Category Archives: Quick tip

GUEST POST: A few words from my mother!

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Hello all,  today I am writing as a guest writer on Lyndsay’s blog. I am the Mom, and I perform most of the behind the scenes tasks.   You don’t see me much in the pictures, but I do work as a helper most of the time.

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 My tasks include, but are not limited to, preparing breakfast, lunch or dinner, washing dishes, catching up on Raul and Lyndsay’s laundry, trips to Lowe’s and Menard’s, sweeping up dust, picking up scraps and of course watching the new puppy Ruco.  I hate mudding and sanding drywall the most, I am not very good at staining boards, and I can’t read a tape measure.  However, I do
watch Rehab Addict. Today I would like to share a trick I learned from Nicole Curtis, the Rehab Addict.
HOW TO: Remove old layers of paint from hardware.

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First I gave up my big old crock pot.  I filled it with water and turned it on HIGH.  I placed all the old door and window hardware into the pot and just let it “cook ” for a long while, about 2-3 hours. Make sure you use tongs or some other tool to get your old hardware out, this water will be HOT!
When we removed the hardware, the paint just fell off completely.  No stripping or chemicals necessary!
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A small amount of elbow grease to remove the loose paint, and a bit of shining up and the hardware was sparkling like new!
At last…I have made a contribution to RESTORING THIS OLE HOUSE!
Until next time,
Sheila

A local treasure: The Wood Shack

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For all of you interested in historic home renovation we have a great resource here in Fort Wayne called The Wood Shack. They specialize in salvaging architectural parts from old houses and buildings. For homeowners like us this is an awesome place to pick up doors, trim, windows, etc that look like they belong in our own house! The shop is run by a super friendly and knowledgeable husband/wife duo and their store is a jam-packed architectural heaven.  They are proudly located downtown behind the Tincaps baseball stadium and they are big supporters of our historic neighborhoods and restoration in general.

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As part of our kitchen remodel we have made the choice to convert the existing utility closet into a first floor powder room.  We currently have one full bath upstairs and a random  toilet in the middle of the basement laundry room but as time goes on we have realized that a first floor bathroom is pretty much a necessity.  We are going to have to remove the exterior door from that utility room in order to full enclose the area and make it functional as a bathroom.   This means that we will be adding an exterior door directly off the north side of the kitchen with direct access to the back porch.

We were in the market for an old exterior door and The Wood Shack had some great finds!

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Our budget for this mini project was $200.00 and we were looking for a door with a good amount of glass so that we could capitalize on the natural light.  We were so excited to find this beauty!!

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I am in L-O-V-E!! I can’t wait to see how this will look in our new kitchen. And now with a bit of elbow grease…well, maybe a lot of elbow grease…we are going to clean this door up and make it our own!

Shop local and check out The Wood Shack!

https://www.facebook.com/TheWoodShackfw

 

Creating furniture!

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Now that we’ve finally got the walls painted and floors refinished we can start finding and buying furniture. Although we have purchased a few new pieces of furniture for the house, we have really had a fun time finding old pieces at thrift stores, garage sales, etc and turning them into unique pieces for our house. The best part about this (besides the cheap price!) is that we get to style the furniture to fit our tastes and match the decor of the house as well. We keep a sharp eye out for pieces with curved lines or ornate carvings that fit the time period of the house and present a good canvas for our furniture creation. Check out two of the pieces that we have restyled. Both were missing parts and/or damaged. With a little vision and a bit of paint we were able to make these two pieces into something fully functional and stylish as well!

My first project was a white cubby hole bookshelf that only needed a bit of paint to hide the scratches on its surface. We assembled the bookshelf on the front porch (and by we, I mean my dad 😉

The next step was to paint the bookshelf a glossy cream color to match the rest of the bedroom furniture.

I wanted to alter this piece of furniture and add a back to it so that I could add some fabric for a pop of color.  I purchase a large sheet of wood to create a backing and cut it down to the size of the bookshelf.

My original thought was to cover the backing in the wallpaper that I had leftover from our master bedroom nook. Unfortunately there was not enough left over so I went on the the next best idea- fabric! Joann Fabric was having a nice sale on their whole selection  so I chose a material with neutral color and a pattern similar to that of the aforementioned wallpaper. The fabric I chose was actually drapery fabric and had a great sheen to it as well as a cool, velvety texture.

We cut the fabric to size and attached it with duct tape to the wooden backing. Although staples may have been a sturdier form of attaching the fabric, duct tape allowed us to easily switch out the covering if we choose to alter our decor down the road. It also eliminates damage to the fabric piece which means we can use it other projects should we wish to.


Next we had to lug this thing up our L-shaped stairs and into the master bedroom.

I added a few books and knick-knacks anddddd project complete!

Our next project was creating a coffee table for the living room. I was fortunate enough to come into a table frame but not table top :/ No worries though, the frame of the table was absolutely too gorgeous to pass up!

We debated over whether to make the top of this out of wood or perhaps mosaic tiles or even a painted watercolor top. I was informed that the original top was made of marble that was cracked in shipping.

We decided to go with a wood top. We cut it to size and sanded it down. I also purchased a strip of trim to cover the crack between the table top and the frame.

After we assembled the trim and the table top we stained everything to match the existing frame.

Lastly, we added a protective coating on top to keep the surface looking nice.

All in all, two DIY projects that left our house looking a bit more homey! 🙂

Lions and Tigers and Wall Fabric?! (oh my!)

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Now that we are nicely settled in the house it was high time for some decorating! I have always been (and always will be!) the DIY kinda girl! I love crazy, weird ideas and I love, LOVE making something from nothing (I mean, just look at what I’ve done with Raul 😉 xoxo just kiddin’ babe)

Over the past couple of years we have had the opportunity to look inside several historic homes in different areas around town. There are a couple of different home tours that we like to frequent to check out what other people are doing with big, old houses. And we always walk away with a favorite out of the bunch. The “favorite” house always has something unique and special about it. Although our house has plenty of character and charm on its own a little help from my handy hands can’t hurt, right?!

A couple of weekends ago the weather turned cool and rainy.  After months of hot and humid weeks filled with outside work and, more often than not, perspiration, I decided to take advantage of the gray, stormy day and try out my first major DIY- covering an entire wall in fabric. 😀 Our wall is nice and big, and though it is freshly painted, it is B-O-R-I-N-G. This is what is looked like before.

We have a nice space and the wood work is obviously beautiful but I really wanted to make an impression on guests as soon as they walked through the front door. And so it was off to procure an eye-popping, color, texture wall ASAP. 😉

I woke up early and dragged Raul to Jo-Ann Fabrics. I had been scoping out the different patterns and textures for weeks. Finally, with a new paycheck in the bank and coupons in hand, we took the plunge and purchased 20 yards of this fantastic fabric. My advice: do NOT attempt this project unless this stuff is on sale…cuz it is expensive! I got lucky and got it at 50% off for September being National Sewing Month. 🙂

Here’s a close-up so you guys can check out the detail.

The fabric is an organic fiber with lots of different greenish blue hues that complemented the hallway paint color marvelously! I also liked the striated markings because it would help to lengthen the entry way wall even more.

I had spent a lot of time researching the best method for hanging said fabric. I stumbled on some cool blog posts detailing how fabric could be hung on walls using regular old liquid laundry starch. Apparently the idea originated with some Army wives who wanted to make their Army barrack houses feel like homes without permanently changing the walls as this was not allowed. The cool thing about using starch to hang the fabric is that it can easily be peeled away from the wall when you are ready to take it down.  The fabric would have to be saturated, just like wallpaper, and hung in much the same manner. I looked high and low for liquid laundry starch- nada. So I ended up with 6 cans of this stuff.

We washed down the walls with soapy water and set to work measuring and cutting the fabric while the walls had a chance to dry.

My number one tidbit of advice? Measure twice and cut once! And in this instance, I am referring to the cut made by the sweet old lady at Jo-Ann Fabrics. I ended up buying approximately 4 extra yards of this stuff due to a miscalculation (hey! Math was never my strong point!) At $25 bucks a yard that’s some serious change…thank God for coupons and tons of other DIY’s that I can use this leftover fabric for (heck, one lady told me she used this fabric to make the lining on her bed comforter?!). Anyways, we soon got right into the project.

First things first- pull away all the old trim and moldings. I wanted the edges of the fabric to be tucked away under the molding, hence, the necessity to rip it all off first!

I then cut off a small square from the scrap fabric and tested out my spray starch method…

…hmmm, seems to work! Let’s do this thing already!!

We set up two ladders on the stairs and my dad and I each grabbed an end of the fabric and a can of starch. We coated the wall in the  sticky stuff and placed the fabric on the wall. My intention had been to hang the fabric using starch only. The advantage of this is that when I grew tired of the look the fabric would easily peel away from the wall and after a quick cleaning the wall would be clean and free of damage. Yeahhhh….soooo not so much. Lol The fabric did not want to stay flat against the wall. There were a lot of bubbles and I don’t know if this was due to the size of the area we were covering or lack of saturation or what. We ended up securing the fabric with a staple gun along the bottom and top of the wall in order to keep it in place.

And voila! It was that easy! And to top it off my house smelled like fresh laundry!

Now, on to the more complicated trim cutting side of this DIY (DAD-it-yourself). If you don’t have a DAD for this project I suggest you get one at your nearest Home Depot 😉

We bought some crown molding pieces and also some 12′ boards to make a corner covering like the one that we had removed. I decided to extend the corner cover all the way to the ceiling in order to hide the seams from the two separate fabric pieces we used to cover the wall..and well, honestly it just looked better!

After we attached all the trim and let the fabric and starch dry I found that there were quite a few large bubbles where the fabric did not adhere to the wall. I continued to spray on top of the fabric with the starch but I found this was not enough in a lot of areas….so I got out the wallpaper glue. Luckily, I still had plenty of this stuff leftover from my adventure in wallpapering.

I simply took a bit of the paste and brushed it over the top of the fabric- the stuff  penetrates and dries invisibly. It was enough to soak through the fabric and literally glue it to the wall. I then used the wallpaper brush and roller to smooth out the bubbles toward the open side of the fabric that had not been attached completely yet. My recommendations for any other DIYers who attempt this project would be either find a gallon of the liquid starch and saturate the heck out of your fabric OR if you can’t find that, make you own out of cornstarch! I think the sheer size and weight of this fabric made it hard for it to stick to the wall using the spray starch technique- although I definitely think that this would work for small areas.

The end results are Ah-mazing. I love the effect the wall gives when you walk in the door. It complements the dark wood beautifully and makes my home look like a dollhouse.

Cashin’ in

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When we purchased the house back in March, we made sure to include a clause that would allow us to purchase the house “as-is.” Though this meant lots and lots of cleaning up, it also meant that we inherited quite a few useful items. After all, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure 😉

After several renters  and owners there was tons of stuff filling the garage and basement- everything from yard tools to appliances to furniture. There was even a stack of old love letters from the early 90’s (which made for HI-larious reading material, I might add).

There was also tons of scrap metal scattered around.

We took the first load to Hoosier Metal Recycling a couple of weeks ago and got a nice little bonus to help us pay for some of the materials that we have been using to repair the house.

One of the items we scrapped was a homemade go-cart left by one of the former tenants. Raul begged for weeks on end to keep the go-cart so that he could fix it up and ride it later, but I think it would have been more work than it was worth- and we definitely don’t have any time for any extra work at the moment! I had to bribe Raul with the promise of a new go-cart in the near future in order for him to part with this beloved piece of found trash, er treasure 😉

Even when it was already loaded in the trailer and ready for its final ride to the scrap yard he didn’t want to let go!

Gettin’ all cleaned up!

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Before we could even begin to work on remodeling the house we had a lot of cleaning to do.  I mean like 20 years worth of cleaning.  This house has a way of accumulating possessions and not letting them go.  Besides months (maybe years?) of dust sitting in all the cracks of the woodwork (which literally fills EVERY room), there was also a huge basement AND a 3-car garage full to the brim with boxes, and furniture, and trash.  That’s a lot of stuff people!

It took us two whole days and a whole crew of family and friends to clean this place out.  Take a look at the garage.

And that was day 2!  Luckily, we found a lot of treasure amidst the trash. We were able to salvage some wood materials, three lawnmowers, an elliptical machine, tons of tools, and a sizeable scrap pile that we can use to offset some of our remodeling costs.

Cuz let me tell you people, remodeling is expen$ive!! Emphasis on the $$$!

And anyone who knows me, knows that I am a budget queen..well, let’s just call things by their real name. I am a 100% CONTROL FREAK! Especially when it comes to my pile of savings. lol

I budget down to the last penny. Really, you have to with a mortgage payment, utilities, food, gas and remodeling labor and materials on top of all that.

Luckily, we are using a reliable and affordable, not to mention extremely qualified contractor to help with the remodel- my DAD! 🙂  Check out his facebook page if you’re considering any kind of repair or remodel. The guy does it all, really.

Now that the house is cleared of all the clutter we can actually start to plan out how we are going to complete all of the repairs…and then after that…many, many, months away…comes the fun part- DECORATING!!!