One Thing Leads to Another

As I mentioned in my last blog, we've been doing several projects around the house, lately.  We had some trees trimmed and cut down.  We got new windows.  And now we got our carpets upstairs stretched and cleaned.  We knew it was time, when I was literally sometimes tripping on our bedroom carpet in the middle of the night, because of the buckling that was sticking out so badly.  In order to get our carpets done, we had to move things into either our sunporch or our basement.  It was quite a lot of work, so we decided to do it during the 4th of July break, since that's when Penny and I (Chandra) had more time off.  Below are the pictures of this undertaking.

Because of all of this moving of things, I got motivated to tackle my next Konmari project, as well.  As you may know, the Konmari method is a method for decluttering and organizing.  I was inspired to go through my old cassette tapes.  I can no longer listen to them in my new car, because it has a CD player, rather than a cassette player.  So, I will not likely use them again, or only rarely.  So, I decided to go through each one and try to find it on my Pandora app on my phone. 

In the end, I was able to reduce from four plastic bins, down to just one of the rare albums like foreign albums and ones that they don't have on Pandora.

Because of my empty bins and my empty furniture, I was now inspired to go through Jay's train movies and organize them alphabetically and according to type.  Then I put them back in this storage unit in our living room.

Here is the result of my reorganization........

I also decided that it was time to finally sew the edges of a cloth that I use on that storage unit that had unfinished edges.  After all, I now have a sewing machine ever since our anniversary last  year when Jay gave me one for an anniversary gift.




And here is what it looks like, now...

Shine Your Light and Bloom

Since my last post my husband did a fun DIY project which resulted in a warm glowing light in our basement family room.  He took down the dingy, old lamp hanging on the wall just outside our laundry room door and replaced it with an antique bronze nickel sconce.  The results were outstanding.  Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are some before and after photos to show you the transformation.

First, there are pictures of the old lamp from when I painted the adjacent wall.

Here is a closeupsof the ugly, old lamp shade.  In fact, there were even paint spots from when I accidentally dripped paint on it when I painted the old wood panelling that was on the wall where the lamp was mounted.

And here is the new, beautiful scone, which has an antique style bulb with filaments that give off such a nice, warm hue to the room.  And this DIY project only cost $44 and Jay's time.  Also, note the light switch below is also newer, since Jay replaced all of the switches and outlets downstairs when I painted.  Just those simple little things make a big difference and I'm sure add value to our 1970's bungalow.

In addition to the DIY project in the basement, I have been busy potting flowers to make our outdoor space more inviting.  Here are the results.

 

Below is a plant given to me by one of my students.  I love it!

Now I'm thinking about my next DIY projects.  I'd like to repaint our garage door.  And I picked up this little table that I would like to paint to use outdoors on my back deck.  And the best news of all is that I got it at the Goodwill when they were having their half off sale.  So, the final cost of this table was $4.50!!!

Summer DIY Project--Deck Makeover

After we got back from our trip I got to work hard on a big DIY project which I've been envisioning ever since we moved in but still hadn't tackled.  Finally, I decided that now was the time, since we've lived in this house for nearly 5 years.  I especially wanted to take it on while I still had a few days off before my new job.  Fortunately, the weather cooperated, too.  Just to warn you, the before pictures are nasty ugly.  I don't believe anything had ever been done to refurbish this deck, which is probably as old as I am.  Let's just say that I've had to do some touching up with color to make my hair look nice.  So, it was time to do the same for our old, weathered deck.  I looked up lots of tutorials on Pinterest and Youtube before taking on this project.  It turned out to be more labor intensive than I first imagined.  But, it was well worth the effort.  The first step, which my daughter helped me with, was to take putty knives and dig out all of the debris and junk that had been stuck between the boards.  You'd be amazed at what was stuck between our boards after years of leaves, birdseed and dirt falling down in those cracks.  Next I put wood filler in all of the holes in the wood.  Here's what it looked like at that point...

 

Next, I sprayed on a wood cleaner solution, which I bought from Home Depot and then sprayed the deck and swept it off with a new broom which I bought just for this purpose.  It helped get rid of a lot of the gray color that had built up from years of mildew and fungus growth on the wood.  Here's what it looked like after cleaning it.

 

The next step was to start by painting a lot of the deck where there were cracks.  I wanted to try to paint between the boards and in all of the crevices by hand with a bristle brush, first, before spreading stain over the entire deck with a long-handled brush. So, here's the photos after that initial painting.

 

Finally, I used the long-handled brush which I bought specifically for staining a deck and my Behr premium stain to cover all of the deck.  Here is the After photos.  I even painted the post which holds an owl to scare away pigeons.

 

 

Now, I just wish I were home more to enjoy my newly furbished deck.  It's much harder to do, since starting a full-time 40 hour job.  But, at least it will be nice to enjoy on the weekends.  Now for the final before and after photos comparing my deck/sunporch from prior to all of my painting and staining...

Ugly Before

Much Improved After

Painting Project #2--Sunporch

Do you have any ugly eyesores around your house?  There were many when we bought our house, since it was built in 1970.  There were still many reminders of the age of our house, such as an orange colored pantry, dark wood paneling and old, rusty and dirty fixtures.  One of those ugly features of our house was the old, fake, faux wood paneling on the outside of our sunporch, which had never been painted over.  The hot Colorado sun and extreme conditions had taken a toll on these walls that face south and west.  In fact, they were faded, worn out and even bowed out of shape in places.  Here are some of the ugly Before pictures:

Here's what it started to look like after priming it.

And here's how it started looking after the first coat of primer and paint on the wood.

Next, I cleaned the rusting metal braces and prepped for painting them by putting up painters tape on the windows, door handle and light.  Then I primed both the braces and the metal door by using spray paint primer.

Next I painted two coats of white paint over everything as well as some Behr celery sprig green color on the wood panel part of the door.

It took me over one month worth of weekends, since some of those weekends were interrupted with severe weather, such as hail, rain and even snow.  But, finally, last weekend I finished both coats on both walls, as well as two coats of green on the wood panel of the door.  So, here's the final AFTER pictures...

Just to compare, with the ugly before, if you had forgotten how bad it looked...

Now I'll just need to figure out how to refurbish the old, weathered, awful looking boards of the deck!  But, I've also been working on another painting project in the laundry room, since the weather turned wintry and my outdoor painting was delayed.  So, you'll just have to wait and see which DIY project I tackle next.