Pahk the cah in the yahd

When we bought our house, we knew it was a little small but it had an attached garage.  In the "grand plan" we had planned to remodel it, take out the door, raise the floor, add ventilation, etc, etc, etc and turn it into a family room.  In the mean time, we put carpet out there and a couch and TV and all the kids' toys and video games.  Then we decided it is just a garage and we weren't going to work that hard on it.  For heat, we've been using a small electric heater, disguised as a fire place.  It never gets very warm but it was always ok.  For the last few months, the kids just haven't been using the space, electing to play in their rooms most of the time instead.  I don't know if it is because of the litter box that it out there or the cold or that they just prefer the stuff in their rooms but it has basically become a junk room, full of toys no one plays with and electronics no one uses.  RF started talking about how he wanted to change it and talk about it and talk about it.  Finally, he called his dad and they decided since he was off on spring break, they'd knock it out and get it finished.

They started Saturday the 16th by ripping out the nasty old wall board and building a new wall.  I didn't get an actual before picture because I was running errands with MF when they started out.

Here is the new wall they built



On the back side of the wall, they built storage shelves to move all the toys and stuff out of the rest of the room to make it less cluttered looking.



MF decided she didn't like how long it was taking and felt compelled to write a motivational message to the crew.



Too bad it was written in redneck :) (It says Git it dun)

Once they got the wall board down (which you can see behind the shelves, since they recycled it to back that up), they found that insulation was a nasty mess.  Shredded, moldy, full of mouse droppings, etc.



Set back number one was  changing that for better stuff that would actually work and let us heat that space in a reasonable amount of time.



Set back number two happened when we started hanging the drywall and figured out the room wasn't quite square.



For reference, this piece is touching top and bottom, with that much gap in the middle!

Set back number three happened when I started to mud the existing drywall (The West wall had always had drywall on it, but it was unfinished and unpainted) and found several large holes and rips in the drywall that were going to be a beast to patch.  We had some leftover drywall, so we decided to almost completely replace that wall as well.



While the guys were working on the drywall, I set to work cleaning the garage door.  I scrubbed it with the Mr. Clean and I don't know if you can tell from the picture but this is one side cleaned and one side left!  We did find out that we can probably paint the panels, so that is the plan for when it warms up a bit.



We also decided to mud the ceiling joints, but basically, it is particle board that we painted so it is pretty textured.



Then we painted the ceiling.  That sucked.  I did the whole thing, all the cutting in, all the painting etc.  It took about 3 1/2 hours and I felt like I'd been beaten when I was done.  But it was 100% worth it in the dramatic change it made in the room.



WF got home from his jet setting vacation while we were working, so I decided now was the time for him to learn how to mud.



Once the millions coats of mud was dry, we sponged the edges (sooo much easier than sanding and so much less messy) and started painting.  My paint crew decided tie dye was the uniform of the painters.



WF even helped paint.  After begging to help for hours, he worked for about 20 minutes before he said he was done.



We trimmed the ceiling and the new door and still need to trim the window and the floor but other than that, we are basically done.  At some point, we need to do something to the floor but concrete epoxy paint is super expensive and that just isn't something we are going to do right now.

The room now gets super warm.  We were running two heaters trying to get the paint dry and I asked RF to turn them off because I was roasting.  About an hour later, I looked over and there was condensation RUNNING down the window because it was so warm in there!  All the toys are out of it and in the storage room.  All the shovels and brooms and mops are hanging in the storage room and most importantly, the cat's litter box is in the storage room.

This is the after of the door to the house and garage door.



This is the after of the new wall and door.



Of course, this all means that I will never end up parking my car in the garage, even after the kids are gone.  It's way too nice to put a car in now!  It is, however, perfectly nice for a gathering.  Who is ready to have a welcome spring party, once we survive snow-pocalypse tomorrow?

That seems shady to me

When we bought our house, our main complaint was that there was no shade in the backyard. We have a couple of nice trees out front but just nothing in the back. The yard was part of the appeal of the house and we enjoy having people over and cooking out. For the past two years, we have made do with various umbrellas and portable shade canopies. They all work but none of them were quite what we wanted. I mentioned to RF that I would like a roof over our patio but since we are planning to expand the patio in the next few years, we didn't want anything too permanent (or anything that took up too much space, since the patio is kind of small). One day a few weeks ago, he drove past a house that had used PVC pipes and canvas to make a semi-permanent canopy and we decided it couldn't possibly be that difficult and set about doing it this weekend. We started by getting 3 5 gallon buckets and filling them with 60lb bags of concrete mix. Then we sunk 2" PVC pipes into the wet concrete and set bricks on the top of the bucket to stabilize the poles while the mix set up.

After the mix was set, RF attached the cross pieces across the top with 90 degree elbows and PVC cement.

Then we got 3/4" PVC and cut it to fit our canvas (more on that later). RF drilled holes in the cross pieces and screwed in eyebolts. He did the same to the 3/4" pieces. The eyebolts in the cross pieces were 5/16x4 and into the 3/4" was

Then we attached the 2 pieces together with quick clips. 3/4x80mm

RF drilled above the gutters and attached eyebolts there as well. The eyebolts into the house were 5/16x5

To keep the frame stable, we attached tension ropes to the frame and staked them out in the yard. The weight of the canvas pulls the frame in and the ropes help pull it out and keep things tight.

I can do a lot of things, but sewing is widely outside my skill set, so we called my mom and she brought over her sewing machine and helped us sew rolls in our canvas. As a note on the canvas, you can go to Joanna's and get colored or patterned outdoor canvas. At our local store, it runs about $11 a yard. Or you can go to your local hardware or paint store and pick up canvas drop cloths for around $20 a cloth. We ended up getting 9x12 foot drop cloths because none of the other sizes fit our patio correctly. We did 2 9' panels and cut the excess off the 12' side. My mom sewed a hem on the cut side and then sewed the roll. We went with 4.5 inches, so it was large enough to slide over the eyebolts, instead of having to take them off to slide the fabric on the 3/4" post. We had planned to have 2 eyebolts on each post but because of the size and weight of the canvas, we ended up putting a third one in the center to support the weight.

The final product! Plenty of shade for all of our gatherings!

Life is such a chore

The kids have been asking for an allowance or at the very least, a way to make some money. WF had previously had an allowance that was tied to chores (above and beyond the regular things that he has to do as a part of the family), but was having trouble earning it and keeping up on it, so we let it go. I was browsing around the internet and saw some ideas for chore charts that I liked. I decided to make one, with extra chores and price value on each one. Some of them were chore sticks, that you pull out of a jar but I liked the magnetic ones, since our front door is metal and I don't need more stuff to sit somewhere.

I went to Michael's and picked up some large glass rocks (in the floral section) and some large magnets.

Then I took some card stock I had left over from old scrapbooking projects and traced each rock. Something to note on this step is that each rock is shaped slightly differently so each circle needs to be traced individually. When you cut them out, cut very slightly inside the pencil line, so that it doesn't show on magnet. I came up with a list of several chores that the kid could easily do and assigned them a monetary value. The price varied depending on the amount of work required to complete the job or the gross factor of the job. For example, vacuuming the family room is worth $1 because it requires the person to pick up all the toys on the floor and put them away first. Changing the litter box is also $1 because it is gross. I'm pretty cheap when it comes to labor, so make your own call on the values :) After I wrote it, I traced it in black Sharpie and then hot glued it to the flat side of the rock.

After the hot glue was dry, I flipped it over and glued the magnet to the back

Wash, rinse repeat for the other 16 chores I figured out and the kids now have a way to earn money, that they are currently very excited about. I'm not holding my breath on that lasting very long, but for now I have a little cheap labor. :)

Currently, they pull one off the middle and put it on their side to complete (magnetic letters denote whose side is whose). At the end of the day, they get paid for the chores they completed correctly. The operative word being correctly, because no money changes hands for halfway done work. They have to do their "family" chores, stuff like keeping their rooms clean, putting away their laundry, cleaning up after themselves, etc, before they can do the money earning chores. If I do a chore, because it needs done, they lose the chance to that chore until the next time it needs to be done. Some chores need done every day, like the dishes, but some are only once or twice a week, like mopping the bathroom floor.

What's for dinner

I'm really tired of answering the question "What's for dinner?" Even though I make a menu every week, my kids still insist on asking this question a hundred times, each, per day. I decided to take an idea from Pintrest and do something about it. On Pintrest, they took picture frames and made a weekly calendar, that you erase and write in each week to keep your family on track. I use my calendar on my phone so I just wanted menu boards.

First, I went to the dollar store and picked up cheap frames. The hardest part of this whole thing was finding frames I liked and it took some doing.

Then I went to the fabric store and scoured the remnant bin for an acceptable fabric. To do 5 8x10 frames, you need less than a yard, so there is no need to pay full price, unless you just can't find something you like in the remnants. To my great delight, our local fabric store in moving in a few months and have already started putting things on clearance, including 50% off remnants, so I scored a yard of flannel for $1.25! The best fabric for the job is lighter colored, solid or lightly patterned, fairly thin fabric.

RF ripped the tripod off the back of the frames for me, since they were just in the way and then I put them on the fabric and marked for cuts. I cut a little extra, to make sure that it would cover completely.

Then you place your cut fame in the frame and secure the back in place.

Here you can see how the extra fabric I left earlier leave the back looking a little lumpy, so you now you can trim that excess fabric, leaving it a little longer under the tabs that are holding the back in place.

The finished product!

Now you can get out your Command Picture hanging strips and hang your frames up. My frames were very thin, so I ended up cutting my strips in half and using one half on each side, instead of one full one in the middle.

Here they are, after RF took a lot of time measuring and hanging them all up exactly level

This is after I took them down, wrote on them and put them back up.

The best part of using the Command strips, is that I can pull them down to write on them each week instead of having to stand on the table to reach them.

Also, instead of trimming your fabric, you could use a bit of hot glue and tack the fabric to the back of the frame, to keep the excess from being in the way. I don't do well with commitment to decor, so leaving it loose works best for me. This way, I can change out my fabric for different holidays or as the mood stikes me for a change.

This was a pretty easy craft and didn't take a lot of time. Most of the time was spent measuring and hanging the pictures. It was also cheap (which is my favorite kind of craft). $5 on the frames, $1.25 on the fabric and I already had the Command strips and dry erase marker.

Hopefully, this will end the question of what we are having for dinner!

Deck-atude

When we bought our house, we didn't realize there as a significant low spot in the middle of our front sidewalk. We figured out this spring that every time it rained, we were leaping over puddles or tromping through the mud.

So it looked sort of like this.

I asked my Father in law if there was something we could do to increase drainage there and his suggestion was to build a deck. So we did.

He stopped by last night with his tractor and ripped out the bushes at the front of the house. He also broke up part of the sidewalk that would run under the deck so that we can widen or driveway, once we have saved up the money to get that done. For right now, we will put some stepping stones in there, to keep it from being all muddy.

Last night, while I took the kids to see Camp Rock, The Musical, they bought the wood

And started building the frame.

They worked until about 10:30 last night simply because it was so much cooler. FIL showed back about 6:30 this morning and the finished out the frame. My Phantom friend came over and brought another drill (and donuts, those are the kind of workers to have!) and as fast as FIL could get the boards off the trailer and fitted, Phantom, RF and I were screwing the decking down. About 1:30, we simultaneously got hungry, ran out of screws and my drill died. While FIL got more screws, I plugged in my drill to charge and we pick up pizza for lunch. After lunch, we finished off the decking, with my drill dying again, 3 screws from the end.

It really looks nice and MIL is bringing us a wrought iron bistro set to put out there until we can get around to making some chairs and a table to sit out front. We need some dirt to fill in where the sidewalk was and around the base of the boards and we need to mount my solar lights to the deck (so we don't have to pull them up every time we mow) and we'll be all done. From start of the decking to finish, including lunch, it took us two and a half hours, with 4 people working pretty much non-stop.

Our house looks pretty different, with that on the front now!

You CAN fit a patio table in a 5 gallon bucket

Last summer when we were moving, we needed a new patio table. We found one for ridiculously cheap at Menards and it went well with our chairs. I wasn't super keen on it having a glass top, but the price was right so we got it.

I went in the backyard Friday evening and found this:

(notice the wood table under it? That is my other end table that I killed the drill battery on the day before)

After yelling WTF, I set about cleaning all the glass up, which fit neatly in a 5 gallon bucket. After that fun was over, we had to find a new table ASAP, since we are hosting our annual 4th of July cookout tomorrow. We went to Menards again hoping to find another cheap one to replace it with, but I told RF no matter how cheap, I absolutely didn't want another glass top. Unfortunately, none of their clearance stuff was anywhere close to the right price (especially when they had a table alone for over $300) so we decided it couldn't be all that hard to build one ourselves. It's not rocket science, right?! We priced out the lumber and figured out, total investment would be less than $50.

We bought the lumber and zipped home to get started on it, since it was already 8pm. First, though, we had to swing through Savoy where Loosey had a drill we could borrow, since our battery was dead and our charger was missing (we found it yesterday but having the second drill was pretty handy anyway).

Here is the top frame:

We worked for about an hour and ended up with a framed table that just needed the top put on it and about a thousand mosquito bites!

Saturday morning, we got moving before it got too hot and we lost our shade (our backyard as no trees but the neighbors does a good job of shading our patio in the morning.) and got the top slats put in place.

RF mowed the yard, I cleaned off the patio and we put up the fun new umbrella my Phantom friend got for me at Sam's and our yard it ready to party tomorrow!

We also have enough left over lumber to build at least one matching bench, although we aren't doing that right now. With one more 2x4, we'll have 2 benches, to either use for seating or use as extra tables in the yard.

I'm finished

When I was a kid, my parents bought a living room furniture set. I remember it being really ugly, but it was the 80s so everything was pretty ugly. It had a couch, a love seat and two end tables. Over the years, the couch and love seat were replaced but we kept the tables When I moved out, they gave me the old tables and I've lugged them to all of our various houses. They were dark wood and pretty messed up (they were 28 years old after all) but were rock solid. I decided while I had some time this summer to work on refinishing them.

Here is the picture of the table before I started on it:

I don't know how well you can see it in the picture, but the varnish is chipped and the wood is all icky and scratched and scarred up.

I sanded it down as best I could but quickly figured out that the wood underneath was nothing but 2x4s pinned together and no amount of sanding would make it a pretty wood.

So I decided I would go ahead and stain it to match the writing desk that RF got from his grandma and is at least as old as he is.

After I put a couple of coats of the cherry stain on it, I put new poly on it and reassembled it today!