Kitchen Reno Part Deux

See? I haven't forgotten you! I promised you a photo of my new hard hat, and here it is!

This is my first ever selfie!

Ok, so no, I haven't been without a kitchen sink for months. But my kitchen was far from finished. Now it's finished, and you can see it.

So. First thing I did was cut my butcher block to length, and cut a big ol' hole in it for the sink. I tried free handing this by dropping in a circular saw. That was a mistake. 

I ended up cleaning up the edges by using a fence to guide the edge of my circular saw. My undercounted sink is held in place with some clips and some heavy duty wood screws (since my countertop is wood.) 

I don't have any pictures of this part because... let's just say that emotions were running high that day. 

Next I needed to drill a hole through the counter for the sink. Which I did. Now my faucet was purchased online for a grand total of $38 bucks. Comparable models were about $200. It came from overseas and all the directions were in Chinese. So that was exciting. It's a good thing I'm handy. When we initially attached the faucet, we found that the countertop was so thick, that there wasn't room for the hardware to attach properly.

Does not fit.

Notice how the nut in the front is not fully on the bolt. So the solution was to carve out some space for that little metal flange thingy to sit below the bottom surface of the counter. I drew a circle around the flange and used a forester bit to carve out the surface about an inch down. This would not show from the top side. 

I smoothed the edges with my chisel, another Christmas present. Then we reassembled. And it fit!

Trust me, it's supposed to look like that. 

Now we flip the counter over, tighten everything up, and check for leaks! And we take it off again, and find the nut that the Chinese directions clearly pointed out that we should tighten, that we completely missed, flip it back over, tighten everything up, and check for leaks again! And it works! So I screwed the countertop down from below.

Yay for running water!

Then we cut the rest of the butcher block for the other counters and the window sill. I spread lots and lots of mineral oil onto the wood, and let it soak in, for a beautiful shiny, protected countertop.

Miles of counter space!

Then I attached the backsplash. This was literally as easy as using tin snips to cut the plastic to size, and sticking it to the wall with adhesive. It looks like pressed tin, but it's really just plastic.

After that, it's just a few paint touch ups, a little trim, a few quirky touches, and BOOM! Hello dream kitchen.

This is the same trim as on the cabinet - to cover an ugly place where the wall meets the backsplash.

What's a dream kitchen without an appropriately disturbing knife block?

Total costs ran me about $1200. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Kitchen reno part 1

So. I'm a teacher nine months out of the year. And I can tell you for certain that teachers do not get Christmas bonuses. It just isn't done. Heck, teachers don't get promotions, or raises. In the current political climate, we're lucky to get a cost of living increase. What's more likely to happen is that our insurance premiums go up, our salary stays the same, and we effectively get a pay cut. But, it does on occasion happen, that the school board recognizes that we haven't gotten a pay raise in, oh say, this lifetime, and they realize that that just kind of sucks. And though they'd like to give us a raise, even if they have the money, they don't. Because they aren't sure they can maintain that rate of pay next year. So when they've been to church and heard a particularly guilt inducing sermon, and Jiminy Cricket is chirping on their shoulder, a Christmas miracle happens. And we get a Christmas bonus.

Listen to the cricket people.

And so begins a kitchen renovation that I have been wanting to do since I moved into my house. I purchased beautiful butcher block countertops, a new faucet, and a new sink. My beautiful family and  friends, well aware of the task I was undertaking, gifted me with a grand total of $200 in gift certificates to my local big box hardware store, which just covered the sink. Since I didn't order it until Christmas day, I'm pretty sure it's in Pennsylvania as I type this blog. But fear not gentle reader! It is on its way.

I wanted to expand my counter space. So I started by building some custom cabinetry to support the countertop out of scrap wood. Apart from the dowels and the trim, everything else was scrap from either my house or my parents. 

Step one! I needed something akin to a table leg, but with a bit more pizazz. When my house was built it had this funny little half wall to separate the entry way from the living room. Three large turned posts were installed between the top of the half wall and the ceiling to give it an architectural detail that screamed "Mid 60's." Some previous owner ripped them out and put them in the attic. 

This has been languishing with the Christmas decor and the insulation for years!

Well it was exactly an inch too short. It also had some wicked damage from the not so gentle handlings of whoever pulled it from it's original home. So I grabbed some leftover wood from my closet build.

Leftovers. Not green and fuzzy like the ones in the fridge though.

I pulled a Jesus, and made the leg one inch longer by building a box around the bottom of the leg, hiding the damage. I threw on some quarter round along the base that was leftover from my intense battle with shoe moulding in the closet, and painted the whole thing blue.

According to the Rehab Addict show I just watched on Hulu, this is called "sistering in" the post. I had no idea that I saw her do this ages ago and subconsciously stole the idea. Thanks Nicole.

And I thought I took a picture at this point. 

Apparently I didn't.

So. Moving on. I taped down some craft paper in my kitchen, along all the shoe moulding, took all the doors off of the bottom cabinets, sanded everything, and wiped it down carefully.

Protect.

And then I set up my crock pot, electric griddle, paper plates, plastic cups, plastic cutlery, tons of shelf stable food like bread and peanut butter, and prepared to be unable to use my kitchen for a while. I protected my kitchen table with one of those vinyl on one side felt on the other red checked picnic tablecloths.

And serve. 

And then I painted. Somehow painting everything blue really did make my horrible countertops look even worse. I really can't believe I lived with urine yellow counters for that long. 

It's so empty in here. Almost like I'm moving. 

At this point, I cleaned up and threw a Christmas party. And then Santa came and brought me gift cards. And I ordered a sink. 

And then I started demo. I tore off the counters on the stove side of the kitchen, and begun building the cabinetry to extend the countertop.  The shelf is a piece of scrap from my dad's house. All the one by twos are from his scrap pile. All of the facings are scrap from his pile or mine. I started by building a shelf, with cleats on three corners.

Cleats! Not for baseball though. 

 I created a facing for the front and the back that was L shaped, and then drilled holes in the tops.

Those are the tops. Yes they are. 

The fourth corner of my shelf was held up by the neat little leg doodad that I had made. We cut a curve in the shelf and a slot in the doodad, and slipped it in. Then I crammed a shim or two in the slot to make sure it was good and tight, and not going anywhere. This is an idea I got from watching Rehab Addict. Thanks Nicole. And btw HGTV didn't pay me to write this. But they should.

Before paint and trim

I used some dowels and the L shaped facings to create a neat area for vertical storage of things like cutting boards and cookie sheets. Plus it's got this adorable trim that I left stained instead of painting it for a little pop of personality. 

Pop!

I added a set of dowels in the middle because this cabinet is deeper than most of my cookie sheets.

Three levels of dowel security.

So here we are, waiting for my sink to arrive, so that we can cut some countertops and get stuff installed. If you had told me that I would get a Christmas bonus in October, I would have told you you were insane. Even after we got the email about it, we didn't believe it until we had wandered into each other's classrooms comparing notes on said email and run into someone who had spoken to an administrator. It's a Christmas miracle. But I still have a lot of work to do. Let's see if we can bring in this project on time and under budget!

Let's all try to help a little cause, even a miracle needs a hand!

Oh yeah, did I mention I got a neon pink hard had with Handy Mandy in silver glitter on it for Christmas? That happened. Tune in next time for pics.

Closeted

Closets in houses built in 1965 are small. Frankly I have no idea how they expected a man and a woman to share the master closet in my house and have any measure of marital bliss. I as a single person had filled it to capacity all on my own. If I had to share it with my boyfriend, well, it would not be a pretty sight. So out of curiosity I went to some online closet organization something or other, and put in my closet measurements. Here's what I designed.

I'm overpriced!

This was on the order of $300. Which is ridiculous.  Plus it looks totally flimsy. So. I decided to build my own. I started by building a shelf unit. 

This took me a weekend.

It's very sturdy, and I bolted it to the wall, making sure I went into a stud for good measure. Small children could reasonably climb up the shelves to look for their Christmas presents without it toppling.  Not that... I ever did that... or anything.

Moving on. 

Next, I cut the existing bar into two pieces and installed it at the appropriate height for the top bar.  I turned the sagging bar so that it was arching up, instead of sagging down. Then I held it firmly in place and screwed it into the shelf brace so it would be straight. Ok, I had help. My big strong manly boyfriend operated the power drill while I used my wimpy girl muscles to hold the bar.

There's a block of wood to secure the bar to, because there's not a stud there. 

Next I installed a newly purchased lower bar high enough that clothing won't drag on the floor, but low enough that clothing from the top bar won't drag on the bar. My bars aren't quite at standard heights, because my shelving unit is only 6 ft high. 

Yes. I have out my drill and my impact driver. I'm too lazy to change bits every two seconds.

The bar sits just below the shelf. Total coincidence. 

And then I had the big stuff done.

Yay! Time for clothing!

Except the shoe moulding. I had removed all the baseboards and quarter round to get the shelving unit right up against the wall. Now I cut the baseboards to fit right up against the sides of the unit. I cut the quarter round on a miter so that I could fit it around the shelving unit. When the quarter round goes all the around the unit it looks really cool and built in. 

Like it's been there forever!

And voila! It's all done. I tried to get you guys good photos, but it's really hard to take photos in a closet.

I doubled my hanging space! Huzzah!

TV stand, Take 2

Remember when I made that TV stand? You know, this one?

She saved me!

And I said it was too small? Well, I always had this bigger piece in mind. It's a dresser that i got from my grandmother's house. It was sitting in the garage under various odds and ends. So I drug it home and took it apart. No reason something like that shouldn't be put to good use.

Where are we? I've been in that dusty garage for so long - oh, we're in… another garage?

Then I proceeded to sand every surface down to the bare wood, discard two of the drawers (not really, they're going to become bookshelves) and make a huge pile of sawdust. This piece was excellent quality and really in good shape, so I decided to stain most of it.

Notice the huge piles of sawdust on the floor? Got tracked all through the house too. 

I got a can of navy blue spray paint at Bart's Barn, and took a crack at the hardware with it. It ended up looking kind of black in the pictures, but it's a gorgeous deep navy blue. Trust me on this. And then I painted the uprights and the shelves mustard yellow. Insert shelves, drill a hole for cords in the back and Voila! TV stand.

Ready for movie duty, sir!

Here, have a cute picture of my furry sidekick for good measure.

I've pretty much finished up my closet makeover. I'll try to get that one on the books soon. For my next trick, I will do a kitchen makeover for under $1000. Hopefully. Here's a teaser trailer. 

Look it's a plan! She's finally learned to make plans and not just design in her head!

Laundry Day

Ok, ok, I know.  I fall off the face of the Earth and all of my adoring readers are out there wondering if I've stopped blogging or if I'm dead or if I've moved to a foreign country, and then I come back with a telephone table out of the blue with no explanation. Well I'm sorry. The truth of the matter is that I have 4 jobs and I'm going to grad school and am busier than a one armed paper hanger.

Plus I went to Disney World with my bestie. So I didn't have a lot of time for handying this summer.

Now that I'm back and hunkering down for the winter, the handying can commence once more. My next project came to be due to two little changes. Change number 1 is the weather. Part of hunkering down for the winter involved getting out my sweaters. I have hypothyroidism, and as a result, tend to be cold unless it's 80 degrees outside. Good thing I live in Texas right? So after the first cold snap of the season I can be seen sporting various sweaters and cardigans. Which really shouldn't be put in the dryer. My previous solution was to hang my sweaters on my dining room chairs. Which brings me to my next small change.  I have acquired a room mate. 

Isn't she the cutest thing?

So my previously private space of the dining room became a shared space. Plus, I always hate hauling my laundry through the house. So I decided to make a clothes rack. Insert inspiration photo from pintrest here.

Source:http://i.imgur.com/UGKf6.jpg
If anyone knows the original source, let me know.

Ok, so we start with a trip to (you guessed it) Bart's Barn. Here we find some scrap 1x2 for he frame. Then we head to the big box hardware store for some dowels and hardware. Then we're off to dad's scrap pile where we find the faux paneling plywood for the backing. Everything gets cut to the appropriate dimensions and corners are mitered. I use my dad's drill press to drill holes about halfway through the frame.

Yay power tools!

Next, paint. I went with gray for the front, and purple for the back.  I had a can of purple paint in mind, and I got home and remembered I'd used the last of it painting something else. So I pulled out what I did have. And I was trying to choose between red and blue. At this point I smacked myself in the head, mixed the two and carried on with purple.

 Painting dowels is... challenging to say the least. So what I did was go ahead and glue the dowels in on one side only. They were all a fairly tight fit, so it wasn't difficult to get them to stand upright. Then I clamped the side of the rack to my picnic table bench, and went to town with my gray paint. 

And I can't think of anything informative or witty for this caption.

I used my corner clamps and some finishing nails to complete the frame around the dowels, adding glue in all of the holes for the dowels.

If it looks like a ladder, you're doing it right.

Then I added all the hardware. I used the magnetic latches for cabinets to keep it up when not in use. The rest is just d-rings, chain, and hinges.

Composite shot!

To hang it on the wall, I put up a cleat first, nice and level, to bear the weight of the thing, and so I wouldn't have to level the actual rack and hold it there while I drilled. I marked the studs in the wall, so I didn't have to mess with molly bolts, and got my roommate to hold it up while I just drilled four holes straight through to studs and screwed it in. Finished product shot!

Added bonus - it covers a hole in my drywall!

So now it hangs right next to my dryer, and I don't have to traipse through the house with wet clothes anymore! Huzzah!

Before and After - telephone table

Once upon a time, a magical device found it's way into each and every home in America. It allowed one to speak to people that were far away. It was large, clunky, and had to be plugged into the wall. It looked a little something like this.

That's called a rotary dial. You had to move it to make the numbers go.  Barbaric no?

And in the 50's, the golden age of expendable income and middle class families, people began to make whole pieces of furniture, just to put these devices on. They were called telephone tables. Some had a bench attached so that you could sit and gossip all day long about what the neighbors did this weekend. Some had drawers so that you could store things like a pen and paper for taking messages, (yes, there was a time before voicemail. Before the answering machine even. I've read about it in books.) phone books, (this was pre-google as well) important phone numbers, (before your phone remembered them for you) and the random odd or end. I found one such table in my grandmother's garage. It was very very sad, and it called to me to make it pretty again. 

Save me from the garage!

So, I cleaned it, and attempted to sand it down to the bare wood. I don't know if it was just shellacked to death or if 50 years of grease and grime got the better of me, but I ended up cleaning it, giving it a light sanding, and painting most of it simply because I couldn't get down to the bare wood. Either way, it looks pretty now, and is a handy place to store extra iPhone chargers, headphones, and the odd dog toy.

I shall never be obsolete!