Projects Archives - Page 2 of 2

Save the Hardware!

Published on April 1, 2018 by TracieLeave a comment

Anytime you trash a piece of furniture, take the hardware off and stick it in a drawer. Or if you are like me you can separate them into little compartments in your garage. You may need it later. I’ve done this for years with everything from screws, nuts and bolts, to drawer pulls. I’ve only had to run over to the Tractor Supply once in the past ten years for a weird screw that I didn’t have to replace a light fixture I was installing.

First, it keeps things out of the landfill that will NEVER decompose. Second, who knows when you will need just a random screw. Who wants to be driving across town to buy that? Not me, see above. It costs me gas money and time. My time is worth a lot of money.

I love YouTube. You can learn anything now. Granted there are a LOT of people on there who know very little about what they are doing and think that they are experts, so you have to be careful about who’s advice you are following.

When I find a YouTuber that I like, I almost always go back to the beginning of their channel and watch everything forward just like a TV show. The problem with this is that I don’t feel like I can leave a comment on something that happened three years ago.

Example: One of the women that I watch likes to organize, clean and build stuff. Which is right up my alley. She decided that to store things better, she needed to get rid of her cheap particle board armoires that were taking up too much room. She took the time to dismantle them and put them out for the garbage truck. The entire time I’m yelling at the screen for her to save the hardware. It was really good hardware; cheap particle board pretend wood, but excellent hardware. Go figure.

Fast forward in YouTube time to three months later and she’s building something again. You know what’s coming. She went to Home Depot and spent $13.00 EACH for new hinges for her project. After THROWING AWAY PERFECTLY EXCELLENT HINGES in the garbage.

I’m not suggesting that you become a hoarder and keep things that definitely need to go into the garbage. Notice I didn’t say, Hey, she should have keep that broken particle board, just in case! No. I understand that some things are garbage. But even if she didn’t keep the hardware, she could have put it all in a baggy and donated it and someone would have happily bought it for a few bucks. Instead of having to run over to the Home Depot and spending $13.00 EACH for hinges.

Anywho, just don’t throw them away! Do you keep hardware from things that are no longer useful?

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Clean and Organize the….. Spice Cabinet

Published on March 23, 2018March 24, 2018 by Tracie2 Comments

My spice cabinet was out of control. I would reach for something only to discover that I didn’t have any. This is terrible news when you need garlic powder to make your homemade garlic bread. Especially when you can’t SEE everything. Things were hidden behind other things and it has been utter chaos. Time to take care of this monstrosity.

After taking everything out and putting like with like, I discovered that I had five (FIVE) containers of minced onions. No garlic powder, but plenty of minced dried onions.

Several years ago I put some of my most used spices in small half pint mason jars (does anyone else have a longing to go watch Little House on the Prairie right now?). I put labels on the tops and left it at that. I loved having my spices in these jars because they will hold the entire contents of most spices you buy in the store, but I could never see at a glance what was what.

I laid ALL of them out so that I could see exactly how much of everything I had and what I needed to add to my grocery list for next time. See! Why do I have two containers of Old Bay? We do not have low country boils here at our house, so what am I going to use this for? Do any of you have any tried and true recipes using this? Send them my way.

After determining what I actually had and what I needed to add, I scrubbed out the cabinet. How do these things get so filthy? I’m not preparing food inside this cabinet so I just don’t understand how it could be so grungy.

Then I transferred everything into my beautiful little jars. I seriously love them. They are a great size, each jar has a slightly different pattern, but still uniform enough to fool your eye until you look closely. And they bounce when you drop them on the floor. This is important at my house. I used these labels for the sides of the jars.

Aren’t they lovely?

All of the bulk items go onto the top shelf where they are accessible but not in my way and the middle shelf are things that I can’t put into my jars like the maple syrup that Liv puts on her eggs. That’s the only way for years that I could get her to eat eggs after her six hour allergy test when she was ten. I’ll write a post about that later.

First I tried to arrange all of my spices in one of the small drawers next to my stove. It would be convenient, but it was way too small. I also did not like the quick labels I made for the tops.

Then I decided that I needed to utilize one of my big drawers because I have so many spices. I dragged the three pans I was storing in here out and put them into another cabinet and cleaned everything.

I found this vinyl liner at my local Dollar Tree. It is amazing. It’s slightly padded and it keeps the jars from sliding about. Next I wanted clearer labels for the tops of my jars.

$1.00 for 60 at the Dollar Tree.

Now! It’s not perfect but we all know that’s not going to happen at my house. And I know that it will evolve like always. But, I am very happy with it. Hayden laughed because I am a control freak and put everything into alphabetical order. It just makes sense to my brain. Now I don’t have to spend ten minutes looking for the garlic powder. I know it’s in the G section.

I can finally check this off my to-do list. Yay! How do you store your spices?

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DIY: A New to Me, Vintage Chair.

Published on November 11, 2017 by Tracie4 Comments

NOTE: Every single time I finish up a project another one rears its ugly head. See: That red wall. It has to go, but I HATE painting. Moving on!

I found this little beauty at my local Salvation Army a few weeks ago. It was $2.00. Seriously. As soon as I saw it I started dragging it towards the checkout counter. Just look at those lines. The beautiful curved wood. Love. I love it. The original upholstery……No, I did not love it. But it passed the smell test, from three feet away and then incrementally closer until I had my nose plastered against it. If it had reeked of cigarette smoke or other smelly things you don’t even want to consider, I would never have bought it – no matter how little they were asking for it.

But apparently, they thought no one would buy it because it was so, so ugly, hence the wonderful price. Yay, for me!

Lovely, bendy wood arms.

Filthy, but not for long.

Even more stunning from the back. Just ignore the hideous upholstery.

Okay. First things first. If you look closely at photo three, you’ll see that this chair is attached with two bolts on each side. There were another three 3 1/2 inch screws on the front of the chair that attached it to the base. That’s it. Awesome.

I got out our trusty allen wrench set and got to work. Easy peasy. The screws took longer, but I mastered those bad boys. Even if I had to rest between each one.

Then I started ripping off 942 year old upholstery. Gross. Seriously gross stuff. Even if it doesn’t smell. Old upholstery is just gross. Good thing it was going away.

More ripping and tearing.

Ahhh, the loveliness. If you read my post from earlier last week, you’ll remember that I got this bolt of material for $2.50!! Yay, for thrift stores.

Just compare…..

Nope, there is no comparison.

After I removed most of the sections of old material, I measured out what I would need to replace it with on the back of my new material…… (ignore my sewing machine, it was out for yet another project I’m working on)

I placed the new material over the wooden bones of the chair……

Got out my trusty staple gun and went to town. Stretch and staple in place, stretch and staple in place. Rinse and repeat all the way around the back.

Then I scoured my pillow collection for an unredeemable one to sacrifice for the open bottom of the chair.

Slice it open and rip…….

These contraptions are for the back of the chair that you can see in the fourth photo from the top. I ended up throwing the cardboard one on the left away and just stapling that top portion in place from the underside, but the two metal pieces are gold.

I wrapped the right side edge around and pressed the sharp as hades points through…..

Ditto for the left side…..Then started hammering the right side into place. Did the same thing on the left side. Denton came through at one point and asked why I was using his framing hammer. Because, I couldn’t find MY hammer. And in my world a hammer is a hammer. Please don’t send me emails explaining the difference.

I measured out my repurposed pillowcase to the underside of the chair and stapled it in place. (this took the place of the nasty black felt that was on the original, that you can see in photo 5)

Flipped it back over and put the three screws and four bolts back into place and ….. Tada!

I am so pleased with how it turned out.

It’s soft as a cloud.

And it looks like a baby lamb.

Don’t you love those wood angles?

Love it. I love it.

I want to display it like this so everyone can see the marvelous back.

Exquisite. I love it, did I mention that to you yet? The moral of this story is, don’t let ugly, outdated upholstery stop you from buying something that you find lovely. All you need is an afternoon, a $2.50 bolt of material from your thrift store and your own trusty staple gun, allen wrench and framing hammer.

You can do it!

P.S. Here are the tools I used on this project, just in case you need to build your own collection.

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Brass Lamp Makeover: The Power of Spray Paint

Published on November 5, 2017November 5, 2017 by Tracie4 Comments

I’ve had this little beauty sitting on the floor in my bedroom for a while now. I love the shape and the dimension it has, but I was not crazy about the patina which wasn’t even.

Spray paint to the rescue. $1.00 spray paint to be exact. For something like this that is never going to be exposed to the elements, I would highly recommend trying out the paint at your local Walmart in the dollar section. There are quite a few colors, but I almost always have black and white on hand. You can buy all of the colors in flat or shiny finish. I used flat on this lamp.

When Denton and I bought our house, the shutters were a terrible mix of Navy, Cyan, and baby blue. Depending on how the light hit them. I had Denton climb up and take them all down and in one afternoon I painted all of them with this brand of spray paint in black. It lasted for over six years before it started to fade. For $3.00 and an hour of my time, it was awesome.

I’ve found the key to getting a great paint job with this spray paint is to do very light coats, multiple times. You don’t want this stuff to run! Keep the can about 10 inches away and spray with a long sweeping action of your arm. It dries very quickly. I worked my way around the piece and by the time I was back to my original starting point I could start again. I circled the lamp about eight times until it was coated sufficiently.

I love how the paint made the different depths stand out.

Spray paint. I love it and what it can do.

What have you spray painted lately?

Learning to use the Pressure Washer.

Published on November 12, 2016November 18, 2016 by TracieLeave a comment

Have you ever used a pressure washer? I hadn’t, until Election day. I spent an hour making everything (everything being the sidewalk, stoop, front door and entryway of the house) shiny and clean. It was amazing.

Denton and I bought this pressure washer over a year ago, but I wouldn’t let him use it because I wanted to learn, and I kept talking myself out it because I had made the whole thing so big in my mind….. Do you do things like that? For instance, I hate to load the dishwasher. It has to be done, but I put it off and put it off because it’s going to TAKE SO LONG. I timed myself one day. Four minutes. Seriously. From start to finish, a full load, four minutes.

So. Election day I met Denton at the front door and ~~forced~~ asked him to show me how to use it. That took approximately 8 seconds. Oh and the instant gratification! Look.

Isn’t that amazing? I love it when things are easy! Here are more beautiful photos of my clean concrete for you to enjoy.

Yes, painting the outside entryway is next on my to-do list.

I just couldn’t get over the difference it makes. I love my pressure washer. All of the things should be very afraid.

What did you do on Election day?

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Projects. Week 9 of 52. Magazine Rack in the Bathroom.

Published on March 4, 2016April 24, 2020 by TracieLeave a comment

Magazine Rack in the Bathroom

We are swimming in projects here at our house. Mostly because I keep coming up with new ones and my husband keeps reminding me that I did not marry a wanna be handy man. Huh. I don’t think that I knew that 21 years ago. He’s still a keeper though. So I’ll still come up with the projects and we’ll see if they get knocked off the list.

Today I finally got this taken care of and I LOVE it. I hate anything just sitting on the floor, especially the bathroom floor. Yuck. This solves that dilemma.

Go out and get yourself a lovely bath towel rack (or do like I did and find a bunch for a $1.00 at a yard sale!) and put it on the wall next to the toilet. Voila! Instant magazine rack or book rack or newspaper holder. You name it. And they are off the germ filled floor!