I am a 30-something blogger living in Nashville, TN with my husband, J. He bought the house in September 2011 and we have been fixing it up ever since. We got married in December 2012.
I think we're pretty dang cute, if I do say so myself.
After we got all the old floors removed, it was time to prep some cabinets for our built-in desk. We went with pre-fab kitchen base cabinets because they were already built and they were 15% off at Home Depot. Why did we want to install those before we laid the floor? Well, because kitchen base cabinets have a standard height of 36", and desks have an average height of 32", and we knew that the tile floor would add about 3/4" of height, so we wanted those base cabinets to sit as low as possible when all was said and done. We also decided to lower the cabinets even more by cutting them off from the bottom. Here's a shortened cabinet vs. the original height of the base cabinet, side by side: First, we had to prep the cabinets for their "haircut": We removed all of the "brackets" that were holding the bottom boards on. I believe those boards around the bottom are called "toe kicks" or "toe strips". The toe kick in the ...
...and by "favorite," I obviously mean least favorite, worst part of installing new trim: caulking and filling nail holes. What you'll need if you're about to tackle a caulking project: Painter's caulk (duh) Caulking gun Paper towls Wet rag That's it! We chose to use DAP brand Painter's Acrylic Latex Caulk for about $1.52 a tube at Lowes. One tube can get you pretty far, but we have a lot of trim (wainscoting, chair rail, etc.) so I estimated about one tube per room. Make sure you get the paintable kind!! So as a reminder, here's a picture of a corner of crown moulding pre-caulk. It's all gappy and ugly, right? Here it is with the caulk fresh out of the caulking gun, still all goopy and messy. Not much better, really... Here's where the magic happens. The only tool you need for smoothing caulk is...wait for it...your finger! You don't need one of those "pro caulk" tools or anything, so don't waste y...
I was doing one of my "clearance runs" at Target last week, and I came across some beautiful place mats, on clearance for $2.78. I didn't have a use for place mats, but I loved the fabric, so here is how I turned a couple of place mats into beautiful throw pillows. This project only works if your placement is double-sided, with stitching attaching the two panels together. Here's all you need for this project that you might not already have (I'm assuming you already have a needle and thread): I got this bag of Polyester Fiberfill for $4.50 at JoAnn (using a 50% off coupon). I already had the seam ripper. First, you'll use the seam ripper to put an opening in the bottom seam of the place mat. Make your opening wide enough to fit your hand inside. At each end of the opening, pull the original seam strings until you have long enough pieces to tie. Tie the ends together into a knot, to prevent this seam from opening any further while ...
Yes, You make an extremely cute couple!!
ReplyDeleteYour cousin, Dena