Simply DIY 2

**I started writing this post over a year ago when I finished this dresser.  Now that I'm trying to finish the post, my memory is not quite the best when it comes to step-by-step instructions.** One day, my little guy will get too big *sniff, sniff* for his nursery and we'll have to send him off to the guest room.  While this is not happening anytime soon, the guest bedroom does need a dresser for our guests.  I figured that I might as well plan ahead and get a dresser that will eventually be for my son to use.  Keeping with the nautical theme that we used for his first birthday party, I've decided to hack an Ikea Tarva dresser to match this someday, nautical-themed, kid's bedroom.   Now, there are A LOT of beautiful Tarva updates all over the internet and I decided that the "framed" drawer was my favorite update.  This very simple dresser looks much more put together when the drawers have that small update.  This project was a big project for me,...

When I grew up and walked into any room in the house, I could flip a light switch and a light in the ceiling would turn on.  Light ! I love light.  However, our guest bedrooms did not have the luxury of ceiling lights, which bothered me. I had been meaning, since January, to get some pendant lights hanging from our guest bedrooms, but just never got around to it.  Half, because I didn't get the lights put together, and half because our wonderful electrician friend wasn't able to help until recently.  So a couple weeks ago, our friend popped over and spent the morning adding light to our rooms. Here's a before picture, taken right after our friend added the hole in the ceiling: I wasn't there for most of the electrical work.  Kerry did most of the "supervising."  Electrical work is one thing that I won't DIY.  The most electrical work I've done and will probably ever do is changing a light bulb or switching out a switch plate. I...

Last year, before I found Pinterest, I tore out a photo of these adorable Halloween spools from a scrapbook magazine: Source I thought that these were WAY too cute to pass up trying to make.  I already had the embroidery floss thread from when I used to make friendship bracelets (waaay back in the day) and all the paper.  I just needed to stop by Michael's and grab the wooden spools.  I can't remember the exact price, but they were definitely under $1.   And I found the little corks for Frankenstein's head at Lowe's for cheap as well.  I never thought I'd find those and during one random trip to Lowe's, I spotted them in the hardware section with all the bins of screws and eye hooks and what-not. I wrapped the floss around the spool until all the wood was covered.  I used tacky glue on the end of the thread to keep it from unraveling.   To make the little eyes for the mummy and Frankenstein, I used a hole pun...

When I posted about getting new carpet and tiling the bathroom, I mentioned that there were going to be TWO changes to the basement.  The bathroom floor was the first.  The second was being worked on simultaneously as I was working on the bathroom. Our basement has a door that goes out to our back patio.  The old carpet went right up to the door.  We have an area rug in front of the door, but dirt and mud just can't seem to stay away.    To fix this, I wanted to put tile in front of the door.  My parents did this in their house (tile in front of garage door and back door to patio) and it works so well.  They don't have to worry about getting the carpet wet or mud soaking in.  If mud gets on the tile,they just wipe it up.  SO easy ! So before the carpet guys came to give us new carpet, I pulled up the carpet around the door and laid some tile down.  I just found a corner of the carpet and lifted.  It came right ...

Finally, I'm getting to this last part ( Part 1 and Part 2 ) of the bathroom floor.  So sorry to keep you waiting!  So the last thing that I needed to do to finish my  tiling project  was to put new quarter rounds on the bottom of the baseboard.  I measured the perimeter of the bathroom (I can use this as a real-life example in my class this year !) and went to Lowe's and picked up three, white, eight foot long quarter rounds.  I made sure they were already white so that I didn't have to prime them. My neighbor came over with her trusty manual miter saw and we got to work. She helped me to figure out which way to cut each quarter round so that the corners matched.  Each end needed a 45 degree angle cut so it fit in the corner.  She actually did the measuring while I watched and held the wood so it didn't slip.  I'm a bad DIY blogger since I can't quite explain how to cut the quarter rounds for the corners. We did have...

Earlier this week I posted about the first part of our new bathroom floor.   It's been a bit crazy with school starting and all, but I'm trying to get all the posts done before it gets real crazy. Now on with the bathroom floor expedition !  Once all the mortar dried (we let it dry over a weekend) it was time to grout.  My college friend Mal was visiting and helped me out during this process.  I mixed the grout up with water according to the directions, and we started.  We used a putty knife to spread the grout into all the cracks.   Make sure to get the grout into all the cracks.  You might have to keep spreading the grout over the cracks until they are filled, especially if you see little air bubbles. We worked on sections of the floor, as to make sure that the grout didn't dry before we had a chance to wipe it off. Once a section was grouted, we waited about five minutes for it to set a bit and then began to wipe it off.  M...

Kerry and I finally decided to get new carpet downstairs in the basement.  The old carpet had stains from the previous owner...and from Stout, too.  We were going to wait another year or so, but I just couldn't stand the carpet anymore. So, along with the carpet came two changes to the basement as well. The first is the bathroom floor.  80's linoleum. Ew. It had to go.  If we were going to get nice, new carpet, the bathroom needed to get a nice, new floor.  We couldn't leave him out of all the fun.   Our new neighbors tackled the job of tiling their bathroom as well.  They still had the exact same linoleum as us.  How lucky!  As I watched her tile, I figured I could too.  So I went and got the exact tile as they did (still matching floors !) and got to work. First, I got a screw driver to pry off the quarter rounds at the bottom of the baseboard.  Once all those were off, I used a hammer to take out any nails that didn't ...