Home Repairs

Here, I give detailed descriptions of exciting home projects, and will either post pictures or links for before and after pictures, as I get them done.  If anyone is looking to do some serious work in their home, and doesn’t want to hire someone, you could ask me.  I might have done it before.  I’ve changed outlets and light fixtures, changed a faucet in the kitchen, changed a dishwasher (yes, I hauled that sucker out by myself), refinished furniture, installed laminate floor, all kinds of fun and exciting things that most anyone can do if they plan it well and are cautious.  So, they’ll be dated and titled, and you can read if you like.  Always willing to answer questions or help someone out, too.

March 23, 2009

10:19 a.m.
Primer and a couple coats of white paint, and I’ll be filling the shelves.  Perfect?  No, but… for a chick who is 100% on her own, no help from anyone, I think it’s good enough!  So, here’s the unpainted version.  And I’m psyched about it!

 

March 21, 2009

Working in my basement office.  I ripped out a wall with cat damage, and decided I would put in recessed shelves.  Not done yet, I need to put in a piece of trim, and I need to add the shelves and paint everything white, and I still am using my silly cell phone to take pictures, BUT… here is the frame for the bookcase, with the new wall color in one, and floor color in the other (background).

January 30, 2009

Alas, there is no way in the world I can replace the corner tiles in the bathroom.  The reviews for paint aren’t glowing (and the colors are limited), so the floor will remain as is, and just be covered by throw rugs.  Some will show, but it will be repaired and grout touched up (and I’ll fix my bathroom tile while I’m at it).  I’m going to do an attempted tile cut with the wrong tool.  I only need half a tile and I have a few to work with.  If I can just get it to work, I’ll be all happy.

Only need to hold the solid wood door level on the table saw to cut off the top and bottom, sand a lot, and throw on some white paint; then of course, the threshold, but I should be totally done this weekend.  Guess I learn how to tile in another room sometime when I earn the money to buy some.  But the room already looks so much better, it’s unbelievable.

January 28, 2009

4:23 p.m.
Until I find where my daughter has lost my card reader, I’m stuck with ugly ugly pictures, but here is the new finish on the cabinets, grainy and blurry.  New handles, and a secret compartment where there was a vanity panel before (there was no handle on it then).

  

Really, they are the lighter color, cell phones aren’t great at taking pictures under fluorescent light (and yes, I use fluorescent virtually everywhere in the house, because it’s responsible.  But the chipped, damaged, nasty cabinets are all shiny and clean now, with new (non pitted rusty brass) handles and hinges, and a cool compartment to hold whatever she wants to put there.

Now, to remove the door and cut .25 inches from the top and a full inch from the bottom before I lose my natural light.  Really cold weather to be using Mr. Table Saw in the garage, but it’s so wonderful to have the work getting close to done!  By the end of the day tomorrow, the only thing left will be the floor, and I hope I’ll have that underway, too.  Exciting times!

January 25, 2009, 1:27 p.m.

Get the Sensation!

I’ve been working for what feels like forever, but is in reality only a few months, at a household job.  Admittedly, there was a break in there to let the parts settle.  But I’m redoing my daughter’s bathroom.  When I started, chunks of the ceiling were falling onto the toilet, and the room was impossible to keep neat.  Walls and wallpaper were damaged from the same leak that had plagued the ceiling.

So, step one (after taking out the big ol’ mirror and wall stuff) was to strip the wallpaper and really scrub down the walls well.  Then, patch the walls and patch the ceiling (after bleaching liberally).  Next, retexture the ceiling.  For an amateur, I did a pretty good job.  I’ve hired someone who didn’t do any better, but did charge a lot more.  If you have to repair a textured ceiling, and someone knows where to look, chances are pretty good they’ll find where it was fixed.  If they aren’t looking for it, they’ll probably not notice.

So, then I primed the walls and ceiling with a good stain sealing primer.  Painted the ceiling, including around the skylight, because that’s more fun than most people get to have.  Painted the walls twice with a nice pastel blue (of my daughter’s choosing).  Waited a couple days.  Tried putting on tape to paint alternate colors.  Paint peeled off (uh-oh!), so touched it up and waited.  Months.

Finally got back to the bathroom, taped up the stripes on the walls (this took two days, and it’s only partial walls!  I just wasn’t really good at holding the level and putting up tape with only two hands.  However, I did it.  Then I painted the purple stripes (3.5 inches) and the hot pink stripes (.25 inches).  Twice.  Waited a little bit.  Took off the tape and… yikes!  It peeled off sections of the blue.  So, I went through with a small brush, touched up the gaps (some were BIG), got it where it should be, then cleaned up the drips (didn’t use a drop cloth).

So, where is the sensation here?  Getting there.

I hung a medicine cabinet.  This was the only thing so far I’ve gotten help on.  Couldn’t hold the cabinet, level, and drill at the same time, I just lacked the requisite limbs.  I bet guys might like a woman with extra hands who could do lots of things at once, but… nope, I only have two.  Hung a new towel bar near the sink.  Then… had to adjust some very NOT level towel bar holes in the tile (and replace the shiny brass with shiny chrome).  My drill bits are missing, of course, except for one really skinny one, and one broken one.  I tried using the little skinny one to drill new holes.  It didn’t really touch the tile.

Out comes the broken drill bit, because really, I’m adventurous.  I placed it where I wanted it to go, and it vibrated like crazy, but drilled a hole in the tile pretty darn fast.  I had to make tweaks and adjustments, but I got it in where it needed to go, leveled off the previous crooked work, and got the new towel bars in (and my hands were a bit numb afterwards from the vibrating).

But that wasn’t enough. I was wiping down the counter and looked at the cabinet doors.  They’re oak.  They were chipped and flaking, and pretty bad-looking.  The light bulb in my head went off, and I asked my daughter if she would like them painted to spruce them up, because the room was all fresh and clean without them.

No, she didn’t want paint, she liked natural finish (really, it IS nicer), so I opted to refinish.  This is not a quick and easy project here.  I sanded the base, 60, 80, 150, 220 grit sandpaper.  Wiped it down with mineral spirits.  Waited for it to dry.  Applied shellac.  Waited an hour.  Sanded with 220 grit sandpaper.  Wiped it down.  Applied stain (I used Minwax Gunstock color).  Waited 15 minutes.  Wiped off stain (made sure it was even in color).  Waited 8 hours.  Applied polyurethane.  Waited four hours, sanded lightly with 220 grit, applied more polyurethane, waited four more hours, sanded lightly with 220 grit, applied more polyurethane, waited a while, examined, had a nice even sheen, let it set for a while.

Meanwhile, the panel at the front, the two drawers, and the four cabinet doors were in my bathroom awaiting me.  I put on my sexy goggles and face mask (after NOT using it before, I decided coughing up sawdust for a couple days wasn’t as sexy as one might think).  I had bought a pine board (because the oak at Home Depot was ugly, and this fancy pine had a very discernible grain) to put at the base of the cabinet, where the former mop board left two inches open on either end, and the gap got filled with all kinds of debris.  Now it will be covered.  Bought clear caulk to seal any gaps that it leaves, so the dirt issue is gone.  I used my cordless Ryobi circular saw to cut the board.  It is an awesome and convenient tool to have.  I’ve slept with it next to my bed for a couple of days, because it soothes me.  The board is not horribly visible, the cut is straight, and it’s too darn cold to be working in the garage with the table saw.  So it’s the right size, I measured, it works.

Took the board, and all the cabinet parts, one by one and sanded.  Had to use the Dremel tool to get into the routered decorative grooves in the cabinet doors.  Burned through a few bits there.  Got them all sanded (multi-day job, sadly, because of interruptions, but… also because I don’t like to wear the mask and goggles for too long at a time).  Wiped them down with mineral spirits, moved them back to the bathroom where they’ll live, turned on the fan, let them dry.

On to the shellac, one side at a time, wait an hour, other side, wait an hour, then the stain, one side at a time.  Isn’t there a song, the waiting is the hardest part?  Yeah, lots of waiting.

But the sensation.  Holding a drawer or panel between your legs, working braless, with a shirt (thankfully), and running the electric sander over the bust.  It’s not a sensation that’s repeated often in life.  I also sanded my hands a couple times, but they’re pretty tough (only one chemical burn, and I’ve done all this, including the chemical stripper and mineral spirits) without gloves.  The burn was on my arm.  So I’ve sanded body parts I’ve never sanded before, and I’ve lived to tell the tale.

Is that the end of the story? Oh, that it were…

The floor is off-white tile with little burgundy squares in the corners.  The burgundy is almost brownish, not a good color, never matched anything (and it was there with the harvest gold shower and toilet that I’ve replaced).  So, because some of the burgundy tiles have come out (they’re missing, not sure where they went), and others are loose, I wondered about the feasibility of taking out only the burgundy and replacing them with a nice pastel blue.  I’ll be going to Home Depot and Lowe’s to do a price check on little tiles, and might get my first experience with tile installation.

The door is going to be removed, and the bottom cut off (it’s always caught on any throw rug or bath mat, because it’s just too close to the floor—it catches on grains of dirt.  It’s going to be patched and sanded (major dog damage).  I already repaired the frame a bit, and nailed it back into place.

I’m hemming a curtain and making tie-backs so there’s a glittery purple shower curtain over the clear butterfly curtain.  I’m making a few odd-shaped hand towels out of the old butterfly shower curtain that was partially eaten by dogs.  I’m sanding and staining the previously unfinished oak threshold (I’m doing six of those in the house, not sure why they were never finished).  I’m spray-painting a basket metallic silver to collect trash on the counter, where it’s left, anyway (kind of using observation to make practical changes).  And the cabinets and drawers will be lined with a chrome-colored shiny contact paper.

But when we’re done (we being me), it’ll be a new and exciting room that a teenager should be proud to use AND keep clean.  But “painting a room” is never just painting a room if I do it.  This is probably why my house is always in a state of turmoil…

And I’ll let you know what gets shellac out of hair.  Tie back your hair before leaning over open paint cans.