Category: Projects

DIY Marquee Noel Sign for an Outdoor Christmas Display

by margotrd, posted in DIY, Projects

Christmas is undoubtedly my favorite holiday. It is the day we celebrate the ultimate gift of Jesus being born into the world to be our Savior. During this marvelous season, you get to spend time with family and friends, eat delicious food, and see all the festive lights around town and neighborhoods. In a time where there is more darkness than light during each day, it seems fitting that Christmas lights adorn homes and buildings to brighten up the night, as Jesus brightened up the world when He was born. I know a lot of people have beef with huge, over the top Christmas displays, however, I think it’s amazing to see a house illuminating an otherwise dimly lit neighborhood. It brings smiles and joy to those who drive by, and fills children with a sense of wonder. I remember the hunt to find the best decorated houses when I was child. We would drive all around the town, searching for those homes that were dripping with lights from tree to shining eaves (no crazy programmed LED light shows back then!).

Several years ago, when my husband and I bought our house, we began an outdoor Christmas light display to act as a gift for people who want to find the over-the-top decorated houses to drive by each Christmas season. We make it a point to use mostly lights; no inflatables here! Our other personal rule is no Santa, which can make finding yard decor a bit more challenging, since most decorations are geared toward the jolly, old soul. We make due with what we have though, and seem to still impress people with a our light-covered home. Last year, we were interviewed for our town’s newspaper regarding our Christmas display, and we won “Most Festive” for the neighborhood light contest! We used over 18,500 lights for last years display! I feel like pictures never do Christmas displays justice, but here is what it looked like.

Each year we add a little bit more, always wanting to keep the passerby’s seeing something new. I inevitably have to start thinking about new additions much earlier in the year than during the actual Christmas season. So, I began this project in August! I realized I needed something that had depth or dimension in the yard, other than mini-mega trees, and the new deer we had just added. Last year, I had made a “Noel” sign out of lights, that I had just stapled to the fence, but it was a pain to put up and take down. Yet, here was my inspiration for this project, which was to add a sign of marquee style letters that could sit in the yard and be pretty night and day.

First, I found the font that I liked. I then made a grid of 1 inch by 1 inch squares in a google doc, then added that grid as an image in a new google doc where I could place my letters behind the image. Then I increased the font size of one letter at a time to fill my grid. I would print out that letter, and then go back in to the same grid, erase the letter and do the next one. This kept my letters all the same size and dimension to the others. Once this was done, I drew out a grid of 6 inch by 6 inch squares on a sheet of 4ft. X 8ft. plywood. Then I just used my printed out sheet as a guide for where to draw the lines in each square on the plywood. It is like those coloring pages where you had to fill in the missing part of the image using a grid. (Not having huge prints made at an office supply kept my costs down, but could be done if you didn’t want to do all these steps!)

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Ditching the ultra 90’s kitchen lighting

by margotrd, posted in Projects, Renovations

A few years back we decided to take down the eye sore that was the fluorescent light box protruding from the ceiling in our kitchen. It was an obvious time warp that dated our kitchen right back to the day it was built…in the mid nineties. It’s crazy to think that was twenty-five years ago, but when looking at the style of homes built during that era, it is clear we have progressed in design choices. Thank goodness pink tile and carpet are not a thing any longer, as my house was deep in the throes of that Barbie design style. To purge the pink tile and paint from the kitchen, I had to come up with a short term solution until we could do a real remodel. I did chalk paint on the cabinets and we made concrete counters in lieu of granite, until we could save up for them. As for the lighting, we had this massive fluorescent light casting the nastiest garish hue on our kitchen by night, and by day it just stuck out like a sore thumb. It didn’t really provide much in the way of task lighting for cooking, either. What we really needed was a layering of light, some for task lighting and some for ambiance.

This is how our kitchen looked from the real estate listing, before we bought it. Unfortunately you can’t really see the light!

First, we had to tear off the old light box and add wiring for the can lights and pendant lights we planned to install. To achieve this, we cut out a huge hole in the ceiling, mainly because it was going to be easier to patch one large sheet of drywall than to fill in around where the drywall was missing from the old frame for the light box. We added four recessed can lights for task lighting, which was just enough to make it bright, but not too many so it wouldn’t look like our ceiling was Swiss cheese filled with holes everywhere! It was quite an endeavor to get the wiring done since we added a switch for the pendant lights so they could be turned on without having the can lights being on. We even had to send our son up into the ceiling to crawl across and grab the wire as Dean pushed it up through the wall, because his wire tape wouldn’t reach. It was quite the ordeal! For the lighting over the island, I had had my eye on Darlana pendant lights, but they were pretty pricey, so I searched for a look-a-like, and found one from Joss and Main!

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A table to gather around…

by margotrd, posted in DIY, Projects

During this time of social distancing, I can’t help but think about how one day soon, we will be able to gather again with family and friends around our new dining table. The idea for this table came with much thought; how I could make something beautiful, yet not spend a fortune in doing so. For years I have wanted to build a dining table, and I only needed to make a table top since I had acquired pedestals taken off an old table I purchased from a thrift store for only thirty bucks! The top of the table, however, was not to my liking so I tossed the top and began to think up ways to create a top that would suite my style. There are thousands of DIY tables on Pinterest that are beautiful and unique, and while I have taken some inspiration from many of those, I also wanted to design the top in my own way, to my own personal liking. Originally, I had wanted to use huge reclaimed beams sliced in half to make a top with a lot of character and warmth. The pictures below show something similar to what my inspiration was if you combine the two.

Source


Source

As I sourced reclaimed lumber, I learned very quickly I wouldn’t be getting wood for cheap any time soon. Most beams run about $10-$25 per board foot, which is the length x height x wide. So, when a board is four to six inches thick, eight feet long, and a foot wide, things add up quickly. I was looking at $500+ dollars just in the lumber alone, and then I would have had to pay someone to slice it up into thinner pieces, since my table saw wouldn’t have cut it… pun intended!

I figured enough was enough, and needed to put those pedestals to use and just come up with a new design altogether. They had been stashed away in the furnace room, taking up what precious little space we have of storage in there. But, even more so than using the pedestals, I needed to get rid of our old, worn out table that had taken much abuse over the last 15 years. It was a cheap buy from a furniture store, purchased for our first home when we got married, and though it is structurally sound, it was time for something new!

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Pulling the rug out from underneath me… literally!

by margotrd, posted in DIY, Projects, Renovations

I’m pretty sure the carpet in our house is original. Built in 1995, it is a pinky beige color, which really sets off the rest of the décor in the house… you sense my sarcasm? As much as I will miss it, NOT, we are in the throws of redoing the flooring on the entire first floor of our house and the hallway upstairs. I searched for years to decide on a flooring. I pretty sure there are a few salesmen out there still thinking they may get a sale from me, because I took SO MANY samples home. At first, I wanted to use hardwood flooring, engineered or solid, I looked at them all, but after taking home sample after sample I never found one with the right stained finish that Dean and I could agree on. I also came to the realization that hardwood was going to be more upkeep having two rambunctious boys and two dogs running around the house. I thought about how water spills happen, and I really wanted the kitchen and the family room to have the same floor so it all would blend seamlessly together, so using tile in the kitchen only was not an option. We had a yellow oak laminate in the kitchen, carpet in the living, dining, and family room, and tile in the entry and powder bath. I never thought I would go with laminate, but I did check out the luxury vinyl plank option. While doing so, I found a waterproof laminate from Mohawk that was beautiful, AND guarantees it to be waterproof with no time limit of a spill sitting on the floor. I was hesitant to believe such a claim, but after much research, it seemed to be legit, so I set off to see how it looked in real life, because screens can lie when looking at color and texture of floors. None the less, I found the Mohawk laminate flooring at a flooring store, and it was even more beautiful in real life than online. But being a deal seeker, I went online to see if I could find it cheaper. Price wise, it was almost the same online as it was in the store, but the store did not offer the special aluminum sub-profiles I needed for the stairs that lead into my kitchen and living room from the entry hallway. Dean and I both agreed that an overlapped stair nose wasn’t what we wanted, but there aren’t many options for stairs when it comes to laminate flooring. We ended up buying from FlooringMarket.com, because their pricing was great and they had the aluminum sub-profile option to make a flush stair nose. Winner! (I am not receiving any proceeds for telling you this, just friendly info.)

You can read more about how we tackled the staircase treads here.

Now the time came to tear up all the old flooring, and we didn’t really want to be displaced in every room of our home while doing this project, so we tore up the floors area by area. The first rooms to go were the living and dining rooms. I have a picture from a couple years back of my living room with the carpet.

This room never looked terrible with the carpet per say, but it always lacked that finished look. Here are pics of the living and dining room bare and ready for the flooring to go in:

  • living room
  • dining room
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Total Bathroom Redo in 6 days

by margotrd, posted in Projects, Renovations

This post contains affiliate links

Back in January, my sister asked me to help her redo her bathroom as a surprise birthday gift for her husband, and of course I jumped at the opportunity. They had had a hard year, and I really wanted to do whatever I could possibly do to make it even the slightest bit better. After the planning stage, we started gather materials, and quickly realized it would be a difficult task to keep it a surprise. But, none the less, without the surprise part, we aimed to get the project done for his birthday. That proved difficult as well, since I homeschool my boys, and really had no solid block of time to set aside for the project until summer. So we pushed it out a month-ish to when he would be out of town for a few days, and kept scouring stores for materials. She wanted to keep costs as low as possible and finding the best deals took a lot of day shopping at Lowes, Home Depot, and Floor and Décor. She had a general idea of what she wanted style wise, but had no real vision for the space. We dubbed her style as “modern cottage”. So, we sourced items that fit that genre. Clean lines with a bit of whimsy thrown in to keep it cozy. She also wanted a larger format subway tile so there would be less grout to clean. The patterned encaustic tiles stole her heart, so we had to find those on the cheap! Thankfully many places sell porcelain and ceramic versions for much less than the real thing. The first purchase we made was the vanity.

Click the link below to see the info on this vanity!

Glacier Bay Woodbrook Vanity

It had a modern look and clean lines, but it also felt warm and cottage-y because of the distressed wood look. With that checked off the list of things to buy, we moved on to faucet fixtures and tile. Once all that was purchased, we just had to wait for the week we had planned to actually do the renovation.

Here are the before shots, thanks to my sister for reminding me to take them!

It was dark, dingy, and falling apart. The inside of the cabinet, the bottom was totally warped out from a faucet leak and wasn’t very functional for storage space. The vinyl peel and stick tiles had gaps, the baseboard next to the shower had rotted out, and none of the shower faucet handles were useable and fell off all the time. She had been using pliers to turn things on and off! So, it was definitely time to tear it all out and bring in a whole new look.

Demo day is one of my favorite days when I do a project. Destruction is cathartic for me, however, cleaning up the mess is not my favorite. I just want to smash, bash, tear out and move on to rebuilding. No clean up, please! It never works out for me that way… bummer. The toilet, cabinet, and vinyl tiles came out with no problems. The shower walls were a bit more work, but I got them down all the same. Now, her original wish was to keep the tub since it would keep costs down, but as I was tearing off the walls of tile I realized if we kept the tub it would stick out like a sore thumb against all the new, shiny things we were about to put in. So, I had a discussion with my sister, and she agreed with me and began perusing tub options as I finished up demoing. While browsing all the tub options, she asked if we could just turn it into a stand alone shower and not have a bathtub at all. With this being the only full bathroom in her house I told her it would really be whatever her preference is, especially since they plan on living in the house for a very long time. If her husband agreed, we decided we’d go for it. He didn’t even hesitate when she called and asked. He said a shower would be way better and loved the idea. Since we made this decision on demo day, we had to go out and buy more tile. And while we were there we also bought the shower pan and a new toilet, cause we couldn’t leave the old toilet now that everything else would be brand spankin’ new!

4×16 white gloss subway tile

Merola Encaustic Porcelain Tile

Shower Faucet

Jacuzzi Duncan Oil-Rubbed Bronze 2-handle Widespread WaterSense Bathroom Sink Faucet with Drain
Sink Faucet

Cadet Toilet

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Master bathroom: From ugly duckling to stunning swan!

by margotrd, posted in Projects, Renovations

Welcome to the most intensive and longest bathroom reno I have done so far, with my ever trusty hubby-sidekick, of course! This was the very first bathroom remodel in our house, as it needed the most attention right away. The actual renovation spanned 2 years. “What!?! 2 years!” you say. I know… craziness. It was mostly due to a bad situation hiring out for our shower glass, and NOT because we work that slowly. I promise, we don’t work at a snail’s pace… usually. We also choose to pay cash for our projects, vowing not to go into debt! So, saving up to do this bathroom took a while, and we would collect things as we could afford them. We started buying tile a year or two before we even began this project. Side note, if you do this, be sure you buy plenty more tile than you think you will need!!

I, again, almost tore it all out without remembering to take before shots! But alas, I have the “mostly” before pictures, so here’s what we were dealing with:

Brass and pink everywhere, with rotting carpeted floors! Oh joy! Carpeted floors in a bathroom should be against the law. And, we had the same drywall detail running around the perimeter at the ceiling, like in the other bathrooms we have remodeled. It made the ceiling feel so low, and in the shower, the drywall would get wet and mildew would form in little droplets off the cornerbead. The can light above the tub didn’t work, and it was dark, even though we had the famous bar lights that seem to be the trend when these homes were built. The countertop (not pictured due to over-eagerness to get started) was 2×2 magenta tile, and a nightmare to clean with all the grout. Gross. Ultimately, the only things we kept were the cabinets, which we were going to repurpose for our vanity. The layout also stayed the same, mostly because I MUST have a bathtub, and when we brainstormed how to get a bigger shower AND keep the tub, it didn’t work any other way without driving up the cost extensively and losing closet space. No biggie for us, as we don’t need to run laps inside our shower, so a smaller shower stall worked fine for our purposes.

We began by tearing off the drywall detail and the tile walls. We then realized how the lazy electrician had ran the wiring inside the framing where the drywall detail was (to save on staples?), and therefore Dean had to rewire the entire bathroom. We added a can light above the vanity and swapped the two bar lights out for a single sconce that would go between the mirrors. After we tore out the carpet, we realized that at any moment we could have been stepping through the floor into the ceiling below because it was so completely rotted out. Hence why carpet in bathrooms should be outlawed. It traps and holds all the moisture in the padding, and mold was growing all over our subfloor and even up the wall. So, we had to replace the subfloor, and tear out all the drywall, thankfully it hadn’t gone into the studs. While that was happening, we also had a water leak in the exterior wall that took a couple days to sort out. Turns out it was actually condensation from a steel strap bracing the studs, since it was so hot in the bathroom with freezing temps outside. Crisis averted!

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The boys’ bathroom goes modern

by margotrd, posted in Renovations

Ah, the dreaded task of remodeling another bathroom… just kidding, I love it! My boys’ bathroom was in dire need of a complete overhaul. For starters, it was pink… this is a trend in my house, made by a previous owner. Boys shouldn’t have to deal with a pink bathroom. This was a fun design project for me, as I had some input from my boys as to what style they would prefer. It had to lean more masculine and modern, but I wanted it to fit in with the rest of the house. The design I came up with has some edgy elements, but keeps with the style and feel of our home.

My husband really hates demo day. He would rather not be involved at all if he had a choice. I, on the other hand, relish the day of destruction! My son, Gavin, also takes after me in this area, so, together we demolished the bathroom. And guess what, we were so excited to smash it all to bits, there are no before pics… sorry! It was a great time though; the boys even were able to kick out the ceiling from the attic above. It was all fun and games until we had to clean up our mess.

At first we were just going to remove the drywall detail at the ceiling, but leave the rest of the walls up in the sink room, but then things changed when we saw the disastrous plumbing job that was hidden where the cabinets once were. Friendly advice from someone who’s been there several times: Don’t expect anything to go as planned. You always run into something. Always.

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A small but mighty powder bathroom renovation

by margotrd, posted in Renovations

My house was built in the mid-90s, the era of when pink and orange-y oak was on trend. We bought our house as a foreclosure, and pretty much nothing had been updated since it was built. This was totally ok with us, since we wanted a house to renovate to our own taste. When choosing what to redo first, we had to put things on a list of priorities, because it all needed fixing. Bathrooms came first on that list. We did our master bathroom first because it was in the worst shape. Next on the list was the powder bathroom. The toilet had obviously been leaking because the laminate flooring had a big black stain around the left side of the toilet. Gross. The layout of the bathroom was awkward, as well. When you walked in, there was little space to get in and close the door due to a huge counter and the toilet being on the wall facing the door. It seemed like poor planning, but I guess if we had wanted a whole bunch of counter space to display things in our powder bathroom, it would have been great. We did not, so things had to change completely. It also was not well lit, even though it had the iconic 8 bulb bar light, trying its best to make it bright. Last, was the ceiling height. They had made a drywall detail, similar to a tray ceiling, around the walls where it met the ceiling. However, it came down a foot, almost touching the top of the door frame. So, this made it feel like it had very low ceilings, even though it was an 8 foot ceiling. I drew up some sketches of how I wanted things to look, and off we went finding materials to fit the design.

Here are my almost before shots and a picture of the drywall detail after it was torn off. (I got eager again! But I remembered to snap photos before it was totally stripped down to the studs):

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DIY veneer stair treads

by margotrd, posted in DIY, Projects

This post contains affiliate links.

Stairs are a difficult thing to figure out how to finish when installing laminate flooring throughout your home. Do you leave them carpeted? Do you use the overlap stair nose and use laminate on the steps? How about the “retread” option that sits on top of the existing treads? Or, do you shell out the big bucks and use the new aluminum sub-profiles that allow for a flush nose with laminate? What we found was the best option, for our budget of course, was to only use the sub-profile option at the landings and on the two steps leading into our living room and kitchen. On the actual staircase we went a different route, to save $1,500.

I didn’t want the steps to be bare wood, as we have dogs and kids that run up and down the stairs all day, and I wasn’t keen on the injuries that would ensue from having no carpet. When I worked for a custom home builder back in the day, many homeowners would do a faux wood tread look. Having only the stained wood portion for about 5 inches on either side of the step, and then carpet would be attached down the middle like a runner, but it was not wood underneath, just the particle board. I figured I could do something like this for our steps. I looked for a way to use the retro-fit treads and cut them down to be 5 inches wide. However, then we would have to hire our someone to carpet the middle, because a runner possibly wouldn’t have been thick enough to fill the depth. Then, I had a brilliant idea! I could use pressure sensitive veneer to wrap the treads!

I needed extremely thin veneer to be able to bend the veneer around the bullnose of the tread. After much research, I ended up purchasing three rolls of this veneer and a rubber roller. (Sorry, I don’t have the before pics with the carpet. I ALWAYS forget to take them because I am eager to get to work!) Once the carpet was torn up and all the staples were removed, I checked for any bumps or holes that would need fixing before the veneer could go on. After those were addressed, it was time to clean the steps and remove all the debris and fine particulates that could cause problems with the adhesion of the veneer. Crazy as this sounds, each staircase section was a different width; we have U-shaped stairs. So, each section required different widths of veneer to be cut.

The veneer comes in rolls, so I would unroll it and cut my strips, using sharp scissors, perpendicular to the grain of the veneer so that it could bend around the bullnose. The riser was a separate piece from the tread. For instance, I would cut a strip 6 inches wide off the roll, then cut that piece into two pieces one for the tread and one for the riser. This ensured that each piece was the exact width to match the treads and risers where they met. This stuff won’t move around once it touches the step, so I had to be very careful there were no gaps when lining it up against the stair stinger. Then I used the rubber roller to press it down firmly to the tread and riser. When I wrapped the bullnose, I would start from the edge of the tread and then use my hand to press the veneer against the bullnose as it wrapped around, to get a tight fit with no air bubbles or gaps. The grain of the veneer would just barely split on the curves, and I mean, just barely, so I gently hit them with a 120grit sandpaper and smoothed out the edges. Worked like a charm!

Once the veneer was down, all I had to do was give a delicate sanding before staining and sealing with a satin polyurethane. I used an extra fine sanding block, so I wouldn’t accidently remove too much of the veneer surface. Here’s what it looked like after being stained:

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Faux Arteriors DIY Chandelier

by margotrd, posted in DIY, Projects

This post contains affiliate links

You know the feeling when you find a picture of something online and you just have to have it? But, then you go searching to find it, and learn you will NEVER own said item because it cost more than you car (well, mine, maybe not yours). This is exactly what happened to me while scouring the net to find a chandelier for my living room. I had found this Prescott Arteriors Chandelier, and my heart swooned.

I was in love with the dramatic, sculptural style it offered. I loved the glitzy gold, yet it wasn’t overly refined and typical like most lighting. The sad part came when I learned it wasn’t wide enough, only 21″ in diameter… oh, and it cost a cool $1,600. I think my heart stopped when I saw that hefty price tag, as it is literally more than I spent for my car. But, I knew I could still figure out a way to make it! I just needed to devise a plan on how to make it not look like something that was obviously homemade.

My first thought was to buy a large drum shade and put a pendant light inside it. Easy enough, right? However, needing an extra large drum shade made things much more difficult to source and way more expensive when I would find an option that could work. The minimum width I would look for was 32 inches, because I wanted the chandelier to be dramatic and take up some space of the high ceiling. Being a penny pincher, my next idea was to use a round Vittsjo Ikea coffee table I found on Craigslist, cut down the legs to make it shorter, and then drill holes through the legs for chain to hang the light. It totally think this idea would have worked, but thankfully I didn’t have to go that route because I found an oversized 34″ drum pendant light on Craigslist for $40. Made by CB2, it was practically brand new and exactly what I needed. Here is the one I got:

It is $199 brand new, so I was thrilled to get it a more than 75% off. There were a few things to do before it could work for what I needed. 1. The cord and stainless cable had to go- way too modern for what I was going for. 2. It didn’t produce enough light with just a single lightbulb- I’d have to find a way to add lights.

I stripped off the pleated linen outer shell from the drum shade, but I left the diffusing lens at the bottom of the light so you wouldn’t be able to see the inner workings of the light when I was done. I ended up buying another pendant light off Craigslist for $20 to use as the actual light fixture. It had three lights and had hooks where it attached to the bowl, so I could use those to attach to the shade frame. It was similar to this:

After attaching the fixture to the shade, it was ready for the rods that would line the outside of the drum shade. I bought 100 of these 48 inch dowels from Amazon for $55. I decided to cut five different lengths, 20″, 18″, 16″, 14″, and 12″, to make the random staggered pattern. From one stick I would make groups of lengths so I would have the least amount of waste. For instance I could get four 12″ pieces from one stick, one 20″ and two 14″ pieces on one, three 16″ on one, and two 18″ with one 12″. Once I had my cuts made, I affixed them to the shade using hot glue. I had to be careful not to go overboard with the glue or each stick wouldn’t sit flat next to each other. One tip, if you decide to make this, you need far less 20″ pieces compared to the other sizes. I used the 20″ piece once every 15 sticks or so. They were the absolute heights up and down 5″ from the 10″ shade, that way it didn’t get wonky and lopsided. There was no real pattern, I just eyeballed what I thought looked good and went freeform. Here’s how it looked after all the dowels were attached:

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