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It’s been done to death…but I’m going to do it anyway!

May 8, 2013 by betterremade

I know, I know…I’m totally late on the game on this! I think chalkboard walls may have been done to death. But I have not done one, so let’s say it is new to me! :) This is the latest photo I have of the dining room. I don’t know what I am doing with the table…disregard that, it was a trial. I did not like it.

The dining room has barely been touched. It has had an identity crisis since we moved in. But now I am working on it. It’s been tough making up my mind on what to do with it, but I think that I am starting to have a vision…starting with the walls.

We have 2 large blank walls, one has a large mirror, and the other has my enlarged photo art. They don’t match each other in style. The chairs are mis matched. I keep putting down a rug, and then removing it, then putting it back, then removing it again. Anyway, I won’t go on and on about the dining room decor…this is about the walls. Since they are both large and blank, I thought it’d be perfect for a chalkboard wall.

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Lucy is kind of young…yes, but I imagine her enjoying it in a few years. And I guess until then, I can enjoy it. I have no idea what I am doing to draw on it. It feels like a lot of pressure. My fear is that I will make random to do lists that will stay up for months. Somehow I manage to keep grocery lists on scraps of paper for weeks. A part of me goes back and forth on whether I should do it.

Wait, I may have just changed my mind though…mid post. I did a pinterest search.

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Love these frames. Great idea for a quick change gallery wall!

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Look at these! They are awesome! The wheels in my head are starting to turn. Anyone come across some great chalkboard walls?

Posted in Dining Room, DIY Crafts, Home Improvement, Inspiration, Our House | Tagged chalkboard, dining room, DIY, home decor, home improvement, painting, wall art | 6 Comments »

Sun’s out…so is the Sangria!

April 17, 2013 by betterremade

Now…I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I think that I make REALLY good Sangria! I’m slightly nervous my friends are going to read this and think to themselves, “really?!” But I think it’s true! And the best part is that it’s only 2 ingredients. Red wine and Orange pop. I can’t believe I haven’t shared this! It’s been my go-to entertaining beverage for years. The first few times I made it, I used Orangina and decent wine. But each time I made it, I got cheaper and cheaper, the the result remained the same…glass after glass! So now I use a 1.5L of cab sauv and a 2L or orange pop. I did try diet pop once, but wasn’t as good. I might try again to make it less sugary, but it seemed a little flat. This cost me less than $10.

Oranges are extra. Not necessary, but adds a nice garnish. Depending on what I have on hand, or how fancy I want it to be :) I add limes, or lemons, really any fruit I have on hand.

I also recommend, if time allows, slice up the fruit and throw into the freezer. The frozen ruit slices keep it cooler longer.

Then it’s just orange pop and red wine. I usually do half and half, which makes it a little on the strong size, more winey than fruity. So definitely taste test as you mix! :)

The sun came out this weekend, so I couldn’t resist! Plus I happened to have a bowl of oranges!

I also love to mix it in Jesse’s empty beer growlers, which are perfect for bringing to a friends BBQ!

Drink up! And enjoy the sun!

Posted in Entertaining | Tagged drinks, entertaining, orange pop, red wine, sangria | Leave a Comment »

{Phase 1} Tiling Complete

March 23, 2013 by betterremade

We have completed phase 1 of our bathroom renovation. Actually, I don’t know if I can call it a renovation…maybe more of a facelift. The tiling and tub restoration is complete!

I don’t know why we didn’t do this sooner!

Now though, I am annoyed that I have to cover it up with a shower curtain. I just want to stare at it, and run my hands over the smooth glossy tiles…I’m a bit obsessed! I returned about $70 worth of unused supplies, but kept all the extra subway tile…I have the kitchen on my mind! I figure if I hold on to the tiles, it will be easier to start on a whim! That’s how a lot of my projects start!

Let’s start with the before:

As I mentioned in my last post, I was expecting to find crumbled plaster under the laminate, so I was pleasantly surprised to find plywood and in perfect 3×5′ sheets, perfect for cement board! Demo started Saturday morning. Jesse took care of most of it while I was at work.

The plywood came down so that cement board could go up. We left the lathe in place. I didn’t see any reason for it to come down. The tub butted up against it anyway, so taking it down would have opened up a can of worms.

Sunday morning the remainder of the cement backer board was up! It was pretty easy to work with. I just scored and snapped the pieces I needed, screwed them in, taped them up, and then ready to spread with mortar. That totally made it sound like a piece of cake, which it was not! But it got done, mainly because we only have one bathroom, and no other choice :)

Tiling began around noon on Sunday. Getting the first few tiles on was probably the most challenging, mainly because I was nervous.

But we just kept plugging away, and got into a rhythm.

This is where we left off Sunday night:

And on Monday, Lucy took a 2 1/2 nap and allowed me to finish the full wall and more than half of the wall opposite the shower head. Good baby!

And as soon as Jesse came home from work, I handed Lucy off and finished it up!

Including cutting the tricky holes for the shower arm and spickets.

Monday evening, when my tired body crawled into bed, the tiling was complete!

But not finished. Tuesday was grout day.

It was at this point that I thought to myself, “OMG! What have I done?!” It was so messy. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. Whenever I have seen them do it on TV or in books, they never talk about how messy it is. They just trowel it on, and wipe it off. This was not that way. The grout was super thick and it felt like a time bomb…knowing that I had to get through all of it before it hardened. You put it on, and then about 15 minutes later start wiping it off, but I had 3 walls to do and it was taking longer to get to a good stopping point. Unfortunately I waited a little too long and it required some serious elbow grease to scrub it off the tiles. I did kind of like the look of this…kind of graffiti-esque!

The other issue was that we had no handles on the spickets to run water in the tub…though I now realize that we could have just used a wrench, but the grout was a total pain to clean. Anyway, here it is with the cleaned up grout. But doing all the grout took about 1 1/2 hours with about an hour for clean up.

But then there was still this:

The old dingy stained tub. It’s a great heavy original tub that I definitely wanted to keep…but it too needed a facelift. I called the Seattle Bathtub Guy and they came out, and were able to restore it. They did that Thursday morning, and were finished by noon. They were great!

So by Thursday afternoon we had a clean white tub:

But wait! Not finished! We still had to caulk, and unfortunately after the tub restoration, there is a 12 hour waiting period. That put us at Friday night, actually that put us at midnight, but I had to work Friday, so Friday night I caulked. And then that takes 24 hours to cure, not to mention sealing the grout.

And then this morning I am flying to Colorado with Lucy to visit my sister…so my long awaited soak in the new tub will have to wait until next week.

But at least until then I can gaze longingly at the photos!

Now I have to figure out the floor! Any good recommendations?! The house is too cold for tile…maybe marmoleum? We are taking a month break and then hopefully resuming the bathroom facelift!

Posted in bathroom, Home Improvement, Our House, Projects | Tagged bathroom, bathtub, DIY, grout, subway tile, tile | 5 Comments »

Bathroom Tiling: Any Good Advice?

March 5, 2013 by betterremade

The best thing happened a few months ago! Jesse turned to me and said, “What house projects would you like to do this spring?” It was like music to my ears! It may have backfired a little because I gave him a list of what I’ve been thinking about for each room in the house. But we prioritized and decided it was time to work on the bathroom.

This is a shot of our bathroom the day we got the keys, about 3 1/2 years ago. The trim was painted maroon, which I decided was because there was no fan and the maroon hides the pink mildew.

We pretty quickly put in a bathroom fan and painted! Here is the bathroom now, today in fact!

And the tub. I can’t believe I am posting pictures of my gross tub. You can’t tell from photos how bad it is. The tub was a little beat up when we bought the house. Some marks, dings, and stains here and there. But the icing on the cake was when we tried to unplug the drain and the chemicals completely etched the bottom half of the tub. The lower half is now almost impossible to clean. I guess I can clean it, but it doesn’t look clean :)

The surround is just sheets of laminate that were glued up. This project became a priority when I noticed a large gap between the laminate and the tub underneath the shout. Now I am just nervous how long it’s been like that and how much water damage has happened.

So last month we declared March was “Tiling Month!”

I have always wanted to get my hands on a tiling project. I even bought this tiling book when I was in high school just so I could read all about it. The best part is, when I went home last week to see my parents, it was exactly where I thought it was, just sitting on my old bookshelf in what used to be my bedroom.

Totally dated! All the instructions are drawn diagrams.

But truly the best part are the inspiration photos, when 1/4″ grout seams were popular…what a pain to keep clean.

And now it’s March and I am kind of terrified! I’m excited to finally get a chance to tile, but I have no idea what is going on behind the laminate sheets. I assume that it was glue directly onto the plaster. I see pulling the sheets down, and the plaster just crumbling down with it, which is fine, since we need to put up cement backer board anyway…but what if it’s worse.

This is my subway tile dream

But that will have to wait until I am a master subway tiler…or I have proper funds!

So back to reality

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The plan is to go with white subway tiles, and dark grey grout. I figure our first tiling project requires something straight forward, nothing fancy. Each time though that I have gone to Lowe’s I have found myself looking at other options such as borders and decorative tiles, but then I remind myself that there is a reason we are keeping it simple, clean, and cheap.

And FAST, we only have one bathroom, so it will have to happen very quickly! Once we get the tile finished, we will have someone come out to refinish the tub. I hope all the timing works out! We are only replacing the shower head. Our other fixtures are in great shape, so it will be nice not to have to deal with any refitting.

Out tiling will conclude phase 1 of our bathroom facelift. Phase 2 will be pulling up the faux tile linoleum flooring, re securing the sub floor, laying down new flooring, and installing a new toilet! Maybe phase 2 will be May.

So last chance…any advice or lessons learned from DIY tiling experiences?

Lucy and I are out the door on our way to pick up our supplies!

Posted in bathroom, DIY Crafts, Home Improvement, Our House, Projects | Tagged bathroom, bathtub, DIY, home improvement, tile | 1 Comment »

Put it on a stick: Sculptural Drift Wood

March 1, 2013 by betterremade

A few years ago, Jesse and I spent a weekend camping on Lopez Island. It was a great weekend, yada yada yada…not the point! The point being that I found a cool piece of drift wood. My guess is that not everyone is going to think it’s cool, but I do.

I love the knots and the variation of color. So the first year I had it, I bought the necessary materials for my project. And then last year I started prepping and painting my materials, and then just finally I put it all together! I know! This turned into a 2 year project. I find that if I buy all my materials and have them hanging around, when I get some quick downtime I can get them put together.

For this project you just need:

(1) steel floor flange. I used 5/8″, but 1/2″ would look daintier.
(1) steel pipe nipple. Make sure that the dimension matches the floor flange
(1) fence post cap
screws to fasten flange to post cap
gold spray paint
wood stain for post cap
And something to display – in my case it’s a piece of wood

It’s pretty simple, just screw the flange and nipple together. You might need a little WD-40, and if so, make sure you wipe it down well afterward so the spray paint will look nice, which leads us to the next step of stray painting it gold.

Sand and stain the wood cap. Once it dries, like up the flange, and screw it onto the post cap.

Drill a hole into the wood…or what ever you’d like to display. The whole must be large enough to fit the nipple, so maybe check drill bit sizes before buying flange and nipple. (PS I don’t like that it’s called a nipple)Then just screw on the wood. I was able to hold the wood between my feet, and turn the post cap, almost like a steering wheel. It surprisingly took a lot of strength, but went in to the wood pretty far.

Please excuse my mantle styling. I’ve never had the patience for styling. I look at photos at homes, and love the little vignettes that people have about their house, and I’m jealous. I need to work on it…but then I don’t want to have to dust. I think I should add a topiary, or a terrarium for color. That might have to be another post.

I wonder if this should be a theme, a series if you will. Putting things on sticks for home decor…hmm, I’ll have to think about it. There are some other things that come to mind that would work well. Hope it doesn’t take another few years to get around to it.

Posted in DIY Crafts, Projects | Tagged art, DIY, driftwood, gold spray paint, home decor, put it on a stick, scrap wood, sculpture | 3 Comments »

{Better Remade} Rocking Chair

February 15, 2013 by betterremade

Warning: post is low on words, high on photos. With a 7 month old, not only do I not have time for a wordy post, but I don’t have the head for it either! Writers block :)

I think as soon as I found out Lucy was a going to be a girl, I brought my old rocking chair home from my parent’s house. It had been sitting in storage for about 20-25 years, just waiting for a make over and for a new little book worm!I was a little rough as a child and broke off the arms, so first things first, patching and sanding was in order!

After a few rounds of patching and sanding, I primed it grey on the lower portion, and white on the top. I started by painting the center section of the spindles gold. And then taping it off.

In retrospect, I would have done the gold last. The tape kept taking off the metallic shine, so in the end, I had to tape off the cream and coral to repaint the gold band. Better Remade I Block painted rocking chai Here she is coral, cream, and blue painters tape!

And Voila! My favorite part, pealing back the painters tape to find the crisp lines. My heart melts a little when I see it in the corner with her books.

And I couldn’t resist a few photos in use!

Let’s be honest…it’s not like she crawled up there on her own with a book in hand. I’ll admit, slightly staged :)

Posted in Baby, DIY Crafts, Furniture, Projects | Tagged baby, DIY, nursery, painting, refinish | 6 Comments »

Can I get a hand?

February 5, 2013 by betterremade

That’s meant to imply I need a hand to help me back on to the wagon, not because I think I deserve a round of applause.

I’m jumping back on the blogging band wagon, or at least I will try. I didn’t mean to take a hiatus, but I never seemed to be able to get my act together to post. The worst part is that I actually have about 3 unfinished blog entries that are Christmas themed, meaning I can’t go posting them now! They will just have to wait another 10 months, until the holiday season rolls back around.

I’m also thinking that I might need to switch things up, maybe a new banner or background. It’s kind of like running. Nothing motivates me to run more than a new running outfit!

Anyway, just thought I’d pop in to say that I’ll be back with some new projects! I have a garage full on half completed projects and plans for some house updates, so hopefully enough to keep me posting for a while!

And because every post needs a photo…Here’s who has been consuming all my time. Just turning 7 months today!

I know, I know…do I really need a post to announce I will post soon? Baby steps!

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

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