around the house

It's been an expensive month around our house. First we paid for the 7 new windows which have yet to be installed. Then paid for the cabinet doors coming from CA that my dad is going to custom build for laundry room storage. Then our refrigerator has been slowly dying, and instead of yet another craigslist fridge that lasts a year we got a new one. And now our AC is broken.

I guess I can still be thankful that we have good jobs and are able to pay for these things, and that I am blessed with a husband who in 90+ degree weather goes out in the weeds behind our house armed only with crappy harbor freight tools, his laptop of "how to fix your air conditioner" youtubes and a lot of gumption and determination. Yes, I'm very thankful for that. So Doug got a couple new fuses and is planning on installing some other part today to try to fix it. Hope it will work! And the new fridge was delivered this morning.

I can't help feeling down about some house projects that have gone wrong lately. I'm super bummed my deck/porch paint is already peeling. And I had gotten these cool solar bulb lights for the deck and both of them already snapped. Sad! And the violets mom transplanted around the deck have either been eaten by the groundhog or just dried to a crisp in all this hot weather despite my almost daily waterings. Too bad.

Another sadness is our nursery wall we've been working on and is just not turning out as we hoped. More on that another day.

One project that is finally done is the crown molding in our bedroom.

This is how the room looked before Doug and I got married and I moved in:

absolutely disgusting

We painted it "shark loop" grey and moved in.

This year during the late winter we decided to add crown molding. It was a tricky task as it went up on a slant and you had to cut all these inside/outside cuts with the miter saw.

The ol' measure twice cut once apparently does not apply to crown molding. It was like measure several times, cut several times. So often we would measure, cut, and bring the piece in just to have it still be bowing out and too long when we'd try to put it up against the wall. Truly mind-boggling.

yes, this kinda stuff happened a couple times.

We also hung curtain rods and curtains that mom and I lined with old salvation army white sheets to make them more light blocking.

And then we lived with it until the last weekend.

I spent one afternoon puttying all the little nail holes and cracks. Another afternoon painting two coats of white trim paint. A third afternoon applying the caulk between the trim and the ceiling. And maybe I should've stopped there, except our walls must not really be square and I could see cracks underneath the trim and wall that were bugging me. So this morning I caulked that crack. But bummed again because unlike my bathroom caulk job which turned out awesome this caulk looks wavy in some areas and it's just not as good. Hopefully I'm the only one who pays such close attention.

It does feel good to have one more thing checked off the to-do list.

But all these things, and working hard just to have things still 'off' just make me dream of a brand new house.

This last weekend Doug and I went with a realtor to look at a house. All I could see as I walked around was project after project. Maybe if the price were right, possibly, but to be an expensive house and still have tons of work to do, no thanks. I guess it's just as well, I think it's crazy to move now with the baby coming and I want to stick around and enjoy our home improvements and see my gardens grow, at least for now.

Star Wars Saturday

Doug and I had a nice little date day today.

Exercise, breakfast, shower and then headed to a morning matinee of the new Star Wars. 10am and it was packed! I was irritated because is it really fair (and theater etiquette) to save like a whole row of seats for your friends while other people (there on time mind you) get stuck in the front rows?? I felt like hurling those coats to the floor.

Anyway, despite the craned necks we did enjoy the movie. I was reading that some people cried during it (??) Doug and I liked it but we were also thinking isn't this a lot like episode 6? A huger version of the death star, same shield system that the Rebels can breech and destroy their entire plan/huge warship. People in the theater were also clapping and cheering when an old character would appear on screen, altho no one did for Luke Skywalker. Poor Luke. It seems like Chewie aged the best. One other thing I thought was weird was when that antagonist character unmasked himself I guess I was imagining a super hot guy underneath, maybe like an Edward Cullen look-a-like, but then it was a geeky looking guy with big nose and moles. I think someone who was supposed to be Hans' son would have been better looking! Anyway, worth seeing if you're a Star Wars fan.

After the movie we went to this super tasty Indian restaurant and got samosas and split butter chicken. Then headed to Lowes for trim for the ol' bathroom project. We've been working on it this afternoon, but still not finished. We got a nail gun for the trim, but then it looks like my air compressor from Grandpa hardly works. Nooo!

Looks like Doug has a coupon for a new one from Harbor Freight, so off we go back to the store again! :)

painting the bathroom

Blue tape. It can only mean one thing. Time to paint the bathroom!

So Doug's friend Thor finished the mudding/sanding of our bathroom while we were gone and started with the primer. I finished up the primer, and Doug painted the ceiling and then it was finally time to paint.

I've been listening to this really good series about the end times so my painting flew by listening to a couple of these. I painted 2 coats of a gray called 'polished silver'.

It's a really nice light gray.

So then I went to peel off the tape while the paint was still wet...

rrrrr, curse you stupid blue hawk tape!! It peeled off pieces of my new paint and also peeled off pieces of the ceiling paint. So now today instead of moving on to the next thing I am tediously painting on little bits of ceiling and the other paint again.

Also doing patching jobs around the outlets. I guess we didn't notice this while it was still in the drywall/patching phase, but it is noticeable now!

whoops

At least we are over halfway now. Pretty soon we can reinstall the light fixture, then the vanity with it's new sink. Hang up the towel bars and shower curtain rod. Then the last big thing will be the floor. We still have to find some tile we even like, and then dad will come over to help us install that, switch out the toilet, trim everything up, and then we're done. We'll see how long that all takes! Never thought we'd be into our 3rd month.

Also I'm super bummed about my garden. When we left my tomato plants were lush and green, I think Doug's friend may have overwatered because every leaf is a shriveled mess yet there was standing water in the pot :(

and then there are a couple sunflowers just about 4 feet high

but all the rest grew so tall and the heads are so heavy they are tipping over

I am growing a couple nice peppers though

I'm looking forward to trying again next year.

another project

Also on my days off I have been slowly working on my dresser project. I followed this blog post from YHL to make my CraigsList wood dresser a bright white.

hauled this beast to the garage

took off all the old hardware

sanded it down

started painting the oil-based primer

all primed!

I filled the top smaller dresser screw holes so I could have one drawer pull instead of multiple handles. The next step was 2-3 very thin coats of latex based paint. My roller kept making tiny little peaks of paint so I had to brush the whole thing

and of course mine ended up needing 3 coats. Oh my gosh I was getting so bored painting the same thing over and over again. But I set my phone on the Brian Regan Pandora station and that really helped

the last step was applying an optional protective coating. I got so excited because I thought I had the product already so I grabbed what I had and painted on a coat of oil based polycrylic. Turns out that was only for stained wood and it left a slight yellow tinge to my dresser. Noooo!!! I talked to dad who said, yes, I needed the water-based polycrylic product (like the blog said) but it was too late now. So I was bummed. Always read the directions!!! They said they didn't notice it, but I do. Alas.

The last step was screwing on my updated hardware and now it's good to go! Well besides still missing the door, I couldn't find a new matching brushed nickle hinge so I have to somehow paint the old one to match, but other than that, done. I hope it holds up!

deck project

For anyone thinking mom and I were just sitting around drinking Mojitos while Dad and Doug worked on the bathroom, you are (sadly) mistaken.

We have a deck on both the front and back doors, and while I didn't think they looked too bad, they did have deep cracks and some rotting boards. So we decided to paint the deck.

Not as easy as it sounds. We have two huge maple trees near our house so over the spring, thousands (not exaggerating!) of those helicopter things came down and were in huge piles in my flower beds, lawn, and in every single crack in the deck. On at least 2 of my off work days mom came over and we crawled around on the deck with putty knives (2 out of 3 broke), a straight saw (broke), and screwdrivers and we had to poke all the things thru the cracks to the ground. It was very time consuming as the cracks were so tight, and then there was other crap in the cracks. We popped out 11 screws from the front deck, and probably 40+ pea gravel rocks from the back deck.

The next step Dad came over and with his saw (which ended up burning out and destroyed) he widened the cracks so that rain and debris can fall thru more easily in the future. He and Doug also replaced some of the worst rotten boards.

Dad, probably taking a picking-out-a-splinter break

rented a sander, our hand-held one was no match for the deck

The next step was cleaning the deck. I scrubbed it down with a deck cleaner (and wore a bristle brush down to a nub), washed it off, and then had to wait 2 days for it to dry completely

Ready to paint at last! (I actually like the look of the wood there. I think we went with paint to fill in the cracks whereas just staining it wouldn't really protect the wood where it was weak)

The directions say just to use a brush to get in between the cracks and then go over the tops of the boards with a roller, but mom thought since the cracks were so deep that it would be better to hand brush the whole thing and make sure huge amounts of paint were in the cracks. We had bought a Rescue-It paint that has cement or something in it and it is designed to fill up the cracks.

No pictures of the back deck apparently. Anyway, Doug thinks it turned out a little lighter than he had hoped, but I think it looks pretty good. So it needs another coat, the paint says you MUST do 2 coats or it can peel up, but now the problem is that its been a rainy week again. It has to be dry 24 hours before and 24 hours after and it just hasn't. I hope it will be ok till we get back from our vacation and can get to it! One other thing I noticed this morning is that some leaves had fallen and it had rained and there was some 'leaf stains' on the deck. I really hope that won't be an issue!!

So yeah, we are more than half done. When it is dry again I'll need to glob up more paint in the deep cracks still, and then hopefully can just roll on one final coat. We are also looking to buy some of that lattice stuff to block off underneath the decks. So have to buy that and then paint it and nail it up. One thing's for sure, this home updating stuff sure ain't cheap! We probably spent $350 on paint (and might still need more), wood, sander, deck cleaner, and it's been hours and hours of work. But as mom reminds me, you have to take care of your property and it also adds to house value. Ok, ok, you're right mom!

bathroom remodel stage 1

This weekend our bathroom remodel began. I like a lot of stuff about our little house, but I have never liked the bathroom. Especially the shower and walls in the room.

There was a cave-like shower with a dropped ceiling in there.

here is the before (besides that hole Doug bashed in to see what was behind there)

the workers

tear down that wall!

more open already

looks like there was a window once upon a time in there

what was under our grey vinyl floor? another vinyl floor of course!

dad hard at work

oh hey! you guys are doing something in there!?!

whatcha guys doing?

what's in there?

would ya look at that

peek a boo!

I can come in?

As with any home project we ran into some problems. We knew there was mold in our crawl space, Doug hired his brother this spring to go down there and spray some mold chemical. So that worked, but right under the tub his brother found a spot that had water/mold damage and needed to be replaced. So we were thinking that was going to be super expensive and were trying to figure out how to jack up the tub to get under there. (we planned on keeping the tub, just getting a new surround). But Doug and Dad figured out they could cut a chunk of the floor out and just replace that section. So that was great news!

oh hi!

Dad even had a section of some old pipe organ pipe he could use for the wood so we saved money on that too :)

this is what I always wondered about our ugly weird plastic-y walls. Mystery solved- they had just painted over the strange wall tile! well it's coming down

new drywall

they spent the entire holiday weekend on this project, including the 4th while I was at work

One of the days was spent almost entirely working on this plumbing issue. I don't know the details, but it was looking like we had to call a plumber. But then Dad and Doug went over to Lowe's and I guess problem solved with them until they figured out something that would work! Right now there is a tiny drip by the elbow joint, so it's not perfect yet, and we ran out of time. Now both mom and dad, and me & Doug are going on vacation, so the rest of the project will have to wait! At least we have a somewhat functional tub, no shower tho.

to be continued....