Category Archives: weekend

Budget-Friendly Weekend Fun / DIY / weekend

Recent Projects

July 9, 2014

KC and I have been working on some projects around the house recently, trying to finish up our basement space and make it a bit more livable.  Honestly, we had just planned on painting the spare room and installing some plank flooring, but that turned into painting the basement stairs and hallway and a plan to paint the ceiling as well (we haven’t tackled that project quite yet).

I’ll start with the basement stairs, because I don’t have great pictures of the spare room yet to show you.

Here’s how the stairs started:

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Hideous, super worn and covered with weird rubber mats.  And please notice the wall color — ugly avocado green.

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Not pretty.

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I painted the walls first — Glidden Silver Birch — then started in on the stairs.  Step one: remove the rubber mats.

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Spackled the nail holes, then did a once-over with the electric sander and cleaned the stairs to ready them for paint.

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One solid coat of Glidden Gripper primer.

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Two coats of porch and floor paint in Valspar’s Gulf Coast.

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I painted the bannister hardware gold (obviously), and painted the bannister with primer and some of my leftover white paint from this project (Behr Oyster Shell).

And voila, the finished stairs and hallway:

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How to Paint Stairs (or a floor)

What you’ll need:

  • spackling paste
  • sander + medium-grit sandpaper (I used 100)
  • broom, dust pan, clean rags
  • painters tape
  • paint brushes and rollers
  • Glidden Gripper Primer
  • Enamel Porch and Floor Paint (there’s also oil-based porch and floor paint, but oil paint tends to be harder to work with and smells awful, so I opted to use the enamel-based porch and floor paint) — I got my paint at Ace Hardware where they do custom colors for porch and floor paint, but only with a satin finish, so that’s what I used.

How to do it:

  1. Fill in any holes with spackling paste and let dry.
  2. Sand all surfaces, then clean with a broom and clean rags to remove any debris.
  3. Prep the space with painters tape.
  4. Paint one solid coat of primer and let dry for at least one hour.
  5. Paint as many coats of paint as needed to get the finish you want (I did two coats + a touch-up).  Wear socks on stairs between coats, only after the paint has dried.
  6. Let stairs cure for at least 72 hours before subjecting them to normal use.

 

DIY / weekend

DIY: Blinged-Out Basement Pipes

June 2, 2014

You may recall that we have some ugly pipes in our downstairs laundry/family room. ↓

laundry 2I think they used to belong to a water heater that formerly existed down there, but they’ve long since become defunct since our water heater is elsewhere in the house.

KC and I didn’t feel comfortable cutting the pipes and then sealing the wall, given that we’re renting, so we just let them hang out for a bit.  However, after we redid the basement space, we started thinking about how we could jazz up the pipes so they didn’t look so… “hey this used to be a basement,” y’know?

After I became infatuated with Rustoleum metallic gold spray paint while redoing the trunk for that space, we came up with the idea to paint the pipes gold.  We couldn’t really hide them effectively, so why not make them a little focal point instead?

This past weekend I rolled up my sleeves and blinged out those pipes like you wouldn’t believe.  It was crazy easy (spray painting is amazing) — the worst part was prepping the space to make sure I didn’t spray paint anything I wasn’t supposed to.  (As much as I love the idea of everything being metallic gold, I figured I should curb my Midas tendencies and keep the gold confined to the pipes).

I was feeling pretty good about things when I started in with the painters tape prep:

IMG_2841Looking pretty good right?  Well, things kind of got… less professional-looking as I started really covering the space…

IMG_2845Whatever.  I mean, it did the trick.  Who cares if I had to use a quarter of a roll of painters tape for this monstrosity?  (Ok, maybe a half a roll…)

I primed the pipes with some leftover Kilz Original Primer Sealer Spray:

IMG_2847Looking better already, right?  Also, doesn’t all the plastic make it look like some sort of weird murder-room?  No?  Just me?  Anyway…

After the primer dried, I got to spraying those bad boys gold:

IMG_2850If you’re thinking this is lessening my obsession with the Rustoleum metallic spray paint, you’d be dead wrong.

I think the gold is quite an improvement:

IMG_2851 IMG_2853I’m maybe going to paint all the things.  Gold everything!

 

Budget-Friendly Weekend Fun / DIY / weekend

DIY: The Finished Trunk

April 15, 2014

Our newly-updated trunk is fully cured and now brightening our new downstairs space.  There’s still more work to be done down there (adding artwork to the walls, painting the ugly wall pipes gold), but I think the mint and gold masterpiece is a nice little addition for now.  (Although it does make me think about swapping out some of the pillows on the couch to make the space a little lighter and more on the blue/green scale…)

room 1room 2room 3room 4

I think the gold hinges really make a difference with this piece.  But then again, I’m sort of obsessed with gold spray paint, so…

PS:  The stack of records on the trunk were my grandpa’s, and yes, the one on top is Mr. Rogers’ “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” 🙂

Budget-Friendly Weekend Fun / DIY / weekend

DIY: Trunk Update

April 14, 2014

As expected, once I got the idea to update the trunk in our new downstairs laundry/family room, I knew I was going to have to follow through on my mint green and gold dreams.

Here’s where things started:

laundry 1On old, dinged-up trunk that I got for free (and I think was maybe originally from Cost Plus?  Who knows.)

I removed the hardware from the trunk (2 back hinges, 2 side handles, front closure, and unscrewed the internal hinge) so I could paint those separately.  Removing the hardware also made painting the trunk a lot easier, because I didn’t have to tape and paint around anything.

Here’s the trunk with the hardware removed:

Trunk 1First I primed and painted the hardware, using Kilz spray primer and Rustoleum metallic gold spray paint.

Original hardware:

Hinges 1Primed:

Hinges primedPainted:

Hinges paintedIf you’re thinking that metallic gold spray paint is awesome — well, you’re right.  It totally is.

Next I got to work on the trunk.  First I sanded down the surfaces I wanted to paint using an electric sander.  Like I’ve said before, I hate sanding, so I just did a quick once-over with the sander to rough up the surface to make sure the primer would adhere.

I then did one solid coat with the primer (Glidden Gripper, you are amazing), and let that dry:

Trunk primed 2I didn’t bother to paint the inside of the trunk because I a. didn’t want paint to potentially get on any of the 47 blankets I like to store in there and b. I didn’t think it was necessary since no one was really going to see that anyway.

After the primer dried, I started in with the paint.  I used a small roller and brush to apply 2 solid coats of Behr Kiwi Squeeze (allowing time to dry in between), and did an extra coat on the top of the trunk, since that would likely get the most wear and tear.

All painted:

Trunk painted 2After that dried, I screwed the (newly gold) hardware back on, and left the trunk in the basement to cure:

Hardware back onTrunk finished 1Trunk finished backOnce the paint had cured for 7 days, I sprayed the top with a couple coats of indoor water-based polyurethane to seal it (since it will likely have drinks sitting on it, food/water/whatever).

And now, the how-to:

How to Paint a Wood Trunk

 Materials I used:

How I did it:

  1. Remove hardware with a screwdriver and place on a drop cloth.  Spray with 1-2 coats Kilz Original Primer Sealer Spray and let dry.  Spray with Rustoleum Metallic Gold Spray Paint — as many coats as you need to get the coverage you want, allowing time to dry between each coat.
  2. Sand the surface of the trunk where paint will be applied with medium-grit sandpaper.  A quick once-over with an electric sander should do the trick — you’re just looking to rough up the surface a little so the primer will adhere.
  3. Wipe down the trunk with a clean, dry cloth to remove any dust and then transfer it onto your drop cloth.
  4. Paint 1-2 light coats with Glidden Gripper Primer, making sure that all surfaces that will be painted are well covered and let dry.  Don’t worry if the coverage isn’t opaque yet, the paint will take care of this.  You want to just make sure that the primer is covering all surfaces so the paint has something to adhere to.
  5. Paint trunk with at least 2 solid coats of your paint of choice (I like to use semi-gloss for furniture), allowing time to dry between each coat.  I do more coats on surfaces that will get a lot of use — like tabletops, the top of the trunk, etc.  Using a roller for this step is helpful because you don’t end up with brush stroke marks on your piece of furniture.
  6. Once the paint has dried, reattach the hardware and let the paint cure for at least a week.
  7. Once the paint is set and cured (it no longer feels at all sticky or tacky), spray the top of the trunk with at least 2 coats of the Polyurethane Spray to seal it, allowing time to dry between each coat.

And voila!  Brand new trunk.

Finalized pictures of the piece in our laundry/family room will be up tomorrow!

Trunk finished front

Budget-Friendly Weekend Fun / DIY / weekend

Our Laundry Room DIY: The Before and During

March 19, 2014

So, like I said yesterday, we have this large laundry room/basement type area downstairs in our house, which was quickly just becoming a place to house all the things we didn’t want to spend time figuring out how or where to store.

In my mind, 120 square feet is a lot a space.  I mean, this may be because I live in one of the most expensive rental markets in the world.  It may also be because I lived in less than 500 square feet with a giant man (KC) and a very snobby cat (Seuss) for 4 1/2 years.

Either way, KC and I had been tossing around ideas for the laundry space for awhile — workout space?  Guest room?  Indoor hockey rink?  (Yeah, that idea didn’t last long.)

I, being disinclined to do anything that involves manual labor on my part, kept pushing it off — “No, I don’t want to turn it into [insert room type here].”  “That will be too expensive.”  “It’s not a big enough room for that.”

Basically, I’m super fun to live with.

However, with the old couch sitting (what felt like) squarely in the middle of our living room, I finally conceded — “Ok, let’s turn it into a family room.”  Move the old couch down there, and we’d be in business.

A few minor issues — the room has concrete floors.  And not like “nice” concrete floors — like, industrial warped and wonky concrete floors.  Also, there was a giant hole in the wall, the remnant of an old water heater or something.  Either way, there was a 5-6″ circular hole, smack in the middle of the longest wall in the room.  And the lesser issue — all the walls were painted that pukey green color (like the color of rotten algae).

So what did we do?

  1. We cleared out all the crap (this included KC moving a giant IKEA storage cabinet up a flight of stairs and into our hallway.  By himself).
  2. KC patched the hole (he’s magic) and spackled all the weird dents and divots.
  3. We painted.
  4. Moved a wall shelf.
  5. We laid down carpet.
  6. And I styled that business up (y’know, after KC and a friend moved the couch down there).

And because I like to leave you wanting just a little more (and because that room is insanely hard to photograph and I’d like the “after” shots to actually look decent), here’s some before photos and some during shots (post-paint and post-carpet):

basement 1(keep in mind that this is after we’d cleared out most of stuff from the room already…)

basement 2Don’t be fooled by the way the camera makes the green paint look — it’s awful in real life.

basement 3All painted.

basement 4You can sort of see how wonky the concrete floor is here…

basement 7Carpet!  (And yes, the hallway is still green because it was going to be too hard to paint/we ran out of paint.)

basement 5basement 6

Full reveal of the finished room and what we used for our DIY re-do will be up later!  Get excited.