There are things in life that may impact your ability to do the projects you love, like slicing the front tendon in your thumb and getting a puppy. But let time pass, and eventually you will get back at it!
A few years ago I bought a chest of drawers for the second bedroom off kijiji for I think $25. With it came two additional matching bedside tables and I've been using it for a while but don't love it - Project time! This project costed absolutely nothing, just using things I already had in the house. There were two main steps to this project: drilling holes for plug management and then painting the top. Holes: We already had the drilling attachment from a deck building project many moons ago so no big deal! I put in a bunch of connected holes in the back of the top shelf to get the plug of the powerbar out the back, then one hole on the top centre for the iPhone charger and one on the side for my iPad. I love it! Paint: The top of the bedside table was pretty damage so figured I'd paint it. I started with a quick sanding to help the paint adhere. I did a base coat of a grey-blue I had on hand and then decided to use Amy's birch tree stencil to add a little detail. The actual work of this project was probably around 20 minutes, plus the time for the paint to dry. I've had it back in place for a few nights and really love it #needtodrillholesinmorefurniture. I love the function of the easily accessible charger plugs and also love the look of it. Onto my next project!
1 Comment
Days are getting shorter but still nice and warm - lots of time for projects! I recently tackled two projects that have been on my to do list.... (I love AnyList to help not forget my list) Firstly, I did a take-two of the dimmer switch installation, this time replaced the old unit for the dining room light #1980switch4vr. The step by step was the same as my previous post, but this time no buzzing! Part deus success! One project tip is to wear your camping headlamp when doing electrical work - yes, you look a bit ridiculous. Who cares!?! You are working on your project. Ignore the naysayers and negative nellies! Secondly, our front door closet needed some improvements - project time! The old mirror door was very hard to open and close, which resulting in us storing our jackets on the staircase #ClosetFail. We've ordered a new sliding door to install later this week, but before it's in place, I wanted to get more function out of the space. The closet is less than 4 feet wide so most closet organizing kits are too big. I found a very flexible closet kit at Canadian tire - and on sale to boot #PriceWin! The kit is essentially three tall vertical poles, with two shelves and two side horizontal rods. All in all, it probably took me 20 minutes to install - which is 1/5 the time it took me to remove everything from the closet prior to installation. Based on what I learned during this project, I may need to stage an intervention with Abe to stop the purchasing of the same generic black athletic jacket #SevenIsTooMany. Project Difficulty: 1/5 Lessons Learned 1. Use a level- it is important to have the vertical bars levels before you install the rest. 2. Extra level of hanging and two shelves- small thing but bit impact on what can be stored. 3. Edit. I went through the items and moved a lot of stuff/put it in the donate pile. Moved rarely worn items to less prominent closet. There is now space for guest to hang their jackets too! Until my next project! A quick project today to get our house ready for the cooler weather. Just grab some duct tape to help push more heated air into your space.
We have forced air with floor vents with gaps between the edge of the vent and floor. I went around the house, popped off all the vent covers and then used some duct tape to seal the gaps. The only duct tape I could find was of the Green Bay variety #GoPacks. Luckily Abe is not a big fan of my blog so will probably never find out. Either way, once you put the vent cover back on, you can't see the duct tape at all. While I did this chore, I also lugged around the shop vac and attempted to vacuum the vents as far as I could reach. I found a big chunk of wood and more cat hair than I'd like. I am not sure if this project did any good but at least it didn't do any harm, besides using up some of the precious fancy duct tape. Costs Few strips of duct tape- 1-2$ Lessons Learned 1. Small effort, small cost. Probably also a small impact but I don't care. I felt handy! I also had my first foray into concrete mix patching. We had to replace our garage door, which still would not close completely due to an uneven garage floor. The garage install guy told me I could fix it myself - and I believed him! It took me around an hour to muster up the courage to do it and around 10 minutes to complete the job. Door now closes completely, good tight seal. I am shocked it worked out and I didn't do any permanent damage to the house in the process. If anyone needs some patching done and are not picky about aesthetics, give me a call. We were back to old NB for some rest and relaxation.....project time!!
Camping in Campobello Island (check out the rustic huts!), we came across a game of Washers we've played a few times - and decided to build our own when back to Bocabec. There are tons of online instructions for how to build the game. We bought plywood for the bottom and knotty pine for the sides #cheapestoptions. The worker at Kent figured out what we were building based on our materials in the cart so that helped in finding the big washers. Seems the game is very popular out east. I spray-painted half the washers white and mom fixed them and made them purple :). It was great to have access to mom's shop in the basement to do the work. We tested out the game on Thursday with the extended family - it works! I may or may not have had the highest number of black pipe points #insufferablemaybe Time to complete: 45 minutes Cost: around $20 Lesson's Learned 1. I'd do it again - was a small input for a game we'll play for years. 2. The glueing of the pipe onto the plywood went through a few iterations, starting with a crazy glue kind, then onto hot glue which also failed after a few clunks. Finally, a very generous amount of gorilla glue weighed down for a few hours did the trick. 3. The pine sides quickly got dings and marks, which makes sense. Glad we used knotty pine, wouldn't use anything expensive. How to play 1. Place the two boxes a fair distance away. Online it said 15-20 feet away... 2. One player from each team stands behind the box closest to them. Team one throws 4 washers to the further box. If there is a Team 2, then the Team 2 member on the same side throws to the game box. The members who are over at that further end then pick up the washers and throw to the other box. Repeat 3. Three points for the black pipe in the middle. One point for in the box. Whichever team reaches 21 first win! GUEST POST by AMY BARTLETT
There is nothing like a blank wall to shrivel your spirit into a hollow nub of blah.... Time for some decoration! I love birch trees, and was originally thinking of putting up some cool birch wall paper or a photo mural in my bedroom. However, after spending WAY too much time looking at options, I soon realized that these options would cost many hundreds of dollars to execute.... not an economical option. Enter stage left: a cheap wall stencil bought online, some paint I had leftover from my bathroom painting experiment, and a whole lot of time. Stenciling walls like this is not a quick project, but it is a very cheap alternative and in my opinion has come out really well. PS: In a fit of painting inspiration, i also refinished and decoupaged my bedside table drawers with a random collage of ornate japanese papers I had leftover from another project--- see bonus pic at the end! Equipment/ Cost for the wall stenciling: 9$ for the wall stencil 0$ for paint (though originally cost about 15$--- I used about 2/3 of a small can) 4$ in painters tape 3$ for small paint brush (plus a small artist brush for touch ups as needed) 1$ for a plastic drop cloth from the dollar store 0$ in time (though it took about 15 hours in total for the three walls... eep) 0$ for a LOT of downloaded podcasts (I recommend Comedy Bang Bang, Dear Hank and John, Star Talk with Neil Degrass-Tyson and On Being with Krista Tippet) Lessons learned: - The stencil came with a small starter section to start off at the ceiling which was handy. I would recommend using this piece first across the top of your wall and then using that pattern as a guide to match up with the rest of the larger panels - I staggered the panels vertically (see pics) and painted from the leading edge/ outside to the inside of the stencil so that i could keep the painting process going without stopping--- for example, by the time i got a panel in row three done, the leading edge of row one had dried and i could easily put the stencil against the edge of the pattern without creating smudges #timemanagement - Use very little paint, an almost dry brush, and employ more of a rubbing or patting motion instead of your traditional up-and-down painting motion-- a dry, circular technique helps with the drying time and with getting into the small crevices of the pattern - I taped all around the walls, bottom trim and ceiling which allowed me to be a bit more casual with my stenciling at the edges. After so many hours of work, it is nice to have the extra insurance--- worth the time to do this taping, in my opinion I still have one more wall to paint (in a solid color) and to decorate the room more generally, but i am thrilled with the outcome, and to have banished those boring white walls with some organically-themed and cost effective color! This was a weekend for projects and spring cleaning, with persistent gray and rainy weather keeping me inside. We also both overdid it with sports over the week so needed to take it a bit easy #achesandpains #not20anymore.
My evergreen project is trying to hid all the wires and plugs of our sound system. I had plans to build a shelf insert in the room divider/fireplace but have since discovered it is solid concrete so that's a non started. For now. We have an old radio in our possession missing most of its parts. I was going to sell it but after checking on kijiji, not really worth it, so decided to hide our speakers and as many wires as I could fit inside it. I didn't take long to clean it up and I removed the top button panel to make more space for the big speakers. They fit! Yahoo! I pulled the audio input wire through the front so we could hook up the old iPhone. Final step was to hide the powerbar behind a painting. No one will notice that strangely placed picture, right? Cost- 0$ Equipment - Old radio Murphy's old soap Tolerant Abe Lessons Learned 1. Old radios are plentiful and cheap on kijiji. They are a bit hipster in terms of decor but useful containers. 2. Re-arranging items will always be cheaper than a new wireless sound system. I think I might redo the fabric coverings and paint the back of the glass part. I'm also considering painting the outside of unit navy. Good idea? What a beautiful day here in Ottawa. The sun is shining, my nose is slightly burnt, baseball on in the background: life is good. #GoJays
I decided to update our mailbox, as it got quite rusty over the winter. Project! This was a quick effort, under $10 and less than 5 minutes of work overall. I took down the mailbox, used on old pizza box to contain the paint and went to work. I did a few light coats of spray paint , let it dry and put it back up. Just like new! Kind of... The paint did not hide the deteriorating outside texture, but who cares when it is shiny and red.!?! Might have it been smarter to spend the funds on a new mailbox? Maybe, but less fun. PS If anyone wants to turn something red, let me know. I have a 4/5 can of spray paint and a trigger finger. Looking for some vegetarian supper ideas, I came across this recipe on food52 for Squash and Roasted Garlic Galette. Lots of steps involved but a relaxing way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
I made some tweaks... For the pastry, I used 1/2 cup corn flour, 1/4 cup corn meal and 1/4 cup oat flour. I also added an onion to the roasting plan of squash. Oh, and i doubled the ricotta, added dill, and topped it with the rest of the parmesan cheese (didn't have fontana cheese on hand). So, the galette was pretty good. I think it is a good base recipe, easy to think of lots of ways to adjust to seasonal vegetables etc. Lesson's Learned 1. The crust with my changes tasted a bit 'healthy', if you know what mean, and was pretty crumbly. The original recipe is probably better. 2. I loved the onions and extra ricotta cheese. I thought the dill was great. 3. The parmesan browned weirdly, though i think i had weird cheese. I think it would be better with sharp cheddar or mozzarella cheese as a topping instead. 4. I didn't wrap the garlic in foil - and a bunch of it burnt. Spring has sprung. Almost. Once it stops snowing and being cold.
I found a neat lamp on kijiji, where the base was a tree branch. The forest green lamp shade was not the kind of retro that turns my crank. FYI I bought the lamp from a hipster so forest green might be the next big trend you don't care about. Or it could also be that my lamp isn't hip. #Don'tCare I picked up a cheap lamp shade at Home Sense for $15. One minute later, my branch lamp looks a little more modern. Originally I thought I could turn it into a wall sconce, but I like it as is. Onto the next project! Our weekend vacation continues. Sun is out today, heading out soon to Tremblant.
Last night we had a chance to sample the Memphis rub "millennial style" (served as tacos). Like many things, it was fine but not fabulous. I think a bit more sugar and salt would be good. I added chunks of red onion for the last hour of cooking with the pork - the onion with the rub was delicious. Memphis Rub 1/4 c sweet paprika 1 T sugar, 1 T br sugar 2 t salt 1t celery salt, black pepper, chill powder, dry mustard, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, oregano Combine the ingredients. You are done! I tested the rub on a small pork shoulder, applied 24 hours before slow cooking for a few hours. Big chunks of onion in the final hour. Lessons Learned 1. I bought the spices at the MidEast Centre, saved a lot of money. Apparently bulk barn also has cheap spices. 2. Some of the recipes i reviewed included vinegar, which i did not add. I might in the future, might help pull the flavour into the meat more. 3. Main change to the recipe I would make is to include more salt. |
Author: Leah BartlettLover of projects, big and small! I try to not be intimidated by lack of experience/skill/know-how. Archives
September 2018
Categories
All
|