Project Time

Ah yes. This has been a wonderful weekend. I got some stuff DONE.

My sister Kristi texted me and asked for some help with projects around her house. So Saturday morning J and I cleaned our house, did a little laundry, then packed up our tools and went to her house.

I should have taken pictures throughout the day but I didn't, so I only have the "after" pictures.

Hung some shelves over her couch. They look great.

Her sliding glass door used to have those vertical blinds. The ones that are really annoying because they break off pieces all the time (she had several rolled up in her hallway). Her son bought her some curtains for her birthday because he knew it was a project she wanted to do. We hung the rod, but she needs another set of panels. It is a double rod and there are blackout curtains behind the front ones, so it really did its job and blocked out the light.

While I was there she mentioned having a problem with her toilet, so we also changed out the floater piece. That's my first time messing with the internal workings of a toilet (I've only ever replaced a toilet) but it was not hard at all.

It felt good to help out with her projects. And it was a fun day of hanging out with my sister and her son.

At one point Joseph and Matt (Kristi's son) were working on the curtains while I was elsewhere. Joseph said, "Hey, we don't have any brains over here." (Because I am the Brains and he is the Brawn.) I told him he just burned Matt. J responded with, "Well, he's just sitting here picking his nose." When I walked over I found Matt rolling a booger between his fingers with a satisfied smirk on his face.

Important things were accomplished.

I had a few projects of my own that I've been meaning to cross of my list. Did I ever mention that I passed my CPCU test? Now that the stress of studying for that is over, I actually have time for other things.

Changed a light on my truck (this is a brake light over the cab).

Do you remember when I re-upholstered this stool (found here)? Well, I had re-used the wood base and I don't know what the problem was, but the staples were not very secure. It started coming apart. I mostly ignored it but recently it's been driving me crazy. So we got a piece of spare wood out of the garage, cut it down (using the old piece of wood as a pattern) and re-stapled it. It appears to be nice and secure. And it really didn't take long to do, it was just one of those things that I hadn't really gotten around to.

There was another problem that had been bugging me that we also finally addressed. One of our fans had a problem when you would turn on the light - first it wouldn't turn on, then it would turn on but it flickered. I googled it, and found that there is a small black box you can cut out to fix the problem. Apparently it's a faulty capacitor box. It made me a little nervous cutting that out (fire hazard?) but as long as we don't put light bulbs in over the maximum wattage amount, we will be ok.

And last but not least, once it cooled down today, I washed my truck.

Oh yeah, it's been a good weekend. I am going to make myself some popcorn and watch a movie.

Shelves in the Den

We've been meaning to do this project for years. Our first attempt at shelves was turning the coat closet in my kitchen into a pantry. Everything that could have gone wrong with that project did. I'm surprised we even attempted adding a shelf to the master bedroom closet.

This project's time had come. Our TV room/den had DVDs and gaming systems everywhere. Plus I'm always complaining that I don't have any storage.

Here's the before. A strange little nook. The part to the left is my laundry room on the other side of the wall. My house has all sorts of these little nooks. I kind of like it; it makes things interesting. It was a creative way to smoosh all the rooms together.

J and I had a really efficient system. We would get the board level, I would hold it while he drilled a pilot hole with a small drill bit. You have to make sure to mark "up" on your board so it doesn't get turned upside down. We would then switch out the drill bit to the larger one for the wall anchor.

I would use the larger drill bit to quickly drill a hole to countersink the screws (so the screw head doesn't stick out).

I would give to drill with the anchor drill bit back to J and he would work on the wall studs. I would take the other drill with the screwdriver head and get the screws started. This was a really easy way to line up the screws with the wall anchors. I would hand it to J and he would finish screwing it in while I switched out the drill bit back to the smaller piece and got everything ready for another board.

We got all the shelf supports up Friday night. Early Saturday we got up for round two. We still don't own a router so I sanded the shelf edges down. I have finally figured out the perfect technique (moving the sander in wide circles while also moving it up and down over the edge) and my edges look fantastic. It just took forever. And since it was a record breaking 112 degrees outside, it was not fun.

J is all ready to paint in this photo. We FINALLY bought a paint sprayer, so after a bit of a learning curve (it wasn't working because the hose wasn't plugged into the air compressor, duh) we got everything painted the same white we painted the room.

I was trying to take a picture and dropped my phone. And I caught it just as it took a picture. I like it.

We were just about done; I just needed to caulk and we had already checked that we still had caulk left over. I made the mistake of saying to J, "This just might be our first project where we've only had to go to the hardware store once!!"

I got out my caulking gun and my caulk was completely dry and wouldn't come out of the tip. It busted out the bottom and got all over my caulking gun. I had to go buy more caulk. But don't worry, we checked the vast knowledge of the internet and found how to store the caulk so that it doesn't happen in the future.

Maybe one day I will achieve my dream of a project where we only make one trip to Lowe's.

Here is why caulking is important. The before.

And the after. 

Look at that beautiful rounded edge! Like a boss. This was before the shelf was pushed all the way in; they don't stick out like that.

That's a special little treat just for me. The hotness that is my J. He was adjusting his cords and I decided that was a good time for the "finished" photo. You're welcome.

J was in Corum's wedding, so that's how we spent our Saturday night. At first it reaaaaaaally sucked being outside while they took the photos. Corum's mom said she had prayed for some cloud cover and wind. She got her wish. Can you see the sky in the background? She got a freaking haboob. Don't ever cross that woman. She has powers.