The DECK - Part 1: What Were We Thinking?

So, The Deck.

Here's what we were thinking.

1.  Strip the old, somewhat deteriorating, decking off the joists.  Replace with new deck boards.

2.  Replace the trellis overhead.

3.  Replace the railings.

4.  Replace the stairs.

Here is what happened.

1.  We started to take the older boards off the joists and they were literally shattering into thousands of pieces in our hands.  Good thing we tackled this now huh?

2.  Ummm, that joist looks a little "soft".

3.  Ummm, those are definitely ants.  Carpenter ants.

4.  Should a support post break in two when you rock it back and forth to see if it's still attached?

You get the picture.  We were one incident shy of a catastrophe.  I think somewhere deep in our minds we knew that the deck was dangerous and that we needed to do something about it as soon as possible.  I'm so glad we did.  It was scary.

This is just a organizing post so I remember how far we've come and what it took to get there.  I can honestly say this is the largest, most intense, project John and I have ever attempted.  Nothing else can come close to this.

Here are some pictures of the chaos.

Isn't it pretty?  This was taken in October 2011.   

The closer you get, the scarier it gets huh?

See the patio?  What a disaster.

But you really can't see how bad the deck is from here,
let's move in closer... 

See the chevron pattern.  So on trend.

So stupid for exterior applications.

The builders had to use extra support for the seam on the chevron.

Water liked to go to there.

Ants like to live in moist, dark locales.

Our deck was paradise. 

This trellis is beautiful.  And will be replicated.

These boards broke in half when we moved them.
Just shattered in our hands.... 

This was a 16 foot post that was supporting the trellis.

It broke in half when I wiggled it to see
if there were still screws attached.

Also, note that it was about 1" smaller all the way
around and soaking wet where it was attached to the decking.

 Since we are almost finished attaching the deck boards, I wanted to start to chronicle the process before we forget how difficult and, at times, soul crushing the demo process was.  

Next up, removing and rebuilding!!

The Master Bathroom Chronicles: Part 3 - Paint & Lighting

I've done it again.  Mixed my own paint color.  This started innocently enough.  You see, we've been buying paint by the 5 gallon bucket load around here.  Here's the catch.  It's from Wal-Mart.  Yup.  Did you know they sell 5 gallons of flat interior paint for $38?  Yup.  That's a little more than $7 a gallon for the math-challenged among you.  We use this paint for primer coats only though.  We don't have major patching projects or stains on the wall that primer would be a better option for, we just have walls that have been stripped of wallpaper and scrubbed clean.  The wallpaper installers did prime the walls before installation (thank goodness!), so we just slap another coat of flat interior paint right on top for a newer, fresher primer coat.

Well Wal-Mart must've figured us out because it seems that they are not stocking very much (if any) of their $38 buckets.  So this time we bought a $42 dollar bucket of "Country White" instead of the $38 "White".  So what, it's a primer coat right?  But when we got it up on the walls, it kind of looked nice with all of the yellow tile in the room, so we thought we were just going to put another coat of the Country White up and call it done.  But then I had to go and get fancy and paint the trim and cabinets white, and then even fancier and paint the trim around the mirrors a nice soft grey.  So the Country White no longer kind of looked nice, it looked sad and pathetic (I would even go as far to say it looked like some really cheap off white Wal-Mart color).  So we needed a new paint color...

No problem.  I just mixed some of the soft grey (a mistint form ACE) with the country white from Wal-Mart and a touch of white and voila - Anne #6.  There is absolutely nothing remarkable about this color.  It just looks really soft and nice and was free.  We have a full scale redo on the list for this room, so I saw no reason to obsess about paint since we were just doing mini makeover and wanted something fresher and lighter that didn't involve vertical striped wallpaper.

Last chance to see the wallpaper

We lived that nightmare for 8 and 1/2 months people!  Gah.  

Here is a little teaser of the after

Remember I took this picture and then dropped the camera?

So this is the only picture I have of the walls until
I can clean up the bathroom a bit.

Anyhoo, on to the lighting...

We had the hollywood vanity lights (which were wallpapered, natch) that we hated.  We took them down and tried to spray paint them so they would blend into and/or compliment the wall.  But, we didn't strip all the glue residue off of them first and it looked horrendous.  So, I spent ONE HOUR scrubbing the glue residue off of the lights and it wasn't until 59 MINUTES into that hour that I had the brilliant idea of covering the face plate portion of the light that was previously wallpapered, and then spray painted, and then scrubbed clean - with fabric.  Therefore I spent ONE HOUR scrubbing something that I was going to turn around and RECOVER with fabric.  Waste. Of. Time.  

Moving on....

We decided on burlap because it's cheap and easy.  Here's how I covered the lights.  Which, by the way, only took about 20 MINUTES for all 3 lights.

The naked light, the cover was being scrubbed clean at that point, I believe :)

Also, notice the wall paint and mirror trim.  It's different!

Also, notice the clutter in the mirror.

Here is how easy this was.

I bought the burlap (this took the longest)
I cut the burlap to size.
Then, I used spray adhesive to stick it to the faceplate.
Then I cut out the circles so the lightbulbs would fit through.
Done. 

AFTER:  Not earth-shattering, but better.

AFTER:  Because I know that you wanted to know what the
light looks like when it's turned on... 

The entire project cost $4.50 for the paint and burlap.  Oh, and an hour and 20 minutes of my time not counting the trip to the store to purchase the burlap.  

I figure this is way better than buying 3 cheap, temporary vanity lights that we'd hate and kick ourselves daily for spending the money.  Mission accomplished.

Next up, before and afters...

Master Bathroom Chronicles: Part 2 - The Floor

So we got rid of the carpet (Yay!), but needed a floor.

The long range plan includes radiant heat so we didn't want to go the peel and stick tile route because we didn't want to have to unstick those tiles at a later date.  Which, by the way, sucks ass.   The glue factor also eliminated a vinyl floor too, so what options did we have?

Off to the trifecta (Menards, Home Depot & Lowe's).  We know that click and lock floating floors are a big mistake in bathrooms (think moisture), but were willing to go that route because we didn't want to spend too much money on this and we didn't want to glue anything down.

Then we found the solution at Lowe's.  Vinyl flooring that adheres to itself and not the floor!!

Look:

 See the adhesive strip to the right of the flooring?
It sticks to the back of the next tile you put down.

So basically the floor is one, big, glued together (but not glued to the floor) piece of plastic-ish vinyl.  And we love it.  It is recommended for use in high moisture areas - BONUS.

Action shots:

We enlisted Will to peel the backing paper off the tiles.
It went much faster that way.
Not really, but we wanted him to help.  

Look how easy this is.  John used a utility knife to make the cuts.
We didn't have a lot of swearing or mistakes, so I'm going to
assume that part was relatively easy :) 

Staggered seams.   

So we thought it would take a couple of hours, but forgot about cuts around the shower and vanities and toilet, so it took a little more than 3 hours.  But we took breaks for lunch and running kids around, so it probably could be done in 2 if you have experience with making cuts with a utility knife.

A couple of notes:

we didn't pull the toilet, we just laid the floor right up to it

mistake?  hopefully not, if all goes to plan, this floor will be gone in 2 or so years

make sure to stagger the seams so it looks (kinda) like a wood floor

Wow, really that's all there was to it.  Kind of unbelievable really.  We lived with and hated the white carpet in the bathroom for 8 months and then one day we decide we can't stand it any longer and within 1/2 a day, the carpet is gone and we have a new! improved!! floor.  Kind of love it when something you think is going to be a huge problem turns out to be not so huge.  

Cost breakdown:

We bought 4 boxes at about $23 each at Lowe's, and ended up returning one box.  So this entire floor cost us about $70.  Woo to the Hoo.

Before, during and afters...

BEFORE

So sad.

That is the cleanest that carpet ever looked. 

LAST CHANCE TO ENJOY THE CARPET

Still very sad.
At least the wallpaper is gone,
so things are looking better.

Please notice how gross the carpet looks.

DURING

Even more sad, look at the wonky trim (removed for the flooring install)
and
It appears that the subfloor has been patched at one point, awesome. 

AFTER

And done.

Still sad though.

Poor little squatty toilet, it needs some company back in it's lonely corner. 

More action shots:

I'd have some more pictures to share, but right after I took the picture above, I dropped the camera.  Now the camera is broken.  

I am fully aware of the irony of removing plushy carpet which most certainly would have cushioned the fall and protected the camera and replacing it with a not-so-plush vinyl product which did nothing to protect the camera from it's fate.  

I call this Mary Ellen's revenge.  

Mary Ellen was the lovely lady who built the home over 30 years ago and made all of the design decisions.  Occasionally when I remove something particularly hideous and pat myself on the back about it, Mary Ellen comes back from beyond and kicks me in the ass.

I'm still beyond happy with the floor and am willing to sacrifice a camera for the cause.  My only hope is that one day, Mary Ellen and I will come to terms with each other and be able to live in harmony.  

Next up, part 3.  Paint and lighting

Master Bathroom Chronicles: Part 1 - The List

We really needed Bath Crashers.  I'm pretty sure the "crashers" don't come around these parts, so we had to tackle the master bath on our own.  This is the mini-makeover on the cheap before we demo the whole thing and start from the ground up, with professionals doing the bulk of the work.  But we need to save our pennies so it gets done the right way the first time - ok the first and 1/2 time - I'm only counting this work we did as 1/2 of a makeover since it was really half-assed.

What we started with.  My god.  There are no words.

Such a sad, lonely little toilet... 

Vanity #1

The area with small tiles is the shower.  There are towel
bars on the doors too,  only one on the outside of the shower.

And you can see the blue tub. 

Vanity #2.  Fancy huh? 

There are so many positives to the space that it feels kind of selfish to point out the negatives, but that has never stopped me before, so here goes a free association center-justified list...

carpet, in a bathroom.  no.

30 year old carpet to boot.

30 years of bathroom stuff happening on the carpet, 

29.5 of the years not our bathroom stuff

wallpaper, of course 

fussy, fussy, fussy cabinet hardware and...

...towel (singular) bar.  Yup - only one place to hang a towel, unless you count the

wall by vanity #1, but that was really only big enough to hold a hand towel, 

not a bath towel.  Plus, we need space for 2 bath towels.

the saddest, loneliest, low to the ground, 20 gallon flush toilet.

Probably not 20 gallons, but at least 5 per flush, that tank is HUGE.

Yellow, 4" tile everywhere.  Including the shower/tub "room" and vanity countertops

tiled vanity countertops

but, for some reason, a blue whirlpool tub...

...which takes at least 20 gallons of water to reach the bottom of the jets so it functions as a whirlpool tub, plus it's blue.  And the drain doesn't stay closed unless you prop it that way with a paper clip.

and the jets are a little too powerful for relaxation.

and it's a flimsy fiberglass that I think may crack someday

As previously mentioned, the shower and tub are in their own little "room".  

Not a tub/shower combo where you stand in the tub to take a shower.  

They are separate, but behind shower doors in their own space.

  Yup, so every time we take a shower, water splashes into the tub.  

So I spend time cleaning an ugly blue tub that never gets used.

can you tell I hate my bathtub?

ugly trim on the painted cabinets

vanity makeup area that is too small to sit underneath on the bench provided, 

so you bang your knees when you move.  Unless you get a new bench, which we're not.

Also, it's too far away from the ginormous mirrors to get a good look at what you're doing.

ginormous mirrors.

inadequate bath fan which allows steam to rise into the skylight area and create mildew.

Enough of the Debbie Downer junk, gee whiz.  What we do have is a large sized master bath.  When we do it up right, it will be spectacular.  I promise.  

But for now we just had to get rid of some stuff for our own sanity and, I'm afraid, our health.

the carpet (health)

wallpaper (sanity)

The wallpaper came down with the Master Bedroom paper, it was a chore, but it was the last of the wallpaper in the house, so the end was in sight.  That leads us to...

...Part 2 - The Floor.

We planted a garden!

Yay!!

All the hard work we did this spring is finally paying off.  We were able to plant our veg and herb garden.

An overhead view.

Artistic ground level view. 

Do you see the sweet little herb pots?  Super easy, free project which adds a nice little bit of somethin-somethin in the garden.  We cut down some terra cotta tubes (I'm sure they have a name/purpose, I just don't know what it would be, they held wine bottles in overhead display storage previously) John's sister - hi Marrie! - gave us and we went to work.

John used a grinder to cut the tubes into different lengths.

Then...

We did a mock layout in the garage. 

Then...

Boom!  Planted.  We used a potting soil/compost mix and
buried them a little so they wouldn't tip over.

We've got the drip hose snaked through the tomato cages so it's at the ready to be hooked up to the rain barrel (planning, it pays!).  For a weed barrier and moisture retention, I put down newspaper and then grass clippings on top.   I didn't have any grass clippings for the photos above, but on Tuesday Jay needed to borrow the truck to transport his lawn mower and brought us the clippings...

It looks great now, and it will be even better next week when Jay
mows again and we can top it off with enough grass to fill the space. 

It's going to be sad when the grass starts to turn brown and the veg plants start to get unruly.  But then we start getting peppers and tomatoes.  The circle of life.

And, because I love them, here's a less blurry close up of the herb pots, they are adorable :)

There are a ton of other things I'd like to do outside before it gets too hot or too late to plant anything.  I still need to figure out what to do with the area behind/below? the deck, I'm thinking native plants and grasses so I don't have to worry about it.  I angry-moved the rose bushes that were there previously to a space more rose bush and people friendly.  Now the area is just sitting there with a bunch of mulched weeds and grass clippings that I keep dumping on it to keep the weeds down.  I don't want to plant anything that is going to get trampled by our next project...

...THE DECK.  John has been doing planning and budgeting and now we are ready to start!

The exciting world of bath hardware

We've done a bit of work in the master bathroom this past week and although it is pretty much done, I'm still not up to taking the pictures and writing a post about it.

Let's just say that the reason I haven't done a post is because we're working on a light fixture hack and I'm not sure how it's going to pan out.  I will soon, because those before and afters are pretty remarkable.  On a budget too :)

So here's a quick one about bath hardware.  Ugh.  I've never understood the massive price increases in cabinet and bath hardware in the past few years.  John blames:

1) Martha Stewart - and when I point out that Martha isn't really about home makeovers, more like homemaking

 he then blames...

2) HGTV -  and then quickly moves on to...

3)  ...his favorite punching bag - Trading Spaces.  The venom reserved for Trading Spaces (still!) is mighty,  I tell you.  But that's for another day.

Moving on...

We've done our budget friendly mini-makeover and we realize we still don't have anywhere to hang a towel.  Bummer.  We go shopping for bath hardware and are disgusted with the price and quality of what is available at your home improvement stores.  Seriously, $10 for a toilet paper holder!  And that's the cheapest one!!  Unless you want to spend $50 for your toilet paper holder, then it looks moderately less cheap, but a little too fussy for our tastes.  Sigh.

At this point I should add that I know that you can get a toilet paper holder for less than $10, I'm being dramatic, OK?

What to do?

A project in pictures...

BEFORE

The original.

It wasn't attached to the wall properly, so every time you
needed to change a roll it would get all wobbly, I think it
would've come out of the wall in the next year or so.

 I saved it the trouble and took it out myself.

Please ignore the wallpaper, that's for another day.

STEP BY STEP

First, go to the plumbing parts section.  

Buy these 5 items

-1/2" cap - 79 cents

-1/2" x 2" nipple (tee hee) - 49 cents

-1/2" 90 degree elbow - 77 cents

-1/2" x 6" nipple (tee hee) -  $1.17

-1/2" floor flange - $1.49

total cost:  $4.71  We bought black, I'm pretty sure galvanized would be cheaper and copper more expensive, so I'll leave that to you which finish to choose.

Clean them up.  I used goo gone for the stickers, then some dish soap, and then just dried them off really well after that.

Spray with clear coat.  

OK, go...

Here they are, clean, clear coated and ready to go! 

Attach the cap to the pipe.  Attach the 2" nipple (tee hee) to the flange. 

Attach the 90 degree elbow to the other end of the pipe. 

Put them all together and, WHAT!, we've got ourselves a toilet paper holder!! 

Here's what it looks like on the wall 

And, here's what it looks like with toilet paper (and no flash).

Done.  Now, I realize that this toilet paper holder looks like plumbing pieces put together, but I prefer to think of it as industrial.  Also, it doesn't threaten to come off the wall every time I change it.  Bonus.

So there you have it, how $5 and 10 minutes (with some dry time for the clear coat added in) gets you a long-term temporary convenience.

Oh, and by the way.  We bought 3 hooks to hang the towels on.  So far they are working out quite nicely :)

Cross your fingers the light fixture hack goes well, here is a before shot to whet your whistle...

See how the stripes on the wallpaper match up with
the stripes glued onto the light fixture housing?

That is some professional wallpapering friends.

Don't be scared, the room looks a little different these days...