Furniture Referb - Curb Cabinet

Remember that small cabinet I picked up off the curb? Well, I only showed you a before and after! Here's the whole sequence :)

So I was driving home from my parents and saw this cabinet on the curb. Even from the street, I knew it had potential!

Before

 Once I got it taken apart, I laid out all the pieces and started stripping them with Citri-Strip.

Citri-Strip at work!

 Fortunately, that stuff is awesome and most of the paint came right off! Then I did a few rounds of sanding to smooth out the pieces.

Down to the wood!

And now for the yellow! Okay, so I did prime it first, but that's not as fun a picture to take.

First coat of yellow!

I opted to use the bathroom's Optimist Gold on the cabinet to really give it some pop against the Cardamon color in the foyer.

Starting on the second coat of yellow!

Or the Warm Terra Cotta in the living room! While this isn't where it sitting now, the cabinet looks great in both rooms! It definitely brightens up the brownish walls of the foyer so I"m happy with it there.

Tadaa!

One thing I did not complete was the doors. I wasn't sold on the chicken wire look and the frames were in bad shape, almost as if they were installed separately. So I'm open to suggestions!

July Update

July started off with a little good and bad. I offered to foster three lab dogs to get them out of a bad situation. I kept them for two weeks before I had to admit they were too much for me to handle! So while I didn't get much done in that two weeks, it left me plenty of time to do some scheming...!

One thing that bothers me: when neighbors cut your grass!! I keep my grass much higher than either of my neighbors because it's St. Aug grass and looks better that way. The neighbor on my left has started getting her left neighbor to cut her grass. Which is fine and dandy except when the neighbor cuts my part of the front grass! Uuuugh. They cut it way too low and it looks horrible and is so bad for the grass :( I need to have a word with them about it but I just haven't had the time or wherewithal to do so.

It looks so damaged :(

On a brighter note, Mom sent me this picture of a rain shower. I love my flag!

This is about when I started scheming. You see, my birthday is approaching. Shortly after that is my 1-year anniversary of owning the house. So I decided I'd get my house fixed up to invite family and friends over since not that many people have seen the place! Anything needs to be done in two weeks... Because I'm crazy.

First order of business. Remember that purple room?

Estate Vinyard, to be exact.

Don't worry, it's still purple. But even purple-er!

Delicious Plum

And to go with my new purple-er color, the room needs a new floor! But before the floor could be laid (lain?), we had to make one repair... The middle bedroom had a sub-floor furnace that needed to be removed. Mom and Dad got a head start while I was at work to take out the furnace and surround. I came home to a racket!

Once the furnace and surround were removed, we measured for a new 2x6 joist and two cross joists, 2x4 stops, 3/4in plywood subfloor and 1/4in plywood upper floor. Several cuts, lots of hammering, and joyous shouts later, that furnace ain't der no more!

That might be the most solid floor in the house!

Once we got that cleaned up and put the underlayment back, we were ready to lay out the new laminate floors! I went with the same Lakeshore Pecan as the master and office.

Of course, I shoved 7 boxes of the floor and a 10ft long 2x6 in my car! :D

I think it looks great with the new purple-er color too :)

Work in progress!

I'll have a finished photo of this room soon!

June Update

I really thought I'd gotten more done in June than I apparently did. Oh well!

My crepe myrtle is in full bloom!

Pink!

I had this weird bee blocking my front door! It's a male red velvet ant, which is really a wasp.

I felt bad killing it cause it was pretty.

For Father's Day I bought my dad some doughnuts and a ceiling fan for myself. (Notice a trend here? hehe) This is the first brand new ceiling fan I've ever bought! And it works beautifully! I put it in the kitchen because I needed air circulation there. I know it's a polarized subject (in the DIY world) but it's made such a huge difference in my comfort level.

I was able to install this with minimal help from Mom!

One of my outside water connections started leaking through a hole rusted in it. Mom to the rescue!

Mom added a faucet end so I can use the hot water outside!

And this is where things stopped for a while again. At some point mid-month we installed a window unit into the foyer, also inherited from my friends down the street! I needed something to help cool down the house as the central unit just runs all day but can't keep up with the heat. We also tried installing some gutters on our own but failed miserably.

Next month should be interesting, right? Hopefully not too much so :)

May Update

Good news for those tired of reading/viewing my posts! This is a short one! This month started slow, got awesome, then eased up.

But first, my Mother's Day present to Mom:

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

OMG isn't it adorable?!?!?!?! All electric, battery-operated, 18-in blade lawn mower! IT'S PERFECT AND I LOVE IT. Okay, yes, I bought myself a lawn mower for Mother's Day because now my mom doesn't have to cut my grass anymore. That's the present part! It might take me a minimum hour to cut my ridiculously large lot. But I can do so with less noise and no emissions! And I get an amazing workout  >.<

I also did some gardening. Elvis didn't seem impressed. In fact, he sat on one of my newly replanted jasmines...

He's so handsome!

Not long after that I decided I would remove the railing from my back steps. It was annoyingly in the way. They should have installed it on the outside of the steps because where it is now it was in the way of using the door! And they wouldn't have had to notch out the step... I have choice words for the previous owners...

Much better!

Because I'm a glutton for punishment, I decided to do some more gardening. I am not a gardener. The first thing I'll do after winning the lottery is hire a gardener. Sigh. But this needed it. I eventually lined it with weed block and added paver stones. Just have to fill in with rocks and a border and this will be done!

This is where I stopped for the month so I'll share a picture of my neighbor's farm animals!

Yes, that is a sheep and a cow. There are also goats and pigs.

April Update

So, where was I?

Ah, yes, the bathroom! A few weeks later...

What a difference!

It took a bit of mental strength for Dad and me to figure out how to cut frame moulding out on the correct angle. Then to hang the frame correctly! In the end, it came out great and I am sooooo happy with the huge mirror! What you can't see here is that the left side of the mirror sticks out further than the vanity, which  means I can stand in front of it without having to lean over the vanity! Let's be honest, I'm short so the more I lean, the shorter I get!

My next project was slightly unnecessary but once I touched it I broke it so I had to fix it... My driveway gate was off-level enough to drag the concrete if you didn't pick it up while opening. So I decided I'd take loosen then retighten the bolts to readjust the gate. That was all fine and dandy until one of the bolts wouldn't tighten. Lo and behold it was stripped!

Makes me wonder if it was galvanized...

Fortunately (unfortunately?) Home Depot is but a few minutes away so I popped over the bridge and picked up brand new carriage bolts and nuts in the proper galvanized steel. Then I was able to raise the gate to a new height so that it doesn't drag! Yay!

See the right gate's bottom how it's worn down?

My next project was the very next weekend while I was bored... My front walkway ends at grass but is sunken to where it holds water after any rain shower. But my newly discovered street drain is but a few feet away! So I decided to dig a trench! But not just a trench, I added a pipe to it!

You'd never know that pipe was there!

Putting this in has been a huuuuuge improvement in water drainage! Before installing this, the water would sit in the walkway for hours, sometimes days. Now, it drains in minutes! Even after a super heavy downpour the water will drain in about an hour. Now if only I could figure out the drainage around the rest of my house...

A "quick" project I threw in with Mom's help was hanging a floating shelf! I inherited a pair of Ikea floating shelves from my friends down the street. So I decided the best place for them was in my laundry "room." Well, if anyone has any experience with Ikea, you would know that 'quick and simple' does not describe their installations...

Worth it in the end!

 I even added a vintage swag lamp!

Dad came in the next weekend and installed the top shelf in 5 minutes...

Remember that cabinet I snagged off the curb? I (mostly) finished that too!

Same yellow as the bathroom!

I disassembled, stripped, sanded, primed and 2-coat painted the poor thing. It went from sad and well-worn to bright and pizazzed! It is currently in the foyer as my new tool storage unit :)

Did I mention my dove? Sadly, she/he didn't stick around long as we have cats roaming the neighborhood :(

My last project of the month I didn't take pictures of. Which is silly of me. I have pictures all around the area but not of the actual project. The transition from the kitchen to the living room has a soft spot in it. To the point where even my slight frame can make it sink. So, after doing some research about adding support joists and such, I got under the house with Mom and discovered that at some point the subfloor had been torn out and replaced with plywood. That plywood was not properly supported by new cross joists, hence the sink. Don't trust plywood! So, we measured once and cut once (because we're awesome) and installed new cross joists! It took some heavy lifting (by the car jack) to lift the new joists enough to level the floor. It also took much contorting into awkward positions to hammer the joists into the hangers. After a few hours of work, we had a new support system that is so solid we can jump on it!

Aaaand that's enough for this month! Whew!

What's in store for next month? Am I ever going to take a break?!

March Update

March had quite a number of projects going on all over the house. It was hard to focus on just one because I wanted to do everything!

It all started when I picked up this cute little cabinet off the side of the road. Obviously, it's seen better days. I set it outside on some blocks until I was ready to tackle this project.

The next bit of fun happened when my ductwork broke (again). Because of the wonderful (/sarcasm) job done by the previous owner and the hired A/C company, the transition from the furnace unit to the plenum is not stable, for lack of a better term. The previous tape and paste are no longer sticking and holding the pieces together. Pieces that were incorrectly put together in the first place... One night I went to run the A/C and the house refused to cool off. I FREAKED out, thinking the A/C had finally keeled over and I'd have to shell out thousands of dollars to get the ENTIRE system replaced. I've already been told that once the outside unit croaks, everything needs to be replaced because it won't be to code and/or work with the newer compressors. Something like that. Fortunately for me, it was only a section of this housing that came undone. All I had to do was put more duct tape to hold it back together.

My life is literally held together with duct tape...

My next big idea (/more sarcasm) was to hang another fan by myself! This fan used to be hung at out house before the storm. Mom salvaged and cleaned it up then packed it away. I think technically it's on loan to me...? Either way, Mom insisted it works, and I needed a fan for my bedroom, so I brought it home and decided to hang it up. The other fan went up super simple so I figured this would be the same! Nope. I had a hell of a time getting the fan's canopy screwed with the ceiling medallion in place. And that fan is ridiculously heavy. I ended up calling the parents, nearly in tears, because I just couldn't get the fan up there. I felt like a fan-hanging failure :(  Fortunately, my parents are awesome and they hurried right over and Dad figured out how to screw in the canopy with the ceiling medallion. Yaaaay!

The fan really is quiet!

My next project was the start of WEEKS of working on one room, the bathroom. In fact, I started this project thinking that it would be the one room that I could actually get completely finished. And since it's the smallest room in the house it shouldn't take that long. RIIIIIIGHT. After mom prepped the walls (and I messed them up a bit) I decided one Saturday that I was going to start painting. I tend to paint spontaneously. Mom doesn't appreciate that. LOOK HOW GORGEOUS THIS COLOR IS!!!!!

Optimist Gold

Let me say something before going further. I bought the BEHR Premium Plus Ultra Paint & Primer, in semi-gloss for the bathroom. I chose a Paint & Primer as the Glidden DUO Premium Paint + Primer worked wonderfully in the office, with that beautiful Scuba Dive color. Since the bathroom's Optimist Gold was on the BEHR palate, I got the BEHR paint thinking it would be the same experience. IT WAS NOT. The BEHR paint went on so thin, had poor coverage, and generally was horrible to work with. It took TWO COATS, and half the can of paint, to do that one TINY bathroom. I thought maybe it would be because this is a semi-gloss vs. an eggshell. But I spoke with a friend who used the same paint in satin (or eggshell) she also had to do two coats. Why would I have to do two coats and half a can of paint in the bathroom when I only used one coat and a third of the paint can for the much larger office?! This makes no sense to me, and really upsets me, so I will never again use nor recommend BEHR Premium Plus Ultra paint!

All that mess aside, in the end, I LOVE THE COLOR OF THIS BATHROOM! It's so bright it actually helps me wake up in the morning.

So then I took my turn,
Oh what a thing to have done,
And it was all yellow.…

Since the bathroom didn't come with a mirror, I made plans to hang one of the extras my parents had from their house. The cool thing is the mirror I picked was made in the late 1960's, making it almost as old as my house! But before I could hang it, I had to mark where I wanted it!

And that's where the bathroom remodel stopped for a couple of weeks. Not only was I going to hang a large 2x4' mirror, I was going to frame it! Which meant finding the right molding, painting it, cutting it, hanging it, caulking it, patching it, painting again...

My next project quickly presented itself when I realized that the kitchen faucet was leaking again. Dad had fixed it once, but it was deteriorating faster than expected. This was not a terrible thing, though, as I'd recently received a gift card to Home Depot! It was just the right amount to purchase the new Delta Foundations faucet in chrome that I'd been eying. So, on Easter Saturday, I decided that I was going to tackle my first ever plumbing job! Ha! With Mom's help, we got the faucet off and beheld the damage done by years to decades of a leaky faucet. SMH.

It was gross.

Given the damage to the cast iron sink underneath, I picked up a few extra supplies: rubber and metal washers. I didn't want to damage the iron any further so the rubber washer went against the iron with the metal over that before the nut of the faucet tightened it all down. I felt much better after putting that together.

Now, this is where it gets funny. After buying the faucet (trip 1) then learning that I should replace the water lines, I went back to Home Depot and bought new water lines (trip 2). I bought the same of one of the two lines, thinking I'd need the same length for both even though there were two different lengths under there already. (Math is not a strong point of mine...) Well, that shorter length wasn't long enough to attach to one of the faucets, duh.  So I popped over to Home Depot (trip 3) with 20 minutes to spare to return the 20" and pick up a 30" line. Great, it fit! But... the other 20" didn't fit. Turns out the new 20" length was 1" shorter than the old 20" line (go figure that one). And now Home Depot is closed. At this point, I have purchased two 20" lines, returned one 20" line, and purchased one 30" line. Got dat? Me being brilliant, I decided to measure the remaining 20" line under the bathroom sink which it did. So, bright and early Easter Sunday morning (Home Depot is open on Easter), I popped back over to Home Depot for the FOURTH time to pick up another 30" line for the kitchen and a 20" line for the bathroom. Exactly like the one I'd returned the night before. The guy who did my return found it amusing to see me there again the next morning. *facepalm*

All in the end, I got a wonderful new kitchen faucet!!

My new faucet that I installed myself!

 And my bathroom plumbing got upgraded too!

Bathroom plumbing upgrade!

WHEW! Writing this post was almost as exhausting as doing all of those projects!

A preview for April: bathroom complete? what about that cabinet? what else has broken at the house? what kind of projects have I jumped into next?!

February Update

Well, since February is normally a short month, this will still be a short post. Take that, Leap Day!

I inherited some new-used bookshelves from my friends! They are perfect for the space and let my book collection finally spread out.

I also hung my new light fixture! The Hampton Bay Edgemoor Flush Mount. I fell in love with this fixture the first time I saw it and was determined that it would fit somewhere in my house. Well, it does!

We loves it, my Precious....

I even added a ceiling medallion, which you can kind of see at the top. I also added a medallion around the foyer light.

Complete with new glass shade!

 And even around my new-used ceiling fan! Which I hung up by myself :D

Speedy Blades!

The biggest thing to happen was getting the house leveled! I got a few quotes from area shoring companies and finally settled on Davie Shoring. It was a pleasant experience working with them! The actual leveling, though, was nerve-wracking! Holy cow. The front corner of the house in the office was a whopping 3-inches lower than the 0-level in the kitchen. And it was obvious too, just looking at the corner, or standing in the room where drawers don't stay open, or looking at the crooked window frames. When they started raising the front corner, the house started making creaking and popping sounds! AAAAGH. Poor thing hasn't been this level in decades. A new sill (the long beans running the length of the house) was placed under the middle of the house. There was too wide a gap between the existing sills and in that gap sit aaaaaaall of the heaviest appliances. So of course over the past few decades that area has sank also. But no more!

If I still feel drunk while walking, it's me and not the floors!

While the house really needed to be leveled, I would not recommend you pursue this option until you get several quotes and know exactly what's going to happen, how long it's going to take, etc. Knowledge first!

Well, that's my month. Stay tuned! I have some good news on bathroom and kitchen updates!

January Update

Compared to December, January was crazy busy! Happy New Year, y'all!

New Year's Day I took Mom shopping to At Home in Kenner. This store can, and has, gotten many a person in trouble. I was on a mission! I needed a rug for the living room. I had a pattern in mind, but that was about it. I also wanted to look at shower curtains. And every other thing in that store...... These three purchases are absolutely perfect for my house!!! I am so excited!!!

Bonus? We got that 8'x10' rug into my car! (Y'all, I love that rug.)

My coup's hatchback is bigger than yours ;)

The next project was to paint the office. Since I wasn't ready/going to paint any of the other rooms, we decided to focus on this one first. A lot needs to happen in the office: install new floors, paint, install new light, decide if to bust out a wall or not, etc. Taking a cue from the new shower curtain, I knew I wanted to do a bold blue-ish/green-ish color. I also knew I could go with a much darker color as that room gets tons of light. I was going for teal, but really fell in love with this aqua.

The darkest or the second darkest? Hmmmmm!

And here's the new color!!

It's very aqua.

There was a bit of a pause between painting and laying the floors so I got bored. Being bored is never a good thing to a person with destructive tendencies.... So I had a free night. And energy. So I might have taken one of the boards off that stupid boarded window in the office........ Not sure if it looks better or worse now, hehe. But there's a window behind there! Of which I can open the blinds to and get even more light in the office! (I am seriously all about the natural lighting!)

Yay?

After the shock of my doing something productive, my parents found a free Sunday to come over and lay floors! They have rightly-placed little faith in my ability to do work on my own house of my own volition. But when I have a team behind me?! Office floors get laid in a day! Woot woot!! Okay, Dad did like aaaaaaaall of the work with measuring and cutting. I mostly just picked the pattern I wanted the boards to lay then stayed out the way :)

They look amazing with the wall color! Plz ignore plaid curtain...)

Second bonus? All the floor boxes fit in my car :D

Who needs a truck?!

Next projects on the office list include: shoe molding, painting trim, removing the other boarded window, finding and installing the perfect light fixture, and finding and hanging the perfect curtains! I'm going to put together a project board for the office so y'all can what my vision is. I've also got the paint for the bathroom, so I'll do another project board with my ideas there.

Yay!