Back Splash

About two weeks ago we had beautiful counters and a new sink put it our kitchen. This left me wanting more. The back splash needed to be updated. I went back and forth on a lot of different options. I wanted something affordable and easy that I could do myself. I considered bead board, subway tile, and the beautiful mosaic glass tiles. All of these required more money and also more work than I wanted. I have a week off of work but I have more than one project I want to do this week. I needed something easy and affordable.

After a lot of looking on Pinterest I came upon Smart Tiles. They are peel and stick tiles that look like the expensive mosaic glass tiles. They are still quite pricey which is why I've only done the area around the sink and you will not see photos of the stove back splash. I will probably update that in another month or two.

I read a lot of blog posts from others who have used Smart Tiles and looked at a lot of photos. For an easy, affordable but not entirely cheap update they are a great option! These tiles are a 3D gel tile and easy to cut with both a razor or scissors!

First thing I had to do was rip off the silver wallpaper which was pretty easy. Then I cleaned it with a good degreaser. Blogs recommended TSP but I didn't have any so I just used the kitchen degreaser that we had on hand.Here is a bit of a before from this morning. Ignore the clutter, I hadn't started clearing off the counters yet.

Peeling away the silver.

 Another thing that will be updated are the outlets. They are old and almond colored. I bought new plates and outlets but I am nervous to try replacing them myself so I'm going to have my dad show me how.

This one is upside down and doesn't have a ground!

 

I started in this section first and it was very easy and went by pretty fast. 

 I continued on around to the next side of the wall. 

The area above the sink is where it got tricky. I had to do a lot of cutting and fitting in like a puzzle to get it to work. The area was 3 full pieces across but also left about 2 inches on one side open. So I had to cut other pieces and fit it in. Luckily, as I mentioned before these were easy to cut. 

 Above is the finished product! Below is a close up. I still need to add some trim around the base and along the edges of the wall. The current trim is almond/yellow on the edges and a little trim between the counter and the tile will hide any imperfections where it wasn't completely straight to the counter back splash.

Finally, I decided our counters were too messy and cluttered. We rarely use our toaster oven. I can't even tell you the last time I used it. So I decided to put it in the cabinet below so it's still accessible but not out on the counter. I also want to start making smoothies more so I put our fairly new blender in the corner. I also bought a tiny little gray basket to put our sponge and scrubbers in. They are still on the counter but I think it looks a bit more organized. 

New countertops!

Hello ! It's been a while since I've blogged. I started a new job on September 1st which has me working later days. So updates on the house dwindled. One great thing about the job is back when I interviewed with the company my husband told me that if I got the job we could get new counter tops and a faucet for the kitchen. Most of my home updates have been do it yourself and fairly budget/low cost. Counters are the biggest upgrade we have done...well other than the roof and the garage door but those were both necessary a not really blog worthy.

We decided to go for laminate because we have a small 3 bedroom ranch and don't plan on being in this house forever. The neighborhood we are in isn't bad but it isn't quite granite counter neighborhood. We're (I) am saving that for a future house. The wonderful thing about laminate nowadays is it is much nicer than years ago and has a stone look.

Since this was a bigger job, I opted to have Lowes do the tear out and install. Scheduling for this was quite a pain in the butt. They use subcontractors and the people were VERY nice but it was difficult and very frustrating to schedule both the measuring and the install. It all worked out.

Along with the countertop we got a new sink and a new faucet. My husband is pretty neutral on most of the home updates but since we don't have a dishwasher, a new higher, better faucet was definitely a welcome improvement that he was happy about.

Here are some before and after photos of the counters.

After putting in the  new counters I realized that the silver temporary wall paper back splash just wasn't cutting it. Here you can see what it originally looked like before I put the silver up. So I decided it was time to invest a little more money and update the back splash for real.

Patio is done!

My last post I mentioned wanting to work on a new patio. Well it's finally done!

Here is a quick before picture

The first step was removing the grass and digging up enough dirt to make it level. This was a big harder than expected. I had to recruit my husband to help me otherwise it would have taken much longer than I would have liked.

I ended up taking out TOO much dirt and had to fill it back in a bit and make sure it was all level. Then came the trip to Lowes. I bought a cobblestone Quikrete mold for my design and 4 80lb bags of cement. I'm proud to say I got that onto a cart, into my car, and then into my garage all on my own! Do you even lift bro? Yes, I do!

The next day I recruited my dad this time to help me with the cement. I didn't have a wheel barrow so he had to bring that over so we could mix the cement. This job could be done by one person but having two people definitely helps a lot! One person mixing while the other is putting it into the mold and smoothing it.

One of the first things we did before even mixing was trying to figure out placement of the mold. The are that we are doing was surrounded by other cement and not a normal square shape.

 Here you can see we went as far as we could with the mold. We tried turning it a bit and left a little area in the middle thinking we could try to get it to fit by the fence.

At this point we couldn't fit the mold anymore so we had to make the shapes elsewhere.At this point we were hot and tired. It was 90 degrees and had been a few hours. The work wasn't difficult but was labor intensive. For the last area we did the molds on cardboard in the middle of the yard.

You can buy dye for the cement to make it different colors. I bought the charcoal coloring but I didn't measure it out quite properly so you can see that the cement is mostly the light color with a few darker blocks in between. After all the cement has cured for the amount of time recommended (3-5) days it should be set. You can leave it how it is or you can fill the cracks. I don't want to be pulling weeds and wanted stability so I decided to fill it in.

I chose to use polymeric sand. It is expensive. It was $20 for a 40lb bucket verses about $3 for regular paver sand. Everything I have read is that this is the way to go. It hardens and fixes the joints of the blocks. It also helps prevent weed growth.

It reminds me a bit of grout. You don't want it to get on the blocks because it can stain the blocks. I wasn't too worried about staining but I did find it helped to pour it in with a small garden shovel and then smooth it with a paint brush. Then you wet it down. You have to make sure you don't make it too wet because then you wash the polymers out.

Once it was all done and set (72 hours) it should be done! I hope it's done! We moved the fire pit onto it. Not every block was completely level so we had to turn the fire pit a bit to get it to sit right but it wasn't too difficult.

Next up was chairs for the fire pit. I had old wrought iron white chairs that are over 10 years old in my garage. They are a bit rusty but I figured they would do. I cleaned them off and then bought some Rust OLeum Spray Paint. Blue and Orange for the Detroit Tigers. I sprayed the chairs and voila! Nice new chairs. I'm not sure how long it will last, I didn't prime it (I did buy primer & paint in one) but I figure for the rest of the season it will do.

Here are final pictures!

Future Projects

I have a lot of future projects that I would like to work on. I am trying to figure out how to prioritize them. Originally the next project that I wanted to do was sand and paint my old nightstand. In order to do that, I cleaned out the garage this past weekend so I could have a work space.

Doing so, I moved my patio table that I do not have room for on my porch, onto a small patch of grass in my yard. After doing some thinking and some research online, I've decide that I want to tear up that spot of grass and create a small patio.

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As you can see from the picture above I have a very small porch. We have a nice fire place we got last fall as a wedding gift and have used that a bit this summer. My plan is to put down pavers or some sort of decorative stamped cement where the grass is in this photo and then put the fire place there and the patio table/umbrella up on the porch. 

I think this may be my project not this weekend but next weekend. 

If my mother ever comes home from Florida with her mini-van I hope to use that to bring over a large filing cabinet and a chest of drawers that my parents have in their basement. The filing cabinet I want to paint orange and stencil a D on for the Detroit Tigers. Lay it on it's side, put wheels on it, take out the drawers and use it as a yard tool organizer in the garage. I found this idea on Pinterest of course. 

The chest of drawers I want to sand and paint as well. We have a lot of old furniture that isn't quite my style but I think with some paint I can make more our style and update. 

Lastly, I really would like to lay new tile in our bathroom. Years ago the bathroom was renovated by someone who did not know what they were doing. It was out of my control, with no decisions approved by me. Natural stone was laid and never sealed. I didn't realize that natural stone had a special cleaner to use. So after years of not being sealed, cleaned properly and now me just being annoyed by it, I would like a new floor. 

I am considering doing the resilient vinyl tile like I did in the kitchen in the bathroom. I can lay it right over the tile and grout it. This project can wait until fall/winter since it's indoors. The others require good weather/outdoors. 

 

Back yard beautification

My back yard has never been very pretty. I'm slowly working on updating it. When I first moved in there were some scraggly bushes along the wall of my garage. I ripped those out but then did nothing with the area. It was just dirt. I eventually had some extra retaining wall blocks so I put those down and some red mulch. That made it look better but it needed something. I didn't want bushes so I eventually decided on some perennials. I love these perennials because you only buy them once and then they come up every year. These do ask for full sun so I'm a little nervous because it is shaded sometimes. Hopefully they survive.



It's amazing what such a small little investment in flowers can do to help out the yard. I used to never care much about the yard but now I find myself out there reading or cooking more and just enjoying it.

Here's the area with the mulch and my trash cans 

 View from the porch - We just got a hammock too!

 Here are the flowers at Lowes that I bought. I love this picture.

 Here they are planted.  As you can see I moved the trash cans behind the garage out of sight.

Our garage door broke and we had to get a new one so here's the bright shiny new door.

Oh and on our porch we have a cool propane fire pit that we got as a wedding gift. Here's a photo of us using it.

Sofa Table

Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm very accident prone. I broke my toe by running into a box. I've sprained my ankle while pulling my pants up. I also walk into door jams quite often. My sensory perception is just a bit off.

My living room is rather small. For about 9 years I have had a lovely coffee table in front of my couch. I got it when my cousin moved from Detroit to Chicago. I bought the couches, coffee and end table from her. Well I finally got tired of hitting my knee on this table.

Here are some shots of the coffee table. Look at those sharp corners!

Now here's a photo of just two of the injuries that I've suffered recently from this coffee table.They are small and healing but it happens ALL THE TIME.

I decided that with such a small living room and such large furniture it was time to get rid of the coffee table. Right now it's just chilling in our spare room but it will probably be retired to a corner in the basement soon.

I wanted something though to put drinks on if someone is sitting on the couch and that's when I found console tables and sofa tables online. What I really want is just a long skinny thing behind the couch. It was much easier to just make one than go out and buy one.

I went to Lowes and bought a 6x1 board and had them cut it to the length of my couch which I measured before I went to the store. In the lumber area I found these awesome table legs for only $2.99 each. I bought 6 of those because I knew with a table so long I would need legs in the middle to provide support. After assembling it, I was very happy I did that because they really helped it go from wobbly to pretty good.

The legs were a little tall so I cut 3 inches off each side of them to make them the right height. Then I broke out my awesome new drill and drilled some holes and screwed the legs on! After that was done I put some wood filler on over the screws to hide them, let it dry and then sanded it lightly.

 

 You can see that I did a pilot hole so the screws would sit into the wood and be even and smooth. Also if you look closely you can see where I started to drill a hole but moved it over about an inch. 

 Good old Elmers wood filler works great. I used it for the kitchen cart as well.

 Here they are covered.

Next was time to stain it. Originally I wanted it to be a nice deep rich wood looking color. However, I'm cheap and lazy. I had left over black stain from my kitchen cart that I made and I figured I would just use that instead of letting it dry up and go to waste.

It turned out perfect! So far I'm happy with it. It really opens up the room  not having the big coffee table there.

Kitchen Side Table/Cart

It's finally complete! The kitchen side table/cart is done. I have no idea what to call it. Island? Cart? Table? Who knows.

I've been in my house for 10 years now and I have had this dishwasher that I don't use. It is not hooked up to a water line, it is a portable one that requires pulling it into the middle of the kitchen and attaching a hose to the faucet. It's a pain, it's loud and to be honest it's been so long since I tried it that i'm not even sure if it works. So for 10 years I've hand washed dishes. I never got rid of it because it is a great counter top next to the stove. I use it all the time. The downside is I'm losing a lot of valuable storage space being taken up by the actual washer.

After doing lots of research I decided to build my own table/cart. I could not find one in a store that would fit in that area. I did my measurements and I went to Home Depot and Lowes and bought the wood. I bought 6x1 pine boards. I bought higher quality wood for the table top but for the legs I just used basic 2x4's.

The nice thing about Lowes is that they will cut the wood for you. Typically 1 or 2 cuts are free and any after they charge you for. I went on a slow day and the man was nice enough to not charge me for the cuts. I had the wood cut into 5 pieces for the table top and then the 2x4s for the legs. The cuts were rough so I took them to my dad who had a good table saw and was able to cut them to more precise measurements.

Then came putting it together. A lot of the blogs and directions I found on here required tools I did have to do pocket screws. We did not go this route and just did a base for the table top and then attached that to the legs. I was lucky enough that my father helped me out a lot with this. After cutting the wood to precise measurements he then assembled it for me!

I then went and bought small boards for the shelves and just glued them down. I also bought wood filler and filled the seams of the table top and also where all the screws were. Sanded that and then was able to stain and paint it.  Word of advice, before you put the shelves on, paint the wood! Painting it after the fact was a bit of a pain.

Here are some photos!