Bench time

I have been busy, we moved twice in three months.  My husband retired, we purchased a small fixer while we looked for a lake home.  Well our luck is that 45 days after we moved to the little house he would find the lake house.   Another fixer so I barely got the first one finished painting before the moving trucks loaded my stuff for the final move.

The lake house needs tons of work too, but I decided I was tossing in fun projects along the way.  Not just painting walls and trim.

This bench has been in my family for over 30 years.  It has set at the end of beds, been used as a sofa table, foot stool.  It has been in the master closet as a dressing bench for the last 10 years and previous two houses.  So I didn't care what the covering looked like.  But in this house it was going in the bathroom and going to be visual.

I lugged it to the garage, because it was the 4th of July weekend, we had only been in the house for 10 days, I had unpacked two moving trucks to be able to have a 1/2 way set up house for the family to come for the holiday.  FYI bad idea, you are so tired that you are not a good host.

So hiding in the garage I rolled it over and removed the bottom felt.  A rescue kitten had destroyed the lining.  I also removed the staples that held that and the decorative piping.  Once that was removed the padding was in remarkable shape I decided to leave the floral fabric in place and I opted against adding any additional batting.  I was using a heavy upholstery fabric.  I got a yard and a quarter because I forgot the measurement when I was at the store.

I like the geometric pattern.  I opted to leave the legs the original color because I didn't want to add another dark wood to the room.  The cabinets are a very dark color.  I knew I wasn't ready to paint them yet.

New life in an old bench.  I am very pleased with the results.  So for thirty dollars I have a modern look on a family piece.  It really is a great use of something I love and can't seem to part with.

Happy Upholstering.

1/2 bath makeover

I have been wanting to do this wood wall for a while.  And we just purchased a small house while we search for a lake house.  Our home sold in less than a week, I decided to pick a "fixer upper" which I am not so sure of now that I am knee deep in work.  In the mist of all the work, I was getting burnt out and needed a "fun" project.  Here it is, I love how it turned out.

Originally I wanted solid boards with no cut lines, but when we got the boards I thought that I was getting 12 foot boards and they were 10, so when I had them cut in half to fit in my car they were 5 foot instead of 6.  The wall was 34.75 inches so that meant that I had to do cuts.  Then I decided to just go for it, and just do random cut lines.

I stained the pine Home Depot boards walnut, then did a wash technique with the wall color.  I love how it turned out.  It looks almost like old barn wood.

Keep old socks they make great project rags.  And you can just toss them when you are done.

I put on a rubber glove and I just stick my hand inside the sock, I did a dry rub stain technique to control the mess, dry time and color.  Super easy.  Let them dry, it only takes a few minutes.

Then I did the same dry rub system with another sock for the paint.

There was a HUGE hole under the horrible Hollywood light, I decide to just do a coordinating wood piece, under the light bar.

I am going to "frame" this mirror.  I wanted to just replace it but they glued it to the wall.  Grrrr.

I like how it turned out.  Now just to decorate this little room.  I am most likely not doing much since this is just an intern house while we look for a retirement lake property.

This home needs a ton of work so I will post as we repair.

Happy Boarding!

Wall boo boo

I did an antique wash on my dining room walls many years ago, I had a bracket holding a shelf and when I took it down it did this...  We sold our house and I need to fix this for the new buyer.

I took a q-tip and put the wall color back on the sheet rock.  Then I took a q-tip and dabbed the brown paint over the dry wall color.  Then I did the wash over that.

I can see the repair but my husband swears that he can't, either way this is as good as I could get it.  I like to touch up my walls when I sell my house.

Happy Fixings!

Kobby knob knob knobs...

The handles in my house where looking pretty crappy  Down right ghetto and not in the fabulous way.  I had over 85 handles through out the house that look like this. Some where even worse.   We all know how cheap I am and if you have priced handles you will want scream.  SO new was not happening.

A few years ago I flipped a bunch of them over so that I didn't have to look at the chipping paint.  So both sides were now in bad bad shape.

I am talking really bad.

I sanded until they didn't chip anymore, that did not mean that I sanded them completely to metal everywhere.  I have repainted knobs and handles several times before.

I use to purchase sanding pads, but they no longer make those now they have flex sheets.  These work great as well, 150 to 200 grit is the best.  I selected 150 because my paint was so flaky I wanted to remove quite a bit.  IF you just want to change the knob and handle color and they are not chipping 200 for a quick prep is best.

I stick with what I know, and I know that this works great.  I do two coats for the best coverage.  I let them dry for 24 hours minimum  If I can wait 48 before putting them back I will.  I know that repainted handles will last a good 4-7 years depending on the traffic area.  I have had knobs in a high use area only last 2 before I needed to "touch" them up.  I have had knobs not need anything after 10 years in a less used area. 

I put on a glove and held the handle for the under coating.

Then I placed them on the lid of a box.  This is the best way to do handles.  SO easy and they do a great job of balancing themselves.  I set up an assembly line across the top of both sides.  I could get up to 8 per side, doing as many as 16 in one go you do what makes you comfortable.

I just rested them along the edge.  Side view to help you understand.

Then I sprayed from both sides and straight on, quick light coats.  It may take two or three passes for the handle to be completely covered.  I do this processes 2 times and call that 2 coats.

Not sure why this looks grayish in this photo, but they look black against the cabinet.  Looks a million times better.

I didn't have the ability to leave them out to dry, and we were going out of town the following day so I put them all back in place after about 2 hours of dry time.  We are gone for the next 5 days for our grandson's first birthday so putting them back was perfectly fine this time.

Happy handle painting.

Signs...

 I have been playing with my cutter again.

I sprayed them with a light coat of white paint.

Peeled the sticker off.

Then I sanded the signs, to get an old effect.  These boards are from drawers I took apart from a 100 year old desk.  I love how they turned out.  I gave both of these as gifts.

I haven't decided what color to do these two so I like them just with the vinyl as well.

Picked up these bad boys at Home Depot.

Easy peasy

I played around with plywood as well. 

I love this saying.

Happy Signing...

Porch Ceiling

When we first bought this house we realized that the "unfinished" space in the attic was not required to have insulation?  Even though it shared the same attic space.  WTF???  Well our electric bill was nuts so Gary rolled batting insulation all over the covered porch.  AND.... he stepped through the ceiling.  I attempted to repair it and wanted to put wood over it.  Well 8 years later we are getting around to "fixing" it right.

We took down the lights and the ceiling fans.

We also purchased scaffolding from Northern tools, it was on sale, $159 from $439.  They also had some cheaper but we liked to quality of this for the price.

I stained this and we grossly underestimated the amount needed.  The porch ended up being 581 square feet.  We thought that it was 560, that was not the problem.  Gary thought the boards were 6" wide, but they actually are only 5" wide in coverage.  So three 12 foot long boards are only covering 24 square feet.  Well, just a hair over 24 but there is waste no matter how hard you try not to have any.  SO 3 boards for 24 square feet is a very good way to calculate the coverage. I had to make another run to Home Depot and get more boards.

Another note... Even with 12 foot long boards it goes a lot slower than you would think.

By the last light opening I was a pro at working the jigsaw.  I spliced the boards together along the cuts.  Getting one cut to line out was hard enough trying to get four in one board is out of my skill set.  And I don't have the time or energy to even get upset by that.  So I cut one opening in one section of board not caring how long the sections ended up being.  Also this allowed me to use up some of the cut boards.  We found that the board would have to be cut for various reasons from size to so warped that we had to cut them down.

Because I am "me" I needed a break and I need to do something that I would see in instant reward.  So I decided that the can light inserts needed to be painted.  They were rusting and the white stuck out like a sore thumb.  So I painted them.

Then back to the grind... Day 4.  I felt this was never going to be done.

Okay I always admit that I am not sure how the "pros" do something but this is how I did it.  Well this corner is one of those moments.

I decided to draw the corner out and cut.

Then I dry fit it into place.

Then I took a screw driver and removed the back tongue off the longest board.  It was still going to hit two studs when nailed up.  So I didn't feel loosing the tongue on that board was a big deal.  I then just lifted the entire triangle into place and nailed it up.

Tada.

Can lights up.

Finding the angles for the quarter round was a pain in the azz. But I am happy that I took the time to do it right.  I didn't want a heavy trim piece I liked the stucco cap piece I thought it added another layer of detail.  I debated on the cove piece over the quarter round and the price was the deciding factor.  It was only $62 for the quarter round over 149 for the cove.

Finally finished.

Now to just clean up the mess and put it back together.  I am going to paint the concrete floor first.