Happy one month bloggiversary to us

Can't believe we kept it going for a month already! Typically things I start don't make it past a day. In the last month we've had over 500 hits with today breaking the daily record at 43. Someone from Russia, Canada and Germany has viewed Me, Ed and Pea. I'm sure this was by accident...but still cool to know. Thanks for reading! Hopefully I can post another "anniversary" note next month.

Weekend spray paint project one

We had two grody shower curtain rods that came with the house. One for the master bathroom and one for the hallway bathroom. I'm sure there's one in the basement bathroom but I'm scared to go in there. If there's any part of the house I'm dreading, it's that bathroom. Blech.

I went to Home Depot to find some new shower curtain rods. All they had were the Martha Stewart Living adjustable ones or long metal closet rods that needed to be cut to size. This is dumb but, I can't stand the adjustable ones. They look great but when I pull the curtain across and it gets stuck...grrrrrr!! Peeve! I asked an HD employee if they cut the closet rods for you. He said no.

So I left Home Depot.

With some a this!

If I wasn't going to buy new shower curtain rods, I'd make the yuck ones I had look brand spankin' new!

In their yuck stage.

It was a lot worse than it looks, trust me.

Soooo...how to paint a rod without one end leaning against a wall or touching the floor. I should probably create something that's time consuming and completely unnecessary.

Fishing line and scissors? Check.

Weight tied to one end of the fishing line to facilitate threading through the rods? Check.

Two large benches facing back to back on the lawn? Check.

And there you have it. Floating shower curtain rods ready for spray paint.

What? I warned you it was complete nonsense.

It worked though!

Primed.

And chromed.

Fabulous!

Weekend projects

We accomplished one kitchen project and a couple of spray paint projects this weekend. We're not letting a little thing like this stop us.

We knew we were probably going to lose power at some point so first thing Friday after work, we got started on the next step of our kitchen project. Installing some beadboard paneling on the ceiling.

We chose the paneling because of price and also ease of installation. Installing the real thing would be about four times the cost of the paneling and probably take us four times as long. I'm sure it will be obvious that it's not real beadboard, but hopefully we'll achieve a similar look.

First problem? 8' long paneling and a 10' ceiling. Know what that means? A big ol' seam. Not pretty. We spent about a week tossing around ways to get around this. I thought, we can't be the first people who have dealt with this issue, so I set out to find those who had - and their solutions - online.

The answer? Trim! Of course! Everything can be covered with some decorative trim.

The first project I found.

via

Mmhm, mmhm, not bad, not bad.

Second project I found.

via

Hello! I want that! We've never installed trim like this or put up crown molding. But now that's the plan. (tack on another few weeks to the kitchen remodel)

We were really nervous about installing this stuff properly since big stripes/lines aren't very forgiving if you mess up. We also didn't really know what we were doing or how to make sure we didn't end up with diagonal stripes.

So first, we measured the kitchen from corner to corner along each wall. We found that the walls were pretty dern square! Yay! We also decided the fake beam would go straight down the middle of the kitchen so we measured from opposite walls to the center joist to find our two lengths for the pieces of panel.

Then we did a lot of measuring, and a lot of cutting.

Measure twice....oops....

And get yourself a T-square if you don't have one! We use it every time we need to measure something with a right angle. And ours was only $12.

---Mint sorbet nail polish. Cute right?---

We wrote the measurement on the back of each panel so we would definitely know which piece went on which side of the center joist. (The "center" was a few inches farther from one side than the other - just the way the ceiling joists lined up.)

Then we fired up the compressor and put the first line of panels in! Using the nail gun makes things go so much faster. I can't imagine doing this project without one. Nailing each board up with a hammer? Forget it.

And here's that big ol' seam I was talking about.

Looks terrible now, but it will be covered up later on so no worries.

The panels are tongue and groove so it was pretty smooth sailing from then on.

We made sure to measure and mark where the recessed lights were. Don't want to cover those up!

Movin' right along.

On day two we had to move the sawing and measuring operation inside cause Irene arrived a few hours early.

I was amazed that we measured correctly the first time for the pendant light wire. AMAZED.

 Finito!

Already a better view coming up the stairs from the basement.

We can't do the trim until the cabinets are in. I can't wait to see the finished look!

Eeeeeee!!

***update: I told Lindsay my bedroom looked sweat. Not sweet but sweat. [sigh] Note to self - learn how to spell before writing a blog. So many mistakes! I blame exhaustion.***

I commented on Lindsay's post thanking her for the tip and she responded! Lindsay's big time! This is exciting for me.

Nice.

How to fix leaky pipes under your kitchen sink

First, realize there is a leak by hearing large amounts of water splashing around under the sink when you turn the water on. Open the under-sink cabinet and assess the situation.

Let it sit for a few days.

On the way home from work a few days later, swing by Home Depot and pick up the pipes and other plumbing pieces you think you need. In this case, a P-Trap Repair Kit. Reasonably priced - all pieces included.

Get home and realize the kit includes a p-trap with two "male" ends when you need a p-trap with two female ends.

Go back to Home Depot.

When a friendly HD employee approaches to help, give him the rundown on your plumbing challenge. After a few moments, realize that he too is just guessing at a solution to your problem.  His solution is to build all new plumbing (connect random pieces of PVC) since, according to him, HD does not carry the part you need.

Assume you can build better DIY PVC plumbing than he can. Give several serious and contemplative nods as you slowly walk away to build your own set of pipes.

Once you have found all of the pieces you think you need to assemble your spanking new under-kitchen-sink-plumbing, walk proudly to the register.

Beam with pride. You are SO gonna fix this! You don't need "kits" or other amateur plumbing easy-fix-it solutions. You can do the real thing. You've seen something like this on DIY Network once and you should have thought of creating your own plumbing the first time you went to HD today.

After purchasing your parts, swagger out to your car and go home to install - this should take no more than 20-30 minutes tops.

Take pictures for your blog! You'll need to teach people how to do this later.

Realize immediately after taking your pictures that the pieces you bought are too big. And don't fit. At all. Not even close.

Go back to Home Depot.

Now...this third trip to Home Depot is key.

Visit the PVC pipe aisle. Hang out there a while.

Go to the plumbing aisle. Stare at the products for a long...long time.

Lay down on the floor, tuck your knees to your chest, put your thumb in your mouth and rock back and forth.

Hahaha! No really. I'm just serious.

After you've had a moment, look at the plumbing pieces strewn about you and see - could it be!? - the piece you were looking for all along? How did it get there? Did you pick it out? Are you losing your mind?

Cautiously go to the self-checkout and purchase your new part (be sure to accidentally select the Spanish instructions option).

Go home. Install the new part in - literally - five minutes.

Wait. Where's that washer supposed to be.

#$(*(#$*)#$*%)@)%#*$(%*#$%!!!!!!

Master bedroom so far

So I've talked about refinishing the floors and installing a ceiling fan, but I haven't mentioned the rest of the work that took the master bedroom from this...

To this...

It may not seem like a whole lot, but there was quite a bit of work put into this.

First we (I) had to decide on a paint color. I knew I wanted a gray bedroom, but which gray!?

Green-gray? Blue-gray? Brown-gray? "Greige?"

A few months before we bought our house, I stumbled upon this color palette while looking at Martha Stewart's website. 

She calls it the Super Neutrals. Super!

I am horrible at choosing paint colors so having a set selection like this made it easy for me to narrow down the choices. And I trust Martha (and her gay designer army) to tell me what colors go well together.

I knew I wanted something like #8, Stonington Gray by Benjamin Moore.

We brought home three samples from Home Depot and slapped 'em on the wall. None of them were quite right. So it dawned on me...if I like the Stonington Gray...why don't I just go get Stonington Gray! (DUH)

Before painting though, the room needed to be prepped big time. The windows sills were chipped and peeling and needed to be sanded (thanks Ed). The walls were filthy and need to be washed (thanks Ed). And the outlet and vent covers needed to be removed (thanks Ed)!

Wait...what's this?

This would be the part where I told Ed to remove the vent cover when he wanted to just paint over it. I insisted. Ed removed the vent cover and big chunks of wall came with it. Sorry Ed.

He later did an amazing patch job though and now you can't even tell. A few days later our bedroom was bathed in two coats of the perfect gray.

Next? Trim.

Ed painting trim.

Me painting trim.

We used Scotch Blue Painter's Tape for all of the trim and...weren't impressed. The lines bled all over the place! It also pealed up some of the paint we had just put on!!

To fix these imperfections I tried a technique from Lindsay of Living with Lindsay. Her post about applying a thin line of caulk along the ceiling sounded like the answer. 

I will definitely do this to every room now, it turned out great.

More on this later.

What's shakin'

Us!

We experienced an earthquake here in NoVA that measured 5.8 on the Richter scale. This never happens here. Ever. I definitely thought bomb/terrorist attack before I thought earthquake. Just minutes ago Ed and I felt a little after shock. Cool!

I love that all us East coasters ran into the street which is apparently what you're not supposed to do in an earthquake. Like I said, earthquakes never happen here. Although, we get snow every year and still panic. Perhaps we just like to panic...

So what does this mean for our home improvement plans for this evening? Well, Ed set off for some plumbing supplies to fix our basement sink and discovered that Home Depot was closed.

SCORE!

A night off!

The kitchen ceiling and basement sink will have to wait.

Quarter round

Remember when we tore out all the quarter round? Well now, room by room, its gotta go back in. Again, since the goal of the weekend was to move into the master bedroom, we knew we would have to install the quarter round.

But first, it needed to be sanded.

And then it needed to be painted.

And then it needed to be painted again. Two coats to match the baseboards in the bedroom.

After the sanding and painting was complete, the parents came over and this happened. The parents also brought these goodies.

Ooooh yeeaaah!

POWER!

Don't forget this bad boy.

We're gonna have this quarter round in in no time!

Oh wait.

I forgot.

Nothing made us feel dummer than putting in the stinkin' quarter round! What's so hard!? It's just a few 45 degree angles!! Why did we end up having to turn the entire saw around (instead of the piece we were cutting) in order to achieve the correct cut? We just could not figure out how to make the right cut after the piece was flipped around and upside-down. Could not. Once we turned the saw around though, we were in business.

We cut all the pieces and dry fit the entire bedroom.

Then is was time for the gun! This thing scared the pants off me. A high pressure steel canister ready to blow? In our house? Two feet away from me??? Not cool. So I sat and read the instruction manual cover to cover, and then read it again. And then called mom and asked how to use it. And then read the manual  again.

It all came down to just getting over the fear and shooting that first nail. And??? ...not that bad! The instructions warned about strong recoil and many other scary things that did not happen. And with the gun, the installation went fast! We knocked out the bedroom quarter round in 15 minutes max.

I'm hanging on to these tools for a loooong time.

And the results are gawgeous.