Baby dresser: before and after

Got the baby's room nearly painted (just need to do the back of the door) so I moved the furniture back in there.

Here on the left is the baby's dresser in the conceptual stage after some photoshopping ---- was cool to use Photoshop to edit the color 20 different ways until Rachel and I settled on something we liked. On the right, the dresser nearly done being painted:

As a reminder, here is the dresser when we got it home and also this is the photo I used to create the photoshopped image in the above left --- yes it was yellow:

A white christmas...tree

Our $5 white/awesome thrift store Xmas tree came up last night as well as the little led snowscape we got from IKEA last year.

Painting progress

I spent most of the entire day Friday painting the baby's room.As mentioned before, we settled on "Custard Cream" from Behr. The downside is that its light enough that it doesn't cover in one coat though.

Began cutting in the walls (ceiling has been painted white already):

Second coat of paint in progress:

Walls are painted:

 Took the old almond fixtures out and replaced with new white ones ---- cant have white trim with almond outlets. Yes there is wallpaper under this paint, not sure when we'll have to tear it all down. Hopefully not soon. It has bubbled up in a couple of spots and torn in a few others.

Now, I'm working on finishing painting the baseboards and door in white.

This is tough

We've had to hem and haw every time we picked a wall color (except the guest room where we just matched the existing). Usually, this means we buy like 2 samples, then another 2 and then decide between the four.

The baby's room has been tougher though (notice the pink in the far right too):

However, I think we've actually settled on a Behr color called "Custard Cream". Luckily, Home Depot sells small samples for only $2.94.

Note: Not shown is that we tried the living room color "cornerstone" in here as well. No luck.

The start of the Xmas lights

Last year, Rachel and I drove and walked through one of the nicer parts of town called the Fab Forties and saw these path lights that looked pretty nice. Basically, they were just large Christmas lights on stakes lighting the path.

I went to Home Depot and got the stakes ($4 for a pack of 25, bought two packs) and Target to get a set of large C9 sized led bulbs ($11 for a pack of 25, bought two).

Before, I installed them, I realized that our pathway was largely overgrown and out of control, so I removed a ton of brush and foliage.

The led lights have a really nice color to them, not blueish. Bonus is that each strand uses 2.4 watts to run compared to standard strand of these sort of lights that uses 175 watts! Heck, even a CFL uses 7-12 watts to run.

We kind of like them enough to leave them up all year! Next up is to add more lights to the gutters, maybe windows and front porch posts as well....

1 year ago today...

Rachel, her mom and I walked through this house. We ended up going to three others that day and none held a candle. We ended up putting in an offer that afternoon.

It found a home

Our 24 drawer card catalog unit is now right by the front door along with the boat prints:

The Baby's room floors are done

Spent last Sunday sanding the floors in the baby's room. Rented a floor sander from Home Depot and used it for about 2 hours, returned it, then went around edges on hands and knees with small orbital sander. Then, added 3 coats of Kelly Moore Kel-Thane II in semi-gloss

Here are a few before/afters taken of the same area:

A glimpse at things to come....

Baby rocker

We got this chair for the baby's room on Friday off of Craigslist for $150. It rocks, reclines and swivels. It originally came from Goores (a high-end baby store here in Sacramento that's now going out of business) and originally sold for over $500.

Rachel's already taken a nap or two in it, but it looks like Olive is the biggest fan, she wouldn't get out of it all weekend.

Sold those chairs

 Those cool barrel shaped chairs we got with our kitchen table as mentioned here.The ones we contemplated recovering. The ones that sat around for 8 months.

We spent $75 on the table and chairs and sold the chairs last weekend for $40. So the table only set us back $35 and $15 in paint!

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.