Tag: DIY

It’s a Cougar! No, Wait!

Published on by Our Humble Abode7 Comments

It’s a bobcat.  Having a cougar in the back yard (either a real cat or a Mrs. Robinson-esque lady) would be strange.  I much prefer the four-wheeled bobcat version we have.  A week ago, Ben brought home the bobcat from his work and started digging up the back yard.  To get the bobcat up the hill, he had to gently slope the hillside.

After an hour or so, he finally got the hillside finished and came into the yard.

Digging around, pulling the sandy paver base out was easy digging and went quickly.

Over the weekend, Ben really got to work.  All the stone retaining walls are too short/unstable/easy to break and don’t have the look we’re going for.  See what I mean?

Oh, the cross hatching you see in the picture above?  Just the window screen.  The boys and I hunkered down in the house.  Because broken bits of concrete were flying, we put pieces of foam insulation over the new windows.  How much would it suck to shatter a newly installed window?!?  So, my peeping Tom vantage points were limited, hence the screen shot.

Digging sand and dirt was the easy part.  Lifting giant slabs of concrete, not so much.

Trying to break it with a sledgehammer wasn’t working, so Ben used something with a little more muscle.  Lift…

Higher, higher, still higher.

And flip.  Broken pieces were easier to hammer to more manageable pieces.

Quitting time for Friday night.

With the fountain out-of-the-way, Ben set out to destroy the patio off the pool house.  Which included moving a giant rock.  You think I’m kidding when I say giant?  Take a look.

That is only the top part of it.  Here’s the bottom.  Yes, I was cringing and hoping it would work.  Ben is tenacious with that bobcat.  Oh boys and their toys.

Now we’ve got a giant pile of dirt.

This morning, the concrete cutter came out, cut the pool house opening, and left.  More details on that next week!

Progress, but it’s so dirty now.  Sand constantly in the house.  What does your backyard look like?  Or any other large equipment?

Art with Heart

Published on by Our Humble Abode18 Comments

For too long, er, the past five months, our bedroom has looked like this:

Ugly paint, minimal furniture, and no art on the walls.  Come to think of it, the whole house looks like that.  Well, I decided I had enough.  Time to take matters into my own hands.  When Jenny mounted a cheapo Kinko’s print to foam core, I thought it looked cool.  Then Katie did it, too.  And then a light bulb went off above my head.  Hellooooo, we pulled foam insulation out of the wet bar in the pool house.

So I measured, hoping the foam was at least two feet wide.  Hooty hoo!  The foam was exactly 24 inches wide by about 4 feet.  I had already gone through our wedding photos and chose two of my favorite ‘we’re not posed smiling at the camera’ shots.  Sure the first one is blurry, but I like it that way.  A little more artistic and unexpected.  I love that it’s sort of a ‘moment in time’ capturing the emotions we felt that June day.

After sizing and editing the photos in Photoshop, I saved the files, headed to FedEx Office (I still call it Kinko’s) and had ’em printed.  For $4.50 each, I got two 24 by 36 inch prints.  I headed home and started cutting the foam.  Well, tried to cut it.  The utility knife didn’t work on my 2 inch thick foam.

If something doesn’t work, I call Ben to ask for his ideas.  He suggested using the table saw.  After a little begging, he agreed to cut the pieces for me when he got home.  He did and it worked like a charm.  Just to be safe, I had Ben cut the pieces at 23 1/2 by 35 1/2 inches.  With the sides straight, I mixed up a little, okay a lot, of kelly green paint.  Because I hate being careful when I don’t have to, I painted the sides first, then mounted my photos.

Speaking of mounting photos, I started by using ModPodge, which was a mistake.  It bubbled up and I had to work with it a lot.  After one short edge, I searched the house, knowing I had spray adhesive somewhere.  Ah ha!  Found it.  Outside, I lined my print up, peeled back a small bit, sprayed, then pressed it into place.  With that first edge stuck down, I sprayed the rest, working in smallish lines, pressing the paper down, and smoothing it from the center out.  Because I did this along (and thought getting it to lay straight would be more difficult) I didn’t trim my paper before mounting.  I had a little paper overhanging the edges, so I flipped the pieces over and carefully cut along the edge using a utility knife.

To hang these big guys, I decided to just poke a hole in the back for a nail.  First, I measured a few inches down, then centered.

Ben suggested adding small pieces of pipe, just to prevent the nail tearing the foam.  What a thinker.  He cut two small pieces of copper pipe (which we were about to take to the recycling center).

With the copper tube centered in my cross-hairs, I pushed down.  I couldn’t get the pipe flush unless I pulled out some of the foam.  A needle nose pliers pulled it out and the pipe stayed wedged in the foam.

I hung the pictures on either side of the big window.

Finally, something on the walls!  Two big somethings.

Better yet, these prints have meaning to us.

Walking into our room doesn’t make me cringe anymore.  Rather than focus on the terrible wall color, I see pretty prints that remind me what a wonderful man I have.

And it only cost nine bucks because I had the rest of the materials.

A pop of green is another fun touch.

Only three more walls to get something on, including this giant one.  Oy, that blue.  Hopefully we can scrape the popcorn ceilings and repaint this fall/winter.

I don’t know which is worse, the awful blue or the burnt red in the bathroom.  No wait, the red is much worse.  At least there’s something pretty in the room now.

What do you think of the most recent additions?  What art have you added to your home?  Oversized prints?  A custom painting?  Blurry photos that you love?

Side-Splitting Skinny Dipping

Published on by Our Humble Abode10 Comments

Sometimes, projects we tackle are big.  Others are little and not worthy of an individual blog post.  Today, you get a two for one.  One part side-splitting, one part skinny dipping.  One of our map cut out frames took a spill while I was in Minnesota.  Somehow (Ben still isn’t giving full details) the frame fell, but he caught it before the glass shattered.

But he didn’t catch the frame before the right corner hit the floor, splitting and denting the joint.

After living with the broken frame on my desktop for a month and a half, I finally got annoyed enough to fix it.  I dug around in the garage to find the staple gun and staples.  That’s all it took to fix the frame.  So, I took out the metal pieces that held the frame together before.

And put five staples in the corner.  Sure, it looks like Frankenstein’s monster, but it works.

Then I sprayed the dented corner with a little white paint.

Good as new(ish) back up on the wall, thus concluding today’s side-splitting segment.

Now to the skinny dipping segment.  I’ve wanted to dip furniture legs for a while now.  I love the look and the bit of fun dipped legs add.  While making our bed one morning, I realized the boring white Ikea Lindved tables we’re using as night stands could use some fun.

Using a ruler, I measured five inches on each leg, made a mark with a pencil, and taped off each leg.

Outside, I gave each leg a coat of gold spray paint.

Ten minutes later, I gave the legs another coat and left the tables to dry.  Outside, I loved how the legs looked.  But when I brought them inside, not so much.

The gold paint blended in with the wood floors.  Boo.  But, I had a can of silver spray paint left over from another project.  Why not try it?  After taping off the legs and spraying the legs a few time, I’m much happier with the results.

More fun than the boring white tables, but still simple.  Who knows, when we decide on a color scheme for the room, I might change it up again.  Perhaps a fun teal?  Or kelly green?  I don’t know, but the possibilities are endless.

How do you fix picture frames?  Does it take you a month and a half to get around to a simple fix?  Maybe you’ve dip painted furniture legs?

All You Shingle Ladies

Published on by Our Humble Abode16 Comments

All you shingle ladies.  If you like it then you shoulda put shingles on it.  Wait, what?  Our most recent weekend project included shingles.  And more window removal.  You see, we can’t leave well enough alone.  Nope, rather than leaving the wet bar as it was, we knocked it all out.  All in the name of continuity.  This way, we can  keep all the windows and doors at the same level and pour a large concrete slab in the back yard.  Then we decided to cut one of the windows in the pool house wet bar.  Why?  I’m glad you asked.  Inside, the cabinets just blocked the window.

Outside, the roof took a funky angle not to block the window.

Just strange.  In preparation for the concrete cutting, Ben pulled out the two stationary panels and the sliding door.  Then he added a few studs to the window opening and boarded it up.

To extend the roof, Ben added a few 2 by 4 pieces, following the slope of the roof.

A piece of scrap plywood on top and he started adding shingles.

Voila!  Awkward angle be gone.

Oh, and that Flagstone patio?

Is looking more like this:

And this:

We’ve pulled up about two-thirds of the stones, which we hope to sell on Craigslist.  The leading reason we’re doing all this work is to lower the back yard.  Right now, the rim joist is at (and in some places, below) the dirt.  Bob Vila and Tim the Tool Man Taylor wouldn’t approve.

In fact, Ben pulled out an old duct, and while doing so discovered tons of dirt resting on the foundation wall.  Dirt that over time has washed into the house and can cause long-term structural damage if not fixed.  Where there’s dirt, there are bugs.  Giant spiders and even a potato bug (if you’re feeling brave, Google it) have made their way in the basement.  So not cool.  And extremely gross.  Let the digging begin.  Hand shoveling around the house.

As well as pulling out stacked rock walls around the trees.

Making stacks to reuse or sell soon.

The back yard that looked like this over spring:

Now looks like this:

It always has to get worse before it gets better.  More pavers to dig out and we’ll bring in the Bobcat to really get down to business, literally.  Although we’d love to pour concrete before the snow flies, we just don’t think we’ll have the time.  Between now and then, we’ll add pea gravel (a step we’ll need to do before concrete) to help reduce the sandy, dirty mess.

Now let’s hear it.  What do you think of our latest project?  Think we’re crazy?  Or just enthusiastic?  Either way, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.  If you’re looking for a good workout, feel free to come on over and help me haul stones and pavers.  My arms are still sore.

As you know, today marks 11 years since the attacks on the World Trade Centers.  I love Sarah’s post.  Take a minute to read it and remember that tragic day.

Stripping Down

Published on by Our Humble Abode16 Comments

Well, I’m done.  V and I got off to a great start removing the kitchen wallpaper.

Tearing off the patterned pieces took about an hour, but left all the glued backing on the wall.  Based on past wall paper removal experiences (main bathroom at our first house, I’m talking about you), I thought this step would be incredibly tedious.  Lucky for me, it wasn’t too bad.  I’m guessing it went smoothly because the thicker decorative paper was off.  Before I got serious about the removal process, I tested a small area.  Just a wet sponge and a metal scraper got the backing off without damaging the walls.

Obviously wetting the walls with a small kitchen sponge would have taken forever, so I got out a plain spray bottle that I use for ironing.  Filled with water, I liberally sprayed the walls one small section at a time.  At first I was hesitant to spray a ton of water, but then I realized it had to happen.  So, I sprayed until the paper turned a dark golden-yellow color, let it sit five minutes, then sprayed it again.

It came off smoothly and mostly in large sheets.  Then I decided to put another theory to the test, just to compare removal processes.  I added white vinegar to the water (about 1/2 water, 1/2 vinegar) and sprayed the walls with that.  I wouldn’t say this worked better, just a little quicker.  And smellier.  I think the vinegar penetrated quicker, but I made the mistake of testing this in the confined area above the cabinets.

Do yourself a favor and use vinegar in an open space or wear a mask.  Of course it’s not a chemical smell, just strongly acidic.

Now that the bulk is done, I have to work on the details.

And fill nail holes, prime, and paint.

I’m stuck waiting on paint until we patch the areas below the new windows in the breakfast nook and family room.  And I suppose I should wait until we install trim around the windows and door so I’m not repainting everything.  Or worse, stuck with noticeable touched up areas.  Can someone tell me why satin paint shows touch ups so easily?

Have your wallpaper removals been this easy?  Or did you have thick, sticky paper to deal with?  I swear, the foiled, embossed floral wallpaper in the main bathroom at our first house did not want to come off, no matter what trick we tried.  What did you do this weekend?  Let’s just say we’ve starting tearing (more) things apart.