Jenny Lind

My imaginary child thinks I should get this for his next little imaginary baby brother or sister.

Genius

So after agonizing over our broken fridge door and doing research for a new purchase, Keith came up with a great idea and "fixed" our fridge!

Fridge doors can open from right to left or left to right. You just have to unscrew the hinges and move them to the other side.

After we went to the Sears Outlet Scratch-n-Dent, a light bulb went off in Keith's head. Why not just move the hinges to the right side of the door? It's the left that is completely worn out.

We went home and he gave it a shot. It's missing a plastic washer which we will have to buy, but otherwise it works! No more holding the door with our knee while we open it! And we just saved ourselves $800-900!

Spring Blooms

The weather is fine and the flowers are a bloomin'! Last fall, I planted red tulips to match my red door and look how pretty it turned out.


There are red tulips bordering both sides of the steps.


Close up of the tulips. (The photo is really blown out, but it's a nice red in person.)


These are some different daffodils that I planted in the Fall. These are so adorable. There are 4 flower heads on one stem.


This daffodil has a double row of petals in two shades of yellow.


This is a peach colored daffodil which also has double sets of petals in two shades of peach. The flower head is a lot larger than the yellow ones too.

I spent a lot of time planning out my flowers so that there would be something blooming each month. The tulips and daffodils comes first. So do the muscari and our cherry blossom. Next fall, I may plant some crocus which can pop up even when there is still frost on the ground. I also picked out late blooming tulips (pink and sorbet colored ones) which will bloom soon, but last longer than the red ones. The irises and peonies are beginning to grow tall. They will bloom in about 3-4 weeks. So will the roses and dogwood tree. The day lilies will bloom all throughout the summer with a second showing on the roses. I divided my one cluster of day lilies into 8 bunches! Yes, EIGHT! I potted them and temporarily placed them where I plan on planting them. I also worked on the veggie beds in the back yard.

How did you spend your weekend?

Raised Garden Bed

Ladies and gents, it's that time of year again! We've moved out home improvements to the outside of our humble abode. If I'm scarce around these parts it's because I'm in the garden.

This weekend on Le Jardin, we'll show you how to build your very own raised garden bed.

We have a bathroon door!

The carpenter came over yesterday and spent the whole day working on it. He trimmed the door, cut and installed all the wood work needed for the opening, and hung the door. Keith installed the door knob and lock hardware.



From the inside.


More "During" photos to come...

How to Paint a 5-panel Door

Today, I painted the door I found in the attic for the half bathroom. We found a carpenter who would do all the door trim and hang the door for us. It works out and costs less than a brand new pre-hung door. Since he's coming tomorrow, I had to finish painting the door today. It's much easier to paint a door while it's down and with no hardware. MUCH easier!


Finished first coat.

For a How-To, use this from This Old House. I LOVE this tutorial!!!


First, clean the door with a damp rag and give it a light sanding. Get in all the crevices.


Using an angled paint brush, paint the "molding". Get in the corners and make sure you don't have any excess painting drips. You want the molding to be defined.


Using a small paint roller meant for doors, paint the "panel" (center rectangular piece) and then the "rails" (the horizontal panels).

Allow the rails to dry a bit before finishing by painting the "stiles" (the two vertical panels on each side). It sounds tedious and you might be wondering why bother? I learned from experience that the results are just better if you paint the door in this methodical manner. The stiles will camouflage any brush/roller marks made from painting the rails.

Maybe tomorrow we'll have a bathroom door! Yay!

The House That Got Away

Listing here.

I was browsing and stumbled upon this house. To my surprise it's up for sale! Keith and I put in a bid for this house when we were house hunting 3.5 years ago. I can't believe the price too. It was priced at $255K when we first saw it. It's only $239K now. I wonder why the owners are selling. The owners had a larger down payment than we had so we lost the house. I was so down when I found out. I loved the kitchen and living room. It was HUGE. I mean HUGE. And it had a garage and stamped patio.

Le sigh

Viva Las Vegas

Okay, so I know this has nothing to do with home improvements but just in case you were wondering, I was in Vegas doing this!



If the flowers look familiar to you it's because they were in my half bathroom! So it has a little to do with the house.

See more at Mariko's website or blog.

Half Bathroom: Cost Breakdown and Resource List

Here's the break down as requested. I budgeted $3,000 for it including labor. If we had done it all ourselves, I budgeted $1500 for materials. Also, a half bathroom like this will add $7,000 to the value of our home in this area.

Cost Breakdown:

Sink Vanity (includes granite counter top, sink & knobs)=$425 Lowe's
Faucet=$60 Lowe's
Toilet=$159 Lowe's
Mirror=$27 Ross
Roman blinds=$20 Home Depot

Door: Using the old one we found in attic

Floor tiles=$75 Lowe's
Grout=$13 Lowe's
Ceramic threshold=$25 Lowe's

4" Crown molding=4x$11 Lowe's
Crown molding corners=4x$5
8'x4' Bead board=6x$23
Chair rail=4x$7.50
6" Baseboard=4x$11

Gloss Paint in "Swan Wing" by Behr=$12 Home Depot
Semi-gloss paint in "Rejuvenate" (green) by Behr=leftover
Primer & Ceiling paint=leftover
Paint Brush=$8
Rollers=$10
Trays=2x$0.69
Spackle=leftover

Nails=$0.50 for a jar of long nails at a yard sale
Box of plastic anchors and screws (only need 2 to hang mirror)=$4
Electrical Outlets=3x$1.00
Outlet Covers=2x$0.65+$1.90
Ceiling light (we did this a while ago)=$10
Caulk=3x$3

Towel Rack=$10 Home Goods
Toilet paper rack=$10 Home Goods
Brown towels=2x$5 Ross
Green patterned towels=$4+$7 Home Goods
Glass pedestal jar=$1.99 on Clearance at Ross
Floor vase=$7.99 Ross
Silk ranunculus=3x$2.69 AC Moore

Things we used that I didn't include in the cost, but you would need if you had to do this yourself from scratch:

• caulk gun, drill, level, taper measure, ladder, spackel knife, spackle, sander (for spackle), nail gun, coping saw, flashlight, shop vacuum, brooms, rags, drop clothes, painter's tape, cleaning products, paper towels, mop.

Materials Cost: $1,156
Labor Cost: $1200 Plumber, $300 Tiler, $120 Electrician = $1620.
Accessories: $40.

TOTAL: $2,816 We just made it!

The tiler was obviously a splurge since we could have done it ourselves as we did the kitchen, but we have NO regrets. It was worth every penny spent and every minute saved! He also leveled the floor for us. The electrician was unexpected, but I guess necessary. His pricing was LOW. I googled plumbers. On HGTV, a girl paid $500 a few years ago. Another company my coworker uses quoted like $3000! Assuming a union worker gets $30/hr (which is low), he was here for 6 days which is $1440, we still made out. Wiki answers this question here. We also upped the ante with a better sink vanity. We could have gone with a cheaper stock cabinet for $200, but we really wanted this bathroom to have a better cabinet since it's the focal point and will be the main bathroom for guests.

My only issue is with the toilet. It's a good quality low flow toilet, but it has a PLASTIC seat cover and lid. I HATE plastic seats and lids. I just don't like them. I didn't think to look for that in the description before we bought it. It doesn't use a lot of water and the tank does fill up quickly. It's a little noisy in my opinion but it's brief so that's ok.

Any questions? So who's inspired to do their own bathroom now? Or did I just scare you away?

Half Bathroom: The Unveiling!

After 11 days, we are ready to unveil the new half bathroom! It's so surreal. We've been talking about doing this from day 1. This room was advertised to be a future half bathroom by the seller and it was always on our mind. For a while, we just didn't have the funds to do it but a second bathroom on the first floor of the house was so crucial.

Before we reveal the bathroom, let's revisit the before picture. I took this picture during our inspection of the house.


Before: Linoleum floors, wood paneling nailed over dry wall painted baby blue, beige colored molding and trim. Old cabinetry and particle board counter top. Curtains, need I say more?

....

Wait for it....

....

....

AFTER!


Picture from the same view.


Sink console, mirror and toilet


Accessories


Floors


Silk ranunculus


Bead board and trim


Basil likes it too.

I'll be back with a resource list.

Half Bathroom Day 10: Painting

After a long week at work, we got back on to the bathroom. I'm exhausted! There was so much intricate painting involved that my legs are incredibly sore now.


I started at night by "edging" with the paint. We used the leftover green paint from the dining room. I just like the color because it's soothing and warm.


After 1.5 coats of paint on the wall, I primed the chair rail and began painting the bead board.


We had a lot of leftover white paint (Behr's Swan Wing) in semi-gloss, so I used that on the bead board. To my surprise, the bead board took a lot of paint. Then I bought 1 quart of Swan Wing in high-gloss for the chair rail, crown molding and baseboard. We also want to use for the railing along the stair case since it gets so dirty. Gloss cleans easily and you really want to highlight your crown molding with glossy paint.


As I painted the wall, I found a lot of flaws in the spackle. There were holes made from air bubbles, some unevenness, bubbling of the tape, and cracks. After the paint dried, Keith went over all those spots. The wall looks like it's going through puberty with zits and Noxzema.
Once it dries and Keith sands again, I'll paint over it and touch up the edges.


Doesn't it look so much nicer? After 3 coats of paint, the bead board and chair rail really came together. Why 3 coats? The first coat was just to get the paint onto the bead board. I wanted to see if I could get away with one coat. I had to go over every single groove with a paint brush in order to get the paint into the groove. It looked really crappy otherwise. Then I had to go over it one more time to blend the brush strokes back in with the bead board and get an even look.

In other news, I bought hand towels, towel rack, toilet paper holder, and bamboo blinds for the window. We still haven't used the toilet yet but our neighbors' kids had no problem christening our toilet for us (yes, sans door)!

"Like to have"

I saw this "like to have" on Amazon's wish lists. It's a great way of saying, it's not a priority, but I would really appreciate it if I had this. That's how I feel about most of our home projects. There's always something getting in the way of the things I would like to have. There's always seems to be something we NEED to do that takes precedence. So I divided our to-do list in two:

To-Do List:

• New fridge $$$
  
• Half bathroom door $$$
  
• French drain in back and front of house $$
  
• Gutter guards (been on the list for 2 years now) $$
• New front door $$$ - I hate our front door. There's a large window in it. Who thought that was a good idea?
• New BBQ grill
  
• Pave a driveway $$$$
• Replace some windows
• New dryer
  

Like to Have List:

• New kitchen counter top $$$$
• Decorate the living room - new sofa sectional, 2 club chairs, console table, coffee table, and new rug. $$$$
• Tile the upstairs bathroom floor and around bath tub. $$$
  
• Replace bath tub. $$$
  
• Repaint/Replace bathroom vanity, mirror and shelf. $$-$$$
  
• Replace bathroom lighting. $$
  
• Build master closet for bedroom. $$$
• Finish the basement $$$$
• Replace the dining room & living room floor together $$$$

What are some things you wish you would "like to have"?

The Tale of Two Doors

So we have a little dilemma.

Tale #1 - We might not be able to use the door that I took out of the attic for the half bathroom. Pat the plumber says we're better off with a new door that is pre-hung. Currently, the opening has no door trim in it and it would be a pain to install it all. Plus the old door has no hardware on it. It has some but not all of it. We inquired about a new door. It would be a custom order because for one it's a narrow opening and two; it's a 5 panel door. If we got a regular hollow door with 4 panels or no panels, it would be around $100 or less. Since it's a custom door, it's $325! Not including hardware and installation. That was way more than we budgeted for.

Tale #2 - Our fridge door broke off. Yes, the door is completely detached from the refrigerator. It's so ghetto right now. We have to hold the door with our left knee while we try to squeeze items out of the fridge and then quickly push the door back on. We called SEARS and they quoted us $75 for the visit, $200 for labor and $400 for the door itself! That was way more than we paid for the new fridge!!! So now we need a new refrigerator. We were looking around and a new fridge with the lower freezer drawer is $1200+. The regular fridges like ours is around $400. We really like the lower freezer drawer, but that is just way too much $ for a fridge. This isn't our forever home anyway.

Now, we're just a little confused as to what to do first. We can't do both right now and we have a lot of other priorities on our plate. We can't do without a bathroom door and we can't do without a fridge either...should we try to use the old door or should we suck it up and buy a new pre-hung door?

Day 8 & 9: Crown molding & Caulk

Keith was on a roll on Day 8. He continued working on the last piece of bead board and trim. Then we went to Lowe's to pick up a few more things and decided to pick up crown molding while we were there. Since all the tools were out, we (meaning him) might as well do ALL the trim work now.


These were inside corners for crown molding. You don't need these, but it makes it easy if you aren't skilled in cutting the backward corners to make crown molding line up at the corners. They come with pre-drilled nail holes, so just drill the nail into those holes and into a stud.


The crown molding only needs straight cuts and they run right up to the side of the inside corner. Nail the crown molding along the bottom edge into a stud and the molding will automatically push up against the ceiling. Our ceilings and walls are uneven, so we had to put nails along the top too. Just be careful because putting nails along the top piece may split the molding (because the pattern is already so delicate there) Noticed how everything is very "raw" still. There are gaps and seams showing.


Tadaa! No more gaps or seams. Hubs spent the whole day caulking and filling nail holes. While he did that I went shopping for a mirror for the vanity and sowed some seeds for my garden.


Check out that mirror! $27 at Ross! 32" wide. Keith hung the mirror and then put the bead board trim up to the edge of the mirror. I think it's looking fabbuuuulous!

So now it's my turn! I have to paint the bead board, bead board trim, baseboards, and crown molding. Then I can decorate. We haven't gotten used to the bathroom yet. We still go upstairs to use the bathroom.

Half Bathroom Day 7: Bead Board some more

Keith continued working on the bead board today and even put the base board trim on. I think it looks great! The pine trim is the trim that fits over the bead board. We're going to paint that white and fill in all the seams with caulk. Currently, it still looks rough around the edges.


He still one more wall to do (not shown) and then he can caulk. After that I'm going to paint.

Half Bathroom Day 6: Bead Board & Electric

Last night Keith started working on the bead board for the bathroom. I feel so bad because he had to go pick up all the materials himself and tie to the top of our little Jetta.

Here's what we got so far:


The white planks are the 6" baseboards for the bathroom. The pine wood trim is what we're going to use to finish off the top of the bead board. It has grooves on the back side of it which will allow it to sit right over the edge of the bead board.


Bead board in the living room. Basil is such a little construction manager. He has to be involved and know what's going on at all times.


Keith cutting the bead board. He is using jig saw but he was using the wrong blade. You have to get a blade with teeth that go "down" not up. We have to find one of those.


We fit the first piece through the piping. It was getting late and we needed to do at least this piece before the plumber came back to do the sink and toilet.


Check out the toilet and sink!! It works too! The following day, Tom the Electrician came to move an outlet and bring the electric up to code. He taught us a few handy "fix it" type lessons which was really generous of him. We might have him back to do a few other things for us. There's a switch in this room that controls a light that is all the way outside the house and we want to move it.

Keith is continuing the bead board installation tonight.

Half Bathroom Day 5: FInish piping and flue

The bathroom is taking longer than we anticipated, but it's moving along. Today the plumber and his assistant finished the piping for the water lines, the flue to the roof and the drywall.


Finishing the piping.


He finished drywall and spackling


The roof.


Basil checkin' things out. He's so nosy.

Keith has to move an electrical outlet and he's going to install the bead board. Then the plumber and his assistant are going to finish up by installing the toilet and sink cabinet tomorrow. I can't wait to see it all complete!

Half Bathroom Layout

Half Bathroom: Day 4 - Grout

Bill the tiler came over first thing this morning in all that snow we had to grout the tile. He came around 7:40AM and was done, cleaned up and gone by 8:15AM!


Tadaa! It looks awesome and I can't wait to see what it will look like with the sink vanity and toilet in there. Not that I'm really excited about the toilet, but you get what I mean.

Before photo:


The plumber won't be back until next Wednesday... :( It's going to seem like an eternity from now.

Half Bathroom Day 3: Tiling

Bill the Tiler was awesome!

He was all business and went straight to work. He was so fast too, which is a real rare quality!

9:11 AM

While he waited for Pat to bring the cement board, Bill had already started laying down the tile to check out the pattern and make the awkward cuts around the toilet and water line.


He was hardcore working in a hail and snow storm outside!


Basil was helping me too and was laying down drop cloths so they wouldn't dirty *his* floor.


Leveling. Before he laid down the cement board, he applied a layer of thin set (which we forgot to do when we tiled the kitchen). The thin set gives the cement board that support it needs so that it doesn't flex and cause your tile or grout to crack. Opps! He told us he'll need to level the bathroom floor up to the kitchen floor by applying extra thin set on top of the cb but before the tile. That would take longer to dry.

11:37 AM


12:18 PM

He finished the corners, threshold and was already all cleaned up!

I'm glad I pushed for the diagonal pattern. It looks awesome! He's going to come back tomorrow to grout.

Because of the snow storm and all, the plumber won't be back until next Wednesday to finish the bathroom.