A Little Bit About Pinteresting DIY. .

We are building a new house. YAY! I'm so excited even though we are only 8 days into the build I'm super excited!

Because we are building a new house, we must sell the house we are in now and in no way will we rent to strangers. 

We've been here for 14 years and I told my husband that we aren't going to make it to 15 yrs because I am so tired of how small it is and we've been here too long. Originally, we moved in after my husband graduated college and I was pregnant with our first child. We had both agreed that we would only be in the house for 5 years. Three years later, our 2nd child came along and with her being in the NICU with several medical problems, many surgeries and 9 weeks in the NICU, we had a whole lot of stress and medical bills so we promised only 5 more years. The market tanked in 4 years later and the company that my husband worked for closed the doors. Thank goodness, he had gone a month later and got a business license so that very morning he came home and told me the company no longer exists,and with business license in hand, we set up an office in the home. I guess he was ready to leave too so as soon as my broken ankle healed from playing dart tag. That was fun to play but not the trip to the ER.   

Throughout the 14 years we've been here, we've done some improvements such as painting, putting up a chair rail, wainscoting, ripping out the cheap carpet and laminate flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms that was in the house when we bought it and putting down laminate hardwood throughout the house and vinyl tile in the kitchen and bathrooms, adding to the back patio, putting in a couple raised garden beds and a firepit but those are things that every house has that few people take notice of. We decided to save money and update the 'dated' features in the house that is no longer 'popular'. By doing these simple improvements to 'update' the house to be more 'sellable' we figured that saving money by doing DIY projects was important to us because we're only going to be living here for 4 more months. 

Now that summer break is over, I'll be posting these projects as I do them. Enjoy!

Time To Do Something With The Hardware...(and maybe the chandeliers?)

As I just finished my kitchen cabinet post, I remembered that I needed to spray a second coat of paint on the door hardware. You see, I'm getting rid of the brassy hardware because it looks so dated and I absolutely HATE it. Yes, I hear that brass hardware and fixtures are once again, coming back in style but not in this house!  No! No! No!

I decided to do 3 doors at a time because not all of the bedroom doors and bathroom doors can be done at once. Privacy please! :) 

After removing all the screws from the hinges, door knobs and the metal plate on the side of the door jam, (I have no idea what it is called so if anyone knows, please let me know,) I wiped all the hardware down with a damp cloth and laid them out to spray paint. For the screws, I punched holes in a small box I had and sprayed them that way.

I decided on the Rustoleum spray paint for metal called 'Oil Rubbed Bronze' because I loved the look of it and it matched well with the color of the cabinets and paint we did a few years ago. The color was a good match and I love it!

It took about 4 cans to do 14 knobs front and back,3 hinges on each door x 14 doors, all the many screws in the hinges, knobs and metal plate thingies and the 2 tiny knobs on 2 of the accordian closets. Much cheaper than replacing all of it.

After I had laid out the hardware to paint it only took a minute or less to spray it all on. The spray is very light and is easy to sweep off if you get any on the hard surface floors. I sprayed everything in my garage on a roll of brown painters paper. 

The door knobs were a little tricky under the knob itself so I grabbed a few empty rolls of TP and fit the rolls under the door knobs. I then sprayed the underside of the knob holding it upside down and then put the knob standing up on the TP roll. Easy-peasy.

When I was finishing up the front door hardware, I forgot to get those metal plates on the side of the door jamb so I hurried and sprayed them. Do not forget these! 

I'm loving the results and I'm loving the look of the exposed hinges on the doors. 

(if you didn't believe me when I told you that my camera on my phone was broke before, just know that I don't always paint fuzzy dots in random places everywhere I try and take a picture.)

There is a few things to remember when re-attaching the hardware. First, the screws in the door knobs CAN be removed with a drill but CANNOT be re-attached with a drill after being painted. Small areas of the spray paint will rub off if there are scrapes from a stubborn screw that refuses to go in straight. You MUST use a screwdriver when re-attaching the knobs but that is the only thing that must be done with a screwdriver, the rest of the hardware screws can be re-attached with the drill. Not too many scrapes that are noticeable.  

Second thing to remember, wear disposable gloves! The first time I sprayed the hardware, I didn't even think about wearing anything on my hands, and then I went to wash it off. It doesn't come off easily.

Now to get the chandeliers tackled. Must unhook the wiring from the ceiling outlet, tape the glass first! 

Painting My Kitchen Cabinets, FAIL or Success - You decide.

I really had good intentions on posting my home reno DIY projects but let's face it, it's summertime! Between looking at homes to buy, deciding to forget buying a house and build instead - that's another story for another day, deciding which floor plan we liked best, which lot we wanted, what we were going to 'tweak' in the floor plan, finally getting the building permits to build the house, getting over the 4th of July celebration and parade that my husband was in charge of, ballet recital, my birthday, waiting out the triple digit heat in JUNE, spreading my dad's ashes at his favorite campground, organizing my dad's Celebration of Life, my daughter's 14th birthday, soccer tryouts for my daughter, the spring on our garage busting and resulting in the door literally caving in, cleaning up the landscaping in the front yard and everything else you can imagine, not to mention school supply shopping and open houses to meet the teachers, you could say my summer has been a busy one!

Today is the first day of school and I've said back to blogging now!

The first project of the summer was started 2 days before the 2-week long triple digit heat in June. I was painting my kitchen cabinets. It had to be done and it was all up to me to paint since the summer is the busiest season for my husband and his business but that's what happens when you are a business owner. 

I first tackled the kitchen cabinets by taping off the inside of the cupboards, the edges of the cabinet frames, removing all the doors and drawers, cleaning and painting them, all of course after I cleaned out all the utensils, plates, cups, pots and pans and everything else that goes in the cabinets. My kitchen was a disaster filled with boxes of kitchen tools and dishes but it was getting a makeover.

After removing everything, I de-glossed them, cleaned and laid them out in the garage elevated on boxes so that I could get all sides. They looked great after the paint and the decorative glaze so I just had to finish one step - protective top coat. When I applied that, it looked awesome and I was thrilled with the results but I still had to let it dry. I had applied the top coat late in the evening so I let it dry overnight. The next morning, I went out to check on them, thinking I was going to be putting up the doors that day, I was excited and I was, until I went out to check on them. I was in tears.  Literally.
I took pictures and texted these to my husband. 

 Sorry about the horrible pictures, the camera on my phone broke the day before. Figures.

Those milky white drips on the sides of the cabinets, was the top coat. In no way did it look anything like that when I applied it the night before. I applied it to the front and the back of the cabinets, as well as the sides. It really looked horrible. Even worse, there were tiny bubbles on the front of the cabinet doors. This was nothing that could be lightly sanded off, it was a total do-over and I had to do something different to get my mind off of it. I decided to paint my porch bench, even though we would be taking it with us when we moved. Something had to happen so I made it happen and it turned out perfect! I loved it! YAY!
 

After that, I was ready to face my fears of sanding everything down and then re-painting everything.... and then the heat came. Scorching 110-degree heat... in JUNE... in IDAHO! This just does not happen in June here, always in late July/early August. For 2 weeks, I laid low because the 110-degree heat outside, made my garage feel like 140 degrees.

Finally, after we had enjoyed our summer, I decided to sand it down... by hand. I only got halfway through the first drawer, which was mostly flat and should have been easy, before I went to retrieve the power sander. Once again, It took forever and not all of the paint came off. I decided to strip the paint. Well, that didn't work so I cried, then went on Pinterest and found some DIY cabinet doors and drawers to replace them with. I loved the look and I already had the wainscoting. I decided what I had to do and what was going to replace my disaster. Once again, I texted my husband that we were going to the lumber store that night and buy some to make the new cabinets out of. I was so excited that I cut some of the wainscoting and outlined the outer frames and then took a picture to text him. He texted back saying that he was buying a paint sprayer and we could paint them with that. It would be much easier he said. Once again, I was in tears so I told him that the cabinets was his project now and that I wouldn't have any part of it.

I was really upset and was calling this my FAIL. Uh huh, my fail. Well, a new paint sprayer and some more paint made these cabinets look fabulous! I must say, for the first time using a paint sprayer, he did pretty good.

We finished up with new hardware that matched the shape of the stainless steel appliance handles and it looks fabulous! It's a good idea to get a template to know where to put your hardware in the correct place and to put it on straight too. This template worked well for us and can be used for both cabinets and drawers. 

We ended up going with the Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations kit in the Espresso color.

What do you think? Epic FAIL or sucess?