Category: Projects (Page 1 of 52)

Happy Birthday to my niece Rachel! Yay!

There’s a pipe on the outside of my house that has lost its cap. I think it’s a vent of some kind? But the cap is rusted and doesn’t stay on at all. When the kitchen sink is running, I can actually see water flowing in the opening. It’s like a doorway right into my house for bugs. Ack!

I finally decided to do something about it. I had some steel wool, and I stuffed it in the pipe. Hopefully it will keep bugs out.

Since I have finally repainted my living room, I can think about hanging some things on the walls. I have a few pieces of art that I really want to be able to see regularly.

The rearranging resulted in a giant wall space.

I thought about just filling it with a bunch of things, like I did a long time ago in my Baltimore house. (Huh. I went looking for a picture of that, but couldn’t find one. I think I have an actual printed photo in my garage. I should find it.)

But I decided I wanted one big thing there. I thought about it for a little while, then decided I’d display a quilt there. I have one made by each grandma. I decided to go with Grandma Hummel’s quilt, since it has flowers.

I folded it over a curtain rod. It fills the space nicely.

I finished painting the living room with the help of Denis, the roller king. Thank you, Denis!

It was also an opportunity to do some furniture rearranging. I wanted to try something different. Here’s the old arrangement:

And here’s the new one:

The TV is now sticking into the room, but it puts the couch on a different wall – one that allows me to see out the window. It was also an excuse to clean up a lot of junk that had almost become permanent.

Here’s the view from the couch:

And here’s the view from the front door using the “wide angle” setting on the camera:

Now that the walls are finally the right color, maybe I can get to hanging some of my artwork on the walls…

When I moved into this house, I painted the living room. I was trying to do gray, but after it was on the wall, I could see it was blue. I have been saying for years that I would re-paint. Years. It’s kept me from hanging things on the walls. It’s kept me from any kind of furniture re-arrangements.

I’m finally doing it. I can’t show final “after” pictures yet, because I need the light of day to check for any missed spots before I move furniture back into place. . But here’s a “during” picture. It helps show the blue-vs-gray thing:

And an “after”-ish picture to show some progress:

I like the gray. It looks calmer and cleaner to me.

I finished painting my mudroom. It was still the color that the previous owner had painted it – a kind of mustard brown. I hadn’t painted it when I painted the kitchen because I needed to have some plumbing done, which would mean breaking into the wall there. That finally happened last February, so the walls were ready for paint. And a short six months later, I’ve done it!

BEFORES and AFTERS:

The part of the wall that was white held the paint differently than the painted parts. It left a subtle texture that I will call “paint brush”. I’m sure there are lots of people out there who would pay big bucks for a hand-crafted artisanal touch such as this:

I had said yesterday that I was thinking about moving my washer and dryer. I did it. Here is the view from the kitchen:

I’m not used to it yet, so it bothers me a little. I’ll live with it for a while and see what I think. I did have to switch the direction in which the dryer door opened. That was challenging. Fortunately, the previous owner had left the owners manual. I still made a few mistakes along the way, but finally got it: