Art work made out of fabric

For a while now I have been debating on what to put on the wall in the bathroom just above the bathtub.  It's a wall that just looks very bare.  The artwork that I created looks great, I am just not convinced that I like it in the bathroom. I don't feel that the colour really goes together with the rest of the colour in the bathroom.  Steve likes it and it will stay there for now. 

There are a lot of different ways that you could create this artwork, but this is the way that I made it and then I will give you my 2 cents (not really give you money) about what I thought of the way that I constructed it and what I would do different. 

Garbage container that works

I have had a Glad roommate garbage container for a while now under by kitchen sink cupboard. We use plastic shopping bags inside the container, but have found that they always seem to fall inside, as the bags are short compared to the container. 

Since our town has started to collect food waste in the green bins, we have reduced our garbage considerably. With the number of bags that we seem to accumulate, since we don't always remember to bring the reusable shopping bags, we use them for garbage. 

So this is what the container looked like when we first bought it. 

Vanity makeover instructions

So as promised in my previous post, I will now provide you with the instructions on how I managed to complete this project.  It is quite simple actually.   For starters you need to have a vision of what you want your vanity to look like.  I went with the shaker style door, as this was the easiest to complete.  If you are planning to include a more detailed trim, it will be more difficult. 

Disney DVD and Blu-ray movie replacement

I know you are wondering, what does this post have anything to do with DIY. Well nothing.  But I had to share.  I myself have not tried it, but I certainly will.

In my many hrs spent on Pinterest I came upon this one Pin that said that Disney would replace any accidentally damaged or broken DVD's or Blu-rays. There is a nominal charge of $6.95 per DVD and $8.95 per Blu-ray.  This is way cheaper than paying full price for another movie.  Especially if your kids are still little and watch the same movie over and over and over. 

So here is the link Disc Replacement.  You need to fill in a form, return the damaged DVD or Blu-ray and send a cheque.  This is available for both USA and CANADA!!!!!!!

Limit:  One replacement per title per calendar year.  They will only replace discs manufactured or released by WDSHE (Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment).

I will update the post once I have sent my disc in to confirm that it does work.

Disney does Love their customers and this is another way that they prove it. 

Bathroom Vanity

I have been wanting to upgrade the bathroom off of our rec room for quite some time now.  You see the rest of the house has seen some changes, some more drastic then others.  Our upstairs bathroom saw the biggest transformation I think and it makes the bathroom downstairs look so outdated.

The shower has been leaking for some time.  Steve I think has gotten tired of changing the handles and I think this time the shower itself is leaking and the only way to fix it, is to replace the tap for the shower.  

From Drab to Fab... A pretty desk

So I had previously shown you the before pictures of my daughters NEW to her desk.  I picked this little baby up from my local Restore.  If you are not familiar withe the Restore, it is the Habitat for Humanity store.  They receive items donated from people and retail stores and sell it. All proceed go to helping build homes for people with low income.  If you want more information on Habitat for Humanity, here is the link to their site http://www.habitat.ca/.

So I will include the before picture here, so you don't have to go looking for it.  I was lucky that I went to the store when I did and picked this little baby up for $20.  YES, just $20 for BOTH the desk and chair.  The chair alone I think was worth $20.  

Kitchen revitalization

Steve and I had a very busy weekend completing the painting of my mother in-law's kitchen.  This was a present that we had given her for Christmas.  We bought an empty paint can from Home Depot and we put paint chips inside, along with a gift certificate that would entitle her to a kitchen make over.  We purchased one package of the flooring that we wanted to use.  She had the option to change the colour if she wanted, but the product wasn't negotiable.

I do warn anyone reading this post that if you do decide to take on the project of painting your kitchen cupboards, that you give yourself a couple of weeks to do it.  IT TAKES A LONG TIME.

I hope you like the before and after pictures.  (we are not done yet)

 

Inexpensive Art work #2

On January 22, 2013 I posted an inexpensive artwork for a kids room.  I have found another style of artwork that can be done for cheap, and this one I think you can use anywhere in your house. My example was done for my daughters room.  

I found this artwork and inspiration on Pinterest. I seam to spend a lot of time there lately.   You can follow my boards there under Diybydnice and there you will find my Pin on this inspiration. 

All that you need is a canvas, size depends on what you want to make, metal washers, crazy glue and your imagination. 

I stuck with the letter design, but you can do anything you feel that you can replicate by using round washers. 

How to clean your white grout

So I spent my afternoon yesterday cleaning the white grout of my kitchen tiled floor.  I was tired of it being so dirty.  Over the last year, I have attempted different products to clean the tile.The ones I did not try where the ones that are specifically meant for grout, as they are expensive, and usually have a lengthy instruction section. 

I wanted something that was easier.  So I found a recipe on Pinterest for a home made grout cleaner.

I am ashamed to show this picture of the grout before I cleaned it.  It basically looks like brown grout.  This is essentially due to our family dog who spends her time in the kitchen when we are not at home, and of course, being the kitchen with high traffic.

Blinged Mason Jar

My daughter had a birthday party to attend a few weeks ago, with a theme of "Spa".  Homemade products were made and the girls received a "treatment".

As a present, we diced to purchase some nail polish, a small travel size nail polish remover and some stickers for the nails.   Putting all the items in a gift bag would have been too boring.   

I had just recently gone to Walmart and purchased a case of mason jars. A little light bulb went off in my head.  I decided that I would pack all the items inside the mason jar as a gift.  When I got home I realized that the mason jars had quite a bit of design on them.  I just wanted the ones that said Mason on it.  So I had to get creative.

Inexpensive art for kids rooms

So I have been searching for some art work to go into the kids rooms, but i have been unable to find any. So I decided that I needed to find an easy and inexpensive way to create some. I didn't want to spend a lot of money and also didn't want it to be permanent.

While walking around the Dollar store one day, I wondered if my idea would work. Take those vinyl decals that you can put on your walls and peel off, but position them on canvas instead.  

Lego Organization

If you have kids, there is a very good chance that they have a bunch of Lego.  My son, as an abundant amount of Lego.  I have over the years attempted to organize his Lego for him, but never quite like this.

We had an old TV console which we were not using, as we got rid of the second Television.  So I opted to use it for my sons Lego.  It gave him a work surface and also a couple of drawers to store his Lego.  As the years progressed I got tired of having the Lego in our rec room and decided to rearrange his room and move the Lego to his room, with the console.

We spent approx. 45 minutes going through the 3 tubs of Lego that he had from before, which we had originally sorted in categories.  This time I decided that the smaller pieces would be better sorted in a small container with dividers, since the small pieces are always so hard to find, and he had so many of the same kind.  Here is the container which housed his small items at first. 

Minimizing shower clutter

Since we have completed the new shower in our bathroom upstairs, I have found that we did not incorporate any areas where to store all the shower items, like soap and shampoo.

I also like to purchase the large bottles of shampoo and conditioner when they are at a good price, as it is much cheaper.  These large bottles end up sitting on the shower floor and don't look very nice.  We also end up putting all of our shower items on the ledge of the shower, which also look very ugly.

So I went to Winners and purchased these metal baskets, which adhere to the wall with suction cups.  They hold quite a bit, that is if the items are small.  If your family is like ours, everyone likes a particular body wash and/or shampoo.  This creates a lot of clutter in the shower.

I have thought about possibly leaving all items out of the shower and then remembering to grab what you need before you go into the shower.  Well, this never happens, as we are not used to it.  So we end up having to get out of the shower dripping wet looking for our toiletries. 

So after purchasing those wire baskets, it alleviated most of the clutter, with the exception of the large shampoo and conditioner bottles and the large number of body washes that we have.  So I went to the dollar store and purchased those small travelling plastic bottles and now I just refill as needed.  It keeps everything off the floor.

  

 

As you can see, I have put the body washes in the pump bottles and then the shampoo and conditioner in the squeeze bottles.  I was lucky that my shampoo and conditioner where different colours, so it's easy to remember which one is which.  You could always paint the bottles to differentiate one from the other.   As you can see, we kept the smaller bottles of body wash in their original bottles. 

Re-using that Swiffer WetJet bottle

One of the biggest home renos that I wish I had done something different, was the choice of our flooring on the main floor and the bedrooms.  We opted for an engineered floor, as our rec room is on concrete and we knew we couldn't apply hardwood flooring over the concrete.  We also choose a dark wood. 

The issue is the finish on the floor, which is very delicate and scratches very easily.  Also, it is very hard to keep clean and I fell like I could probably wash the floor every day (which I don't).

I recently saw a post on Pinterest that you can remove the cap on those Swiffer wet bottles and refill them with your choice of cleaner.

This is the bottle that I used.  Here are the instructions.

Bathroom Shelving

If you are reading this for the second time.  My apologies.  I accidentally deleted the post while playing around with blogger.... So frustrating.  So here I will try again.  I think this time I will make it short and sweet.

Our bathroom had a little alcove which measured approx 12" x 12".  Not very big for anything, but storage.  So I decided that I would add shelving to the space for storage.  We all need storage, especially in the bathroom.

Here you can see the shelves are all completed and the bathroom toiletries have been placed on the shelves. I did previously post a before picture, but it was just the empty cavity.

We thought this project would be easy to do, but not the case as the walls were not straight.  My hubby ended up having to cut each shelf separately and made multiple trips to the saw to cut the pieces NOT straight so that they would fit.  We used pine and painted it the same colour as the walls.  

I would recommend priming the shelves first. I used Zinsser 1,2,3 and it works great, applied with a foam roller. I then applied 2 coats of paint with the foam roller. Make sure that you wait the allotted time on the can for drying between coats.  I also left the shelves to cure for about a week, to make sure that they were completely dry.  If you don't, when you place something on the shelf and then go to remove it a few days later, it will be stuck to the paint and the paint will come off with the item. 

We also used pine strips as supports for the shelves.  These were screwed into the wall with the assistance of screw anchors as we knew we would not be going into a stud and wanted to make sure that the shelves had enough support. 

The brackets were placed on the sides and the back, with the back being placed first.  We angled the front ones so that they would be a bit less bulky looking and then we added a piece of small trim on the front of the shelves to give it a more polished look. 

I only placed by bigger items and items in containers so to keep it from looking messy. We have a fair size vanity with 4 drawers where I keep all the small things that look messy.

You can basically place shelves like this anywhere in your home where you have a cubby that is too small for anything else.  We also opted not to put a door or curtain as the area is so small, but if you don't want to see all the items, I would recommend a curtain for such a small space. 

So here you have it.  A small addition to a bathroom with a significant amount of storage space.  You can also display your towels if you wish.  I may dedicate one shelf for towels for when guests come and need to shower.  Ours  we each keep in our rooms. 

Next DIY Project - Painting a desk, chair and table

So this last week I have been doing a lot of online surfing and trying to get inspirations for my next DIY project, as well as instructions.  I decided that I would go to the local Restore in town and see what I could find.  I am glad that I did.  I picked up a couple of pieces at a steal.  A desk and chair for Faith's room (for ONLY $20)

The plan is to sand it all down ( the desk is in great shape), but you still need to sand it down lightly to get the primer to adhere.  I will then remove the lower drawer, which I am not fond of in terms of it's design.  I will then have to build a unit inside the desk where the shelf used to be (I know add to the project).  It will then all be painted white with new hardware.  Stay tuned.

Day 2 and a little of what's to come

Well today is day two.  I thought I would provide you with a little bit of what is to come.  Most of the home renovations, as I explained before, have been completed.  I will include some pictures in the Renovations TAB so that you can see what we have done to date.

When we are ready to complete the further renovations, I will include complete details of what we are doing and how we did it.  Some of the upcoming works will be hanging the shelves in the bathroom, (which have been cut, primed and painted).  We will also eventually be doing the floor in the rec room, renovating the down stairs bathroom, and hopefully some DIY furniture refinishing projects with some DIY home deco ideas. 

So I will leave you for now and I will post some stuff on the respective pages.

First Blog Entry

Well this will be my first post in my blog.  I haven't decided what the blog will be about, hence the name... This and that. I will try and divide the page into topics, so that you can follow whichever part you want. 

I wanted a place where I can record by home improvement, crafting and overall ideas, which I can then share with everyone else all at once.  Hopefully they will inspire someone or give them ideas.

I guess you could say that I am a bit late in my home improvement DIY tutorials, as most of my house has been completed.  But there are a few rooms still left to finish and there is always something to do.  I also do have photos of before and after as well as some taking during the process, that I will share with you.  You can then see what we have been up to for the past 4 years while working full time, raising kids and getting a puppy.

Here are pictures of the family.  These may not all be very recent, but it's what I could find as I am actually writing this while at work. 

Roxie playing on the trampoline

Roxie and Steve at Rockwood Conservation 

Seth Playing at the BPS playground

Faith Playing at the BPS playground

So for now, this will be where I leave you.  You will have to check back to see what else is going to be posted.  I am hoping for some crafty home decor, finishing home renos and who knows what else. The sky's the limit.  Maybe I will share a few recipes that have been passed on to me by my parents, which are truly Italian recipes.   So stay tuned and we will see what this new year will bring.