Tag: home improvement

Misc Rambling

She Shed Redo

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I have this old shed in the backyard that I decided a year ago is going to be my She Shed. Here’s the problem, the previous old homeowner put siding on the shed and let it rot, so mice and spiders love it.

Well I love it too so they are being evicted. I contacted a slew of handymen who wanted to charge me 3800 to replace just the siding. Ugh no, material is 500. Yep so guess what, I’m doing it myself. I am going to buy the T1-11 board, two sheets at a time and fix this old girl myself.

Have I ever done this before? Nope. Do I have a circular saw? Yep. Do I have a nail gun? Nope but I have a drill , electric screw driver and a shitload of screws. Do I know how to do an accurate measurement? Nope but i will figure it out, after all what is you tube for anyway.

This is going to be great, the shed couldn’t get worse so what do i have to lose other than a few hundred bucks and my sanity, ha

Stay tuned as I may have a new profession

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Misc Rambling

For the love of wallpaper

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I love color, print, and home improvement projects. I had previously tried to update these old closet doors and needless to say it wasn’t good. Last week while shopping at my very favorite store “goodwill” I found this fantastic animal print wallpaper for 6 bucks a roll. I bought both rolls and came home to get busy. It took me 2 full days of scoring and scraping to get the old ugly wall paper off but now the doors are FANTASTIC, no one can say I’m boring. My decorating style is certainly bold. I hope you like it.

Misc Rambling

Yeah for Spring

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I always get so excited every year when the first official day of Spring rolls around and I pay for it every year. Now you would think that I would figure it out that I cannot do all the required maintenance of cleaning beds, pulling weeds, putting in new raised beds, planting, new boarders, etc. in one day, DUH. But every year I over due it and feel like I have been run over for several days after, ha. This year we were considering a new gazebo, permanent structure as we love to be outside all year long. In Portland it is important to have some kind of cover because it rains ALOT. I had a company come out and give us a quote for the new patio cover/gazebo and about passed out when he gave me the price. For a 12 by 14 cover they wanted $11,000, what? I think this is crazy so my husband and I headed to Lowes. Again if you follow my blog I am cheap…..and like to show people you can do beautiful things on a budget

We found this really cool huge red umbrella thing. When fully extended it is huge, and has these built in LED lights, super fun ($300 not bad). Then we found this recycled tire landscape edging. The area that holds the raised beds got a make over. Since my husband has an old football player back I of course got the hammering duty to connect and put in all the spikes to hold the edging in place. I think my right arm is a Popeye arm. We already had the bark from last year, we buy it in qty when it is on sale 4 for $10, so no cost.

This weekend the mulch sale is on again and yep you guessed it I will be taking the truck to load up. I hope you love it. I can’t wait to get my garden started.

Misc Rambling

Kitchen remodel a wrap

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The kitchen remodel is done. 3 weeks front to back is amazing, my builder is the man. To see the before look at the previous post but I have outlets and lighting everywhere not to mention unlimited cabinet space. My husband will be thrilled when he sees it for the first time in person this week. I have sent pictures daily but you can’t appreciate it until you walk in.

Misc Rambling

Goodbye little ugly kitchen

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What do you do when your spouse is out of town for work? Remodel.

  • I have stated before how much I loathe the kitchen in our house.
  • I am way to short to reach ANY of the cabinets and the pink tile floor in conjunction with the brown and white mosaic floor is not beautiful.
  • My fashionista is screaming rip it out.

On Monday they are coming out, YES.

I have picked floors, cabinets, and sinks so let the demo begin. Photos are of the current kitchen, Don’t be jealous, I know it’s fancy

The remodel is moving along at record speed. Here we are over half way

Those mid century bar stools were the deal of the century, $30 for all 4, these are 200 stools , yes

Misc Rambling

Clean freak

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I am that person who loves to vacuum ( I know it’s a sickness). I also cannot stand a cluttered garage, my car must be inside.

The second bay of the garage is too small for my husbands truck and is the temporary spot for a fridge and freezer until the kitchen remodel is done.

Well for some reason the extra space became the dumping spot for everything, ugh no I get anxiety just opening the garage. Today was garage cleaning day. Who spends their day off cleaning, this girl yep.

  • Started at 9 am
  • Finished at 2 pm

I can sleep well tonight

Frugal Ideas

Deal or No Deal

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In preparation of my new master bath and closet remodel someday being completed, I decided to begin looking for the closet organizers and hanging apparatuses for clothes. I called a local home improvement store and they came out and measured and provided a quote of $5500.

  • I just about passed out; I need to hang up my clothes but not on gold plated hangers, good lord.
  • I then asked if we decided to move forward with the purchase how a customer would pay for this. 
    • The entire amount is due up front and could not be installed for 8 weeks. In addition, there was a $175 processing fee for paperwork. Ugh what? 

Of course me being the bargain shopping queen (ok cheapskate), I took my measurements out to our local Ikea store.  

  • The little guy in the closet section helped me choose the closets and all the components, with delivery and installation it was less than $1500. 
  • Yep how’s that for saving four thousand dollars. I could have had the closet installed in 2 days, imagine that not 8 weeks.  

The joy of saving so much money was fantastic but the pain with the installation was real. 

  1. First the delivery and install company employees had no clue how to assemble the closet, ha imagine that. 
  2. My window for them to install was 9 am to 6 pm, really could you narrow it down a little? 
    1. I take the day off and you guessed it they showed up at 5:55 pm. 
  3. The crew took everything out of the boxes and said oh there’s a damaged piece we will have to report and come back tomorrow. 
    1. My question was can’t you assemble the sections that aren’t broken and install only to be met with a look of utter confusion.
  1. The next day the new item arrives with a completely different delivery person and installer who also had no clue also. 
    1. 6 hours later and still not finished the new installer states well there are a bunch of missing pieces so I will need to come back. Ugh really.

At this point I turned into the cheapskate bulldog and immediately got online and filed a claim with the delivery company and insisted a manager call me back. I was refunded $600 of my money due to the fiasco and I installed the closet.

So the big question is was this a Deal or NO Deal? 

Frugal Ideas

Kitchen redo 101

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20160730_232001When we moved into our house the first thing out of my mouth was holy yellow oak, and who would put a cabinet in the middle of a breakfast bar, so dumb.

So this week it was redone. I am cheap i admit it and i also love to paint so the choice was easy. General finishes milk paint, amazing, no sanding or priming required, just wash them down with tsp. We also took down the cabinets on the bar and turned them into a buffet, i hope you love the results cause i do.

So heres the breakdown of everything i used and costs:

1. Old ironing board in garage as my saw horse, free and it worked great

2. Qt general finishes milk paint $30, then a pint for touch up $18, qt satin finish for topcoat also general finishes $30

3. Foam rollers and foam wedge brushes, $13

Total cost $91

20160728_165135wp-image-749646362jpg.jpeg

Frugal Ideas

Home Improvement

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I like to think of myself as someone who can tackle most home improvements projects. Last year we laid a paver patio, replaced the garbage disposal, put up a new canopy, replaced multiple toilet rings and if you let me will paint every surface that is available. So when I think about putting on a new screen door and see the sign “45 minute EASY INSTALLATION”, of course I am on board. Let me just say 3 days later we are just now putting on the auto close spring. I for certain need to write a letter and offer to become the manual writer for the company because the instructions sucked to say the least. I love to read instructions (I know not normal) and by the time I was done with this one I wanted to set it on fire. Ikea instructions are just pictures and better than these. Oh and you need a good drill, the baby drill I had was really not adequate for the hole drilling into metal.

dorrNow that it is up and complete, if I was smart I would have taken a video to show others what the heck to do and probably provided some great entertainment in the process. My advice, if you are going to buy a screen door pay the 99 bucks and have it installed, it’ll be the best money you ever spent ;0)