AC vent covers

They're ugly.  They're filthy. They're difficult to clean.  And they're in almost everyone's house. These particular ones were in my mom's house. She's always hated them. So when I was a-pinteresting and I found this lovely picture below, I decided to do something about these.

Source

I think she cleaned hers before taking a picture.  I didn't. This is probably the first post I've ever done that didn't involve a single trip to Bart's Barn. I went to my local big box hardware store and found some decorative moulding, and some pretty sheet metal, and then I was off to a miter saw. 

This one's mine.  I inherited it.  

I always wear safety glasses and usually gloves when I operate a saw, because they are scary.  Not scared of a metal blade that could easily remove your fingers flying around at more than 100 miles per hour?  Then you're an idiot. Respect the flying blade of death, and it will do wonderful things to you.  Don't respect it, and it could do horrific things to you. Whilst I was cutting my moulding (yes I said whilst. Don't judge.) the blade snagged on an imperfection in the wood or something, and the wood sort of... exploded beneath my hand. I was too shaken up to take a picture, but splinters went flying all over my patio. I was wearing my gloves and eye protection, so I was fine, and I never operate my saw without someone nearby to call 911 if necessary, but I was pretty shaken.  I could feel the impact  in my hand half an hour later, not unlike when you get electrocuted, and you continue to buzz for a bit. (How do I know what getting electrocuted feels like?  That's another story.) So kiddies, always wear your safety gear, and respect the flying blade of death.

Long story short (too late) I cut my moulding to length and mitered the corners like a picture frame.

 

Now, I guinea pigged this project on my mom, and didn't get many pictures of her vents during the process.  For hers I used a bit of moulding with a simple bullnose on one side.  Mine were made from the lovely decorative moulding you see here. When you're mitering corners with moulding, it's important to make sure all the cuts are made with the decoration in mind.  Remember which edge is on the inside of the frame, and which is outside. If you need to, get a speed square and mark the cuts you're going to make before you make them.  And buy a little more wood than you need in case some of it explodes or you make the wrong cut. 

Next I glued the corners, and used my handy dandy corner clamps to keep them in place whilst (yes I did it again) the glue cured. 

I'm sure you could use some elaborate rig to replace the corner clamps, but they do make it easier. 

Then I cut the pretty metal into the right size with my tin snips.  Which have disappeared in the shuffle of the tools in the garage. I'm sure they're in the same dimension as my mom's lost keys. 

And painted my frames white.  I stained my mom's because she has this thing for stained wood. After pictures to come!

Now we attach the metal to the frame.  There are several ways to do this. At my mother's suggestion, we duct taped her metal to her frames. After all, we were about to screw it into the wall, and that would hold up the metal nicely.  If I was going to go with tape again, I would use double sided tape instead.  We didn't get good stickage with the duct tape, mainly because there wasn't enough wood to get a grip on. But as she predicted, when we screwed it to the wall it held just fine.  For mine, however, I went with tiny screws.  I think they're 1/4 inch screws. I put one screw in each corner of the metal. That gave me a nice firm grip I knew wasn't going anywhere. 

Mom wanted hers to be removable, so I screwed them into the wall by drilling two holes through the frame, and then just using the screws from the previous returns. 

Mine, well I figure I've lived here five and a half years without ever needing to take the returns off except when I painted.  I already painted. I'm not doing it again any time soon. So I finish nailed those suckers into place. 

Tada!

Now.  That metal is not cheap. In fact it's rather on the pricey side.  But I LOVE the way this little detail makes my home look just a little bit classier. Like a nice necklace turns a pair of slacks and a blouse into an outfit. My ex boyfriend thought they were a waste of time and money.  One of many reasons he's my ex boyfriend.  What do you think?

Garage Overhaul - Phase 1

I have a one car garage.  I have one car.  Oddly enough, I insist on my car being able to fit in my garage.  Call me crazy, but I've got this insane idea that that's what garages are for. But a girl has to have a place to be handy too, so my little garage does double duty. Here's a pic of what it looked like this morning.

I am so ashamed right now.

I can't even begin to describe what a mess this place was just a few short hours ago. Valuable work bench real estate is rendered inaccessible because it's under the cabinet on the wall. Stuff is EVERYWHERE. I can't get to the stuff in the corner. And this is definitely not a safe place for my unmentionables. 

So I devised a plan. A serious rearranging.  I wanted to make a counter that would sit between my washer and dryer. And I was off to Bart's Barn.  I bought a couple of pine shelves that had been painted, and obviously had a hard life.  One of them had a very clear iron burn on it. I also bought a piece of scrap two by three - I think.  I spent less than $5 on all this plus some very pretty trim that you will see in a future post.  Seriously this entire build cost less than ten bucks.  Go me. Step one, cut two by three into short lengths. 

The short piece is scrap. I'll find a home for it later. 

At this point I backed car out of garage, and moved everything. Appliances and workbenches and cabinetry got new homes.  Let me tell you, that cabinet is HEAVY. When I was done, I was drenched in sweat.  In a wring out your shirt kind of way.  Not very lady-like. So I decided to rest, eat, and sit in the AC for a while. Before I could construct my new counter, I had to measure the space between the washer and dryer now that I'd got them in position, and cut shelves to length. Then I laid out the counter in a dry fit. 

And marked the holes for the L brackets, and drilled them in place.

Nest, I applied lots of glue and screwed the cleat to the shelves, with L brackets attached. I thought I was done.  I plopped the counter between the washer and dryer, and realized that the metal brackets on the metal washer and dryer were going to rub against each other as my washer and dryer wriggled and vibrated  in spin cycles and what not. So, I applied some newly rediscovered weather stripping to the underside of the brackets as cushioning.  (I found so much stuff I forgot I had today.) Perfect fit!

Then I slid the counter back in place. 

The next few hours were spend sweeping, throwing away stuff I didn't need, and replacing things in the cabinet. My garage feels so spacious now!

You can't see it, but under the counter is a nifty place for a trash can and my step stool. I also have a space heater in there for the cold months.  

I'm disproportionally happy about the extension cord I mounted on the wall.  Power!

Ok, so it's not exactly pretty. I'm working on it ok?  It's functional!  Might I remind you what it looked like this morning?

And the most important detail of all, my car still fits!

Re-reading this post makes this seem like a quick and easy project. It was not.  It took all day, I'm dirtier than I've been in months, and my feet feel like they're going to fall off.  But it was totally worth it. I'm going to go shower now. 

Mothers' Day

This post does not have any how to's.  It doesn't have fancy pictures.  It is about my mother, whom I love.

My mother taught me how to learn.  She taught me to question, to explore, to look it up.  She taught me to be creative, and to take risks (although I bet she wishes she hadn't.) She taught me that other people have reasons for the things they do.  She taught me empathy, and kindness.  She tried to teach me to sew, and wear pink, and do my hair, and be girly.  But those were things I guess I had to figure out myself.

When she was 18 years old, my mom left home to be married to my father, who was in the Navy.  She moved across the country and lived in Virginia and Maine. She knew no one there but my father.  I would have been terrified. She did this with no computers, no skype, no cell phone, no google maps. Long distance phone calls were so expensive, she couldn't even afford to call her mom for advice when things went wrong. She relied on her own gumption and the kindness of strangers. My mother is courageous.

When she came back to Texas, she completed a bachelors degree, even though no one expected her to need one. She rode a bus for an hour each way to get to class. She struggled through wanting a child, and being unable to have one, while her friends were busy becoming mothers. She became pregnant, and still she rode that bus, an hour each way, to and from school. My mother is tenacious.

When I was very very little, my mother started a program to video tape the sermons at her church and broadcast them on the local cable channel.  In the 1980's. When no one else was doing this yet. She picked up cameras, hauled them to church, set them up, edited the tape, and returned them to the cable station, with help from a few friends. Eventually someone else took over the project, and everyone seemed to forget that it was my mom that started it all.  Now every church has a program like this. My mother is innovative.

When I was 4 my mother began working at my pre-school.  She worked their for 19 years, teaching 4 year olds.  My mother is patient.

She developed curriculum from nothing, and worked with very little resources to come up with art projects and lesson plans for these 4 year olds.  My mother is creative.

When I went to elementary school, my mother began a computer lab at my old pre-school, to teach 3, 4, and 5 year olds computer skills like how to use a mouse, and how to type.  It helped them recognize letters and numbers, and helped with their fine motor skills.  Her learning objectives were nearly identical to the technology TEKS that were developed by the state of Texas, about 5 years later. My mother is ingenious.

Three weeks ago, I called my mom to inform her that I was having an appraisal done and I needed to work on my curb appeal.  I called her on a Saturday at 2 pm.  By 4 pm she was at my house - an hour from hers - with a tray of pansies and a can do attitude.  I didn't even have to ask.  We worked until about 9 that night.  She was back the next afternoon with an edger and my father to help. The next weekend, she was here with a tree and a shovel. She gave up two weekends to help me make my house look pretty. My mother is kind.

My mother is all these things and more.  She will deny it, but she is beautiful. And I am proud of her.

Happy Mothers' Day mom.

Operation Yard Overhaul

As of May 28th, I will have been living in my house for exactly five years and six months.  Five years ago, when I was but a wee lass, interest rates were hovering around 6%.  I got a fantastic deal.  For the time. Now, interest rates are quite a bit lower, and my fantastic deal doesn't look so fantastic anymore. Hence, refinancing.

After a brief visit with my friendly neighborhood credit union representative, I was rolling right along with the process of a refinance. Part of the process involves an appraisal.  Meaning someone is going to come look at my house and tell me what it's worth. I shall be judged. So, I decided to put a little bit of money and a lot of effort into making my house look it's very best for the nice people from the bank.

Step one, mow.  And edge. And weed-eat. That part was relatively simple.

Grow little tree!

Step two, plant a tree, and some flowers.  The tree was a present from my mom, and was totally on sale for $7.50.  Way to score a deal mom! She also brought me some pansies.  I think they're the purple ones.  My thumb isn't green.  It's usually orange or red, or whatever color I'm painting with at the moment.

Step three, mulch everything. Step four, create seating area under the smurf-brella, as my bestie calls it. Remember?  It was my first post.

Take smurfbrella, add chairs and a stool. 

Become dissatisfied with paint scheme and improve. 

Step 5 paint front door. This sounds really simple.  It wasn't. First, I had to get the bloody thing off it's hinges. I did this with a flat head screwdriver, a hammer, and an extra set of hands.  I carefully tapped the pins out of the hinges.

Carefully. Working in a corner is hard, and my thumbs are delicate.

Then I got it on the sawhorses, took out dozens of screws, a set of blinds, and three locks,  and examined the damage. My front door sadly looks awful. You can tell it was probably pried open with a flat crowbar at some point in it's life.  Hence the decade old alarm permit that I peeled off with a razor blade and the three weird mismatched locks that give it a decidedly paranoid feel.

And then we sand.  I needed to get a good "tooth" so that the paint would stick, not sand down to the bare wood.

I heart my detail sander.

Next, we clean. We have to get every bit of dust off the door. This is definitely not the fun part.

Then we tape off anything we don't want painted, and paint.  I taped off the windows, and painted everything but the triangular sections a nice boring beige. Then I taped off the flat parts of the door, and painted the triangular sections a rust red that matches the exterior of my house.  Gives it a nice "pop."

Here's a how to for you, to help you tape off corners without those little tabs of tape ruining your edges. 

Then came the painstaking process of hanging the door back on it's hinges and re-attaching all the paranoid hardware. During which I was too busy cursing and pinching my fingers to take pictures.  Sorry.

And voila!  It almost looks as good as a new door!  Almost.

Step 6, throw a barbecue!

Thrift Shopping

Denton has about a dozen thrift shops in town, benefiting various charitable causes.

Twelve.  Count 'em.

 I tend to frequent these thrift shops as a matter of habit because a. I be poor, and b. things be cheap. And it just so happens that I was shopping for a new TV console.  I'm usually all about the new gadgets and gizmos, but I've yet to replace my sad 1990's TV.  Partly because it still works just fine, and why bother spending a fortune on a flat paneled doohickey when I've got something functional, but mostly because my TV stand was made to accommodate the old school square model TV, and not the newer rectangular version. HDTVs have an aspect ratio of 9:16, and since TVs are measured on the diagonal, some complicated math that you care nothing about tells me that I can't have a TV bigger than 22 inches.  Some more complicated math tells me that this would actually give me less screen space, and though the diagonal measurement is actually bigger, the area of the screen is smaller than my current TV.  All this to say, if I want a new TV, I need a new TV stand. So I went a pinteresting. Here's what I found.

Source:Darling Doodles Design

I wanted to go with something fairly similar to this, with an open table top and storage underneath. Hence, thrift shopping. In my third shop, which supports a local women's shelter, I found this lovely low dresser with two drawers. It was literally falling apart.

It really doesn't look like much, does it?

The shop manager told me that I could have it for any donation.  Naturally, I asked "So you mean, I could give you fifty cents, and you'd let me haul it off?"  I got a hesitant affirmative, and ended up giving the man what I had floating around my purse in ones.  $7. After it fell to pieces in my car, I began reconsidering the wisdom of my purchase.

I painstakingly pulled the dresser apart, bit by bit, glued, clamped and finish-nailed it back to something near it's original sturdiness.  I cut a piece of plywood for the shelf and did a dry fit.

Then I got to sand it down with my brand new Ryobi sander.  I like Ryobi tools because they're generally light weight and easy to handle, and I have small girly hands, even when they're covered in paint and sawdust. And no, Ryobi didn't pay me to say so.

Anyone notice how much I use blue?

Then, I commenced to taping over the stiles and the drawer front.  The stiles are solid wood, and the drawer front is veneer. But it's pretty veneer, and in good shape, so I decided to keep it. Everything else got a couple of coats of blue, inside and out.  This included the plywood that was to become the shelf, and the table top.  I wanted to stain the table top, but it had been horribly repaired by someone not quite as handy as me at one point, and really was beyond repair. Next came staining what was left a dark color to match the drawer front. Original drawer pulls got a nice red coat of paint. I didn't prime the drawer pulls first, and only used one coat of paint, which gave the effect of almost a red glaze. You can see the wood grain through the paint, which I particularly like.  Next I had to drill a large hole in the back of the dresser for the cords to come through.  I put everything back together, glueing the shelf in place, and polyurethaned the whole shebang. Ta-da! Finished product.

And actually, I found a dresser that fits the space even better at my grandmother's house, which is getting the TV console treatment soon, so this beauty is available for sale at my etsy store.

Let There Be Light!

My garage is not a pretty place.  There are all kinds of paint splashes on the floor, and tools hung on the wall. The drywall needs patching, and one wall isn't even taped and bedded - yet. But my friends, I have a dream, that one day, my garage shall be judged not by the projects that have been created there, but by it's own merit.  That's right, someday soon, my garage will be not only functional, but beautiful. And insulated.

It being January, when I was painting my brand spanking new kitchen cart, I was doing it in the comfort of my garage.  By comfort I mean it was about ten degrees warmer than it was outdoors, and I was at least dry and out of the wind. But that was nothing compared to my lack of lighting. My garage was lit with one bare bulb in a ceramic socket.  What's more the light fixture is very near the door into the house, so one whole half of my garage was shadowy.  This does not make for good working conditions when you're painting. So I ended up hitting my garage door opener button every 3 minutes to get the light to come back on. You can imagine this caused some frustration on my part.  I vowed to replace my single bulb with something more... Well, more.  And so the journey to Bart's Barn began.

When I was a pre-teen, my mother relented and let me have a two piece bathing suit.  When we went shopping for one, I had an image in my head of the perfect black bikini, and I was on a mission to find it. After an exhausting afternoon and a dozen stores, we did find a bikini for me.  It was not black.  I was sorely disappointed, and never noticed how awesome I looked in my new suit. From then on, whenever I've headed to a store with something I want already pictured in my mind, I've said I'm looking for the black bikini.  This does not work at Bart's Barn. I had in my head a god-awful brass chandelier.  Yes.  A chandelier.  In my garage.  No I'm not crazy, I'm a genius.  Didn't you get that memo?  Of course I was going to spray paint it.  I had orange in mind, but I might have switched to yellow at the last moment.  I was looking for something like this.

I did not find something like that. Instead I fell in love with something else. And I couldn't bear to paint it, not even orange.  Meet my new chandelier. 

Ok, I am going to tell you how I went about installing this beauty.  If I inspire you to buy your own chandelier for your garage, and install it, and you somehow get your fool self electrocuted, I am not liable. So don't come suing me.  I'm broke anyhow. 

First, I opened the garage door, to get some light in there. Then I turned on my bare bulb.  I had a buddy switch off circuit breakers one by one until the light went out. I took the further precaution of then switching off the bare bulb.  I unscrewed the light bulb, and the porcelain socket, and gently pulled it away from the ceiling. After removing the wire nuts, I took my volt-o-meter and tested that there was indeed no significant electricity running through the wires. 

I'm here for your protection.

Now this may sound a bit like overkill, but I did not want to end up looking like Crazy Harry. You know, this guy.

When I had done all that, I decided it was safe to untwist the wires of the porcelain socket and remove it.  Now I had a big gaping hole in my ceiling. 

I was careful to remember which wires had been twisted together, and which hadn't.   Now it was time to get my swag on. I wanted to swag my chandelier so that instead of being right in front of the door, the light would be more centered. Which means that I needed a hook, and a joist. I have no shortage of hooks.  I don't know what was up with the previous owner of my home, but they had hooks all over the place in the ceiling.  Seriously, there are 3 in the ceiling of my powder room alone. 

I really hope these were for hanging plants.

So I unscrewed one from the living room, identical to the one that was holding another hanging light.  Logic says if it supports the weight of the hanging light in the living room, it can support the chandelier, right?  Well, it hasn't fallen yet.  Now I had a problem.  There wasn't a joist located in the ceiling anywhere near where I wanted to put my light.  So I cut a 2x4 to the width of the space between the joists, and nailed it in place up in the attic. And there is no way I'm showing you my attic. You seeing my garage is bad enough.  So you'll have to trust this very official drawing I did on the back of an envelope. 

Then I did a little power drilling, and hung the chandelier from the hook. Now it was time to wire.  The chandelier had two wires coming out of it.  My electrical box had two sets of wires in two wire nuts coming out of it.  I stripped the wires on the chandelier, twisted one wire from the chandelier to one set of wires in the wire box, and twisted a wire nut over everything. I did the same for the other wire, and screwed the bolt doohickey into the box where the porcelain socked had been.  And then the moment of truth.  I turned on the breaker.  And threw the switch!  Behold there was light, and it was good.  And then I crammed all the wires back in the electrical box and the light went out. So I got to turn off the power and retwist everything tighter.  I did that about three times before I successfully got the chandelier to work when everything was crammed back in the tiny electrical box. After that, I just had to screw the decorative housing over the bolt doohickey, and admire my handiwork.