Powder Room Demolition

The Demolition Phase of our Powder Room renovation is complete (previous phases were Design and Procurement). Yours truly removed the toilet by herself and the bubby (boyfriend/hubby)’s muscles and ingenuity were required to remove the vanity.

There was a little surprise under the baseboards, a peek at the original (I hope) wallpaper.

groovy

Chipping out the floor tiles was a great stress reliever. This is how much I accomplished after about an hour of work.

girl power!

The bubby accomplished the rest in 15 minuets.

figures

A scary part was removing the tiles that traversed the threshold. These extend out into the hallway, the floors of which are remaining the same. Luckily, a total of three of these tiles were left over (we found them in the basement) which should be enough to make a repair in the hallway… as long as we don’t screw up at all.

terrifying

not attractive

We didn’t worry about the thin-set on the plywood underlayment, because it wasn’t tiled under the vanity, we knew that it would have to come up anyway. So far this has been the hardest part of the job. We took out as many screws as we could find and pried it all up with a crowbar.  The condition of the sub-floor was worrying, (there is some superficial water damage around the flange) but in the end it all looks pretty good.

we counted exactly 10257 screws

looks worse than it is

And that is the powder room completely deconstructed. Hopefully putting it back together again goes just as well!

A-Tisket, A-Tasket A-{Strawberry Basket}

So when we moved into this house a year ago, this little beauty was hanging in the basement. A three-tiered produce basket, dusty, rusty, missing a chain, held together with string, and covered in onion skins.

So I cleaned it up and decided a good spray paint was in order. I removed the chain/string and set the baskets upside-down on pop cans.

Which later had to be replaced with with taller empty spray paint cans so that they were fully extended. After the outsides were dry I flipped the baskets over so I could paint the rims. I knew by this point I wanted to use them as hanging planters so the insides didn’t matter.

The fun part was turning them into planters. I bought coconut husk basket liners, some potting soil, and strawberry plants!

For the smaller baskets the liner was too tall and had to be cut short.

Then all that was left was planting.

I re-connected the baskets with new chain that I purchased at Canadian Tire, and then I was ready to hang it outside my front door!

I hope there is enough sun in the front for these guys, and that they send out runners cascading into the lower baskets. It may be too much to hope that I will actually get real-live edible strawberries … but maybe?

I love that I was able to breath new life into this found piece. What a difference!

 

Whiskey into Water {Rain Barrel DIY}

I have wanted rain-barrels forever. They make so much sense! Why waste clean drinking water on plants and grass? Why pay for something that is free?

I like free.

But as they say, you have to spend money to make save money, so when the opportunity came up to buy a pair of old white-oak whiskey barrels off some guy on Kijiji, I didn’t pass it up.

Here they are, delivered for $200.

To turn the whiskey barrels into rain barrels, I also had to buy two Earth Minded DIY Rain Barrel kits from the BEST store on the planet, Canadian Tire. They were $30 each.

The kit includes everything you need to make the rain barrel; hoses, spigot, rubber gaskets, even the hole saws. The only tools we needed were an electric drill, a leveller, measuring tape, a long screw (important!), a pencil, work gloves and safety glasses.

The barrels need to be placed within 3 feet of a down spout on a level surface. We had some old pavers lying around and used those to set the barrels on.

The kit came with detailed instructions, and we also found this video very helpful.

One snag in the process was that the wood of our barrel was thicker than the hole saws were deep. Liam figured out a solution fairly quickly. Just saw as far as you can in the wood and stop. Insert your long screw into the drill hole so it gets a good grip, then twist and pull. The whiskey-soaked wood should splinter easily releasing a large layer. Go back with the whole saw and cut in the rest of the way.

Last year Ottawa experienced a drought for much of the summer. We were told to stop watering our lawns and gardens. Then there was a rash of house fires caused by the extremely dry conditions of people’s lawns, and we were told to start watering again! This year I will be prepared with gallons of stored rain water to partial out during the hot dry days.

Plastic barrels can of course be purchased in garden centres everywhere, but these don’t always look great and aren’t cheap either. For $130 a piece and one afternoons work, I am very pleased with the aesthetic of my barrels. They add character and history to my yard while helping to simultaneously save a precious resource … and on my water bill!

Here I made you this {DIY Linen Spray}

Ask your mom and she will tell you that the most treasured Mother’s Day gifts are the ones you made her when you were a kid. You know, the crappy crayon pictures of you and her together, construction paper flowers, and those ‘adorable’ fill-in the blank cards that read something like;

My mom’s the best because she always maks my lunch. My mom’s job is cleaning the house, and her favourite hobby is making me diner … etc.

Yes, that is a direct quote from my life from when I was a self-centered little prick (a.k.a.  a child). Yet my mom loved it and even though I am grown up now and can afford to buy my mom flowers and brunches and hallmark cards, she still likes the handmade gifts the best. This year I’m giving my mom a bottle of my home-made linen spray.

What You Need

• Distilled water (mine is from Loblaws)
• Witch hazel (mine is from WalMart)
• Essential oil (mine is from New Directions Aromatics)
• Plastic 8 0z. bottle (mine is from Nature’s Garden)
• Label and a pen

What You Do 

1. Start by adding 2 tsp (10 mL) of witch hazel into the bottle.
2. Add about 30 drops of oil, screw on cap and shake.
3. Fill the bottle with distilled water.
4. Label and you’re done!

Linen is inherently wrinkly and needs to be sprayed damp before it can be ironed. Scented linen spray will add a yummy light scent to the fabric. You can also use it as a room spray, spritz it on furniture,  curtains, and in the car. I made a French Lavender and Lemongrass but there literally hundreds of essential oils to choose from.

Happy Mother’s Day!

The Ugly Clockling

I gave my mother so much cr@p about this clock. She has had this clock up in her dinning-room for my entire life and I always told her it was ugly.

It’s gaudy and too big and old-fashioned! It’s not eve real, it’s  made of plastic. And who lights a candle on the wall anyway?

And now I don’t know if gaudy and old-fashioned is ‘in’ or that I am just old enough to appreciate it, but when she finally replaced it with a more modern clock I practically begged her for the old one.

Look at the beautiful detail! The fact that its made of resin is great because it’s light. The chains and candle sconces are so elegant.

Irony aside, the clock still needed  updating … also known as spray painting. Honestly, spray paint is the duct tape of the DIY world, it makes everything better. So I taped up the clock’s face, got out two cans of mat white Rust-Oleum and went to town!

Isn’t she beautiful? Crisp, lofty, and sophisticated, residing over my dining table in a room in desperate need of something on the walls.  

I also bought some delicious smelling bees-wax candles. They are a little too similar in colour to the wall but we may be painting these walls this summer (fingers crossed).  

Also, Dexter wants to say hi.  

PS:  Sorry for all the hard times I gave you, but you can’t have your clock back mom!

How To Trick People Into Thinking You’re Tech Savvy

For the record, Liam and I are not what you would call “tech-savvy”. Our parents would call us tech savvy, but you wouldn’t.

Case Points:

1. The songs on our iPod are over 7 years old because we don’t know where to get free music anymore.
2. I have more cat game apps on my iPad than anything else.
3. By the time I discover the new ‘in’ App everyone else is tired of it. Draw Something? anyone? hello?
4. I prefer actual books to e-books.
5. I recently shocked my little younger cousins by admitting I didn’t know what SnapChat was.
6. We buy seasons of TV shows we like because we don’t know where to watch them on-line.
7. We rent movies from On Demand and  Zip Kiosk because we don’t know how to download or stream them.
8. To stay current we watch the evening news and listen to morning talk radio. Thanks Peter Mansbridge and Robin Bresnahan!
9. I buy a phone card to contact far away friends because I don’t know how to use Skype.
10. We prefer Blackberry to iPhone. Loyalty!

So yeah, not great. On the other hand we do have HD PVR, satellite radio, Bluetooth at home and in the car, assorted social networking accounts, oh and I kinda run this blog. We are not entirely without hope!

In fact, a lot of the time we can hide our technological ignorance and appear to the world as a regular, plugged-in young couple. In a recent venture to preserve the facade, I created a QR code for our Wifi password,  printed and framed it for display in our home.

wifi is pronounced wee.fee

Ta-Da! Now when we have people over, they don’t actually have to awkwardly talk to us to get the wifi password. They just scan it with their device and viola; internet access. You see, we have eliminated the last shred of one-on-one social interactions. Now we can all spend our time together ignoring each other and playing with out phones! Bliss.

How To Make Your Own Wifi Password QR Code Disply

Step One:
Visit QRStuff.com, select ‘Plain Text’, type in your password, and pick a colour.

Step Two:
This awesome website will automatically generate the QR code. You should check to make sure it works with you phone or device. If it’s good, download it.

Step Three:
Right-click and ‘Save As’ this wifi symbol and this white background.

Step Four:
Put it all together. Go to PicMonkey.com, click “Edit Photo” and upload the white.jpg. Go to ‘Overlays’ and ‘Your Own’ to upload both the qrcode.png and the wifi.png.

Step Five: 
Re-size to your liking and save the total picture to your computer.

Last Step:
Now all you have to do is develop the graphic. You can print it at home or send it away to be developed. I like Costco because it’s only 17¢ (15¢ if you pay cash! <-Canada joke). Once you have your picture, frame it and display!

Thrift Shop

I’m gonna pop some tags
Only got twenty dollars in my pocket
I – I – I’m hunting, looking for a come-up
This is f*ing awesome

I found these in a thrift shop. I thought the water-colour birdies were cute and the wood frames were only a little bumped up. $7 each.

But sh!t, it was ninety-nine cents! (Bag it)
Coppin’ it, washin’ it, ’bout to go and get some compliments
Passin’ up on those moccasins someone else’s been walkin’ in

I sanded them, but unevenly.

I’m digging, I’m digging, I’m searching right through that luggage
One man’s trash, that’s another man’s come-up

I used a dark Ebony stain and applied 4 coats, wiping off excess stain between.

I wear your granddad’s clothes
I look incredible
I’m in this big @ss coat
From that thrift shop down the road

I love how they turned out. My rough sanding job made them look old and weathered, and the dark frames really help the art pop. I have no idea who the artist is, or if they “are” anybody, but regardless I am a fan of their work.

The lyrics to this song make no sense whatsoever, but the tune is probably in your head now. So here its is, listen and get it out of your system. Then go down to a thrift shop and see what you can find!

Torn Screen Door

We love the large sliding door in our new place, but it came with a small hole near the bottom of the screen … which my cats enlarged tremendously. It needed to be replaced and there are places you can get that done. My parents recently had a small window re-screened for about $30 at Home Hardware. DON’T DO IT. This is another example of something that can easily and cheaply be done at home by you.

The first thing to do is go to any hardware store and ask for a screen repair kit, it will usually be in the window and door section. We spent $10 for enough screen for the full-sized door, and it came with the other two things you need; spline and a convex roller. Spline is the fancy term for the black rubber malleable string-thingy around the perimeter.  If we ever need to re-screen another window or something we can just buy the screen and spline separately.

You should also have a screw driver and a utility knife handy.

kit includes screen, spline, and roller

There should be instructions in your kit, but I’ll give them here as well, with pictures!

1. Remove the frame from the door, and place it on the floor.
2. With the screw driver, wedge out the old spline.

3. Once the spline has been removed, the old screen should come off easily. Take this opportunity to clean the groove of inevitable gunk.
4. Lay the new screen on top of the frame, as straight as possible.

5. Start with a long side, lay the spline in the groove and use the roller the shove it in. This works best with two people, one to do the rolling, and one to keep the screen taut and straight. Not like this:

6. Once you have done one side, using your knife, cut the spline carefully so as not to tear the screen.

7. Repeat on the opposite long side, and then the two short sides. You will get the hang of how tight to keep the screen to avoid wrinkles or bubbles.
8. With the knife, cut the excess screen around the frame as close as you dare to the spline, but carefully!

9. And now you no longer have a torn screen door!

Even though the amazing Canadian songwriter David Francey makes them sound cool in this song:

Modern Birdhouse Makeover

Due to our unexpected vacation disaster, I am back in the city and getting lots of stuff done around the house. Here’s a quick makeover project I’ve been working on and finished up yesterday.

We found these birdhouses in the garage of our new house. They needed some TLC and I had my eyes on these fancy shmancy ones for a while now:

Modern Birdhouses design by Digs

So cute and modern, these were my inspiration. I took my sad abandoned birdhouses, stained the roofs a dark brown and painted the bases white. For a perch, I used some cheap ($2.99 each) drawer pulls from the hardware store.

To attach them to the tree I wanted, the bubby used L-brackets that you screw up into the bottom of the house. Careful to use screws that are short enough, you don’t want sharp metal objects poking any potential inhabitants!

And here they are! Not as nice as the fancy shmancy ones, but a vast improvement. I hope the birdies like them!

Modern Birdhouse Design by tixeertne

Oh and hey, this is my 100th post!! Might as well celebrate with a few link parties!

Numb3rs

Busy rushing up to the lake again today, so I’ll just leave you with this quick before & after picture of my house address numbers. They were all rusty and gross so I spray painted them black and love the result.  I little bit of paint sure can go a long way!

007 is in neighbourhood watch with us

Happy Friday and have a fantastic weekend!