A Railing for the Deck Stairs

For some unknown reason, the person who built our deck only put a railing on one side of the stairs.

This always bothered me for both symmetry and safety reasons. So as part of my outdoor beautification efforts, I bought some pressure treated lumber and added a second railing. It is build to match the existing, with weird angles and everything. 

I also added another round of grass seed to the vegetable garden area. Hopefully it will fill in a little more this time. Also while outside my husband did a great trim job on the cedar hedge while my mother and I directed and cleaned up branches behind him. This hadn’t been trimmed since we moved in and was looked pretty rough, even Tom can see the improvement here.

And now we know: hedge trimming is a team activity…

Seeding the Vegetable Garden

I am no longer allowed to buy plants. Tom says it’s like throwing away money since they always die. So the large vegetable garden was a waste of backyard space in a prime sunny location. 

We (I) decided it would be great to have a patio there to expand our useable space. Then I saw the price of stones plus gravel plus all the digging required and scraped that idea. Instead, I bought a bag of grass seed, dug up the remaining plants and seeded the area. It’s not come up quite as nicely as I imagined, I think another round of seed is required. 

And now we know: this grass seed thing seems like a loosing battle; you lay a ton, birds eat like half of it, then only half of the remaining half actually grows.

Light Changes in the Front Room and Outside

Finally, finally, we installed the ceiling fan in the front room. This was a 4 blade grey one that was in the back room when we first bought the house.  During our first year living here, we replaced it with a large (and prettier) fan and this grey one has been in the basement ever since. At first I procrastinated cause the grey colour looked terrible with the blue walls, but since I changed them to purple and summer is on its way, there was no longer any excuse. 

Continuing with my themes of changing light fixtures and adding some curb appeal, we also changed out the exterior light. This is a fancy one with 2 levels of brightness and a motion detector. Turns out the old light was secured with a bunch of screws that went into the siding and not much else. Not very strong! We added a couple of really long crews that went into whatever is below the siding (Brick? Stucco?) and those seemed to make it a lot more secure. 

Inside, I sewed a new tablecloth to fit the large dining room table.

Also attempting to move along with trim painting progress, I sanded down the door jamb between the front and dining rooms. I started hand sanding but with the years on paint build-up I had to get out the electric sander. Using plastic drop-sheets, I created a tent so the dust would be contained. It worked but was very unpleasant; I was completely covered in dust and really hot by the end. Tom was happy that the mess was minimal and contained!

And now we know:  both the home improvement store sell the same line of motion activated light fixtures, so comparison shopping is a waste of time

Updating the Electrical Panel

I’ll preface this by saying this was not a DIY! The old breaker panel still had fuses and had no space available for the air conditioning Tom really wants. 

So we got an electrician in to replace the panel. It took them a full day while I sat in the cold house with 2 laptops. The timing worked out perfectly, they finished 5 minutes after the battery ran out on the 2^nd laptop!

In order to label the breakers in the new panel, I ran around the house with the electrician figuring out what was on which circuit. There are some weird splits, 1 circuit has all of the upstairs and the kitchen light while another has only 2 random outlets. He left off the ones we couldn’t identify and told us to turn them on when we found something not working. Turns out one of those were the hot water tank and we didn’t find out until the next morning when I tried to take a shower. Fun times.

The city also moved the meter outside and the electrician reconnected the light in my workshop.

And now we know: which circuit the back room is on so we don’t have to turn off the power to the entire house when doing work. Also the wiring was not as crazy as we thought, the electrician was not completely shocked and appalled 

A Mailbox and Mini Chest of Drawers Makeover

This year I really want to start sprucing up the exterior of the house so it has some curb appeal. The only thing I've done so far is add new house number but I never even removed the old ones that were on the mailbox.

After peeling them off, I gave the whole thing a sand and covered the siding behind it with newspaper. After 1 coat of primer and 4 (!) coats of metallic spray paint it looks a lot better. It is supposed to be oil rubbed bronze, but to me just looks like shimmery black. Not bad…it may need a clear top coat at some point though.

Also painted this weekend was a little chest of drawer that has been sitting in our closet for a couple of years. The hot pink and unicorn look from my childhood had to go, so I painted it grey and purple to match our second bedroom. I’ve re-organized my sewing supplies into the little drawers.

And now we know: I’ve read so many rave reviews of this colour spray paint on the blogs, but it was not as great as I though it would be. Maybe it would look better on something smaller and/or metal?

The Upstairs Hall Paint Marathon Continues

After buying another can of paint, I put the second coat on the lower portion of the upstairs staircase. I like the light turquoise; it breaks up the stark whiteness of the space.  I also put up a piece of trim on the right side (as you go down) where the blue and the white meet.

While I had the trim paint out for the newly installed piece, I put the second coat on the upstairs hallway trim and door frames. 

Left to paint in this area: the railing (that will suck), the middle piece of each door jamb and the ceiling of the lower landing

And now we know: wow there is so much trim in this area, 5 doors + stairs + railings!

The Hallway Light Switch

So the downstairs hallway has gone from this:

To this:

And the upstairs hallway has gone from this:

To this:

And now we know: never take Tom to a home store without his phone. Also the new fixture wasn’t great downstairs and I’m much happier with it upstairs.