The Worst Ever

This project was the worst ever.


After I got home from work on July 4th, we had a few hours to spare and I was MOTIVATED. I wanted to DO something. Somehow, Husband let me talk him into taking on a project that has been on the list since we moved in - changing the hardware (handle and deadbolt) on the front door. I take full responsibility for what followed. It went a little like this:


- Couldn't figure out how to get the old mechanism out - broke a pair of pliers.

- Got the old mechanism out, but bent it beyond repair - no turning back
- Faced with a gaping hole in the side of the door roughly 4 times the size of the new hardware - had to build a piece out of scrap wood to rebuild and screw everything into
- Old holes through door were smaller than needed - had to enlarge them by 1/2" in diameter - took an hour
- Lost a screw - searched the area for 20 minutes
- Strike plates didn't fit - chiseled for an hour
- Deadbolt hole too big, nothing to screw strike plates into - nothing to be done until we could buy wood filler

...and I think I blocked the rest out. Six hours of blood, sweat, and tears (yup, all three) later we showered and ran out to the BBQ we were 3 hours late for, where our lovely friends fed us and commiserated with us.

Ironically, here is the after picture:

You'd never know the trauma that led to this perfect looking door hardware.  Unless you looked at the side of the door...

Ha. Ha. I don't even have a picture of what the door jamb looked/looks like, but believe me when I say that it makes the above picture look neat and polished.

Obviously the most important thing is that the door closes and locks securely, and it does. It totally does; but that's also what made this project so stressful when it was all going wrong. Of course, the fact that our AC had stopped working but we were too preoccupied to realize until later in the middle of the night, probably didn't help things either.

Like I said, The Worst Ever.

Sod Tales

Topping the list of changes we wanted to make outside was reworking the giant bed running along the back of the yard.  It's hard to tell unless you're actually standing within it, but it's absolutely huge.  Unnecessarily huge.

At it's narrowest point, it's probably 16 feet deep. That's a lot of clearing, weeding, and mulching for no good reason. Plus, it's not really attractive with those shrubs semi-evenly spaced with several feet of empty dirt between them. So, our plan was to move or remove (since 2 are dying anyway) some of the shrubs from the center, and then extend the grass back toward the fence - basically creating a bed in each corner rather than the whole way along the back.  Obviously, we can't do anything about the placement of the trees, so the portion of bed on the left side will be bigger than the one on the right.

After talking and talking and talking about all this, we chose the weekend of record-high temps in mid-May to take action (ha! we're WISHING for those temps these days!). Husband dug up the 3 bushes from the front row (Xs below), and replanted them in some open space on the left side (Os below). Deciding that it was impractical to move the four plants in the back, we figured we'd just leave a strip as-is along the fence. The white line is my feeble attempt at showing the new layout. We Husband also dug up and got rid of the two dying evergreens.

Two weeks later, on a much more temperate afternoon, we filled the back of the car with sod. And dirt - lots of dirt. I will not be surprised if weeds start growing between the seats.

The first load of sod took care of some other areas we needed to patch, 

and about half of the back bed.

We watered the heck out of it that evening, and the next morning went back to the store and filled the car up again with another load.

It turned out to be exactly the right amount to finish the other side of the bed, and a little strip around the trees to the left.

In total, we used 40 rolls of 2' X 5' sod (without an inch to spare!). We watered daily (sometimes twice daily) until we actually had mushrooms start sprouting in the back area, and had to cut back. The big area in the back survived really well because it is in the shade all day long, but pretty much everything else died.

Cute, right?

It's been almost 100 degrees for weeks on end without any rain, and I just can't justify using that much water everyday to fight a losing battle. The rest of the lawn is dead and yellow too, so it's not even worth stressing about. Luckily the biggest area survived, and the others shouldn't be too terrible to seed (whenever it's appropriate weather to do so - who knows...?).

Oh, the life & death of sod. So thrilling. 

Rain Dance

Sometimes I hear myself say things, and I'm suddenly terrified that I've been freaky-fridayed with someone else. With like, an actual grown-up. For example:

"It's supposed to rain.  Thank goodness.  We need the rain."

"WE NEED THE RAIN?" When did I start saying ridiculous, responsible things like that?!
When I made the connection that plants are expensive and so is the water necessary to keep them alive - that's when. I never thought I'd see rain in the forecast and say "SCORE. Free water.", but what can I tell you. As you might have predicted, this rambling internal monologue leads us to...

**side note: I wrote this post a month ago, before I knew how seriously badly we would need the rain, before my lawn turned completely brown, before it became impossible to spend any time outside, and before I stopped making jokes about the water bill. Today I say, simply: "There is not enough water. Save it."

MAKING A RAIN BARREL

Step 1: Acquire a barrel. Bonus points if it's free.

Step 2: Paint the barrel (unless you want it to look like you're storing hazardous substances in the yard).

Step 3: Figure out which downspout you want to use to install your barrel.

Step 4: Grab a few bricks or cinder blocks to set the barrel on top of.  If you don't raise it, the spigot either won't be high enough to fit a watering can under or, if it is, will never empty the barrel fully and you'll have to install a drain at the bottom and waste all that water. We bought 4 for 98 cents apiece. As cinder blocks go, I find them very cute.

Step 5: You can buy all the fittings and supplies separately, or you can buy a convenient all-inclusive kit that includes every single thing you'll need for this project (except the barrel) for about $30. The kit was pretty fab.  I recommend it.

Step 6: Follow the directions in the kit. You'll start by drilling a hole at the base of the barrel for the spigot.

Then, drilling a hole in the downspout, and another in the barrel. Husband read the directions wrong on this step, and made the intake hole in the barrel almost level with the hole in the drainpipe, which didn't provide enough slope in the hose for the water to drain effectively.

But after some head-scratching, we just made another hole right below and plugged the first hole with the drain included in the kit.  We'll lose a few inches of water depth capacity, but it was a simple fix and honestly kind of looks like it's meant to be that way.

The piece that screws into the downspout diverts most of the rain water into the hose to the barrel, while still allowing it to bypass it in the event of a huge gush, or if the barrel is already full to this level.

Step 7: Wait for it to rain (which it already was in our case - nothing like the last minute, eh?)

Step 8: Fill up a watering can from the spigot. Water plants. Repeat. Sure it's a little tedious to keep making trips back to the barrel, but hi. it's free.

We're so excited about how simple and valuable this project is, and already planning on making another for the other side of the house.

Free water!!

Hangin'

You're never going to believe it. We actually made that headboard.

And here's how...

MAKING AN UPHOLSTERED HEADBOARD

Step 1: Make all of your decisions. Determine size, shape, thickness, fabric. If you're anything like us, allow several months to accomplish this.

Step 2: Buy all of your materials. If you're playing the craft-store coupon game, allow several weeks for this. (If anything, don't pay full price for foam...it's absurdly expensive.)

Step 3: Have the helpful hardware store guys cut a piece of plywood to size for you (we used 1/4"). Bonus Tip: become familiar with the measurements of your vehicle before nailing down your exact chosen dimensions or, alternatively, scratch the heck out of the inside of your car and argue loudly with your spouse in the Home Depot parking lot. It's really your call.

Step 4: Cut the foam to size with an electric carving knife. We planned efficiently when buying it, and only ended up having to make this one cut.

Step 5: Adhere the foam to the plywood. I used year-old spray adhesive, and it really didn't work. We probably should have tried harder to find a solution that did, but instead we just sat on it for a while and ignored the problem. MOVING ON.

Step 6: Lay the batting on top of the foam...

...then the fabric (which you have previously ironed/steamed), and then hold everything in place while you carefully flip the whole deal upside down.

Step 7: Put one staple in the middle of each side and look at the front again to make sure everything is still straight and lined up properly. Add more staples and check again. Repeat.

Step 8: We used 2 of these picture hanging brackets (even though they supposedly hold 100lbs. each) to mount the headboard to the wall. One piece screws into the wall - and includes a handy snap-in level - the other piece attaches to the headboard, and then they hook together firmly. At least we hope so.

Step 9: Hang the headboard by hooking the brackets together, then wait with baited breath for the whole thing to come crashing down. 

If it doesn't...high fives all around!

We loooove it. It totally fills the wall like we'd hoped, and it's actually comfortable to sit up and read or watch TV now.

We just need to find some taller/better nightstands and maybe one day we'll even have lamps beside the bed. Then I would actually be able to take a wide shot of the room I'm not ashamed of. What what!

Hard Work If You Can Dig It

...which, by the way, I can't.
I would have never imagined that "ability to dig a hole" would be a talent that I would admire so much and lack so severely, but here we are. My upper body strength is pathetic.

Anyway, the brush collectors are coming.  Can you tell?

Husband and I tend to talk things to death and take for.ev.er to actually do any of them. Then when we do, it still feels scary and spontaneous. We're still pretty chicken with this whole home-ownership business, I guess.

With brings me to the shrubs.  I'm sorry, The Shrubs. I hated those shrubs. Husband hated the shrubs. No one else on the street has weird shrubs at the end of their driveway. We didn't understand them, we didn't want to mow around them or shovel snow on top of them, we wanted them GONE.

Fall 2011

But, it seemed like a really big job. We didn't want to pay for a pro to remove them, and we also didn't want to get into a situation where instead of weird shrubs, we had ugly mangled tree stumps in the middle of the lawn. So naturally, we did nothing but talk about how "we need to get rid of them" for months and months. Then we realized that our window to dispose of the bushes and branches cheaply and easily would close as soon as the street brush collection came by. We may be procrastinators, but we're even bigger opportunists, so one Saturday Husband just went for it. The first, smaller tree seemed to come out really quickly (I wouldn't know since I was keeping busy in the back yard trying to stay as far away from this job as possible), but the second one was a monster. Like, a massive horizontal root every 2 inches deep and all around the trunk, monster. At one point, he couldn't even fit a small hand shovel between all the roots and had to clear dirt from around them by hand, then chop through them one at a time (side note: roots really freak me out.) It took hours. HOURS. And I was zero help.

Before you go thinking I'm completely useless in this project, I had already chopped down the big bush by the house that was crowding up the front door and window a few days prior. I definitely didn't dig out the stump, but I did plant something next to it that will eventually grow out and cover it. To each his own, ya know?

The depressing thing about all this work is that it seems like everything we do in the yard initially feels like a big giant step backwards. Even though we're really happy that those ugly bushes are gone, I'm not convinced that our curb appeal is actually looking any better.  I'm sure it will, in time, maybe, but honestly it looks pretty bare and beaten up right now.

Oh well, we're new at this.

Spray Paint Diaries

Sometimes our front porch really bums me out. Obviously, it's the first part of our home that anyone sees, and I feel like they're seeing the entrance to someone else's house. It's just wrong. It says "someone else used to live here" to me every time I look at it, and I really don't care to be reminded of that fact. I wish it would just shut up, and I want to change everything about it. We'll replace the whole door sometime in the next few years, but it's seriously not in the budget right now. I could paint the door, but it seems pointless to change the color when we're thinking about having the house painted next year anyway.

So, it's bad, but the biggest offender is actually even worse up close.

Whoa, that is one ugly mailbox.  I did some brief searching for a new one, but quickly determined that there is actually no such thing as an attractive mailbox, and there's pretty much nothing better in the world for a cheap fix than spray paint. I had it off the brick, scrubbed, primed, painted, and rehung in the 24 hour gap between mail deliveries.

Oh good lord, it's so much better - and since I already had everything leftover from other projects, it was gloriously FREE. Oil-Rubbed Bronze for the win. Yet again.

I plopped some planters full of annuals on that side, too (HomeGoods apparently has the cheapest planters ever).

Next, unable to look at that awful red chair for one more second, I went on the hunt for a replacement to match my fabulously updated mailbox. I pretty much hated them all except one at World Market which was on sale (plus coupon!). Turns out it disappears into the brick pattern a little, but it doesn't bother me.  The still-too-small-welcome-mat does, though.

So - success! Now all you see are the horrible ugly light fixtures! This was not my intended outcome, but of course it must be now addressed. Fortunately, I've discovered that I find all outdoor light fixtures to be ugly and overpriced, so it's clearly going to be an enjoyable-stress-free project...

Also, I'm undecided about the gold hardware and footplate on the storm door. They're going to look totally out of place once we replace the lights, but I'm kind of nervous about giving them the old ORB treatment (even though YHL did it, and I believe pretty much anything they tell me). Oh well, I'm not going to mess with that for now.

Finally, I know you're on the edge of your seat wondering what happened to the weird old milk can, but I'll bet you can guess. Obviously, it got it's own spray paint makeover, and now lives (slightly less weirdly) on the patio.

Inspiration: Headboards

I don't care. You can pretend to be a responsible adult all you like, but if your bed is headboard-less, your room is screaming "I'm a college student" and/or "I don't give a crap". I'm not judging you, it's just the truth. I've been sleeping on a headboard-less bed for 8 years.  That's 4 years of being a college student, and I suppose another 4 of pure laziness.

As is becoming the norm for us, we were at a standstill on this project for a very long time while settling on the particulars. 

Husband has always insisted that he wants a rectangular shape, so at first I was thinking something simple and button-tufted like this one:

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But eventually I started to worry that everything else in the room is "square" and "solid", like our bedding, and dressers...and doors...as if those could possibly be any other shape... So I tried to convince him that a curved shape (and maybe a pattern) would be a good idea.

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This room is totally fabulous, by the way.

But he wasn't having it.  So this next picture was supposed to be my magical breakthrough compromise.

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But I think the nail-head trim on the solid fabric is really vital to the magic, and by this point I had decided that we needed to go with a pattern to bring some interest and fun into the room.

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Meh... honestly a rectangle, patterned fabric, upholstered headboard was not as easy to find inspiration for as all the other options we had already eliminated which made me very concerned that it was going to be the wrong decision. So again, we were at a standstill.

Then (weeks, months? later), while on Pinterest looking at other things, I saw this.

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It might not look very impressive, but it was the push I needed to move forward. The proportions are pretty much exactly what we're aiming for. We want our headboard to be pretty tall (someone I share the bedroom with may or may not have a fear of anything hanging on the wall above him), and this photo showed me that what we had in mind could actually work.

So, all that left was to choose a fabric.  Easy!  Ha. ha. ugh.