Card Catalog progress

This card catalog cabinet we got back in July has been sitting for awhile, waiting, til yesterday.

I rolled it outside, sanded the sides down, and used Bondo to patch a lot of holes/gouges/nicks/etc. It isn't til you begin looking at something carefully that you can see just how bad it really is.

 

The plan was to patch up the sides, add a top and paint the sides and top glossy white, leaving the front as is.

Here's the cabinet with a coat of primer on the sides and the top in place (unpainted):

Everything painted:

Some the red is peaking through on the sides, I think I am going to have to put another coat of primer on to cover it and then another coat of final gloss. Also, the plan was to add 5" feet to the bottom.

Drywall Sander

Browsing Amazon's tool selection, I came across this:

An orbital drywall sander with vacuum hose attached. Too bad it's $431! It uses a 9" round sanding disc which is huge.

Home Depot doesn't rent it, Lowes has no rental equipment in the Sacramento area (based on their website), but Sunbelt in West Sacramento does have it for rent:

http://www.sunbeltrentals.com/equipment/equipment.aspx?itemid=0040046&catid=s45

Why is this exciting? I dislike hay embedded in my kitchen walls:

The magic of oven cleaner

Did you know you can take the finish off of metal with oven cleaner? I've done it before on bicycle parts ---- removed the anodization off of old parts and made them shiny silver again.

Well, in the battle of me versus the sink, the sink was winning: I couldn't get this thing to not leak. The metal drain ring is mostly plastic and it broke as I was tightening everything to eliminate a leak.

I looked in the box of parts from the old sink that was pulled out and the old sink ring was there and its metal. And it used to be brassy.

I liked the idea of metal, but the brass wouldn't do. So, I tried the oven cleaner trick.The trick is to soak it for 15 minutes or so, then scrub with steel wool, then repeat as necessary.

Here it is about 3/4 of the way done. There are still some small spots in the photo but I was able to get them out. I installed the ring, but it's still undecided if I've officially won the fight.

edit: here is the sink drain ring thing installed:

More guest room

With the furniture in place. Spent $30 on the paint, had the floor sealer, had a lot of the furniture, and was given bed and comforter and curtains from Rachel's mom Nancy.

Mantel Decor

Closet Organization

This closet, just off our kitchen, was a mess. It was home to our broom, mop, re-usable bags as well as plastic and paper bags. Except there was no organization, open the door and everything came tumbling out. Which meant we usually left the broom and mop out all the time.

Took some leftover melamine and built some cubbies for it all:

 

Not only does everything have a home now, but we also gained another shelf for cleaning products or maybe canned food.

As promised...

Here is a photo in the daylight of the light for the baby's room as referenced earlier. I might add a spacer so that it hangs a little lower, not sure it looks good right up against the ceiling:

Guest's Room

So as mentioned here the floors were finished last week. Over the last week, I painted the bottom 2/3rds of the walls and the baseboards. We went with a color almost identical to what was already in there, a Kelly Moore color called Doeskin (it's really not as green or yellow as the pictures suggest). It was all pretty straight forward, used painters tape to do the baseboards and get a clean/straight edge.

Where this room was on October 1st:

Today

 

So, last night Rachel and I moved some of the miscellaneous furniture we had lying around into the room as well as the rug that we previously had in the living room (it was too small for there, but a good size here). Also, moved my clothes into the closet and got them much more organized. Can you tell I like blue shirts?

We're excited to be getting a bed this weekend!

The living room is painted!

My parents came over and helped us paint the living room this weekend. Actually, it only took Saturday from about 10am to 3pm primarily because it only needed one coat of paint to cover the old rusty/rustic paint. The transformation was pretty dramatic (the photos don't do it justice).

Before (on first walkthrough almost a year ago!):

After:

 

edit: the color we ended up going with was Behr "Cornerstone":

The guest's bedroom floor...

...is done, next is to paint. I didn't spend 30 hours sanding the floor so it still has some stains in it. But I was able to get a lot of the bigger scratches out of it and the new shine looks really good.

I'm only going to be painting the bottom 2/3rds of the wall --- there is a trim piece piece that I will be painting below. Also, will be painting the baseboards but not all of the trim. Idea is to get this done and move onto the baby's room.

Unidentified Flying Object (light)

We found this glass lampshade at the thrift store on Sunday for a top-dollar price of $20. Seriously, that's kind of a lot for a thrift store, but we thought it'd look great in the baby girl's room.

It's very hard to take nice photos of lights, and I'll try to post a better one in the future, but until then, here it is:

 

Between the "panes" of glass its brass colored. I think this thing was originally supposed to hang the opposite direction, but by flipping it upside down it looks more art deco than 1980's. I needed to get a new light from the hardware store ($8) and then used this cover instead of the one that came with the light: 

Dining room finished?

 

We bought a new table from Pier 1, and we love it. We wanted something airy that didn't cover the awesome walls.We also hung the mirror that Rachel's parents gave us. We were going to paint it but decided against it, looks too good as is.

The Baby's dresser

We got this today from a local thrift store. A track was missing for one of the drawers but for $7.50 it was a deal. Tonight I replaced the track with some scrap. Paint to come!