Garage Shelves For Dummies

Woo hoo! I'm getting closer to having our cars in the garage! I've been really wanting to put up some shelves in the garage to corral our storage bins and what not. We made that happen tonight. Poof! In three hours we had these puppies! 

I started by clearing an 8-foot space on the rear garage wall. The shelf will only be the length of the boards. 

Supplies were a little too much to fit in my trusty 'ol car this time so Dad brought the lumber down from HD (Home Depot, duh) plus some other handy tools like a stud finder, screws, and a neat-o laser level.  

Here are the supplies: 

(2) 4'x 8' sheets of plywood $9.75 each

(12) 2x4s $2.65 each

       *We got 13 but only ended up using 12. I'll use the extra for another project. 

Box of 3.5" screws $8.47

After lumber fees and tax, total cost to make this shelving unit: $67.54

We already had our sweet power tools to make all the necessary cuts but if you don't, those little darlings at HD will make  all the cuts you need for your project! 

We made a frame out of the 2x4s and secured it to the wall making sure we hit studs. The first one looked like this:

The spacing between the 8'-long boards is 2 feet. Those boards in between them are cut to 21".

You'll need to get out your tape measure and crunch some numbers but don't worry, it's elementary stuff. Just make your marks and HIT THOSE STUDS or all your yearbooks and camping gear and Christmas decorations and all that other crap you have is going to go crashing down in the middle of the night and you're going to have to run out in your underwear with a baseball bat because you'll think someone is breaking in. And you can't be tough in your underwear. You just can't. Now I'm all stressed out. So just hit the studs, ok?!

We cut those plywood sheets in half and they fit perfectly:  

Yeah, go ahead and attach those 2x4s on each side for support. Then make another frame and do it again!

Awwwww look at our Daddy/Daughter drills... It was really handy using both. One of us pre-drilled holes with a bit to prevent wood splitting while the other followed behind with the screws. How efficient! 

We even got Scotty out here to give us an extra hand. "Here, you just stand here and hold this up..."  He looks so happy to be helping! (He really was, I just caught him off guard with the camera)

 

You know I had to mess with him while he was stranded up on that ladder.  For some reason, he didn't like that, and he threatened to drop the shelf. What a bump on a freakin' log. ;)

Annnnnnd of course I got out a can of spray paint and gave these babies a little spritz-a-roo. I like everything colorful but you KNOW those black stamps on those boards were bugging me. So TA-DA!

I quickly put most of the things on the shelf just to get it off the floor but I still want to do more organizing and consolidating of boxes. I have some of those empty bins I want to use so I can get rid of some cardboard boxes. 

I have some wood scraps so I am planning on getting crafty and making some book shelves for the garage. Some of those boxes are filled with books and college text books and binders and I'd like to display them. Books don't get read if they're never seen! 

Also, those little bins you saw sitting alone on the shelf in one of the above photos were recycled, probably otherwise headed for a dumpster. I spray painted them before we started the shelves. I covered them up with purple and orange and they now hold electronic cords! They looked like this: 

I still have a half sheet of that plywood too so I may end up making myself a little workbench on another wall. Yay for more projects! :) 

Garden Mania!

Hi! I know it's been a while but I've been busy with more projects! We're all moved in and we are loving it here.  Each day I complete a little something more. Lots of small  things to do but they'll get done in time.

But there's something I've set as "high priority": the garden! I have been itching to grow our own food for years. It hurts my heart every time I have to buy a store bought tomato in the summer. Ugh! The easiest freakin' plant to grow and here I am forking out money for it. :|

I have been so antsy to put the winter garden in before it gets cold! Luckily it's still quite warm here in good 'ol Northern California. Since its way too late to start from seeds, I was on a mission to find some non-gmo starter plants. Because my beloved town of Chico had such an amazing farmers market with seasonal starter veggies, I thought I'd first check out the local fm here. I'd been wanting to check it out regardless. Before you locals call me an idiot, I KNOW the big market is on Saturday by the Convention Center. However, I was really excited to see what the Thursday morning market at the outlets had. 

WHAT. A. TOTAL. LETDOWN.

  

There were SIX tables. SIX. Doesn't it look depressing? And there weren't even any veggies. I almost cried. Don't call me dramatic. After looking around for seven seconds, I asked a friendly-faced older gentleman, "is this it?" "This is it, well, a few of us aren't here today, the pie lady is usually right there", he said. :|  I'm not here for PIE. But wait, what time does she get here?...

After that pathetic endeavor, I drove straight to Wyntour Gardens. When I walked into this nursery, my inner dialogue's sound effects crew made that heavenly "Waaaaahhhhhhhh" sound with harps in the background. I had been here years ago and knew it was good but here I was seeing it with new eyes! 

Look at that lettuce. LOOK! I wanted to just lean down and munch on it like a rabid bunny. Do bunnies get rabies? Also, why are bunnies so cute? Oh, don't the white ones with the red eyes gross you out? Me too. 

All these veggies are non-gmo. Woo! And quite the selection too. I loaded onto my 'ill blue wagon: 

Broccoli, cauliflower, sugar snap peas, onions, cabbage, spinach, butter lettuce, kale, and celery! 

Oh yeah, I probably should have told you that I built some little garden beds. Check it out:

They are embarrassingly simple, short, and shallow. Don't criticize them. And the drill wasn't here when I made them so I had to use a dumb hammer. Look how dumb:

What is this? The 1500's? I'm a simple gal but I love power tools. Those nails were tough. Too tough that I switched to these tiny nails that went in easier.  I'm not even showing you in detail because it's so pathetic. I knew that I just wanted them up and I could reinforce them later.

After planting this morning. I still had tons of veggies that didn't fit in my infant beds so what's the solution? MORE BEDS! I ran on down to Payless Building Supply and grabbed six more cedar fence posts at $1.19 each. That price makes me happy. Then I got crazy and did THIS:

They're.... TRIANGLES! These are just the boards making the shapes but I ended up securing the frames using brackets that I bent to fit and now they're nice and sturdy. I just need to get more soil and pack it in there. Oh, and I really hope I don't kill all this stuff.

Also, since I've had (until I planted this morning) basically oversized litter boxes in my backyard for the past two days, I've come out to find a freaking cat turd in one both mornings. Those skanky wild cats next door, pooping in MY garden. I've taken to scaring them (running at them in my garden Crocs loudly yelling and waving my arms). I'm hoping that will deter them. ...Unless they want to get revenge, they hate me and they hate Crocs, and I'm most likely going to wake up tomorrow morning and see 10x the amount of cat-butt logs laying amongst the newly planted veggies. Nope, I won't let that happen. I have plans A-D in order, I just hope I won't have to resort to that.

By the way, Crocs are the nerdiest shoe ever made but have you ever tried some on? Wow. Wear them in your garden, not in public. 

Also, I started painting rocks the other day. I have a life, I promise. That just made me think of The 40 Year Old Virgin when he's defending that he has a very fulfilling life then it cuts to him doing things like this by himself.  This is actually a lot like my life... and I'm married. It's not sad, I'm just independent and know how to entertain myself when Scotty's not here or is in a coma because his 4th graders wore him out.  Here, have a laugh. It's good for you:

Ok, look at some of my rocks. Joe Dirt reference, anyone?

We had a ton of these stepping stones in the yard so I decided to add a little color to them.  It's just acrylic paint with a decoupage seal.

I plan on adding some more beds and planters around the yard, some smaller yet taller beds perhaps.  I've been looking at repurposing ideas for planters so stay tuned.

Ok, that's all I have for you this time. I'm sure I'll find something else to update you with.  I'll let you know if I start painting cats or something equally as cool.

DIY Framed Bathroom Mirror

First of all, HAPPY OCTOBER!  Fall is my absolute favorite.  I was told to wait until October 1st to put out my pumpkins and other festive decor. 1. I can't believe I actually abided by that. 2. You can believe that stuff was put outside as soon as I woke up this morning!

I've seen several pins on Pinterest for framed bathroom mirrors that I've been wanting to recreate.  While picking up baseboards at Home Depot, I just added a 16 foot piece of moulding to my cart.  I just got the least expensive one at .68 a foot.  If you want to get your board even cheaper, measure your mirror first. ;) I didn't end up using the whole thing but paid around $10 for it. The way I see it, I paid $10 for a new mirror. :)

While my cousin was here generously cutting the baseboards with his fancy machine, I measured the mirror and had him make four cuts. 2 for the sides, 2 for the top and bottom.  All 45 degree angles.  Since they are thin, you could easily cut them with a handsaw and miter box. 

Look, Woody is posing for you.  I told him to get out of here but he didn't listen.

Miraculously, I still have paint left from doing the armoire, all the kitchen cabinets, AND the bathroom vanities. ONE GALLON of Behr Espresso Beans, Paint and Primer in One (~$27.00 at Home Depot) allowed me to do all these projects. Score!  I put 2 coats of paint on the boards:

All painted.  I took them in the house to see how they'd fit on the mirror and realized I needed to paint half of the backside too since you could see it in the reflection. : |

I picked this caulking up at Home Depot as well:

Squiggle the caulking on like so.  Try to avoid the brown area (part that shows).  On one of the sides, I got a little close and the caulking squeezed out a little further than I wanted.  It's only slightly visible. D'OH. 

Stick 'em on and make sure they all line up!

By the way, I'm really growing fond of the fact that my house has no doors.  It's actually feels so much more roomy! I am not a private person, so it kind of works out.  Sorry Scotty! If I don't get around to painting and hanging them all, I'll at least do the bathroom doors before the housewarming. ;)

Hooray! My mirror is all jazzed up now! Oh look, you can kind of see my creepy prints of animals wearing assorted hats. I just love those.  What am I going to put on that blank wall? Help!

I really would have preferred to use thicker moulding for this but since the mirror was already so small, I didn't want to decrease the size of it even more.  I may end up trying to do a chunkier frame in my master bathroom vanity area.  I also really like the way white frames look but I wanted it to match the color of the cabinets. This will just have to work.  

Go frame something! 

PS: I did this today because I'm avoiding the painting of door trim...

Let's Move In!

It's been 11 days of hard work but the worst is over! We did it! Also, I'm exhausted. My feet hurt. It's all been worth it though. I love the changes we've made.

There are things that still need to be done like paint the trim around the doors, add a second coat of paint in the master bathroom, paint and hang doors, etc. Yay. More painting. :|

BUT, all my big projects have been completed! 

Putting the sealer on the floors:

I LOVE how they turned out. There are tiny imperfections throughout (small cracks and holes from tack strips) but those just add character! I'm so happy with the color and how the concrete accepted the stain. 

Check it out! Ignore the black marks on the walls. I got crazy with the stain...

The stain I chose was New Look's Smart Color in Hazelnut, diluted and sprayed on with a plastic pump sprayer. When the sprayer was working, it worked great! However, it kept getting clogged! We ended up cleaning it out three times before we finished all the floors. Very  frustrating. I already liked the color but wanted more dimension. We let that dry all day and then I came back after work at 9:00pm and sprayed on more Smart Color in Black. Because I didn't want to wrestle with the pump sprayer and end up throwing it through a window, I just mixed up the black stain in a plastic spray bottle. It kept splattering a bit so I would keep blotting here and there with a rag so it didn't look like there were huge drips on my floor. 300 squats later, my floor looked exactly how I wanted it! 

Tonight, my fabulous cousins came over to help us with baseboards. Before Scotty got off work, Phil and Dad worked on baseboards and Amber and I went to get a load of stuff to take to the house. We got pretty creative with our packing and also lifted a lot of heavy things to make us feel really macho. 

Phil, thank you for your skills! And your saw and nail gun...

My eyes lit up when I saw this: 

And THIS: 

You can see the burnt orange paint in the bathroom in the above picture. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. I'll get it later. 

I just wanted to stand in the living room and stare at it all night. I LOVE taller baseboards. We chose 5" base since we took the floors out and had more to cover! Oh darn...  ;)

So much cleaner and more finished-looking!

We also started to set up our bed frame. I really need to change the bulbs in our room. So dim!

I hung this 'ol thing up tonight. I'm still not 100% on it in that spot. i just don't know where else to put it. What do you think?

I can't wait to move more in this weekend! I'm ready to make this a home!

More updates coming soon! I already have a couple of projects in the works.   

Stained Concrete. The Mother of all Projects.

HI! Let's talk about stained concrete floors, shall we? I feel like so many people don't understand when I tell them I'm staining my concrete slab.  "Huh? No carpet? No tile? You're dumb. What a dumb idea." Arg, you don't understand. You've seen stained concrete a million times you just haven't noticed it.  Well, if this is your first time hearing about it, GOOGLE "stained concrete" right now (GO! DO IT!) and come right back. Or there's the girl at Lowe's who told me that my "feet would hurt if I did that" because she has to walk around on it all day at work...As if I'd be rackin' up miles in my house for 8 hours a day.  And then there's some of the people that DO know about stained concrete: "I don't like that, that's ugly." WELL, YOU'RE ugly. (Not really, I just don't have a better comeback than that...)

I LOVE stained concrete.  I HATE carpet.  Stained concrete is modern, clean, easy to maintain, and just looks freakin' cool, industrial, and urban.  Whatever it is, I just totally dig the look of it.  Don't think my house is going to be all cold and morgue-y (yeah, it's a word now).  I'm going to have an area rug in the living room.  There are so many different looks and designs you can do with stained concrete.  However, I have my eye on a dark brown flooring color.  I really like the mottled, variegated look that acid staining gives.   I have been researching stained concrete for a solid two months.  I was originally going to do acid stain but after we found out what our flooring looked like, and weighing the pros and cons, I decided on a water-based stain instead.  It's also safer AND less expensive so that's a plus.  It won't make me go blind OR broke.

The thing about staining concrete is the PREP WORK.  It's all about the prep.  What a JOY that was.

Scotty and Dad worked hard at the house while I did some makeup for a wedding on Saturday. They started by pulling up that laminate flooring:

What they found underneath was not just carpet glue like we had originally thought from pulling up a small piece of flooring.  This is WET paint.  They painted and just laid the flooring right down over it, probably thinking it would dry.  Who knows how long it's been like that.  This gives us a whole new obstacle to deal with.  'DOH!

Oh yeah, and TACK STRIPS ARE THE DEVIL.  They are very difficult to remove from the concrete and they leave some lovely HOLES too.  They are all around the room like a charming polka-dot border.  See what I did there? I'm looking on the bright side!

Son of a paint-stain!  Ok, let's get this crap off.  Contractors don't take care of the slab because normal people like to cover it up with carpet or hardwood flooring.  Also, this house was built 10+ years ago before it was cool to do residential interior concrete staining. Looks like they sprayed the doors (and the walls) and the overspray is just chillin' on my floor. There are a couple thin cracks, which I'm fine with, it'll give it character. We just need to get it clean. The living room looks like this:

We went down to Rental Guys and got this concrete grinder.  Let's do some damage.

We want the floor nice and clean and porous in order to accept the stain.  The blade on the bottom didn't cover a ton of area at once so this was a very time consuming process.  We also had to apply pressure so it was a good workout too.

It's getting clean! Look at the difference! 

A few hours into it, we didn't think the paint was coming off as easily as it should have been.  Here I am brushing on paint stripper.  This loosened it up just a little and the grinder was able to get a little more.

Being an innovative thinker.  Small spaces, small person, no big deal.

A huge improvement in the living room.  

Dad was able to use a handheld grinder to get everything else the rented machine didn't get like corners, edges, stubborn paint stains, etc.

Before we left tonight, we scrubbed the floor with hot water and a stiff brush (there was concrete dust EVERYWHERE) then shop-vacuumed it up. Dad and I working together to get everything so clean!

I wanted to do a sample test just in case I discovered that the concrete wouldn't accept the stain and I'd have to eat the money I spent on it.  I think I paid $7.50 for a little sample bottle.  It's meant to be diluted and actually goes a long way.  For the test, I just mixed it in a spray bottle to apply.  However, when we apply the stain to the whole house, we will use a plastic pump sprayer.  I tested it out in my closet, so it would be hidden in case it sucks.

I DIG IT.  I sprayed it on, looked at it for a minute, then turned around and threw my arms around Scotty.  He didn't understand but accepted it anyway.  I was just SO happy that it worked.  These are transparent stains and I like that you can see the concrete underneath. It gives it that mottled look that I like.  I did get a darker color to give it even more contrast. I mixed it up and sprayed that on over the "Milk Chocolate" brown.

Obviously my spray bottle was being dumb and dripping spots all over the place but it actually looks kind of cool, like more textured and stoney.  This is not what it will look like when we are finished.  We are going to apply a glossy sealer to it.  But I am REALLY happy with it so far and I can't wait to see what it looks like with baseboards put in.  We are getting close! Stay tuned for the end result! :)

*THE FINAL RESULT WITH THE SEALANT AND THE BASEBOARDS CAN BE FOUND IN THIS POST HERE.  

Kitchen Cabinet Update

Well THAT was more of a pain in my rump project than I expected.  When we had all the cabinet doors laying out on the driveway, one of our friendly new neighbors came by to check it out.  "I've been wanting to do that to mine", he said.  The deeper we got into the project, the more we kept yelling toward Friendly Neighbor's house, "DON'T DOOOO ITTTTTTT!"  I really thought I'd just be able to sand those dummy cabinets down and just start painting with my paint + primer in one.  Who's the dummy now?  The wood grain was too freakin' smooth, the paint just slid off.  FINE.  We go to the store to get a REAL primer. Happy? Spray primer on, and still have to paint 2 coats on.  I don't like how many steps there are here. And WAITING. Waiting really blows.  DRY! DRY! DRY!

However, they are done.  It took FOUR days but they are finished.  Want to see?  Of course you do!

Cabinets before:

Cabinets After (Covered in dust since we started the floors when this was taken...next post!):

Calm down, the wood we didn't paint won't be seen with our stove, fridge, and baseboards in there.

So we were going to go the all stainless steel look with appliances but since the microwave and stove were already white, and are perfectly fine, I can't bring myself to just replace them on aesthetics alone.  Paying close to $5k just to change everything to stainless?  That's just getting too crazy.  I can live with white appliances and dark cabinets.  I talked myself into it by Googling "white appliances with dark cabinets" to get a feel for how it might look and I didn't mind it. (Yeah, I Google everything.)  It kind of keeps it bright and will match all of the white trim.  I'm going with it.  I hope you are too. Oh you don't want to? Well there is a saying we have in our family:  "You can't see it from YOUR house."

I really think we could have painted these cabinets purple and it would have looked better than before.  Maybe you liked them before, but looking at them makes me do this:   : |     also, this: : /    
Those are faces, by the way, if you're confused or aren't familiar with DIY emoticons...

More dusty cabinets:

Instead of putting a tiled backsplash up there just yet, I'm trying this on for size.  There are damage-free hanging hooks on it just in case I think it sucks later.  On this amazing blog that I love, I saw this idea of putting a full length mirror horizontally behind the counter.  If you love to be (or aspire to be) super duper organized, this woman's blog will blow your mind.  I nearly drool when I see some of the things she does.  It just makes my brain very happy.

That bar area will be great for sweet food and drink buffets at parties, don't you think? ;)  I'm already picturing it with delicious snacks and cheese plates and bounties of fruit and crudites and a cocktail station and---... Droooooool.  I know I say "drool" a lot but I really do drool.  It must be my big teeth.

I really like the color and the way they turned out.  A couple of them may need a little touching up but that will be simple and I can do that later.  I thought these cabinets were a thorn in my side but stay tuned for the most labor intensive project yet: THE FLOORS.

Thanks for reading! :)