went with a more expensive Anderson door after several people expressed how much easier it was to install. It took Glenn about 3 hours, but there was minimal to no swearing so that is a success in my book! Worth the extra money for the ease of installation!

Last one!

I'm almost done pinning the last stripe! Yes, I started this project in March, but I'm almost done. I'm just happy I finished long before we plan on moving again.

Bending over while sitting on the floor is getting more and more difficult so I'm glad this part is over. Just a few hours of sewing and this project will be done.

Only a hundred more on the list to finish before January...

Installing a Pendant Light

When we bought our house there was only a flourescent light and one can light in the kitchen. The area over the peninsula was always kind of dark. Glenn HATED the flourescent light so much so that he would work in the dark before he would turn in on. I never understood it, must be all the time he spent on a windowless boat. Who knows?

We've been trying to get on some of the DIY projects around the house since we know we have a massive Time Suck coming our way in January (I say that in the most loving way). So I ordered a pendant light online from ShadesofLight.com (love their stuff!).

Step one was running wire to the pendant. We have an access panel in our closet upstairs for the air handler. Glenn dressed in his coveralls and shimmied his way back there. I think those 33 lost pounds (go Glenn!) were super helpful on this particular Sunday. We were able to run power from the overhead flourescent light and then had to run another line of wire down to the switch.

We switched out the single switch for a double switch, but ran in to a few problems running the wire down the wall to the switch plate.

We ended up cutting a hole in the ceiling in the basement stairwell and running the wire down the wall and then in to the back of the wall behind the switch. Not the best option, but with lath and plaster walls, I didn't want to just start cutting holes. They will never look the same since the plaster is textured.

Once the wire was run, we cut a hole in the ceiling for the new pendant light junction box and pulled the wires through. We wired up the new light and thought we were on the home stretch! 

 We wired up the switch and light, flipped the breaker and flipped the switches! One switch: no light. The other switch: both lights at 50%....hmm...

Glenn sat here for quite some time.  

Then he had a beer. And sat some more. We made a few phone calls to my dad and brothers.

Then a figurative light came on!

Incorrect:

Several more incorrect tries followed.

Correct:

Yeah, I don't know the difference either. Something about the switch being after the power or the order of the switch, light and power source. I forget already, but I love my new light!

Craigslist Fail / Bed for Sale

Remember when I posted about my various projects in the works? Well I finished one! I bought this bed on Craigslist, but wasn't a fan of the wood color. I wanted to put it in the guest room and add a bright color. I bought some enamel Benjamin Moore paint in a fun red color and painted 5 (FIVE!) coats of paint on the bed. I love how it turned out.

Then I moved it upstairs (from the basement) to set up the guest bed.

"Hmm...that looks kinda narrow now that it's in the room."

Measuring ensues.

Swearing follows.

So the lady I bought it from told me it was a Queen size bed frame. It is a full size. Fail. Six inches of fail. Queen size beds are 60", full size are 54".

Sooo...anyone want to buy a bed frame?

Pintspiration #3

I think this is more like the 300th idea that I've found on Pinterest, but they aren't all a success. Which means, they don't get documented.

I found this idea forever ago, bought the faux leaves at Michaels in August and then never got around to it. The hubby reminded me that my favorite season was quickly passing me by and I needed to get on it. I don't think it hurt that the leaves were hanging on the closet door that contains his motorcycle helmet, thus being in his way and encouraging his encouraging behavior.

I printed out the letter in a poster format in Word in Bookman Old Style bold font. The Mr traced it on plywood and cut it out with a jig saw. I painted the backside and edges with leftover red paint and hot glued the leaves on the front. The whole project only costed about $5 for the faux leaves the rest was leftovers from other projects. I even had the ribbon in my ribbon stash.

I love how it turned out! Happy Fall! The best time of the year!

Paint Schmaint.

 I thought about leaving it like this for awhile...

my house has been a disaster for the last week. Glenn is gone on an FCLP/CQ det again for about 10 days so I decided I should probably go ahead and finish the painting job that I started in May. Ok, I need a little encouragement from Glenn, but it needed to be finished. If I don't do it now, before January, it really isn't going to happen!

I started with the ceiling. I swear, there is probably 800 sq ft of it. My arms were exhausted. I edged the ceiling last Saturday and rolled the entire thing on Sunday (it took me ~6 hrs to roll). I spent a little bit of time each night this past week and edged the walls and then spent another 6 hours or so this Saturday and rolled the walls. Finally today I cleaned up and put the room back together! I'm so happy to have that project finished. Only 3 more rooms to go and I will have painted the entire house.

I saved myself sometime and didn't paint the trim in this room. Mostly because I knew it would involve a lot of scraping and not something that is probably good for me or the baby. I did have to repair one section of the wall where the plaster wasn't adhering very well.

 

I came prepared for that mess.

I'm so glad to have this project finished. And the house put back together before Glenn got home. I'll post a few after pictures soon. I have the curtains done on three windows too so you will be able to see those too! Only 3 more to go!

What was I thinking?

Why do I start these projects while Glenn is gone? Well... I know the answer to that, but when I envisioned beautiful striped curtain panels for my living room and dining, I didn't know how painful this would be. I am currently almost done seeing the first panel of the first window!

Only 11 more to go!

This is how my garden grows

My mini garden is doing great! I even see my first few green tomatoes. I realized too late that you are suppose to have stakes/cages for the squash so I'm not sure how many yellow squash I will get, but now I know for next year. Also, I should have planted just one or two of the squash and tomatoes. They've gotten big! The herbs are doing great though and I made a margarita pizza with my basil last night. Love that!

Kitchen is painted!

So I've been stinking at this blogging thing, but I spent all 7 of the last 10 days working on the kitchen. I had to revise my plan because, well my arms couldn't handle it. After rolling the kitchen ceiling I decided to stop with ceilings and move on to the walls and trim in the kitchen. It was already a mess anyway. So now we have a nice jagged paint line between the kitchen and the dining room, but that will be fixed in phase 2. I'm guessing when Glenn comes home, that will be sooner than later!

This was my schedule last week:
Monday- edge the ceiling
Tuesday- paint the ceiling
Wednesday- scrape/prep the trim
Thursday- paint the trim (4 doors and a window plus baseboards)
Saturday- edge the walls and paint the trim again
Sunday- roll the walls
Monday- touch ups an clean up

For me, phase 2 is several weeks away!

Here is the best part though- the pics. I painted it a color called Ventana by Pratt and lambert, but I had HD color match it in Behr paint.

Did I mention that the old baseboards were BLACK under all the old paint?
Our house is a little piecemeal with old and new baseboards depending on where walls were removed and added. Who paints baseboards black? I wish I had a few before pictures from before the remodel.

"New" Chandelier

When we decided the put a ceiling fan in the bedroom, we knew it made sense to remove one from the dining room and replace it with a pretty chandy.

I looked for awhile but couldn't find one that was big enough for the space AND we could afford. Enter my brother buying a new house and a big chandelier too big for their dining room. Not to mention brass and ugly.

They shipped it to me last week, all 27 lbs of it, and now I've got a ugly brass chandelier. Just kidding of course. That's not my style.

Enter 3 cans of spray paint, a little poly spray and 12 shades ($3 each at Garden Ridge!) So for about $50 plus a new dimmer switch and plate, so really about $85, a new chandelier!

My hubby got his electrician booty on and wired it up. Not quite as smoothly as the fan, but we're learning. Let's just say I sat in the basement to reset the breaker each time it popped. In which time I cleaned up the basement. It was a lot.

Now for the pics!

Before:

A little primer:

First coat:

And finished!

With the lights on. Glad we went with the dimmer. 12 60 watt bulbs is a lot.

Thanks for sending it mom & dad!

Teak Oil

As the name implies, and may be quite obvious to some, to condition teak wood, one should use teak oil! I guess I was expecting an oil like you would use to condition a table, but teak oil is a sticky, gooey...oil that requires mineral spirits to clean up. I'm all about starting a project but man, I hate the clean up. In this case, I just threw my rag away. Bonus.

I poured some oil on a rag, rubbed it on to our Craigslist find and voila! We had a like-new set. All the sun-fading and water marks went away. I told Glenn that if the lady had done this BEFORE we bought it, I probably would have paid several hundred more. It only cost me $7, so I win.

Can you see the difference? Try it with your would furniture. It's amazingly un-water-penetrable. It that a word?

Much better stools

I finally got around to buying new fabric for the counter stools in the kitchen. I had to special order another yard of the bench fabric (from Hancock fabrics btw). Now they match with a little help from the staple gun. Love that thing. If I had one of those pneumatic ones like on the DIY channel... Woah, look out. I'd be stapling sandwiches to the kitchen wall just cause I could so effortlessly. And I love sandwiches.

While I was at the fabric store I bought 10 yards of fabric. And then I went back and bought 5 more. Math helps. Remember when I was an engineer? Yeah, me either. So I've got 15 yards of fabric sitting in the bedroom waiting for Glenn to leave on det. I've got 2 weeks of projects that I plan on finishing after work in a week. That'll happen, right?

I bought two more cans of blue spray paint yesterday too. I can't wait to share those pics! Hopefully this rain holds off so I can finish tonight and we can wire it tomorrow!

Man, work gets in the way of all my ideas, but I suppose it pays for them as well!

A Fan!!!!

The exclamation points are very necessary. There may have been jumping up and down at the completion of this project. We installed a ceiling fan in the master bedroom! Glenn and I have never attempted any electrical work before and my hubby sure impressed me with his skills!

Even more impressive in my world, a switch! We have three ceiling lights in our master bedroom and they are all connected to one switch. Which was fine, but we didn't want to go to sleep at night with the fan on AND the lights on which is what we would have had to do.

Our first step was to do a little research. Glenn busted out his Home Depot Home Improvement 1-2-3 book which was a Christmas present from my Dad. It was very useful. We made a list of what we needed: romex wire, a jab saw, a switch, switch plate, junction box, etc. Amazingly, we got everything on the first and only trip. Love when that happens.

Our first step was to turn off the power, of course, and then unhook the lights. Our original plan was to hang the fan over the bed since it was the light closest to the wall with the access panel. We figured we could get behind the wall and it would make wiring everything so much easier. Once we unhooked the lights though, we realized there were two wires where we thought there would be just one. Meaning what we thought was light #3 in the series of 3 was actually #2. Since we still wanted #3 to work, we had to switch up the location. We put the fan over by the windows which is actually more symmetrical so I'm happy.

We connected the wire that went to the fan to a new piece of wire that we ran across the ceiling and down the wall to our switch and the outlet where we would be getting power.

We thought we would be able to get away with one hole in the ceiling, in the closet, but even with a fish tape, we ran in to trouble getting the new wire over the joist. There was too much insulation in the way. So we just a second hole (not counting the one that the light would cover). Luckily, we didn't have to cut another hole to feed the wire down in to the wall. There was already a wire running from the light to the outlet so we could fit our wire in the same hole in the stud. Phew. I was already worried about repairing holes in our plaster textured ceiling. You can see the texture pretty well in these pics. I don't think they sell this in one of those aerosol cans.

Another piece of wire from out switch hole down to the outlet and the wiring was done.

Lastly, we disconnected the fan from the dining room and hauled it upstairs. We had three downstairs between the living/dining rooms. We also stole the junction box since we needed a shallower size box that we had not purchased, but a little switcheroo and we were good. Did I say yet, I'm impressed with my hubby's skills?

The last, and worst part is the patching. I've still got another bit of sanding to do and then paint, but I'm surprised how well it is turning out. You'll always be able to tell a bit, but since we saved the piece we cut out, the texture at least matches a little.

                                        

I still have another layer of spackle to sand and then paint, but I don't think it is too bad. I used a few scrap pieces of wood to brace the hole and then screwed the piece that we saved in to that. I did the same in the closet. Not to shabby, as my dad would say. I know it won't disappear, but I'm happy with it so far. I'll have to take a picture once the paint dries.

The chandelier from my brother's house is in the mail, headed our way. I'm thinking a little spray paint, maybe some small shades and it is going to look great in our dining room! Stay tuned for that.

Patio Improvement

I love sitting out on our patio on our new furniture. Love it. It doesn't hurt that the temperature has been great and the hubby lives to grill.

What I didn't like was the view. This view.

Since we don't have a garage, this is where the lawnmower lives.

But now, he lives on the other side. We put up some lattice and planted some herbs, tomatoes and squash. I'm most excited for he clematis that I planted though.

Growing up, both of my family's houses had purple clematis growing on the fence or the deck. I'm so excited that our house has it too! Climate permitting, I hope to plant it at all of our homes. I can't wait til it's bigger and covering the lattice.

Meet Dr. Rubbel. That's actually the name of the variety. No need to rename this guy.

Now the view is much better. U hope the plants do well. Besides a few more pots, I don't plan on doing too much more planting this year. I don't have a green thumb like my mom. Her garden is beautiful! I'm just hoping to not kill what we've got so far. Happy spring!

House happenings

Two weekends ago we finally got around to using that old door that I posted a couple months ago. We found it in the back room of a thrift store down the street. I bought it with the intention of making a headboard so I bought a door that was at least 60" wide (for our queen) and that had the panels space such that I could cut it around 60" and it would be symmetrical.

We scraped and sanded the old paint which came off pretty easy along the edge, but on the panels it stuck pretty well so we just left it.  Then we gave it a good sand again and then started building.

I didn't a little research online, put a few of those together with the tools available and this is what we came up with.

Originally I thought to use a 4x4 for the posts but without a table saw it was too difficult to make notches. We decided to do 2 1x4s on each end a 1x6 on top and a little trim underneath. We found an old 2x2 in the yard and put that at the bottom to reinforce the 1x4s. I filled all the holes and a few gaps in the trip piece with wood putty, sanded again and primed and painted it!

I used the leftover paint from the china cabinet in the bathroom so it is Benjamin Moore impervo paint in white dove.We attached it to the bed frame with 3 1/2" bolts with a few nuts and washers.

Hopefully the pictures explain a little more clearly. I make the plan and Glenn does most of the executing. I think we did pretty well. What do you think?

 The door cost us $30 and the wood pieces cost about $30 and the putty and paint were leftovers. A lot cheaper than the $500 headboards I was looking at online! I told Glenn that now I want a matching foot board, but I think I'll wait a few months before I ask him to make me something else.