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?

Overheard: Weekend edition

RF: Little girls are made of sugar, and spice, and everything nice.
MF: Not me, I'm made of black holes, unending pits of doom and bombs. Cause I'm mean.

Me: I don't know, I'm a little annoyed right now, so we'll see once we get home.
WF: Mom, how can you be annoyed at Meatheads? It is happiness between two buns!

 MF: I don't have an ear infection yet but it's coming. It's like the ear infection train, next stop MF's ear *choo choo*

Too school for cool

Last year, I spent a lot of time yelling at the kids about all their "stuff" and how they could never find anything and neither could I. Lunch boxes weren't getting washed, forms were getting lost and no one could ever find their jacket as we ran out of the house each morning. In short, it was OBNOXIOUS and I decided I wasn't doing that anymore. I browsed around Pinterest looking for something that would work for us. I found several "command centers" that would work, sort of. Eventually, I cobbled something together which is going to be great. All it took was getting rid of a bunch of stuff and completely re-arranging the garage/family to accommodate it. I hit up Walmart for hooks to hang the coats and back packs on.

They have a ton, ranging from about $5 to over $50! Pick the one you like. Then I picked up some cheap dry erase boards to mount above the hooks. This will let us write down things for each kid, like PE Days (since they change from week to week because of the rotation schedule) so they know when to wear tennis shoes. We can also put things like snack days and field trips so everybody know what is going on.

Then, in my biggest stroke of genius, I bought paper trays to manage all the paper that comes home. Staples sells the kind that are specifically designed to mount to the wall but at $10 a piece, they were out of my budget, since I needed 4. I bought some of the regular desk top kind and convinced RF to make them work. :)

Each kid has one for papers that come home and one for papers to go back. The plan is when they get home, lunch boxes go on the counter by the sink, homework goes on the table. Everything else gets taken to the organization center. Coats and back packs are hung up, and any papers that came home from school that day go in their "from school" tray. Once snacks and homework are done, I can go through their "from school" boxes and sign forms and throw the rest away (Side note, I sure wish we could go paperless but with a low SES school, too many parents don't have access to email so it isn't feasible). Anything that needs to go back gets put in the "to school" box. Each morning, the kids can look in their "to school" box and pick up anything that needs to go back.

You'll note in the picture that no backpacks are hung up there yet. We have them, they are just packed full of school supplies and even though the hooks are in the studs, I'm afraid they are too heavy to hang without pulling them out (they are almost too heavy to lift), so we are waiting until after school starts to get them out there. This should keep things more organized, so stuff isn't getting lost and it puts them in charge of their stuff. I know that it will take some time to get in the habit but once they get it, it should make my life easier, and their's too!

Bracing

Earlier this week, I stumbled on a fab DIY blog where she made a really cool neon bracelet. I'm a fan of anything neon so I figured I needed to make this. It was wrapping thread around a band, it couldn't be that hard, right? Well, the actual construction wasn't hard, but finding the materials proved more difficult that it should have. After visiting 2 of the 3 craft stores in town, plus Walmart, I was still empty handed. Fortunately, I'm married to a genius and he suggested that we stop at Claire's for the cuff at least. I found a couple that were ok but nothing that really grabbed me. Then RF knocked it out of the park again and found these.

Yes, those are giant hoop earrings and they were perfect! I used wire cutters to snip off the posts, so I wasn't stabbing myself all the time.

We went back to Hobby Lobby and looked at several different types of threads. None fo them were quite right. Some were too thin, meaning it would take a million wraps and a ton of thread where others were too thick and scratchy (I can't do scratchy). Then we found this. It is a nylon thread, but it is thicker than regular thread.

I put a dab of Aleene's Tacky Glue on the inside of the hoop and held the thread in it until it dried. Then I wrapped the thread around the hoop. The key is to wrap it tight and pull it so there are no gaps between the wraps. I wrapped it all the way to the end and glued it down. Then I put another small dab over the 4-5 rows at the beginning and the end, just to add some stability to the wraps. Ta-da, fab neon cuff bracelets

And because anything neon needs to ready to wear to the see the Brat Pack, I bought some cheap letter pins and pinned them to the bracelets, to show my BP love!

Dumpster Diving

Several weeks ago, we went to a school event at our new building (our school is moving buildings this year while our current building is upgraded and expanded). The school that was in the new building before is getting a brand new building, with all brand new furniture, so they didn't want the stuff that was in this building. Our school didn't really need any of the furniture, since we had our own stuff as well, so the district decided to toss most of it and it happened to be outside, in and around a huge dumpster, the night of our event. Several of us snagged various pieces of furniture, including wooden teacher desks, 6 foot long solid wooden tables, teacher chairs, student desks, bookshelves, etc. I grabbed a small wooden desk, which was pretty beat up. However, it was solid as the day is long and I figured I could refinish it fairly easily, since it was all straight pieces. RF wanted to use it as a game table, but I decided I wanted to use it as a TV table in the living room. Here is the picture before I started working on it. You can see the scratches, gouges, and paint splatters all over it.

I took it all apart and sanded it all down and put poly on it. I don't like painted wood and I'm not a huge fan of stain on wood either, so I kept the natural color and used a clear coat. It was about as easy as I expected it to be, except for the fact that it has been a thousand degrees recently and I wasn't interested in working on it in the heat, so it has just been sitting in the garage. But I've decided to do some redecorating in other parts of the house and it all hinged on getting this table done, so I can repurpose, and get rid of, other furniture. Since the weather was nice on Friday, I hauled everything outside and hit it hard. We bought some new hardware (the bolts were all mis-matched and different sizes) and got it set up this afternoon

We are using the drawer for loose games and things and Xbox and controllers are perfect on the shelf. For a total cost of less than $4, for all new hardware, this is one of my better dumpster diving finds!

Nailed it!

Tomorrow is the 4th of July, which is my super favorite holiday! Other than the heat, there is nothing I don't like about this holiday. In that spirit, I decided to rock an awesome 4th of July manicure. Before I start, I should mention that one color and a little glitter is about all I can ever manage and even then I usually make a mess. 3 colors is so far beyond my skill set, it's amazing any of them turned out. I started out by painting my nails with a coat of white. Next I grabbed some painters tape, although the tutorials online say you can use basically any type of tape, from medical to Scotch.

Then, because who wants silly straight lines, I grabbed an old pair of scrapbooking scissors and cut the tape into shapes

Here, make a note, when the tutorial says wait for the first coat to be completely dry, it means it! 100% totally completely dry is a requirement. In fact, if I do something like this again, I would likely do the base coat one day and the tape the next. Once things are completely dry, apply the tape to your nail. Make sure that it goes from the nail bed all the way over the tip. Also make sure that all your edges are sealed tightly, to prevent bleed. Next, I painted one side of the tape with a dark blue and the other side with red. Once that coat of paint was dry, I carefully peeled off the tape and came out with this:

I had several issues with the white peeling off, because it wasn't dry enough when I put the tape on but I was able to touch it up for the most part. I'm hoping it all smoothes out a little bit once I get the clear coat on it.

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!