We WON!

I cannot believe it! I never win anything. But, believe it! We won the My First DIY contest on houseblogs.net. It wasn't really skill or anything, just random chance, but I do not look a random chance in the mouth.

I am already dreaming of a million ways to use the $300 gift card.

• Will it be a new vanity for the bathroom (instead of recycling the current one)?
• Will it be a new medicine cabinet for the bathroom?
• Will it be a new toilet for the downstairs Harry Potter bathroom?
• Will it be shelving for our basement so our DIY paraphenalia isn't all over the floor?
• Will it be something else?

Hooray for houseblogs.net!

Ding, dong, the doorbell's dead

Oh, sad. Our doorbell - which is probably as old as this 90-year-old house - has died. It gave one sad little last hum today and then promptly up and died. Serendipitously, TOH Magazine had a little story about fixing doorbells this month. I started with step one, which included seeing if it was the bottom that was broken (according to TOH, this is the common problem). However, the screws were corroded and stripped. I called Paul to see if he had a screw extractor I could borrow but he instead came over with his arsenal of tools and got it unscrewed. Unfortunately, it wasn't the button. We checked the chime - it wasn't the chime. So it appears to be the transformer. I guess the issue will be finding a transformer that is the appropriate voltage - 12 volts, I am guessing. I don't know how lucky I will be in this quest. I think while we're at it, we will also get a new label for the box - it's poorly labeled and we have no idea what breaker is for what.

So, no sexy pictures - sorry. Maybe once I get a new transformer I will take one or two photos. Because, you know, transformer=sexy.

My First DIY

It's often pleasant to walk down memory lane. I was inspired to do so by the new contest sponsored by houseblogs.net. I have absolutely no qualms about shameless self-promotion if it means a chance at a gift card (hey, we need to finance the bathroom remodel somehow!).

It was fun reminiscing about the first days of homeownership and revisiting my blog posts. Now that we're closing in our second year in the house, I love going back to see how far we've come. What was my very first DIY project? It was ripping down the hideous wallpaper in the kitchen, as you can see above. I quote myself saying, "I was tickled to find out that I could remove all of the wallpaper in the kitchen with one hand, no chemicals or scraping needed! The whole thing took me less time than taping one room to prepare for painting!" Of course, I did come to find that the paint that was underneath that ugly stuff was lead paint.

It's amazing that we went from that to this:

It's even more amazing that I used to tape off rooms before I painted. I really have come a long way in my DIYness and, yes, I love my DIY kitchen!

What seems the easiest project...

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I picked up a new faucet at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for a steal - $9. Well, here it is successfully installed in what we lovingly refer to as our Harry Potter bathroom, or the tiny bathroom under the stairs. Before we had the ugly cheap model that could be picked up for about $9 brand new. I think this makes quite an improvement over the old one. I decided last night around 5pm to put this in, really thinking it would take me 30 minutes, tops, to take out the old one and install the new.

You'd think I'd know better by now.

Thom and I (admittedly mostly Thom) toiled and strained and swore for several hours at this thing. Taking the old one out: piece of cake; putting the new one back in without a leak: not so much. After many scraped knuckles and enfuriated tempers, we gave it a rest for the night. I think the basic issue was the very tiny space in which we had to maneuver. I did go to HD last night to get a basin wrench but we couldn't even fit that in the tiny hole underneath the tiny sink.

After some rest, some church, and a good bagel, I gave it another whirl. It seems that laying on my back with my foot up in the air and my tongue out made the basin wrench finally fit in there. No leaks! Much improved! We'll put in a new toilet and tile floor perhaps after the New Year and then that bathroom will be more or less complete.

The plan is still to do the full bathroom upstairs during Thanksgiving week (although I am admittedly a little afraid to attempt to do this with our usual savior, Paul, being out of town that week). If nothing else, this little lesson has reminded me to assume the worst and plan for way more time than I generally think I'll need.

New Terlet!

It is a sad, sad testament to my life and what it has become when I am excited about buying a new toilet. Really, really sad. As Thom just pointed out, "We're not going to see some cool concert, we're not throwing a party, we're excited because we just bought a pooper." Yeah, that sums it up.

Despite how pathetic it might be, I am excited about my new toilet! After some pretty hard-core research and price comparison I marched down to our local Home Depot and bought this dual-flush sexy thing. 1.1/1.6 gallons per flush. Woosh! Earth friendly and awesome - who could ask for more?

I did read on the online reviews that the seat and wax ring that comes with it (it's an all-in-one model) are on the cheap side so I'll make sure to get new of each. My plan is to start the madness the week of Thanksgiving. No classes and we're not going anywhere so we'll see how much of a mess I can make.

Great Deals from ReStore for Bathroom

So my plan now is to just buy up everything for the upstairs bathroom as I'm able and then do it all in one fell swoop. I made my first foray today into the ReStore in Brewer, ME and was pleasantly surprised. I think I expected a whole bunch of reruns and yucky crap but they had some really nice seconds - and, sheesh, TONS of tile. I got two great deals that I'm pretty happy with - a bathroom faucet to replace our low-rent version in the downstairs bathroom for $9 (on Lowe's website it sells for $68).Also a new granite vanity top with attached undermount sink for the upstairs bathroom for $120 (from Lowe's - originally was $314 but has one little scratch near the faucet area). The picture here isn't exactly the same but it's close.So, we have a few items left to get: toilet (already picked out from HD - dual flush awesomeness), the faucets for the sink and the tub/shower, and then the doors for the vanity. I did decide to reuse the vanity we have in place - it's not exactly what I want but I found this great place that will make MDF doors for dirt cheap. My plan is to reuse the box we have but repaint it white and then attach the new doors. I also think I'm going to reuse our medicine cabinet - it's a bit groovy for the style we're going for but I think it might look cool if I repaint the gold frame silver. If not, oh well, maybe the ReStore will come again to my rescue.

Piecemealing the Bathroom: Tile and More

Recognize this sexy light? Yes, I think it was in my grandmother's kitchen too. Well, in the face of great adversity (or the lack of matching lighting) we have decided to do it up really old school and go with this light for the ceiling in the bathroom. It's certainly retro. It's chrome. And, you know what else? It's cheap! $20, baby. Which means, if we hate it, it's not the end of the world. I think it will go with the other lights pretty well. And, that's right, it's only $20.
After doing the bills this morning I found we had a few extra dollars left so I went ahead and ordered our accent tile for the bathroom and then made a trip to Lowe's for the extra white subway tile. We plan to do something somewhat similar to what we did for the kitchen backsplash but instead of interspersing glass tiles throughout we will do one stripe all the way across, probably about two-thirds of the way up. We had a bunch of the subway tiles left anyway so this will look nice, we think.

While at Lowe's I investigated backerboard for the tub surround area and came across this stuff by Georgia-Pacific called DensShield. It looks lighter and easier to cut and you don't need a vapor barrier. I think this is how we'll go, when we're ready.

I also thought a bit more about the lighting situation. The vanity lights that are currently there are the light/outlet combo type; obviously not to code. I thought, no problem, I'll just slap up a new electrical box under each light and we'll install GFCIs. I'm wondering though if it's actually more complicated than that and if this is a job for an electrician. I read something online that said we'd need a new breaker. Ick. What do y'all think?