Rustoleum

While visiting my family, and still riding high on a few productive weeks on home improvement projects at the Northeast Portland Bungalow, I pitched in with a few odds and ends to help out.

I noticed the back door at our family home needed a paint job. The paint was peeling off the aluminum door is big pieces, and looked pretty bad. Using the scraper and sander attachments of a borrowed Dremel Multi-Max™ 6300 oscillating tool, we made short work of removing the old paint. We washed the door down with mineral spirits and were ready for paint.

We were instructed specifically to use the leftover can of RustOleum Protective Enamel. The can hadn't been sealed after it's last use, and had a thick skin on top of the paint. I punctured the skin by poking it with a scraper. I had to pull the skin out of the can with my hand, covering my hand in oil-based paint.

Have you tried to wash oil-based paint off your hand? It's not easy. First, clothing detergent (because I went straight to the utility sink, in the laundry room). No luck. Next, dish washing detergent- still no luck.

I was beginning to worry- it was getting very sticky and "smoke gray" skin is not too attractive. Luckily, we found instructions on the internet. It should have been obvious- so if this happens to you, do this: Scrub your hands with a good handful of vegetable oil and salt. The paint comes right off. I washed up after that with the dish washing detergent. My hands actually felt smooth and soft afterward!

I have to admit, I was a skeptic. I did not think the paint was going to look good- not after pulling that skin off the top! But the paint easily mixed, had good coverage in a single coat and did not show any brush or roller marks. It settled to a very smooth and even finish.

I had read some tips about painting with oil-based paints- load your brush or roller generously, and do not over brush. These were great tips. It gets tacky fast, so keeping the brush loaded helped. I had also read that it dries slowly, so we put the painted door in the sun. It was dry with no tackiness in about 2 hours. And it looks great! The paint is smooth and even. I can't believe I forgot to get before and after photos- but trust me- it looks a lot better. 

I want to recommend this paint to you, if you have a similar project coming up. I'd love to say I was being paid to say that, but no, I'm saying only because I used what I assumed would be a ruined can of paint and it came out great. 

Tips!

• There are some major fumes. You'll want to work in a well ventilated space! We were in a garage, with doors and windows open wide. 
• If you can, dry the door, appliance, or whatever you've painted in full sun.
• Keep the vegetable oil, salt, and dishwashing detergent handy!

Living Room Media Storage

Our house was built in 1923- well before it was common to have a television, big stacks of DVDs and an assortment of remote controls. Finding the right spot for the television has been a little tricky. Our best option seems to be a specific corner in the living room. 

It's an awkward corner between doorways. The TV has to sit at an angle to face the couch.

I decided that a wall-mount was our best choice, even though that meant visible cords and living with the paralyzing fear that the television might come crashing down. 

Enter Ana White. If you're not familiar with Ana White, she's a blogger in Alaska who posts fantastic plans for building furniture, garden boxes and other small structures. The plans are very straight forward and very clear. Since I first stumbled across Ana's blog, I've been increasingly interested in building a piece of a furniture.

For the record, I couldn't stand the idea of a hideous corner cabinet. I've never liked corner cabinets and did not like the idea of one sitting in the living room. That is, until I saw this:

 source

This might bit a bit taller than would work in our room, but I really like this. It just might be the first piece of furniture I attempt on my own! 

If you aren't familiar with Ana White's blog, check it out! And be sure the click on the Momplex tab. Learn about insulating concrete forms and metal roofing. We're planning on using both when we build our next house, so I check the Momplex tab on a regular basis!

$20 Projects: Basement Railing

 Changing out the railing on the basement stairs was shockingly simple. So simple that I was mad at myself for not doing it years earlier.

The railing was a real home-owner-special, handmade out of 2x2" lumber, 3 nails and some duct tape. It took one yank to pull that sucker off the wall. If you actually needed that railing to prevent a fall, you would have  find yourself tangled up with the railing, in a heap on the basement floor.

I found an 8-foot piece of a railing and the home improvement store and had it cut to 5-feet. I also picked up a few pieces of railing hardware. The railing was $18 (and change) and the hardware was just under $3 each. 

I pre-drilled the wholes and attached the hardware first. Then I held the railing where I wanted it and marked where I needed to drill the holes in the woodwork.

We'll paint it when we finish the basement, and repaint the stairwell. We will definitely go with something other than pink. (Yes, the stairwell and basement walls and ceiling are pink!)

It took less than 10 minutes to take pictures of the old railing, install the new railing and take more pictures. For $24 dollars, we have a new railing that will actually stay on the wall in the event of a fall. And we didn't even need to use duct tape.

Like the roller blind, this project was so easy and so quick, I am kicking myself for taking so long to do it. If you need to replace a railing, go do it ASAP!

Shed Progress

The last two weeks of May were the most productive two weeks  we've had at the Northeast Portland Bungalow. The shed project is well underway, though not yet complete. The backyard looked pretty shabby with all those tools stacked up against the house. Now we have the shed to a point where we can put the tools inside, and that is pretty nice!

We started with a rough idea of what we wanted- small with barn doors and a shed roof. If you haven't used SketchUp, I highly recommend it. You can have a lot of fun and really loose sometime tinkering with designs.

The foundation is four pier blocks with 2x6 and 2x6 pressure treated lumber. The floor is pressure treated plywood. The walls and roof are framed with 2x4 pine studs.

The eaves stretched a bit further- almost two feet now. This will protect the shed a bit more from the weather, and will allow us to mount some brackets on the back to hang ladders. Also, the pitch of the room if slightly lower.

By the end of the second (half) day of labor, we had a roof and 3 walls. So, of course, we signed the interior walls (yes, we sign our work) and filled that sucker with the tools that had been leaning against (or were piled against) the back of the house for the last few years. 

Next, we need to build the doors and close up the front wall, add house wrap, add flashing, singles and paint.

$20 Projects: Roller Blind

It's hard to believe we've already been in the Northeast Portland Bungalow for almost four years. Of course! when we bought the house, we thought we'd be in this house for "3-5 years." Of course we thought that.

Fed up with so many minor things that we just lived with (and hated) this whole time, we placed a few of these minor projects on the chopping block. Things like:

• The bruised-avocado green bathroom paint.
• A home-made railing on the basement steps, made from 2x2 wood, duct tape and nails.
• Chipping paint on the woodwork in every room that we have not yet completed (which is every room except for the kitchen and dining room).
• The cheap cafe rods and aluminum blinds that keep out no light.

The lesson I'm learning is that: you should fix those little stupid things! Yes, it's only chipped paint, but if you wait four years to fix it, you will spend four years resenting your woodwork. Fix the stupid stuff.

Let's talk about that blind. Did you know you can go to any big-box home improvement store and buy a black-out roller blind? We had to go with the 55" length which was roughly $18 dollars. They cut it to length in the store, instructed me on how to install it, and pointed out the hardware I needed, which was 97 cents. 

So, "bright"-side, $19 took us from this:

 

To this:

The aluminum blind is "closed" in both pictures. The only difference is the roller blind.

The sad part was that the first time I tested the roller blind, I ripped it. The window is tight enough that I had to really squeeze the roller blind in behind the aluminum blind. So the cheap plastic material snagged on the hardware for the aluminum blind. Doh! 

When I bought the blinds, he offered a fancier fabric option, but I thought to myself "Why would I want a fancy fabric when it is a secondary blind? Psshh!"Live and learn. Maybe I can salvage it in the future by trimming it or something.

Why are there two blinds? This is a temporary situation- though we will always have two blinds. For aesthetics, I have a wooden blind to install in this window (one-inch slats, just like the kitchen blind). However, they don't block ALL the light. The pictures about were taken between 6:15 and 6:30pm. This is a south-facing window, and though the sunlight wasn't direct, you get the idea. 

We did plenty more today, but I see that I really didn't get any "after" pictures to post. So I'll post more about the shed, railing, basement flooding, bathroom painting, trim hanging and spare room painting tomorrow (or soon, at least).