We have a lot of honey-colored oak in our house. And while real wood is nice...I'm not a huge fan of the color. After a lot of research on the internet for changing wood color, I happened upon General Finishes Java Gel Stain. It is a very, very thick, dark gel stain (like a cross between a stain and a paint). If you've ever looked for a way to make oak look like a darker wood, you might have seen it. There are tons of tutorials (this one was the best I found).
I decided that before we changed our entire kitchen, we would try it out on our bathroom first, since it was smaller and less visible to people. This was actually pretty simple to do. The first step was to take off all the doors and drawer faces, and then remove the drawer slides and the hinges so I could get at the wood. I sanded off the shiny top coat first, which ended up being no small task with the grooves on the doors.
After that, I pulled out the stain. It is SUPER thick. I applied it with an old sock (worn on a gloved hand, so no stained fingers for me), and I put FOUR coats on to get it to the color I wanted. You really only need to let it dry about 24 hours between coats, but because I was doing it in the evenings and we had a new baby, sometimes it was longer. Also, because it is winter, I had to let it dry inside. I set up a table in our half bathroom, but it only fit some of the pieces, which means the whole process took me three times as long as I wanted it to.
Comparison: sanded v. one coat of stain
In process: first coat
Rare action shot: finishing up coat #1
The fourth coat ended up being more of a painting process than the usual wipe on / wipe off of stain. After the fourth coat, I let the pieces dry for 5 days before applying two top coats of a satin polyurethane gel.
No top coat on left | Top coat on right
Then everything was put back together. I think it turned out really well, and determined I would also do the kitchen cabinets, as well as the upstairs bathroom and the banister. I may also end up doing the kitchen table and chairs too. Those are all way down the line in my priority list, though.
Finished product
(planning to paint the trim white)
At the end of 2015, I made a plan - it had a bunch of house projects on it, and they were grouped together into months. The idea was to complete each project in its appropriate month. I even gave some projects multiple months, because I knew I was under-estimating the time it would take to finish them.
Well, I'm done with January's projects (soft-close drawers and cabinets / king bed headboard) and February's projects, which I'm going to tell you about today. But March? April? Nope. May/June? Started on it. July? Half done! August? Not even on my radar anymore. September/October? Maybe one part out of five. November/December? Not likely.
Anyway, so ever since I saw The Holiday, I have wanted motorized blackout roller blinds. You know, from this part:
Now, I didn't go that far - no motorized blinds (I looked into it, and it'll happen someday). However, I did install custom blackout roller shades. "But Adam, aren't those expensive if you buy them custom?" you ask. They sure are, if you buy them! But I made them! "Wouldn't it have been easier and taken far less time and effort if you bought them, though?" Stop asking silly questions.
Anyway, on to the windows. Kristen and I like it dark when we sleep. It also helps when Kristen gets migraines to be in a super dark area. So what I did was make roller blinds that would fit our bathroom window and our sliding glass door (the two areas that let in light to our room). Then I did the same to our spare room and the girls' bedroom upstairs. I left them off of the office window (fourth bedroom).
To start, I did a ton of research. The key components to a good roller blind are:
1. Tube: preferably aluminum, which is expensive, so I ended up going with PVC) - I bought this at Lowe's
I used PVC pipe for the roller blind - you can use any
diameter you want, as long as it fits your clutch hardware.
2. Roller blind clutch and attachment hardware: this is the part that is inserted into the tube on either end and has the string that lets you pull it up and down - I bought this online from China for less than $2/set
Clutch hardware from China
3. Blackout fabric: not "room darkening" fabric - bought this at JoAnn's with coupons (as it can be pricey)
This is the fabric rolled out using tape to temporarily connect two pieces.
We ended up doing the sliding doors as two separate roller blinds.
4. Channel: this is for the blind to roll down in, to block out light at the edges - I accomplished this with vinyl "J channel" and T channel (used for tile floors), epoxied to the old PVC vertical blinds I took from the sliding glass door area, cut to fit the windows
Channel is the key to a dark room, and is the trickiest part.
I'll spare you most of the details, but I cut the tubing, mounted the hardware, had to jury rig the clutches to fit (dang mm-to-in conversions), experimented with making and mounting the channel, had to drill out a rusted bolt from my sliding glass door so the handle wouldn't obstruct the blinds, be super careful about cutting the fabric, and deal with all kinds of other complications. But...I finally got them up and they work great.
Pre-channel mount in the bedroom
Final blinds with curtains as well
Now, I'm fully aware that my solution isn't perfect - it doesn't completely block out all the light, and it's not nearly as pretty as the professional ones. But it still works pretty good, and I did it for a small fraction of the cost of the custom blinds I will someday have in a future house.
This is the brightest time of day, without the curtains too
For some reason, I decided it would be a good idea to build Scarlett a loft bed. Four factors were happening to cause this.
1. Scarlett is getting too big to fit in a toddler bed.
2. We are trying to potty train Felicity, and she never was very good at climbing out of her crib (Scarlett got her out).
3. We have a new baby coming, so we have to get Felicity into the toddler bed, which means Scarlett needs a new one.
4. Scarlett really wanted a bunk bed, but Kristen was worried about ladders combined with darkness combined with kids, so the ones available weren't great. Also, I built our headboard, so how much harder could a whole bed be?
This took way longer than I thought it would, mostly because I used crappy wood (since I was planning to paint it, and wanted to not spend a zillion dollars on it). Said wood had a lot of twists and bends to it. Not having a planer or a jointer, that left me to learn how to use a hand planer I got at a garage sale. Spoiler alert: it isn't super great for furniture. Long story short, it took a while to get the wood how I wanted it (and it's still not quite how I wanted it). Oh, and have I mentioned I hate sanding?
Anyhow, I found some plans online, modified them, and built the bed. For the stairs, I made my own plans based on similar stairs I'd seen. I built it mostly with 2x4's and 2x6's. I also used 2x2's for the cleats, and 1x2's and 1x4's for the slats and railing on the stairs. The railing isn't painted, because it was done really quickly, and I'll probably replace it with 2x2's later (more sturdy).
Let me know what you think!
I originally wanted to make this easier to take apart, so I drilled holes, bought bolts, etc. Because of the twisted nature of my wood, that wasn't happening, so I abandoned the attempt and filled in the holes. This was the first pass - I filled in smooth and no one can tell now.
Partially assembled (upside down). Kristen helped me get the pieces in the right spots
I later realized that some of the pieces were off significantly, so I had to take them apart and re-attach.
All put together
I painted it fully assembled, let it dry, then disassembled for moving up to the girls' room.
Here it is all painted
I cut slats out of 1x2 and 1x4 wood to support the mattress, then screwed them into the cleats.
Here are the stairs with Felicity for reference. I actually painted these before assembling.
The stairs were made to have nice storage areas underneath.
A shot of the stairs (you might see an unpainted spot at the bottom - I messed up and put the
bottom brace on the front instead of the back, so I had to switch it. I'll do touch-up paint later.
I have purchased four used cars in the past two years. You might say I'm getting to be an expert on it. That's what my cousin thinks when I help her with used car buying, anyway. I look at cars as a vehicle to get from point A to point B, so I don't tend to care how pretty they look (i.e. the golf-ball sized hail dents in my Subaru Impreza Outback). I also tend to be cheap, so I buy older (but relatively reliable) cars. If I can get a car for fairly inexpensive, and only need to do simple maintenance/repairs on it, it more than pays for itself.
For example, I purchased my Malibu Maxx almost two years ago for $2000. The purchase price of that (so far) is $83/month. Aside from standard maintenance (oil changes), I've had to replace the brakes and rotors on it, the headlights, and the struts. I did all of the replacements myself, buying OEM or better quality parts (better than I probably would have gotten at a shop), with a total cost for all three of $538.66. That brings my total cost for the car up to $106/month. Not a bad deal, considering the average cost for a lease or car loan these days.
As I mentioned, with buying older cars, I've started to teach myself how to fix things, using online forums and YouTube videos. I've drained and filled a transmission, replaced brake pads and rotors, changed differential oil, replaced brake light and headlight assemblies, fixed a brake light switch and an in-vehicle entertainment system, fixed a moon roof roller blind, and just this weekend swapped out strut assemblies. As a result of all this knowledge I've tapped into, I wanted to give back a little bit, so with a couple of my recent repairs, I took some time to make some "how-to" videos as well. Hopefully others will benefit from my experience.
A few years back, I found a site that occasionally had a really good deal on canvas prints. The only downside was that they were unstretched and just shipped rolled up. To have someone stretch it can cost up to $50-100, so I decided to learn how to do it myself.
Having limited tools and space (living in a two-bedroom apartment with no garage), I bought a miter saw box and through a lot of trial and error, eventually figured out how to build the stretcher bars, stretch the canvas, and even how to make a floating frame that would still show off the image that was wrapped around the side of the stretcher bars (called a gallery wrap).
Over the years, I did about six of these, for our own home and for family. Earlier this year, there was another deal on canvas prints, and I decided to offer my services at cost to family. The deal extended all the way up to very large 20x30 prints (my previous max was 18x24). I ended up ordering six canvases.
Over the course of several weeks, I measured, cut, glued, stretched, stapled, stained, and mounted the canvases.
Frames after the first coat of stain
First stretched canvas
Here are the finished products - please ignore the bathtub in the background - the bathroom has the best light. The last one is the one I did for our family.
When putting away everything in her new sewing table/desk, Kristen realized that she had a lot of spools of thread. So what did I do? I made her a spool organizer, of course. It was actually pretty easy.
I bought a square of 1/4-inch plywood, then cut it down to fit half of the desk drawer - about 9x13. Then after modeling it briefly on the computer, I measured out 48 squares (8x6) and drew them on the back of the board, then measured the center points of each one and drilled holes through them.
I then cut some wood dowels into 2 1/4-inch pieces, put some glue on the ends of each piece, and used a rubber mallet to hammer them in place.
After they dried, I very carefully sanded the back to make it flush, and filled in any chunks I blasted out when I drilled through the board too quickly.
Ta da! Spool board. I also finished stripping and staining the chair that came with the desk. I'll post that photo soon.
This post was going to be a little heavy on the words, but I decided instead to do more of a visual blog post, so take a look at this picture. I also included the non-labeled photo, in case you want to see it that way.
In 2004, when I went back to college after my mission, I needed a desk where I could set my giant desktop computer (no laptop). Being a transient college student, I figured the best idea was a square, folding card table. Years later, after I got married, I bought a corner desk, and that card table ended up being Kristen's sewing table for the new sewing machine I bought her for Christmas.
Unfortunately, because it's a card table, it is not the most study piece of furniture ever constructed. You know...because it's a card table. So when she sews, it has a tendency to shake. What she really wanted was a solid piece of real furniture, especially after I found her a brand-new Singer Serger machine at a garage sale for $100 last month. Shortly after that, in the midst of our crazy garage sale-ing, she found one - a nice, solid, real wood desk. She asked if I could refinish it, and I said sure, not realizing what I was getting into.
This is the desk (and futon bed) before I did anything to it
At this point, by the way, my garage was filling up - I bought a futon bed for Scarlett (that she decided she didn't want, so I just sold it), my motorcycle was in pieces from taking out the carbs to clean, and I was also working on building picture frames for another project. So I wanted to get the desk stripped, stained, and upstairs ASAP. It ended up taking three weeks instead.
I should have consulted my dad first, who long ago refinished our beautiful piano. Instead, I wasted a money and time using a product that did not work very well, and ended up trying to sand a bunch of it off instead, which still didn't work.
First attempt using the first stripper / sanding
Luckily, I told my woes to my dad, who recommended a much better product. I spent the better part of a Saturday painting on the original product, scraping it off, then sanding the wood because it didn't work. With Formby's Furniture Refinisher, I was at it for maybe two hours. Awesome stuff (but use chemical gloves and a respirator, cuz it's POTENT).
Formby's Furniture Refinisher - got that old stain right off
Once the desk was stripped and dry, I put on a natural stain and then a satin polyurethane seal, let it dry, lightly sanded rough spots with steel wool and did some touch up, then took it upstairs. What do you think? I think it turned out all right.
The humble commode. Not the most exciting topic for a blog post, but let me tell you, it wasn't a boring experience taking this thing apart and putting it back together. For those of you who have never had the fun of replacing a wax donut, let me tell you all about it.
It is sticky... That's about it. Like, really, really sticky. See, in order to trap all those noxious sewer gases out of your bathroom, there is what is called an "s trap" in the toilet, which is basically just a curve in the pipe. There is always water in the trap, which keeps the odor / gases out. Observe:
Toilet removed, wax donut still in place
Wax removed (mostly)
Anyway, when you flush, the water flows from the tank above into the bowl, pushing the water out the trap and down the drain. A wax "donut" is then used to seal the toilet to the pipe below the floor. If the wax seal breaks down, you get leakage, which is gross (see below). To replace it, you first need to scrape off the old wax and get it super clean. Hence...sticky.
Before you can even get it off, you need to shut off the water, then flush to drain the tank. What I should have done at that point was remove the pipe leading to the tank, and catch the remaining water in a cup... You know, instead of trying to scoop it out of the tank and using a ton of paper towels. Lessons learned.
Anyway, once that's done, taking the tank off is simply removing two bolts. Then there's simply no way around it, you have to scoop out the bowl with a cup. Then you remove two more nuts, rock it off the floor bolts, and you're good to go (you may need to cut the caulk along the base, but if you're doing this, it's probably shot, so you won't need to).
After you clean off the old wax, replace it with the new donut you bought, and reattach everything in reverse, and caulk a nice clean line along the base. Easy peasy.
Anyway, that was my Saturday morning adventure a few months ago. Now we have a nice, clean toilet with a working seal. Woo hoo!
This has been a project that has ended up taking longer than expected. But what else is new? I have a friend from work who is an engineer, and he and his engineering buddies were talking about how they seemed to always be multiplying things by pi (you know, π). Anyway, he found that it always takes him about 3 times as long to do a project as he originally thinks it will take him, which I totally relate to. He calls it the "Pi effect," a term which I will now be using.
So we love our house, but we don't love a few things about it - hence the projects. One of those things is the golden oak color of the woodwork. And there is a lot of it in the kitchen. Now this post isn't about how we've painted or stained our cabinets (that's yet to come), but we felt we could do something else to help us like our kitchen a little better. Hardware!
We've always wanted soft close cabinets and drawers. They're just so cool. So after a lot of research, I bought some soft close attachments for the cabinet hinges. These were made specially to attach to the type of hinges we already had, so putting them on only took about 15 minutes. Yay!
This is the hardware attachment
This is how they close now
Then came the part that took forever. Drawer slides. These can be expensive, so after an extensive search, I found them online for about $10 a set (normally around $20 for the 22-inch length we needed). When I got them, I realized I needed a bracket that fit on the back of the cabinet to which I could attach the slides. Ordered those for about $15 (for all of them). When they got here, we realized they were the wrong size and contacted the company. They were very helpful and said they would send the right ones.
These are the old slides
On the drawer
After two weeks, I contacted them again and asked if the correct brackets had gotten shipped (they hadn't, and so they shipped them). So five weeks after originally ordering, I had everything I needed. I took that week to install them (it took me about 20-30 min per drawer to install), and then realized one of the slides was broken. Back online. At this point I'm sure the support person is sick of me. She sends me a new slide, and now I finally have them all done!
The installation process can take a while when you're retrofitting
older cabinets - especially when you're trying to make sure they stay level.
The brackets I needed to attach the slides to the back of the cabinets
Broken slide
The new slides catch really well, which can make it a little difficult to open the drawers - remember what I said about making it look nice? We had planned to add cabinet pulls, so after multiple trips to multiple hardware stores (my life lately) we bought some. Of course, when I go to install them, I drill some holes in a drawer and realize the provided screws are too short. Back to the store, then an hour and a half of installing pulls.
But now they're all done, and they look great!
The drawers (with pulls attached) closing very nicely
