Day 1021: shelves complete

Didn't mean to leave you hanging for two weeks, but we ran into a bit of a snafu with this project last weekend.

We had intended to do the final painting and sealing but before that final step realized that the light really caught the flaws around where the pieces of wood meet. If there's one thing we've learned through these 1000+ days it's that if something bothers you during construction then it will bother you after completion. Apparently one thing we haven't learned is to spot potential problems at an early stage. Heavy sigh.

So we power sanded all the crossings (on what will be the front) to make them as smooth as possible. Here's what one side and one of the middle joins looked like after sanding.

And here's the whole thing, with all twelve joins sanded down.

That set us back a week, so this weekend we put our three coats (one white, two green) on the front and a coat of sealer on the whole piece. We also added some blocky feet from Home Depot to match the overall style.

Now all we need to do is figure a way to get this upstairs.

Day 1006: more box madness

Well we're not ones to rest on our laurels, so after marking the milestone last week we got back to an ongoing project--making a 3x3 home organizer. When we left off we had all the pieces made and primed, so next up was to get all the inside surfaces the right color and to attach everything. 

Two coats of our favorite green, to match the pieces already in the room, and we were in business. The hardest part was to minimize as much as possible getting any of the three coats (primer and 2 green) in the tracks or on the ends of the pieces because from our trial run everything fit together pretty snugly. Those four blocks in the foreground will be the feet for this cabinet.

Next up was assembly. We debated a number of options--dowel rods, nails, or screws--to hold this together. We opted for screws because they'd stay put better than nails, are easier to mask than rods, and are just as tough as dowels. Because we want to paint the whole exterior we had to make sure that we could countersink the screws a bit to plaster and paint over them. Fortunately, this is pine and not oak so we were fine.

We tried a couple configurations with clamps to see which would keep everything in place best. This worked ok but didn't close gaps between the top/bottom and sides.

Putting our long clamps along the sides worked much better to close those gaps and to make the corners as flush as we could make them. All of the inner pieces were pretty secure because of the grooves they were sitting in but we didn't want to take chances with slippage so we used some corner clamps.

There was a little trick to making sure that we drilled and screwed into the adjoining boards. An L-square was very helpful for keeping us on track. Out of the 24 holes we drilled we only missed one.

Here's what everything looked like once we finished assembly. See, clamps no longer needed! We did have to touch up with spackle all the places where boards join to close gaps or level surfaces out.

And here's the piece up on blocks to make painting easier. All of the rims, sides, and top have a coat of primer now.

Day 1000: part two

We've covered the deck already in the last post, but there was more work to be done outside, and that doesn't even count all the trees felled to give the house more natural light and us less fruit to attract bees). One big job was turning the back fence from an overgrown and moldy mess...

Into a cleaned, stained, and uncovered backdrop to the yard.

Along the side of the driveway was more of the same when we bought the house.

This called out for massive landscaping and a new fence to cover up the rusty old chain link one. That muddy area is now covered with sod. (Oh yeah, we also painted the neighbor's tool shed to cover up the graffiti and replaced the broken windows with plywood.)

Still in the back yard was a vegetable garden. Because the house had been unoccupied for a few months before we bought it, no one had tended to the garden and, well, nature did what it does.

This needed to be dug out (we didn't want vegetables and herbs) followed by several rounds of pruning and planting before we got it to this more manageable state.

Back behind the garage was a rusty old shed filled with junk and surrounded by several years' worth of firewood.

In its place we have a new install-in-a-day shed and some landscaping to tidy the place up.

Finally, we overhauled our garage. A previous owner had used it as a workroom and installed plenty of lighting, outlets, a table, and shelving along one side.

Unfortunately, the walls reeked of something and had to go, so we replaced it all with drywall and still have a terrific workroom.

The garage itself was a little lacking in pizazz.

So we'll close this day's entries with our painted and decorated garage.

Here's to the next thousand days of projects!

Day 1000: Can't believe we made it here

Well, this is a big anniversary. Our 1000th day owning, living in, and working on this house. It seems like yesterday when we closed on this little slice of the American Dream. Along the way we've passed quite a few milestones, most of which we never expected to hit. There were also false dawns aplenty, like this from April 2012 when we thought we were close to being done. In honor of this big day we give you a retrospective of our whole-house makeover. Enjoy.

Let's start when you enter the house. The living room used to be cream-over-burgundy with original windows and floors that badly needed to be refinished.

We took care of all that plus added some nice wood shades to help warm the place up. The coat rack, refinished door, and furniture helped, too.

As you come into the house, a sharp left used to take you into a small, galley kitchen with a bad tile floor (laid on top of the original linoleum one), a mishmash of appliances, too little cabinet or counter space, and an eat-in table.

This room got one of the biggest transformations with new cabinets (new doors and drawers twice!), a new white oak floor to match the rest of the house (with an intermediary maple floor), and a new layout that maximized the storage and countertop space.

If you'd continued past the kitchen you would have seen what used to be called the "tv room" (at least according to the circuit box). It had original (to the 80s) windows and door that let in too little light, a horrendous carpet, and a narrow doorway entrance.

We have transformed this into the primary art studio by expanding the opening, replacing the doors and windows, quadrupling the size of the back window, and building or customizing all the furniture to suit the room. It is an artist's heaven now.

While we're in this room, you could look out the doors and previously would have seen an old pressure treated pine deck that had long outlived its shelf life.

A lot of hammer, prybar, and saw work helped tear that ugly thing down, and in its place we put down lovely cypress boards. Now it's a favorite place to spend an afternoon.

Back inside, the main floor bathroom used to be...basically unusable. Just judge for yourselves.

This room also needed a complete overhaul (or two) with a new floor, cabinet, countertop, window, toilet, lights, and shower.

A little way further along and you get to the main bedroom. It used to be maybe a lilac color again with original windows and a stained, tired floor.

New and freshened up everything, along with some personal touches, and it's so much more livable.

Through the kitchen are the stairs down to the basement. Those went through several iterations but started from this low base.

In the end they became a nice chocolatey hue with white risers and the new shelf for our shoes.

The basement has been through a couple overhauls. It used to have wood paneling that we repainted but had to tear down when we discovered mold growing behind all the panels. The gaps in the tile floor are where interior walls used to set off a small (very dark and low ceilinged) room.

Now the whole space is useable and bright with warmer tile and all of our new lighting.

Toward the back of the last picture is the door to the bathroom. It used to be, if you can imagine, even worse than the upstairs bathroom--tiny, old, ugly, and with leaky pipes. And yes, that is a Smurf blue tub.

This room got lots of attention--a new shower, floor, etc.--but all within the same space. Then it got another new floor to replace the higher maintenance stone tile. Finally, we expanded it several feet to make it actually livable. This room in some ways marked our real dive into DIY because we operated without a net as we learned how to lay tile and even do the decorative backsplash along the counter to match the shower design.

Finally in the basement, we transformed one of the most used rooms in the house--the laundry--from a dingy, linoleum-covered, bad sink, and no storage spot...

Into one of the funkier rooms with colorful new tile, a brighter paint scheme, storage racks, and a rocking stainless steel sink!

To be continued here.