Spring Break projects

Since we ran out of money, our spring break plans were a no go.  I decided to make a giant list of things that needed to be done around the house.

1.  Paint John's old childhood cabinet to put in utility room-I did this using paint leftover from the house and tied it to the colors I just did in the utility room.

2.  Redo the shelves and paint the dryer pipe-I used red spray paint on the pipe, and scrapbook paper on the shelves.

3.  Make a message board for family-I used an old frame from Grandma's house.  Inserted scrapbook paper where you normally put a photo.  Got some dry erase markers and some flowers.  Put it all together and wow a message board.

4.  Make new curtains for kitchen-I found some great fabric in Indianapolis at Wal-mart.  One was $1 per yard the other $3 per yard

5.  Install new kitchen sink-proved to be more difficult than we thought because the people we bought our house from (the flippers as I call them) cut the hole out themselves.  It was not straight and it was odd shaped....that may be why they used a mobile home sink (you can have one of these free in my garage).  It was a 5 inch deep double pan sink, and I have hated it every day for 7.5 years.  Now I have a 8.5 inch deep sink!

6.  For my birthday last year, I bought the lumber and my dad donated his skills to build me some bookcases.  That was last July, and I was just now painting them.

7.  Paint the back door-I wanted to paint the inside of the panels on the door leading to the garage.  I also wanted to paint a saying on there.

8.  Paint kitchen trashcan-we had the nastiest can in the world.  A blue can that they sell at Wal-mart.  (why do they make all the cans blue or white and just nasty?)  I painted it with Rustoleum black paint for plastics.  It is like a new can and fits the color scheme of my room.

9.  Use the left over transformation kit and paint the bath cabinet


Hope you enjoy the photos of my week of projects.  

The dollar bin birdhouse

I found this cute little birdhouse in the dollar bin at Michael's. I decided it would be good in my laundry room make over so I purchased it. It was a paper mâché finish. The first thing I did was gesso the entire thing so I could paint over t and get true colors to my paint.

I chose the colors that I have been using for my other utility room projects. I thought it might be nice to try an ombré effect since e that was so hip. One thing I dot usually rinse my brush between colors. Actually I hardly ever rinse my brush. You can tell, but I really like the effect.

Once my paint dried, I took some walnut stain distress ink and a new dry brush. I brushed the brush against the stamp pad then dry brushed onto the house. The effect turned out nice.

Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations

Our house was built around 1967 and the cabinets in the home have never been repainted and frankly I don't think anything has ever been done to them since the day they were installed.  I was fed up!  Check out the before pictures and you will see exactly how bad the cabinets looked.  They also had another problem that you didn't see, if you closed them you would have to lift on the doors to make them fit.  The cabinets hung loose and were just plain pitiful.  

My first thing had to be to number the doors. Since they are custom made every door is a different size and I thought numbering them would be easier for me. I first labeled with masking tape and as I took down the door I wrote the number on the side of the door that does not show when hung.  For the top cabinets it was the top edge and the bottom it was the bottom edge. 

I then took off all the doors, cleaned the hinges (I was saving them) and filled every single hole where a door was attached to the cabinet base.  This step was long and messy, but my intention was to hang these doors as if the cabinet base was new and then I would have a tight fit with no sagging doors.  Then came the kit......

The first three photos are the before photos

I had enough left over to do our pantry cabinet.  The before is on the left, it was sponged a combo of our kitchen colors and the right is the after, looks nice doesn't it?  I am pleased with everything, the ease of use, the actual product, everything.

The bottom cabinets are finished, the top cabinet are in two different stages.  The part of the cabinets on the left is being transformed, the ones on the right are the original cabinet finish.

Look at the difference in finished and the old way

New hardware pulls in the look.  Hardware was $70 at Lowe's for 12 drawer pulls and 22 knobs

The finished project.  Next we got a new stove (not pictured) and I am working on a new curtain.  Counter tops will happen in the spring.

So Long Tree

When we first looked at our home, there was a beautiful tree and a huge window that I saw at first glance.  I was excited because I never had a tree like that one.  The tree was perfect, straight up and down and a Christmas tree shape.  It was TALL to boot.  The window was a great big, huge, massive window (do you get it was big?).  The window won't change I hope, but time, however, has not been good to that tree.  We enjoyed those birds that nested in her branches.  I planted things at her trunk and they all died so there she stood, the lone proud thing in our front yard.  In the winter's snow, she was at her peak of prettiness.  She was like a giant snow-covered bell.  A lovely decoration for all to see.  Then the ice storm came!  It killed so many things in its wake (like my 10-year-old giant rosemary plant), but the tree seemed to be fine.  It was surviving covered with all that ice and snow.  Maybe, just maybe it would be ok.  It was!!! The next year, there she stood tall and proud "I made it through". She was still tall and proud in 2010, or so we thought....sometime around the fall needles began to fall.  Branches began to lose their luster...She was dying! John was hoping it was dormant, but that was not to be, she was DEAD! Everyone began to be scared of her because if she fell, she could take out a house, a car or BOTH.

2008, so pretty

2009---the ice storm

Yesterday at approx 9 am, the tree guy (who is good if you need a tree dude) began to climb her, on his way up he was cutting off her branches.  Approximately, 4 hours later she was gone.  My front yard is lonely. One of my favorite parts of my house/yard is to be no more.  I shall miss you tree.