Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Windows in the porch and OOPS!...a slip of the drill...

Hello dear friends, and happy Wednesday!


When we were up at the Nest, our last order of windows came in before we expected them to, so Hubby decided to put in three of them, this time inside the porch. Our porch was once a long screened in job, but at some point a previous owner decided to make half of it into a sunroom. He enclosed the back portion and put vinyl siding on it, inside and out (I keep pretending its shiplap, but I don't think I can fool anyone) adding five windows to the outside and a decent door to the front. Its nice because it stays warm in cool weather, but its not so nice because he did a terrible job with the windows (a future project for us will be to fix or replace them) and decided to put the dividing wall and rear wall right over the frames of four of the old house windows that we are trying to replace. I guess his assumption was that those 30 year old aluminum awning windows would last forever.

Mr. Perch simply thrived on the excitement of 
having to remove the siding before he could get
to the old window...



 Well, at least there was insulation under the 
wallboard!...
 

Window out, at last!...


And, the new one is in!
We did also get the siding back up, 
along with the grey wood trim,
but I forgot to take a photo...


And then, we decided to tempt fate and move
to the window inside the sunroom,
on the other side of the wall shown above. 
And... after putting in 15 of the 18
windows with no mishaps,
what should happen but 
OOPS!
a slip of the drill!
 


Oh, well, at least it was on the old window!

PS...By the way we did get the new window in
without further mishap,
but decided to call it quits for that trip!

Have a great evening.



Saturday, June 18, 2016

New Windows for The Wren's Nest

Hello there!

Well, we are finally putting new windows in this little old mobile home. We opted for ones with grids. They were only slightly more expensive but we thought they were well worth the money as they gave this place more of a "cottage" look. We have ordered them six at a time, because the folks at the nice mobile home place that we go to give us 10% off if we do.

When this place was built 40 years ago, it had the old-type aluminum awning windows, which you cranked open. The good part was that you could leave them opened when it rained, and usually no rain would come in. The bad part was that aluminum pits after time and gets nasty looking. Also, the windows  have so many working parts that some of them become dysfunctional. These are no longer air tight, so water came in and rotted the window sills in areas...


You have to manually swap out the screens and storm windows each spring and fall. And these are fastened on inside with little clips held on with screws, which doesn't make for nice looking window trim.


After all the windows are in, we will be re-framing the insides and installing new trim, which will be painted by moi...


The cranks used to open them is inserted through a hole in the trim, again, not air tight and ugly to look at...


Though installing the windows is not hard in itself, the prep work is time consuming. First, all of the old aluminum awnings had to come down. As with much else in this place, the screws holding them up were old and rusted, some were broken, and a pain it the butt to remove...


Here is the bank of old rear windows in the master bedroom, replete with red tail lights above. Gee, how can you tell that this is a mobile home? You can see how the windows are flanged and screwed onto the structure, a look which we are not fond of, to say the least...


In this picture, actually taken of the old living room windows, Bob is removing the old caulking from under the flanges. New caulking was then put on all of the new ones...


Here we are back at the bedroom windows when one new one was in. What a difference!...


And here all three are in, with the lovely grey wood trim that you previously saw me painting. The trim covers up the screws in the flanges, and looks so much nicer...


Whittling away at this task has kept us rather busy, but it's well worth the extra effort. We've been getting a lot of compliments on the look. At this writing, we've replaced 13 widows, with five more to go. Hip hip hooray! 

Thursday, June 16, 2016

A Touch of Sweden at The Wren's Nest

What? Sweden in the mountains of western North Carolina? No, not really!


We bought a bunch of 1 by 4 pine boards at Home Depot...


...which I painted a lovely shade of grey...


These will be used for our project that is now underway. Stay tuned!





Tuesday, June 7, 2016

The Wren's Nest: The Guest Bathroom (Part 2)

Hello!

Moving right along in the saga of the guest bathroom, here is Part 2.

Now we are getting to the fun part,
though perhaps Hubby would not agree.
In this room we had no old paneling to work
with.
You may remember that when we did the master
bathrooms both at Birdsong and in this place,
we only made it LOOK like there was beadboard 
by putting up chair rail molding,
and painting the top of the paneled walls
 a different color from the bottom.
Here there was only old painted wallpaper,
so we put in actual beadboard on the bottom.
Since the old wallpaper was already painted,
I later followed suit with another coat of paint, 
and was actually 
happy with the way it came out.
In this photo you can see how little room
there was to work.
Good for me, as no room in there to help, 
so I got off easy.
Bad for Mr. Perch...


Here the beadboard is in, 
and flooring is being installed.
You can see where he also started sizing
the baseboards in back of the toilet...


The vanity (you may remember that we
bought this last year in Lowe's on close-out,
and stored it in the guest bedroom all winter)
was the biggest joke,
as we knew when we bought it that it was 1/2 inch
wider than the allotted space.
After a lot of cussing and swearing
(sorry, readers!)
we finally got it in.
Here you see it with the faucet that we also 
bought last year..
You can tell that the walls are not yet painted
nor has the caulking been done...


Here is the new fixture,
which replaced the junk that was there
(see yesterday's post).
And the walls are not yet painted,
evidenced, again, by the lovely wallpaper...


Here is the almost-completed room.
You will recognize the bird print on the wall
from Tuesday's post.
We used the toilet that was originally
in the master bathroom,
as it was in perfect condition.
(We purchased a slightly higher one for the master). 
I also re-used the sweet towel rack from
Birdsong.
The beadboard was painted with a basic
trim white, since the vanity was too white
to be up against my favorite color,
Simply White, used in the rest of the place.
The upper part was painted in another 
Glidden color which I will supply the 
name of later,
as that information is up there,
and I am home right now.
It is a light taupe-ish color,
which blended better with the vanity top
than any shade of grey would have,
though it is in the same tone as what
I used elsewhere in this home.
In the upper right you can see the raw framing
of the window, which we replaced on
our second trip.
Oh, did I tell you that there will be a window 
saga to come?...


I must confess, that aside from painting, 
I did not play much of a role in remodeling
this room.
But, I did have fun playing with 
this dingy old antique 
mirror that was being ignored in the attic
here at Plum Tree.
It was chippy white, but not in a good way.
So I taped it off...


...painted it with the same white semi-gloss
paint used in the rest of the room...


...and voila,
after turning it sideways
we had a pretty mirror that kind of matched
the room, but not too much.
Only enough to give it that cottage look
we desire...


By the way,
brushed chrome knobs came with the vanity,
so I sprayed them with oil-rubbed bronze paint
and they match everything else now.
This room is so small that there was not enough room
to step back far enough to take a picture of the whole thing!
You have to love it.

***************************************

Thanks for coming by.
As always, I so appreciate the time you spend reading my posts.
Have a wonderful day!


The Wren's Nest: The Guest Bathroom (Part 1)

Hello to all! I hope that you are having a great week.

When we went up to The Wren's Nest in April (the first trip of the season), we finally got on with remodeling the guest bathroom. To say that this room was small would be a gross understatement, so wiggling about in there trying to install beadboard, replace old flooring, and install 3-1/2 in baseboards was a real challenge for the Mister, since he did most of this work. We started by gutting everything to make may for the new.

I think that I shared some photos last year
of what this room looked like.
It still had the original harvest gold toilet, 
though you can see that the toilet seat had
been replaced.
The funny part was that though it used
a ton of water and took forever to fill,
it was actually in perfect condition...


Here is a very dark and bad photo of the old
aluminum awning window,
original to this 40-year-old trailer.
Don't you love the country blue valance
with the yellow stars on it?...


The medicine cabinet was particularly interesting.
The light was built into it,
and it was painted aluminum 
with sliding mirror-doors. 
Underneath it was a stick-on-the-wall
paper towel holder.
You would not appreciate the irony in this
unless you could have seen the four 
(yes, I said four!)
chrome towel holders that had been fastened 
to the walls.
How many towels would be needed in 
a half-bathroom that was little wider than
the toilet and had no shower?...


As with those in the master bathroom,
there was a harvest gold sink and counter top,
and original faucet with crystal knob
sitting on the built-in vanity.
The flooring was faux wood vinyl,
which was throughout the unit
and which we replaced last year
with laminate,
which you can see below
on the right outside the door...
 

Below you can see the wall after hubby removed
the toilet.
Gee, how can we tell that the wallpaper
(originally green and yellow as you see)
was painted cream, but not behind the toilet?...


And this is the corner after we ripped out the
old vanity.
The plumbing came in from the side
of the home,
which you see in the torn out portion below.
Mr. Perch is a fanatic about replacing 
old plumbing with shut-off valves. 
And yet more of the old wallpaper
(actually wallpapered wall panels,
which is what they did in those days).
On the floor you can also see
the base for the flooring that we were
getting ready to install...


Stay tuned for a look at how it turned out!

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Buying Milk Paint: Along the Way

Hello readers!

Continuing with my previous post, I did go to pick up my Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint on Wednesday. It is sold at SuzAnna's, the larger shop at Vintage Village, which consists of several booths run by different vendors. This shop is the furthest away from the parking lot, so "along the way" I couldn't resist taking these photos.

Two Old Birds,
a great shop where I buy...


...all of my Annie Sloan Chalk Paint...



always has cute little things out in front...


and a black bird on the fence. 
But alas, no chalk paint this day.
Keep walking, Sue...


Another shop.
Not sure of the name,
but a sweet little building
chock full of great finds...


Also along the way,
a section of salvage from an old farmhouse...


And finally, I got to SuzAnna's,
where there was this very creative
display of old hankies...


...and then some...


...more...


Another booth featured this lovely
bird assemblage.
Why can't I be this creative?...


This was from a lovely booth
that was just re-done to feature
pink things...


And this display in another
shop featured purple,
even the cowgirl boots!!...


Here are some lovely sachets.
They were wrapped in cellophane,
so didn't photograph too well,
but gorgeous nonetheless...


And some glittery lavender birds
in a chippy iron bowl...


...with one on this pretty plate...


But I stuck to my target, 
forged on to my real destination
and purpose of my visit
(to spend my Christmas gift certificate)...


...and bought my Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint
in Farmhouse White!
Along with a stirrer, since this paint comes in
powdered form and you mix it yourself.
And some bonding agent so that the
paint will cover the highly varnished 
piece of junk dresser that I will use it on...


Oh, of course some wax
and a waxing brush...


Bye-bye gift certificate!
Hello painting adventure!

Do you have any furniture that you will re-finish?
Have you used MMSMP?
If so, I'd love to hear about it!