Curtain Love

FINALLY! got our curtains hung after finishing the trim around the windows. I bet our neighbours are excited too not to have to look at our cardboard.

Master Bedroom:

These are the same curtains we had previously and we just got them back up.

JBaby's Room:
These are new curtains from Fabricland that have embroidered cars on them (although you can't see them in the picture) - super cute.

Family night tonight, we are all at home for the night together for the first time this week, so we are looking forward to a little time together.

Living Room Destruction

Thanks to some timely family help, we went from this....

...to this...

...in a matter of days.

This may not seem like progress, but it certainly is in our world.

So, now we get to dream about built-in units for the far wall. Originally we wanted to put in a gas fireplace but lately we've been thinking maybe the living room would function more as a family room/den/playroom which means what we really need is more storage.

To Pinterest for the win....or a couple of ideas....

 

Have always wanted a library ladder. How cool would that be? I also like the drawers on this one - would be great for hiding toys.

 

Not only is their unit kicking, their blog is amazing.

Here's what we need in what we design or build (or both):
1. Room for a second TV (this is still a highly debated request)
2. Storage for toys & books
3. Cupboards or drawers that will shut (aka you can't see what's in them)

In the meantime, we start designing our own. I wrestled with the IKEA builder, their free planning tools are pretty awesome for visual people like I am. Will let you know what I come up with!

Brrr... and Bedroom Progress

It's a balmy -26 C here today, brr!

Was suppose to get much colder, but I suppose we'll see what happens as the day goes on. Hope you are keeping warm, we sure are.

We've been working hard on our bedroom - crow bars a'flying as we tear out the hardwood floor. This floor is original to the house, and I still believe it's lovely but it sure was showing it's age. From the manufacturer's brand on the back of our hardwood was made by Royal Oak from Crosset, Arkansas. Boy, it's a long way from home.

If you're tearing out your own floor, set your skill saw to the depth of your floor, floor typically is less than 7/8", start by making a cut into the floor for a place to start tearing out and pry up with your crow bar. 

On our case, because we have moved our closet and the extra space from the opposite side was carpeted, we had a natural break in our hardwood floor to start from.

The best pry bar in our collection is from Lee Valley, 25" Renovator's Bar. The longer you get, the better it will save your back!

Here's the before shot (love the light that this room gets during the day):

After a little nostalgic dump run to the most picturesque landfill site just in the knick of time on Saturday with a truck load of floor.... and a tonne of nails sticking out....

We've got a new sub-floor and a call in to our favourite local flooring place with hopes of carpet soon so we can move our bed back in.

Somehow our bedroom has become the room where the smelly hockey equipment goes, in the meantime. Pee-you.

Here's a peek at the carpet we'll be installing:

Same as what is in our other bedroom - the preferred place of our dog to shed as much as possible. He sure keeps us busy with the vacuuming. On to my next project of the day....tackling my junk drawers. That's right, I have two.

Will reveal them in all their glory, next post!

How To: Install a Door Jamb & Hang a Door

A way to save yourself a few bucks is not to buy a pre-assembled door jamb, usually these kits cost anywhere from $60-90, whereas the materials in our project cost $47. We have also been able to save cost on some of our doors by buying ones from our local Architectural Clearinghouse which offers reused and salvaged materials. We have been able to pick some some standard 6-panel doors at the store for $18-22 depending on size.

Things Needed:

Tape Measure

Pencil

3 pieces of pre-primed MDF door jamb

16-20 ft of pre-primed MDF door casing, in the style of your choosing (amt. needed depends on sz of door)

Door 

Hinges

Chop saw

Nails, hammer or a pnumatic nail gun

DAP, rapid drywall mud or DAP DryDex

Box Cutter, Chisel

Screwdriver or drill

Primer, brush, tray

Most doors are a standard 80“, which means the rough opening of your door will be a couple inches larger than this. You need enough linear feet to do 2 sides and a top. Most building stores stock in a 7 ft (84 inches) length, which means for your project, you will need 3 pieces.

Of course, the old carpenter`s adage to measure twice and cut once does apply, so make sure you measure your door before you pick up your materials (just in case).

Jamb refers to the trim which is inside your door frame, casing refers to the trim outside of your casing (aka the pretty pieces). As an additional finish, the head pieces of casing in our house are a different style. This is a personal preference.

In our house, we have used the following styles:
Casing: Moulding & Millwork, Casing MFPU8039
Head Casing:  Moulding & Millwork, Architrave 5010

Jamb is fairly standard, here`s an example if you need one.

Head out to your favourite local home improvement store. The pieces you are looking for will be in Millwork section, and comes in a variety of styles, as well as primed or painted.  We prefer to use primed MDF and then paint with our own primer. If you`re trying to match up existing trim, most existing trim will be a Colonial style but it may be helpful to have a photograph.

In order to find cut the head jamb, you need to know the width of your door. We will add a 1/4 inch total to the measurement of your door to give enough play for the door to swing open and closed on hinges (as every door should!). The easiest way to do this is to just cut the pieces square at the width of your door plus 1/4 of an inch. 

However, we like to notch our door frames. This is a little more advanced, but we feel it gives us a door frame that will withstand the test of time. 

To do this, you square the end of your jamb, cut a notch the same thickness of your jamb (5/8“: standard), to find the second notch, measure the distance from the first notch the width of your door plus 1/4“ (so if your door is 24“, then measure from the notch 24 1/4“ and this is where your second notch should start - 5/8“ thick).

In order to cut a notch, you need a piece of material 3“ to place between the saw fence and your jamb to hold the piece away from the fence, so you can set up your depth of the saw to cut 1/4“. Basically this jamb is placed on the fence to allow you to get to depth at the back of your piece. 

The side jambs length can be calculated by adding the height of the door (standard 80“) plus 1/4“, plus gap spacing of 7/8“ for spacing at bottom & top of door.

Cut your side jambs to length calculated.

Take a minute and have a thought on which way your door will be swinging into your room, as this affects where you will put your hinges. Typically bedrooms and bathrooms will swing inwards towards a wall.

Measure 8`` plus depth of notch (1/4“) from the top of your jamb. Mark with pencil. This is where your first hinge will go. Attach your hinge using 2 screws and your screwdriver or drill.

Repeat the process for the bottom hinge, measure from the top of the first hinge 59“ down and attach this hinge.  

Score around your hinge using a box cutter or a router if you have one (we obviously don`t). Remove hinge, rinse and repeat for the second hinge. Pay careful attention that you are just cutting in to the depth of the hinge but no further.

You should be left with hinge imprints that look a little something like this:

Chisel within the depth of the hinge (within your marks), so this will inset your hinge slightly, this is usually about 1/8“ or slightly less. Put hinges back into the now chiseled areas on your jamb. 

Repeat this process on your doors, using a 7 7/8“ from the top of the door for the top hinge and 59“ from the top hinge for the bottom hinge.

Using your hammer and nails (sucker) or nail gun, tack the head jamb into your side jambs. 

Place your completed door jamb within your rough opening. If it doesn`t fit, revisit your measurements as you may have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the line.

Measure from the floor to the notch for the length of the side casing. Cut boards to size.

Use 1“ nails to attach the casing to the jambs using a hammer & nails (sucker) or a nail gun NOT to the wall  (yet).

Hang the door within the door jamb by attaching the hinges into the area you just chiseled out on your door. Add a piece of tape (we used painter`s tape) to be able to able to open & shut it (door knob tutorial coming up next).

Adjust the jambs and casing, by sliding them or pushing them until you have an even gap all the way around, and the door will open and shut freely.

Tack your casings into the wall using a hammer & nails (sucker) or a nail gun.

Measure from the outside of the casing to the outside of the casing to get your distance (and measurement) for the head casing. 

Set saw to 45 degree angle and cut one end in a back cut, use measurement then to measure to make your second cut. Line up back of your cut to the outside of your casing and tack it in place.

If you want a pretty end piece to really finish your work, you can take the scrap pieces from the two cuts you just made, put your saw back up to straight 90 degree angle and cut on the intersection on the back side of your previous cut. This will form a little triangle thin piece which will be perfect. Try it on a couple pieces of scrap wood if you are having an issue with wrapping your mind around it.

For a finishing look, we use DAP caulking to fill in the joints and the nail holes with DAP DryDex (rapid drying drywall mud). Put a little on your finger, push it into the hole, rub off the excess. Let this dry over night.

Touch up the nail holes the next time for a little primer and you`re done!

Have you hung a door or installed casing lately? What room are you currently working in?

PJ Project: Name Letters

In case you wondered, we're not the only resourceful DIYers & craft geeks in our families. Case in point, this lovely door hanger art that Auntie C made for J's door. I hung it up with a clear Command Hook this week & it makes me smile every time I walk past.

Wanna make your own? It's pretty simple.

Needed:

Paint

Paint Brush

Ribbon

Button

Hot Glue Gun & Glue

Wooden Letter (you can find these at your local craft store, Michaels or Walmart)

3M Clear Command Hook (don't forget your coupon)

Time:

30 minutes (and drying overnight)

1. Paint letter one solid colour - in this case, blue. Let dry to start a base.

2. Dot different colours of paint on using the end of your paint brush.
3. Let dry overnight.
4. Attach ribbon with hot glue and button to top.
5. Date your wonderful piece of art with your name, date and who it's for.
6. Hang on door/wall with 3M Command Hook.

I made one of these in the past for a friend's child and mod podged scrapbooking paper to the front instead of dots & added a little bit of fuzzy faux fur - use your imagination & your scraps! The sky is the limit.

Freezer Jenga & Bathroom Floor Reveal

It's time again for our favourite game - Freezer Jenga.

We inevitably buy a buttload bunch of meat everytime we go to Costco. We love the quality of the meat and the price per kilogram is pretty sweet too.

A couple trips ago, we did math in store and realized the striploin steaks that we keep buying would actually be cheaper if we did the cutting of the striploin ourselves. So since then, we have sharpened up our chef knives and got chopping.

For a striploin that is about $80-90 we find we tend to get about 18-20 decently sized steaks. With the cost per kg, this works out to about $4/steak. A far cry from the $6 we were paying to have the butcher chop them.

So D got slicing and I got to take everything out of the freezer. Here's the before shot. (I actually had done the door a couple days ago when I had some time).

One of our main impediments in our tiny freezer is the turkey that didn't get eaten on Steaksgiving (or Thanksgiving). I had a freezer-side peanut gallery too.

 

One of the tips I found recently was to take the ground beef and flatten it in the freezer bag so it's thin and you can get more in. This helped a lot! Plus it makes the meat defrost quickly in the sink, which I love.

Here's the finished product after an hour or so of work by both of us to bag, label and sort. This is enough meat to last us several months.

In case you're wondering what's in there:

• One big turkey
• 6 medium freezer bags of ground beef
• 1 bag of homemade wontons
• 2 bags of Kraft shredded cheese
• 2 blocks of mozzarella cheese
• 14 drinkable yogurts
• A large ziplock baggie full of frozen breastmilk
• 11 frozen waffles
• 1 medium bag of frozen peas from our garden
• 1 large bag of frozen beans from our garden
• 6 lbs of butter
• 4 spiced packages of haddock
• 1 slab of peameal bacon
• 1 lb of strip bacon
• 2 leftover frozen casserole dinners
• 3 packages of burgers
• 4 boxes of frozen tart shells
• 2 large freezer bags full of pork ribs
• 8 medium bags of chicken breast
• 2 medium bags of chicken cutlets
• 2 medium bags of turkey breast
• 5 medium bags of pork souvlaki
• 2 salmon steaks
• 8 large bags of striploin steaks
• 1 first-aid cold package

I find our stacking impressive. But not as impressive as the grout in the bathroom.

It was a huge sigh of relief that the grout went very easily with these tiles after the disaster we had in our other bathroom. We used a higher quality tile sealer, and the expense of this, we feel has been well-worth it. The product we used this time is DuPont StoneTech Professional Enhancer Pro Sealer. 

We are all looking forward to having a toilet on the main level again, we have not had one upstairs since Jo was born!

 

Yay progress!

Bedroom Update

We're getting tired of sleeping in the living room.

Things are still progressing along on the Hobo-Chic Project, but a little slower than usual, mostly because of this shiny little face, but also because our head contractor is working full-time and a bit!

We will continue on in our plans though. The bedroom walls are primed, next up the ceiling, and I got a very special project to work on.

Namely the master closet and closet organizer. Huzzah, and I knew exactly what furry helper would help me out.

Err... well, he tried. 

Our closet got a big jump on it's former self by us removing the Front Hall closet on the other side and moving our closet into the corner of the room. This allows a lot more room for the door and a little nook.  From our clothing situation it looks that we need one high bar (6' or so) for long hanging items such as dresses and suits. We both like to hang out hoodies (no small feat in my case), and I also like to hang my pants, this means we probably need 2 other short bars. We like the idea of shelves or drawers in the middle, although we're not really sure what they would be for at this point.

So, to the Interweb.... lots of closet kits available....

From homedepot.ca, Martha Stewart Living 4-8'  $159.99

From homedepot.ca, John Louis Home Deluxe, $799

A custom closet, I envisioned was about the same price range ($400+). So back to the drawing board, or back to what is currently in J's closet perhaps.

A couple of options:

• Ana White's Build a Simple Closet Organzier Plans and DIY it
• Wait for this piece to go on sale
• Throw everything in Rubbermaids and call it a day
  
  PS. I really like the Canadian Tire's website feature that you can put a Sale Alert on an item - how smart is that?