DIY – 31 Downing Street

DIY Marquee Noel Sign for an Outdoor Christmas Display

September 30, 2020September 30, 2020 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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A table to gather around…

April 8, 2020September 30, 2020 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.

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!

August 29, 2019 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.)

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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DIY veneer stair treads

July 26, 2019July 31, 2019 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

July 26, 2019February 6, 2020 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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