simple changes that make a big difference

WARNING: you're in for a long post today!

Sunday was a day filled with projects for Rob and I. We tackled some of the shorter, simpler projects that we had been delaying on because we never wanted to open the can of worms on these projects (which was silly because the proverbial cans were all so tiny). Well, now they are finished very nearly finished and what a difference some simple changes can make! Let me just tell you - things are feeling fresh at the Rebhan house - woot!

We completed three tasks:

1. filling nail holes from previous owners curtains, etc and our decor changes
2. taking the inner molding out of the old bedroom doorway (that is now the secondary entrance to the dining room)
3. repainting the inside of the front door and all of the door's trim

We started the day with projects one and two, three was added on as we started patching and painting and oh my, what a difference that painted door makes!

Project 1: 

There were lots and lots of holes around the house from temporary decor solutions and "mis-hung" pictures/frames, as well as from all the old curtain rods the previous owner had installed.

Now when I say "curtain rods", I use the term loosely because they were more the bracket and telescoping rod variety that end up being covered in six layers of paint before they are ever taken down or replaced. Needless to say, it was not easy to get the 10 brackets (whose screws were completely stripped) down off the wall.

Once we managed to get everything removed, we used putty to fill all the holes. I prefer the kind that goes on pink, that way I can and make sure that I filled everything properly. I also use my hands to apply it to the wall for nail holes, but a putty knife does come in handy when you are really trying to smooth out a divot!

After we spackled everything, we waited for all the pink to turn white and then we sanded away. It doesn't take much power to sand these little areas so we just used a couple scraps of sandpaper and hand-sanded. I always like to hold a damp paper towel under my spot sanding so I don't have to clean up after! After the sanding, I just painted over the holes and "waaaalaa!" clear white walls again. It really is the simple things.

Project 2:

When we took down the wall to create the walkway (you can see that project here) between the dining room and the living room, we also took down the old bedroom door. We figured that eventually we would refinish the doorway so it no longer looked like a doorframe, but a walk-through; no one would ever know what we had done (hee hee). Well we have been done with the walkway for about two months now and well, we just got around to refinishing the trim. Thankfully the way door frames are put together, it's not hard to take them apart!

Rob only needed a hammer, a crow bar and some sand paper to get this job done! Now that we have done some projects around the house, we always appreciate those that don't require many tools and tricks!

 

As you can see from the "action shot" above, a few swift hits with the hammer and that molding was popping right off. Sometimes it amazes me how easy it is to take apart a house, ha! It took Rob about five minutes to get the molding off the sides and top of the door frame. Once the big pieces were off he had to go back and get the little splinter leftovers that were being held on by the layers and layers of paint that doorway had seen over the years. As you can see in the picture below, there was a lot of paint scrap left behind!

Once Rob took all the scraps off, all that was left to do was sand! Again, it wasn't a job for the power sander; he was able to take the remaining paint bumps and smooth them out to be level with the frame just by hand sanding.

After that, all there was left to do was paint the frame white! For now, we have sanded down the hardware "holes" and have painted them white. We are eventually going to fill them with wood, putty and paint over them again but we didn't have time this go round. Honestly though, even though we have one more step in this project, we are happy that we got what we did out of the way - it already makes a big difference! We will take a picture of the finished project when all the paint has dried and the holes have been filled!

Project 3: 

Project three snuck up on me while I was doing project #1. I was painting over a hole next to the front door and it hit me how ugly and tan/brown/yellow the front door was - yuck! So without thinking twice I just ran my paint brush over the door and now, the rest is history as they say.

The lighting in these pictures isn't great but it doesn't take great lighting to see how ugly and dirty our front door looked from the inside... not only was the door an ugly tan color, the molding around the windows (which is plastic, ew) was completely yellowed from years of sun and wear. I had never painted a door before so I wasn't about to try and paint around all the knobs and locks. After removing the lock and door handle, I also removed the plastic frame from the inside.

Here is an up close view of the window molding... can we all say it together now? EW! So yellow and so dated looking because of it. To be completely honest, I hadn't really looked twice at the front door before because there were other things to be done - but boy am I glad I looked a little closer on Sunday. After removing all the molding, I painted the door with a paintbrush for two coats and then rollered on the third coat to make it nice and smooth! I used an eggshell white that I had laying around the house - same as the walls - so it just blends right in!

I didn't want to hand paint the molding, figuring the plastic would get all streaky and that would frustrate me to no end. So I chose to spray paint... I love spray paint! Let me re-phrase, I LOVE spray paint, but I hate the spray paint that I chose for this project. It had a terrible sprayer and my table in the basement as well as my arm got covered in paint. boo!

Even though it was messy, it was worth it because the frames look 100x better than before! So crisp and clean, with a little sheen to boot!

After letting the spray paint and the door dry for about two hours while we went out and celebrated with some friends on their engagement (shout out to Jordan and Danielle, congrats you guys!!), we were ready to put the door back together

The window glass is actually just held between the two plastic panes (one on the outside and one on the inside) with a bunch of screws, so the process to take it apart and put it back together is not a hard one! 

After everything was put back together, it was an amazing difference! What was once blah and brown is now crisp and clean! Thank goodness for a little white paint :)

We hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas with your family and loved ones and we wish you a prosperous new year! As always, thank you for following along with us! 

Until next time, Lindsey and Rob

baseboards and caulking and tiling, oh my

Well we finally finished some projects that have been waiting in the wings; the end to two projects that honestly could have been finished weeks ago but it has been hard to get our butts in gear to finish. 

BUT WE FINALLY DID IT.

As you know, we put a walkway into an existing wall to create a dining room out of a bedroom right when we moved in. Doing this required us to take the baseboard moulding off the wall and well, it was never replaced. So now, almost two and a half months later, we replaced it. It's amazing how moulding can change a room (both living and dining room) and make it look complete! Project #1 COMPLETE!

The other project was completing the kitchen. We had replaced our cooktop and taken down the microwave which left an ugly un-tiled background for everyone to look at (for about a month and a half).

We looked around for tile to match the existing white but it's not just simple white tile, it's actually dimpled (you can tell in the picture above wherever the light hits the tile). This proved to be difficult to match, therefore, we just decided to get something that would "go" - it's ok in fashion, why not in your kitchen?

Since the space that needed to be covered was only about 34 inches by 6 inches we decided on a preset pattern that would match the existing tiles. The dark tile line of tile (as seen in photo above) is a forest-y green so we had to go with that family. We ended up with this seafoam, forest green, white and charcoal tile pattern.

We split each square into halves (6 inches high) and applied liquid nails to each individual tile (through the mesh on the back. 

We had to snap some of the tiles to make it fit better behind the cabinets: pliers and muscles were all it took to get the smaller tiles to break. Thankfully the breaks didn't have to be clean because they were only on the ends and were getting tucked away! 

Once everything fit properly, I was able to just start putting the tile up. We only ended up needing three sections, this was definitely an easy tile job. 

We had to add some random tiles and foam insulation so that the hood would seal properly. We didn't bother to grout these tiles since they would A) never be seen and B) were merely being used as placeholders.

After the tile was up and we let the adhesive set properly we mixed the grout and started sealing. We used grey grout since the existing tile was grouted in grey and we wanted to match as much as we could. We didn't even get close to using the half a bag (7lb bag) that we mixed even with the bathroom touch ups that we did - next time we'll know!

After about half an hour Rob sponged down the area to diminish any residue where there shouldn't be any. Once the wall was done it was all about the hood and therefore, I was tagged out of the renovation game - Rob and my Dad rewired, reinstalled and (thankfully) didn't even get electrocuted! ha!

The final step was to caulk around the new hood so that people - taller than myself - couldn't see the seam between the hood and the surrounding cabinet. 

In the end the tiling project ended up costing only about $30 and the only took about an hour (including waiting time)! I wouldn't call myself a pro or anything but it made me feel more comfortable for any future tiling endeavors! The guys might say that they will leave the electricity to the professionals from now on, but I think they did a great job! 

VOILA! 

Many thanks to Dad Brand for helping us with all our little projects!

p.s. the four dark dots on the tile in the "before" picture above were large sinkers and needed to be removed, leaving four large holes in the tile. I just added some caulk - as you can see in the after picture - and I am just waiting for it to completely set before removing the access! No more gaping holes in the nice tile! yay!

until next time, Lindsey

bathroom facelift

We were so happy to find a house that didn't need any major work, especially in the bathroom or kitchen since those are always such expensive rooms to makeover. We feel so blessed to not go through that. Now, even though they don't need much in the way of remodel, they both definitely needed some work in the way of a facelift. So here is what we did to spruce things up a bit - since the bathroom was the first to be finished we'll post about that room first. 

We went with black and white because it is so clean looking and so effortless at the same time. The floor in the bathroom is a black marble with white markings so we just took our cue from that and ran with it. 

All in all we added much more that what was already existing in the bathroom. The tile (which you can see here) is not terrible but we didn't want to look at the grey/green and maroon all the time, so we used a shower curtain to hide the shower. We added towel hooks so there would be somewhere to put wet towels, what with the curtain covering up the shower door rails and because that space was so blah and empty before! 

When we moved in there was one shelf, very high above the toilet - the metal kind that they have in hotels. Well we didn't like it, it made the room look blank and cold so we took that sucker down. Of course it left four large holes in the wall that needed to be spackled and re-painted but it was worth the extra step to get something pretty in the bathroom. I (Lindsey) am from the school of thought that a bathroom should be just as lovely as the rest of your house and not just a forgotten room. Hence, the shelves above the toilet - somewhat functional and somewhat just for looks.

Here is my new favorite house treat, a laundry chute! It goes right down to the basement and the laundry plops down right in front of the washer - so handy. I never thought I would like it or use it but now, after only a month, I can say that I would put one into any house we live in from now on!

It's not a very big opening, but even a towel fits right down! 

So far, so good and we love the way the bathroom looks from the hallway. We are "done" with the bathroom for now and will keep looking for deals and discounts on certain hardware that we don't like...

Aren't these gold and silver fixtures lovely??? No, they absolutely aren't.

Thanks for keeping up with us and our improvements (little by little)! Until our next report, Lindsey (and Rob too!)