Break

You may have noticed that I missed a couple of Thursday posts.  I've been swamped trying to get our house ready to put on the market so I will be taking a break for a few months. 

Thanks for stopping by!
Krista

ps - Isn't it always the way it is? That just when you get the house the way you want it, it's time to sale it?  LOL!

10 Tiling Hints for the DIYer

We've been remodeling the bathrooms.  As seen in the previous post, the master bath was finished a few weeks ago.  Two weeks ago, we worked on our main bathroom.  The bathroom itself was already pretty decent.  Unfortunately the linoleum was worn, stained, and coming up around the bathtub which caused extensive water damage on the sub-floor and the hardwood under that!

I had a friend who was moving out of state, who offered us her brand new 16" tile so she "wouldn't have to pack it".  It was a very kind thing for her to just give it to us and we were really excited to be able to use it to replace the yucky, never-to-come-clean linoleum.

I am by no means a professional and there are probably other ways to accomplish cutting and laying tile, but listed are some helpful hints that I learned from an architect and builder, a fix-it-man, a contractor, YouTube, and just plain trial and error.  Hopefully it will be of some use to you on your tiling project.

• Make sure your area is vacuumed and clean of debris before placing the sub-flooring and the tiles.  

• Use cardboard to make templates for tricky areas. Draw what cuts you need, cut them from the cardboard and then trace them onto your tile.   

• Always, always use the rule: "measure twice, cut once" 

• Borrow or rent a high quality tile saw (especially if using heavy floor tiles - these saws run smoothly and even though they are large and it's intimidating to use them the first time, they are easy to use and relatively safe with no kick-back).

• Slow and steady is the trick with tile cutting.  If you try to move too quickly, you'll break the tile.  (My first tile, I had to cut three times or use three different tiles - I was glad I had so many! If I had of been short on tiles, messing up one cut that many times would have been disastrous because I didn't know where my friend had purchased them or if the store even carried that color/style anymore.)  

• Cut and "dry" place your tiles first; once you know that all of them will fit correctly, take them all up and put in a safe place.  Then you can start putting down the thin-set or mortar.  In the first bathroom we did, we tried to cut the tiles after we had put down the mortar and it was almost dry by the time we finished that little 4x8 floor.  So, dry place them first!  (Sorry, I forgot to take  a picture of this, but we dry placed each tile and then put them on my son's carpet while we put the thin-set down.)

• When cutting circles or even small "holes" in the tile, make strips like pictured below.  After making the strips, if they don't come out on their own while your cutting, you can gently knock them out or cut them with a tile cutter.

• In both bathrooms we used an epoxy grout for the floor and loved it!  Here's a great tutorial.  I liked using the epoxy because it eliminated the wait time for sealing it (because you don't have to seal it).  Some things about it though, is that you have to clean it off the tiles with a mixture of vinegar-water.  In the small bathroom we accidentally waited too long...like 8 hours too long...instead of the 1 hour it suggests.  Which leads me to the next helpful hint:  

• If you're like us, a little messy or negligent in your grouting, you can easily go back and clean it with a piece of tile - the same kind that you're putting down.  In other words, use tile to clean tile.  The tile will scrape off the grout without scratching the surface because they are the same surface.  

1. 

• Put everything back in and enjoy your "new" room!  
• 

Expanding and updating the master bathroom

 Before and After




When we moved into this house our master bathroom looked like scenery from a bad horror movie...and for ten years we lived with this:

and this type of electrical work - I don't know much about electrical, but that doesn't seem very safe.

Does this look like a fire hazard or what?

On the other side of the tiny, gold and tan plastic bathroom was this very deep but small closet.

But we finally remodeled it! 

Before showing all the room pictures, we couldn't have done this in such a short amount of time without all the help from family and friends.  Svenja, how did I not get a picture of you?

 The back side of the closet from the bathroom.




With the wall dividing the closet and bathroom gone. 

Seeing how much larger the bathroom can be.

Shower base in place.

Scraping the ceiling in the old closet so it will match the bathroom.

Shower plumbing in place (we hired our friend who is a plumber for this work!)

Fixing the floor

Sub-floor on

 
My husband, Nate and his dad, Kerry, made these cubicles for towels and extra storage. (above)

 Kerry also fit these in between the studs on the wall opposite of the sink for more storage. (below)

Building storage into a small space adds a little extra time to the project, but it adds so much peace of mind too!  Since closet space in the entire house is limited, the ability to roll towels and place them in the wall makes my life easier; I can roll the towels quickly to put them away and I'm not having to gather them for the kids (and my husband) to use, they can just pop them out of one of the cubbies easily.

My father-in-law teaching me how to do tile.  (He did most of the cutting, which is really the hardest part!)

*sigh* "much better!"

Bloom Where You're Planted

As mentioned, I had hoped to have the reveal of my master bathroom...but like all projects, this one is going a little longer than hoped.

So since today is the first day of spring, I thought I'd post some hopeful flowers and a nice message.

I love spring! It's my favorite season!  But the words "bloom where you're planted" have special meaning to me.  When I was a child, my mother had a wooden plaque on the kitchen counter that read those words.  At the time, I thought I knew why she had that always within eyesight; she was the only child, out of five, who moved away from her parents.  In fact, my grandparents and all four of her siblings still live in the same basic area that they lived in when my mother was growing up!  I figured that she was reminding herself that being in a new place was a new start and opportunity for beautiful growth.

Recently, though, I had an experience that gave me the idea that perhaps blooming where I'm planted doesn't have to be as literal as moving from one state to another. Instead it sometimes could be being put in a situation that is not comfortable or that is unfamiliar, like a new job, or a new position at church; those too can be times where you can bloom.  In this recent experience, like spring, I had the opportunity to have much growth.

So, bloom where you're planted and enjoy the beauty of that bloom!

A $9 light fixture - good deal, right?

We've been remodeling our master bathroom, which I'll post about next week,...in the meantime...let me tell you about this $9 light fixture.   


I'm a big fan of the Habitat Re-Store and was pleased when I found light fixture for a great price - so much better than a regular home building store!  The Re-Store also has a plethora of glass globes to choose from which I knew could help make the dated fixture a little more modern.
 
The light fixture itself was $5 and the two new globes were $2 each for a grand total of just $9!  I was so pleased with myself and brought my wares home for my husband and father-in-law to see.  Sadly, I was disappointed by their reactions when I showed them this beautiful brass fixture and reassured them that it would look wonderful spray painted with new globes (which I showed them but they still had the unconvinced looks on their faces).

I happily spray painted the brass with brushed nickel, popped the new globes into their places and finally got the reaction of "oh, yes, that will be nice".   "Nice?!  It's fantastic!", or so I thought anyway.

Fast forward a couple of weeks when it was finally time to install my beautiful fixture.

Apparently it's important to make sure that the light fixture  you get matches the box you put in the wall (our box is rectangular and the fixture is circular).  But no problem, no problem - we worked around that...it doesn't have  to match.
Oh, and the two holes in the center that actually attach it to the wall? Those take a certain kind of screw (at least if you want to have the pretty little knobs showing instead of the screw head of each screw).  Again, crisis averted by me just being excited that it is actually on the wall -- and I'm short, and it's really high up on the wall...so...I'll not be looking up there very often anyway.  lol

Lesson - To save yourself four additional trips to Lowe's and about three hours of headache and frustration, be sure to know exactly what you're looking for! 

Still....it's just $9

From My Wedding Dress to My Kids' Baptismal Clothes

You know that show on TV called "Something Borrowed, Something New" where the bride decides whether she's going to use her mom's wedding dress (re-made) or choose a new one to fit her own style?  

Well, seeing that once made me think that perhaps I should write a post about taking my own wedding dress apart and taking the pieces from it to make my children some part of their baptism clothing.

I decided that my daughter would probably not want to wear my wedding dress,  but I didn't want it sitting around taking up space.  So in 2009, when my son was about to turn eight, I took my dress apart seam by seam with the help of two friends.   (Since this project was important to me and my sewing skills are very, very basic, I needed assistance on a more professional level.) We took the dress apart seam by seam and then used the left over pieces from my son's vest to make part of my daughter's dress in 2012.


The top of my dress was beaded material and it was so intricately pieced together that I didn't use it for either child's baptism clothing.  (I still have it, wondering if I can do anything else with it.)

But with the skirt, there was enough material that I was able to make my son's vest...

And my daughter's puffed sleeves and bodice. 

He was able to wear his vest for nearly two years worth of Sundays. And my daughter, who is now almost 10, wore her dress last Sunday, so the effort lasted more than one or two days for a wedding and much more than just the day of their baptism. 

I love that the dress that my grandmother made for my most special day became special white clothing for my kids on their special days!

St. Patrick's Day Decor on the Cheap!

There are some amazing machines out there that allow you to make all sorts of fun stuff with paper, vinyl, and even fabric.  But I have yet to be able to justify fitting them into my budget.

So...using basic computer software to make letters and pictures on obscure objects is possible while not spending too much money.

All you need is : a printer, colored ink for that printer, some clip art from Microsoft word and time to sit down to cut in minute detail (sure, it takes a lot more time than those awesome slightly coveted products referred to above, but sometimes it's nice to sit down and cut things out, right?).    

Yes, these are just mini-7up bottles from you're regular grocery store.  After enjoying the contents, I just soaked them until the paper was ready to come off and let them dry.  Then attached the letters and clip art with tape.  (I was thinking I'd come back to them shortly after applying the tape, but these babies have held up for two years now - so maybe someday I'll Mod-podge them onto the bottles but for now the tape is working great!)

You can see the bubble from the tape on this "Y" but I wasn't going for perfect, just fast, easy, and fun!

Shamrock from Clip Art in windows.

Wondering about those cute paper shamrocks?  Check out how to make them at sugarbeecrafts.  She has tons of fantastic ideas and creative ways to decorate! 

The white strip is Styrofoam that came with a recent house project.  I covered it (above) with some green and off-white fabric that I found at a garage sale.

The wreath is just one from the dollar store wrapped in an old ripped sheet (which I used for my son's Halloween costume last year).  The smaller, green shamrock "wreath" is actually a garland, also from the dollar store, that I never unraveled.  It's not perfect either, but it was quick and easy to make and I love anything green and white!