The Dining Room

Finally - I know!

A while ago, Nate and I decided that we were going to do our dining room. There was nothing horrible about our dining room before, but there was nothing special about it either. We knew that we wouldn't have to do anything huge - just a little paint, furniture, some electric work, and accessories.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

So I will go through more of what we did later - but I know that a lot of you wanted to see the pictures:)

Hope you like it

Nate's Home Improvement - Dining Room Light

Meg and I finally made a decision on the dining room light which Meg has displayed a few times now. It looks really good and Meg will have some more pictures coming up real soon.

The old light that was hanging in the dining room was not quite on center. It was actually about 2-1/2 feet off. Not sure why but we wanted to get it back on center. It turned out to be pretty easy to do the move but I had to rough some wicked conditions to get it done.

The previous box was nailed into the rafters and I couldn't just do a simple move. I had to remove the conduit from the old box, grab the wires and move them to a new position. I then wired up the new light and had to get the wires back to what they were so the switches would work again. Took me a couple of shots to get this one.

Standing on the ladder doing some rewiring makes the job look easy. I had to climb into the 120 degree attic in order to move the box, easily dropped 10 lbs. Had to get up there twice after I learned I couldn't reuse the box.

After I squeezed through the attic access, I had plenty of insulation to work with. What a mess! I think I'll wait til winter to try anything like this again.

Rain Barrel

On our path to "greener" land I thought putting together a rain barrel so that Meg could water her plants would be a nice piece.

Papa Smurf was able to get a nice sized chemical barrel to get us started. Hopefully it won't lead to Meg killing all her plants:) Two cans of plastic spray paint and voila! The lid was a table top Meg had picked up during one of her garage sale hunts. Very necessary to keep the vermin out.

Dad and I were able to manipulate the gutters so the water could dump right in. I drilled 2 holes. One for the spout, one for the overflow. You wouldn't believe how fast this thing can fill up during a storm!

I thought I was purchasing galvanized pipe but as you can see something isn't quite holding up to the elements. Depot guys are geniuses! In no way is that my fault:) I had to extend the spigot outward in order to get the watering can underneath.

The overflow heads right into the bushes. Still working on a "prettier" way to get that hidden.

Nate's Home Improvement - Plumbing

Our sink that the wash machine empties into began to back up quite a bit so I decided to investigate a little. There wasn't anything in the sink or blocking the drain so I had to start tearing stuff apart:)

Turns out most of the trap underneath the sink was disintegrated. A couple of the nuts had cracked, and part of the pipe that leads to the main dump had threads that had rotted away and it was leaking. What a mess!


I first relied on the local hardware store to help me out, Johnson's Hardware. They've been very helpful in the past but this time gave me the wrong size nuts. When I went back, they were very apologetic and helped me find the right stuff. Nice guys, always like going there. Wish they were bigger!

My next stop was to Home Depot after I found a few more parts rotting away. They seemed to be very helpful but sold me everything under the sun. Needless to say after a little direction from my coworkers I returned everything I could. Unfortunately because they don't sell small chunks of pipe and I drive a car, they had to cut it for me before I left which means no return:( Jerks.


Finally I got what I needed and was able to get it put back together. A new trap, rubber coupler, and some tape. So far, so good!

Headboard

Another weekend - another project! I have been wanting to tackle a headboard for our guest room for quite some time now - so I when shopping at the fabric store and found the perfect fabric for an awesome price ($3.42 for the yard!!!) I knew it was finally time!

So here is the before picture of our guestroom:


And here is the after:


The fabric is a dark gray with white circles - again for only $3.42 :)


It is very easy to make- we had Home Depot cut a piece of Plywood to the size we wanted it. (Yes, we could have cut it ourselves, but they do it for free when you buy the wood, that way- it fits into the car and it is one less thing we have to worry about). I also got 2x1s for the trim, to make the headboard a little thicker.

The 2x1s went on all 4 sides, like a frame.
To make the headboard look like it is a headboard and not fabric on a piece of plywood add batting (or the padding - for those of you that don't speak Homecoming Lawn Displays and VEISHEA Floats). But rather than spending the money to buy some - I used an old fleece blanket that we never use! Used the staple gun - and instant batting.

Next came the fabric. Since there was only one yard of this - I had to stretch it pretty tight, and it was cutting it close:


Lastly, we used this Heavy objects hanging kit - perfect!


So a one of a kind headboard for less than $20!

Next up - custom pillows!

Nate's Woodshop Class - Dining Room Table - 5.21.2009

Oops:)

Meg and I flipped the table over last night so that I could finish the top and it may be a little bit too tall.  Going to have to make some mods.  Keep you updated!

Nate's Woodshop Class - Dining Room Table - 5.13.2009

One step closer...

Wood filler ended up working out well. I have filled all of the Kreg holes with the filler as well. The legs have been screwed and glued. Next step is sand and stain!

The picture on the right is immediately after I added the wood filler.


Kreg sells wood hole fillers but because the material for the sides is so thin (3/4"), the fillers are a bit too large. Meg had the idea of using the remaining wood filler to do the job. It turned out perfectly.

I had initially thought that I wouldn't be able to get the table in the house with the legs on because of its size and weight. The original door we wanted fell through and the replacement is not as wide nor as heavy. I stained the corners of the door/sides and then screwed and glued the legs in position.

Tonight we will let the remaining wood filler and glue dry. Tomorrow night we sand, clean, and stain!

Nate's Woodshop Class - Dining Room Table - 5.11.2009

We are getting closer! The last post I had just finished up the legs, over the weekend Meg and I got the table top assembled and almost ready for stain.

We used the left over leg material to do the appropriate measuring and fitting.

Once we had the side boards cut to there correct length, we clamped them in place and using the Kreg Jig, we fastened them in place. The Kreg makes life so easy.

Next step was to sand everything down (which meant I had to get a new sander:)). We got most of it finished however there is one place I will have to use a little wood filler on the end of the door.

Convenient how Meg is in all the pictures "doing work". I will say that she does an awesome job and shes not afraid to get her hands dirty.

Nate's Home Improvement - Gutters

Papa Smurf made the trek up this past weekend to help me out with a little project. We have a low spot right in front of our garage which turns into a pond during the summer and an ice rink during the winter. We'd like to replace the driveway and get everything fixed up but its just not in the budget right now. Meg and I decided we would throw up some gutters to deter some of the runoff to a different place and hopefully I would gain a little know how to so I can put them on the rest of the house next summer.

Where I come from every house has gutters but for some reason not many people do in our neighborhood...

Before

After

The gutters were actually really easy to install, only took Dad and me 20 minutes to put up. The hard part was the downspout...

The downspout took us about 2 hours! The next time wouldn't take that long but it took us a while to get it all figured out. I ran it over to the side of the garage so we can install a rain barrel in a few weeks.

Have a little drip where the two gutter sections connect but nothing a little more sealant can't handle. As they say in the Electrical Engineering world, the bigger the glob, the better the job.

Paint Problems

So - as you know we are re-doing are dining room (technically- it is doing our dining room for the first time - since we didn't do anything when we moved in). Nate and I went back and forth on if we should paint or not - and decided on not. We needed to do some touch up with the current paint job - so went and got the paint matched. As we were doing the touch ups Nate and I realized that our dining room actually has 2 different color walls. Seriously, we have lived year for nearly 2 years - and never noticed...
So now we are going to be painting the dining room. Nate and I are both leaning towards a mustard yellow - I am just worried how it will look with our wood trim (I wish it was white - but that is too big of a project for me right now).
Anway, below are some of the pictures of the yellow that I am leaning toward...



I also have white spots in here for some comparison - and trying to decide if maybe I want the clean white look. If you notice the spots below the outlet above - that is the result of us not realizing that we had 2 different color walls.


This is the view of what you would see when you first come into the house.


Last- this is a close up of the yellow with our new dining chairs, the console table and the window trim...I am a little nervous that it will be too much....

Please help - let me know your opinion.

Nate's Woodshop Class - Dining Room Table - 4.23.2009

The table is underway! I picked up the table legs and side pieces last week from Menards. I don't have the tools to cut down the legs (4x4's) so I had them cut them for me. They do a much better job than the Depot.

You can see that the cuts still weren't the best so I had to do a little clean up work last night. You can also see that the cats got after the plastic wrap! I sanded down the ends, got them flat, and then broke all the edges to avoid splinters.

Some of the edges are still a little rough but these won't be visible when the table is assembled. To show you what I'm working with, I've got an old table for a workbench, the $10 special Menard's sander and some sand paper. I'm using pretty coarse paper to start to get rid of all the roughage. The finer paper will be used when I am applying the polyurethane to the table.

Tonight I started to stain the legs. Meg and I both like the darker look, this is the same from the console table. I believe it is dark walnut. All the pieces of wood for the table are white oak so I think this should turn out really well.

To apply the stain I'm using a foam brush. I let the stain sit for a few minutes and then I wipe it down with what I call the "Stain Sponge". Close up is below.

I highly recommend the gloves! I will let everything sit for the evening and put on coat #2 tomorrow night. Keep you updated!