DIY – Page 2 – The Beehive

October 4, 2009

Adventures in Garbage Disposing

Last weekend, I started a batch of limoncello. I spent some time looking at recipes on the internet, and decided a combination of techniques that I thought would work for me. I took the peel — no pith — from about ten lemons and dumped it in a pitcher with a bottle of Everclear (151 proof) and let it sit for a week.

Digression: Have you ever read the label on a bottle of Everclear? I think there are less warnings on common household cleaning chemicals. WARNING!! Overconsumption may endanger your health. CAUTION!! Extremely Flammable Handle with Care. There is a whole paragraph of warnings:

Caution: Do not apply to open flame. Keep away from fire, heat, and open flame. Contents may ignite or explode. Do not consume in excessive quantities. Not intended for consumption unless mixed with non-alcoholic beverage.

(Emphasis added.) So I guess it makes sense that this stuff is illegal in some states, as it is explosive and not suitable for human consumption. But back to the real story.

Today, satisfied that the alcohol had stripped the lemon peels of all their lemony goodness, I finished the limoncello. First, I strained out the lemon peels, leaving me with some strong lemon-infused grain alcohol. Then I made a pseudo- simple syrup. I decided to make limoncello crema, so I made the syrup with milk and half and half instead of water. This involved a little bit of experimentation on my part. I found a number of variations of the recipe, some calling from milk and some calling for half and half. So I split the alcohol mixture in half and made half with whole milk and half with half and half (say that three times fast). For anyone that wants to attempt, that was one pint of either whole milk or half and half simmered with 1.5 cups sugar until the sugar is completely dissolved for HALF of the alcohol. Let the sugar mixture cool and add to the alcohol. Bottle and refrigerate/freeze. I haven’t tasted either version chilled yet, so the jury’s still out as to whether milk or half and half is the better choice.

When I was finished, I was left with a sieve full of brittle lemon peels. One of the internet recipes I read suggested putting them through the garbage disposal to “freshen” it up, which seemed to make sense to me since I’ve heard before you can put some citrus wedges down it to make it smell fresher. So — and here’s the REAL point of the post — I put the lemon peels down the garbage disposal and fired it up. Seemed to work just fine, until the next time I used the disposal.

I washed the dishes later in the day, and when I drained the sink, I switched on the disposal to clear out any stray bits of food. Suddenly, the water stopped draining and murky black stuff started to come up through the drain. Insert random expletive here. I was pretty sure this was not something I could fix myself. I’m handy, but just not that handy. And now is really not a good time to be staying home from work to wait for a plumber. Steve stepped in about here, but he knows about as much about fixing a disposal as I do. We cut the power to the disposal and I reached my hand in to see if there was something jammed in it. He pressed the reset button. Still spewing black stuff. We were resigned to calling a plumber.

In a last ditch effort to to DIO (do it ourselves), I called my dad for advice. I explained to him that the motor appeared to be working when we turned the disposal on, but nothing was going down the drain. This led him to believe it was a clog, not a problem with the disposal itself, and he suggested a plunger. Five minutes later, water was flowing freely down the drain and there was no black stuff to be seen. Woohoo!

Dad can pretty much always save the day, can’t he?

August 11, 2009

House Tour Part VI: The Downstairs Bath

This is our downstairs bathroom. When we moved in, it was a strange brownish orange (which might be called “baby crap” depending on what your baby’s been eating) and had a dolphin-covered disposable shower curtain.

I had never seen a disposable shower curtain before. Turns out they are actually quite useful.

bathroomduring1

We had leftover paint from the family room and kitchen, and this bathroom is right off of those two rooms, so it made sense to continue on with that color.

But wait! There’s more! In an effort to make it look like this was not the same old thing over and over again, I painted some stripes on the walls. This involved some (sort of) careful measuring, blue painters tape, and a handy laser level. One thing I learned is that a textured wall makes it difficult to get a nice crisp line. In order to prevent the paint from seeping under the tape into the lower levels of the texture, you need to make sure you firmly press the tape down into the divots so there is no seepage. Here is the finished product.
bathroomafter2
bathroomafter1

bathroomafter3

August 5, 2009August 10, 2009

No More Salmon in the Kitchen

The color, that is. Actually, now that I think about it, we’ve never had the fish in the kitchen either, and given Steve’s distaste for it, we probably never will. So interpret how you please.

Back to the point of this post, when we moved in, the walls in the family room and kitchen looked like they were dripping with Pepto Bismol. We took care of the family room first, and the kitchen was next on our to-do list. Here’s what it looked like before:

It doesn’t look like it should be too difficult a paint job, because there is not a whole lot of area to cover. As usual, it didn’t quite turn out that way. The tight spaces and numerous corners made it very time consuming. But it turned out fabulous.

kitchen-after-3

Doesn’t it look like a different room? I think the green paint looks so much nicer with the blonde wood cabinets. The ceiling still needs a coat of paint, and I look forward to getting rid of the rug under the kitchen table, but already it is so much more pleasant to be in the kitchen and family room now.

July 28, 2009August 10, 2009

The Blind Leading the Blinds

When we moved in, there were no blinds installed in the dining room or living room. There were decorative draperies, but nothing that you could really shut to keep the sun out or prevent the neighbors from looking in and seeing you running around naked. The seller did, however, leave several sets of blinds behind in a closet, which she said were for the living room, dining room, and garage. She urged us not to install them, though, so that all that beautiful sunlight could shine in. That sun isn’t so beautiful when it’s 103 degrees outside and the sun is beating in.

blindinstallbefore

I think in response to several extremely hot days, Steve decided he was going to hang the blinds. Obstacle #1: There are two large windows in the dining room, two large windows and two small windows in the living room, and two large windows in the garage. There are only four sets of blinds. Easily overcome. We don’t really need the blinds in the garage right now, so we’ll just use them on the large windows in the dining room and living room (as they are clearly too large for the small windows).

Obstacle #2: The blinds were not all the same size, as were the windows in the living room and dining room where the blinds were to be installed. Although all the blinds were the same width, two of them were about a foot too short for the windows. Steve scavenged the house to see if maybe some other rooms with a same width windows had blinds that were way too long. He did find one. That’s right, just one. So after he switched the too long blinds for the shorter ones in the closet, we were left with three sets of right sized blinds and one too short, with no window anywhere in the house that would accommodate it.

So we installed blinds in three of the four windows and put the last set back in the closet, for the moment. The installation was incredibly easy. Steve measured and marked for bracket placement. Each bracket had four screws, for which Steve pre-drilled the holes. He used a dremel to fit better into those tight spaces than a big power drill. Once the brackets are installed, all you have to do is slide in the blinds and clip the bracket shut.

blindinstallafter

We’ve been very happy with the blinds so far. They help a great deal to control the temperature inside the house on hot days. We’ll be shopping for that last large set and too small sets of blinds soon.

July 6, 2009July 6, 2009

Size Matters

For our family room painting project, we purchased a 5 gallon bucket rather than several 1 gallon cans of paint. Why? It’s cheaper to buy in bulk and we knew we would be using most of it because we were painting two large rooms. Buying in bulk can backfire, though. A great deal on a jumbo package of breakfast pastries is not such a great deal if half of them spoil before you can eat them.

A 5 gallon bucket is extremely unwieldy. I should’ve guessed this when I saw Robert the paint guy use a dolly to bring the giant bucket of interior eggshell base to the paint center for mixing. I strained to get it into the trunk of my car, and I strained to get it out of the trunk of my car. I felt like a competitor in the World’s Strongest Man competition as I hoisted it and shuffled from the garage to the family room with veins bulging from my neck. I struggled to pry the lid off only to discover that it had to be stirred — and stirring was no easy task for that volume of paint. And pouring from the bucket to a paint tray? Not an option.

The bottom line is, the big bucket is hard to handle and extremely messy. It is about $2 cheaper per gallon than buying individual gallon cans, so we saved about $10 altogether. Was it worth it? No way, Jose. I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out what to do with this big heavy bucket, and I probably spilled $10 worth of paint over the course of the project anyway. Unless you are a body builder who doesn’t mind messes, I’d shell out the extra cash for smaller cans. But that’s just me.

Luckily, the bucket is about half empty now . . . because we finally finished painting the last corner of the family room. We’re still putting the pieces back together, so the final “after” pictures will have to wait.

Now, on to the kitchen . . .

June 30, 2009July 1, 2009

Book Review: The House Always Wins

In The House Always Wins: Create the Home You Love–Without Busting Your Budget, author Marni Jameson takes readers through the process of creating a home by sharing her own home-ownership experiences. She shares the struggle of creating a stylish and inviting home that is functional for her family, offering up what she learned from her mistakes as well as advice from the pros. The result is an entertaining read than first-time home owners will find helpful as a guidebook to creating and maintaining a home.

Although Jameson is an award-winning nationally syndicated home design columnist, her stories humanize her and demonstrate that even people who deal with home design for a living are prone to the same issues run-of-the-mill folk face in appointing their homes. She details agonizing over the multitude of different floorings available to choose from at the home design center, as well as the disaster of fly-by-night landscapers taking off with her money after creating a giant sink hole in her yard.

Like any contractor, Jameson begins with a foundation, building her book from initial decisions a homeowner must make that can be expensive, time-consuming, or down-right impossible to change. For example, location is key, and it does not matter how richly appointed an interior is if you hate the city you live in, and that is not easily changed. Similarly, finishes like flooring and cabinetry are very difficult to change, but at the same time can have a huge impact on what you can do with a space, so they need to be chosen carefully. Once you’ve got a backdrop to work with, she brings in furniture, providing insight into buying quality pieces that will work for you without getting ripped off. Finally, she discusses accessories and other finishing touches that make a room feel warm and inviting. She even provides information for holiday decorating and specific-purpose rooms. And all of this keeps in mind the fundamental process of determining one’s own personal style and keeping it in mind so as not to be swayed by fads or styles that may look great in the showroom, but ultimately will not appeal to the homeowner over time.

The book does lack a level of specificity. I found myself from time to time thinking, “ok, I see this is something I need to look into, or watch out for, but how do I do that?” However, given that it covers such a broad range of topics, this is a minor shortcoming. One book cannot possibly cover in depth each and every topic Jameson addresses. This is not so much a how-to book, but a general overview of what a homeowner will need to know and/or learn in order to be successful in creating a pleasing environment. In other words, it might not have all the answers, but it helps you figure out what the questions are and where to start looking for answers.

Overall, this was an enjoyable, quick read that provided a considerable amount of useful and interesting information about choosing a house and appointing such that you get a functional end product you are happy with. I would certainly recommend it to anyone just starting on the process of creating a home.

June 29, 2009

Still More Painting

It’s time to share a little bit more progress on the family room painting project. I’m happy to say we are probably about 2/3 done now. We tackled the outer wall with the windows last weekend. This area required a lot of prep work because we had to remove the blinds and hardware and tape of the windows. Sounds pretty obvious, but the prior owner didn’t bother, as evidenced by the pink paint here and there on the blinds, outlet covers, and wall switches. The room actually looked great when we removed the blinds early in the morning. It felt really open and you could gaze upon the gorgeous backyard. That feeling did not last long into the afternoon as the sun started beating in. It was brutal trying to paint in the scorching heat with the sun glaring in! Here’s the work-in-progress. I believe this is actually just after the second coat was finished, so we were just waiting for it to dry so we could remove the painters tape and put things back together.

familyroompaintinginprogress

And here’s the finished wall. Of course, there still is one large pink corner left in the room. We’ve saved it for last because it’s the corner housing the television and components, and it’s not going to be fun to untangle that mess of cords and get it out of the way to paint without fear of drips on precious AV equipment.

2-3rdspaintedfamilyroom2

Fingers crossed we can do that last corner all at once. My hope is that it won’t be too bad because there aren’t a lot of windows or edges so it should go quickly. Of course, my hope with the window wall was that it would go quickly because there was not much surface area to cover . . .

June 25, 2009

Clever Cobweb Removal

You’re about to get another sneak peak at our entryway (we already showed you the hat and shoe rack we put there). One of the great features of our house is it’s openness, which includes a large entry area open to the staircase and second floor. It’s very nice, but when cobwebs form in the certain corners, it’s very difficult to get to them because they are so high up.

A brief digression: A few weeks ago, I’m sitting in the family room watching tv, and I hear this whirring noise coming from the front of the house. Upon investigating, I discover Steve flying his small, foam RC helicopter in the entryway! He took it up from the floor past the pendant light, over the banister to the upstairs hall, and into our bedroom. This has become a not infrequent occurrence.

Do you see where I am going with this? This weekend, he was flying the helicopter and decided to take it right up into the corner to clear out the cobwebs. Those rotor blades wrapped the web right up. Of course, once that happened, the chopper dropped like a rock, but at least the corner is clean now.

Clever, huh? Have you discovered any unique ways to make cleaning a game a-la Mary Poppins?

June 24, 2009

Paint it Green

You might remember that we removed the curtains from the family room and painted the ceiling a pale green a while back. Well, we’ve now started on the walls.

halfpaintedfamilyroom2

The color is Glidden’s Sea Drops, which is a little bit darker than the Iced Cilantro on the ceiling. We are hoping some crisp white crown molding will make that distinction pop.

And you’re right, I did say started with the walls, which clearly implies we are not finished. So we’ve got a half green, half pink room. Nice! We’ll continue working on this project and keep you posted.

halfpaintedfamilyroom1

June 15, 2009June 15, 2009

Our Productive Weekend or House Tour Part 1: The Family Room

I’m totally amazed by the amount we got done around the house this weekend. First, Steve made some amazing progress with the weeds in the back yard. I didn’t take any before and after pictures because I didn’t expect him to be outside too long, or to make too much of a dent in our forest of weeds. Boy was I wrong! He cleared a huge area along the back fence and around the patio, and the yard is actually starting to look, well, pretty. I also did a fair amount of weeding myself, and got started with a little painting project.

This is our family room. It sits just off the kitchen, and because we’re getting started with its make-over, it will be the first room on our house tour (although logically a bit out of order). We’re tackling the family room first because: (1) the family room and the kitchen are probably the two most used rooms in the house, so we want them to be comfortable places that we really enjoy being in; and (2) it’s pink. Really, really pink. And the seller left us some fabulous curtains.

We’ve got a whole plan for the family room here. This weekend, I started by painting the ceiling. Of course this involved a bit of prep work first. I removed all of the curtains and hardware, removed and/or taped off the light fixtures, and laid out drop clothes before slathering a coat of paint on the ceiling.

Just taking down the curtains made a huge difference and really lightened things up. I started with just the ceiling because we’re taking baby steps on the painting; neither one of us wants to spend a whole weekend painting, so we’re doing it one wall at a time.