DIY Painted Doormat #2

I've got the DIY bug again. I think after spending so long prepping and painting the outside of our house I needed a few quick 1-night projects to re-set my creative self.

If you don't quite share Dave and I's sense of humour - the saying on this mat is super ironic, both in the fact that 'thug life' aint pretty, and also that we are pretty much living the complete opposite of a 'thug life'. Whatever that means! Anyway, we think it's hilarious.

So this DIY went pretty much the same as the first doormat. First I taped some paper together to get the size of the doormat. Since I needed to draw a circle I wanted to get as much of the height in as possible. I couldn't find a plate big enough to trace so I did the old 'tie a piece of string to a pencil and hold it in the middle of the paper and hope to get an approximate circle' trick. It worked surprisingly well, even though the design doesn't call for it to be super accurate.

Then I drew out my stencil on the paper, making sure the lines were thick enough. I didn't end up doing the inside bits of the letters because it would be way too much effort and you can read the writing perfectly fine without them. 

To make it easy on myself, I coloured in the bits I needed to cut out.

I used a craft knife to cut out the stencil, I had to snap off the blade halfway through because it was getting blunt. Did you know about that trick? It's the best way to get a sharp edge if things start ripping a bit. 

Once the stencil was cut out, I aligned it and then used my sewing pins to hold down the edges. This stencil needed loads because of all the flimsy leaves. 

Then I used the same paint and paintbrush as last time to dab on the paint and ta-dah! A completed doormat. 

The time taken on one of these mats is approx:

30-45 min to draw up the stencil
30-45 min to cut out the stencil
20 min to paint the design onto the mat

Total time: 1.5-2 hours. Pretty achievable for a unique piece of decor! If you make your own, please let me know - I would love to see it!

Happy crafting!
xx

Kitchen Renovation

It has been a long time coming, our kitchen renovation has taken a good 4 months to get to a place where we are pretty much happy for the time being. We started in November and made a big push to get the kitchen functional before we hosted Christmas, then had a month or so off getting other projects finished. Finally the shelves were put up and we are done for now.

Looking through the old photos I can't believe what a lick of paint and a slightly more modern style can do to a kitchen. Wanna know how much this update cost us? A little under $200. For reals. Well $200 and a tonne of time and skills from Dave. But still - it is possible!

Our whole focus for this reno was to work with what we had. We haven't got thousands of dollars to throw at a new kitchen, as nice as it would be, so we planned, and this is what we came up with!

The first thing Dave did was add a 'breakfast bar' overhang onto the island so that we can add seating in the future, and also increase bench space. He used some scrap wood and spent a long time glueing and clamping, then sanding and varnishing the benchtop to make it seamless. *trade secret - to disguise the join line, he added coffee grinds in with the glue to make the join darker but more wood-like. Genius!*

Dave then sanded, filled and painted the cabinets. He added fake wood panel lines on the cupboard doors to tie them in with the front of the bench and eventually we will replace the wooden handles with something brassy. He then went ahead and chopped off the paper towel rail on the edge of the island. It bought us a good 15cm of extra space which doesn't seem like much but really makes a difference opening the space up.

The tiling was the most costly part of the reno. We wanted subway style 100x300 tiles and to get them up to the height of the windowsill was three rows worth. I think we bought 1.6m2 and they came to around $60. Then we had to buy tile adhesive and grout and tile cutter, as well as the aluminium surround we put around the edges.

We had never tiled before, but with the help of YouTube, we figured it was definitely possible, we gathered together the necessary tools and got to it. Dave spent a while prepping the walls for this, they needed to be nice and flat and after we ripped off the previous wooden splashback, there was a lot of work to be done. Dave used a laser level to get the first row of tiles right, then we used little plastic markers between the tiles to keep the distance even. It was super easy and fun actually, I would happily tile another room. Then we put a bonus row of tiles around where the oven goes and let it dry. Then we removed the plastic bits and grouted. We bought premixed grout in light grey but next time we would mix our own up to save money. I was the grout queen and managed to get rid of the air bubbles and make it relatively even. If you are a professional tiler - please don't look too close!

Dave had bought a set of vintage taps from a demo yard for $15 and he had to install them while we were tiling. We had to take off the old taps, plug them up while we tiled, then put an extension on them so they stuck out far enough from the wall. We had to go without water in the kitchen for a couple of days but we managed!

Once the taps were in and the tiles were done, we did a couple of coats of paint on the walls and left it at that because family was about to arrive for Christmas!

The pot hanger above the breakfast bar was put up a wee while ago - Dave made that from some angle iron and some rebar when he was learning to weld and it looks awesome and I love having my pots and pans easily accessible.

The brackets holding up the breakfast bar and the shelving are designed and made by Dave, he has made a whole bunch of them so we can use them around the house to tie things together. He has plans to make bigger, more ornate versions for our mantlepiece.

Fast forward a month or so and Dave had made up some new shelving for the kitchen. Previously there was just an open shelf along the entire 2 walls up to the window. A year or so ago we added in a cupboard which is still there, although Dave cut it down so it doesn't stick out as far. We put a shelf back in the same place as before and added another shelf above it to maximize the wall space. We also had to remove some weird art deco timber corner features near the ceiling which needed patching up too. We still have the joys of another set in the lounge.

So the shelves went back up and more beautiful brackets were installed and Boom! Kitchen, sorted.

The other thing we did was downsize our hutch that was along the wall towards the lounge. It was slightly too big for the space and was big and bulky. It did have a lot of storage though! But we found a beautiful hutch that was half the size and Dave stripped back the benchtop to wood and varnished it, then painted the rest the same colour as our cupboards (Resene Haast). It fits a lot better in the space and also matches our kitchen perfectly. We have another inbuilt cupboard on another wall which we will do the same thing too but that is a story for another day!

 

Ideally, the things we will do next are: Eventually upgrade the oven and hob. Figure out what to do with the hot water cylinder cupboard in the right corner - for now we will just paint it. Figure out the best way to light the area. Build inbuilt cupboards around the fridge and have a real, proper pantry. Get new hardware for the cupboards and drawers. Dave wants to make new drawer faces and put in metal sliders too. But those are ongoing projects and we are happy with the kitchen as it is now.

So I hope you enjoy checking out the process of our kitchen makeover - I hope that we have inspired some of you to take the plunge and update your kitchens - it is do-able with a limited budget!!

xx Amy

Master Bedroom Renovation

Sometime in the middle of winter we decided to tackle the renovation of our master bedroom. We said 'Hey it will be fun to sleep on a mattress in the lounge for a couple of weeks!' Yea well try a couple of months! There was so much prep work involved in this room, especially since we are fixing up the cracks and other bits made by the Christchurch earthquakes.

The windows had a few coats of paint on them and we stripped them right back to the original wood so we could even them out a bit. Paint, sand, paint, sand.

The walls and ceiling had a bunch of cracks in them that needed scraping out and filling with plaster. We are getting better at this job after doing the hallway and Addison's room. More sanding. Then a few late nights of painting before retiring to our mattress in the lounge. We packed up the mattress each morning and kept it in the hallway so Addison could use the lounge to play in.

I love the way the paint has brightened the room. The curtains give a bit of colour and of course we have our feature bed that makes a statement of its own. We tried to keep things simple once we moved the furniture back in. It's been relatively easy to keep tidy except now that we are doing more reno in the kitchen, things seem to be migrating into our room for storage.

The colours we used were:
Ceiling: Plain old Ceiling White
Walls: Resene Half Haast
Door, Skirting and Window Trim: Resene Haast

During the chaos

Since we finished the bulk of the room and have lived in it for a bit, Dave made some funky wall brackets to hold our bedside lights. I love them! We have also hung a door on the wardrobe which was previously just open. It streamlines the room so much more now that our clothing is out of sight!

We had a lot of fun doing this room and I have no regrets. It is slow going though when you only have a couple of hours each night to get work done, or trying to work the noise of tools around a sleeping child. But we got there in the end! I hope you enjoyed seeing what we accomplished!

xx Amy

Addison's Room Renovation

 

It has been a long time coming, Addison is approaching 18 months old and we have finally finished her room! I have been hunting for my before photos but they have gone awol so you will have to make do with a blurry couple of photos from the builders report!

When we moved into the house, the second bedroom was a bit worse for wear. It had a weird stripy wallpaper thing going on - one strip a fawny brown and the next a really light brown, all the way around the room. The window frames were green and the edges of the wardrobe had been well scratched by a giant German Shepherd.

Before

Before

(those photos were from the previous tenant of the house!)

 The first thing we did once our awesome flatmate moved out was rip down the wallpaper. It stayed that way for the first year of Addison's life. Once we had finished the hallway, I moved onto the week-long task of scraping off the wallpaper backing that stuck to the wall with concrete glue. Then we did the all too familiar task of scraping out cracks and then plastering, sanding and painting.

Finally I got to do some decorating and I managed to hold back from my usual style of filling the walls up with stuff, and Dave convinced me to stick with a slightly more minimalist style. The wardrobe alcove will eventually have some louvered bi-fold doors but until then it is the perfect place to hide away some of our junk as well as Addy's drawers.

The general colour scheme is light blue, gold and light pink but we were never going to go all out on colours. Function wins in our household, as well as keeping it neutral for sellability. We also kept the original curtains as they keep the light out pretty well and our small budget didn't allow for new ones.

I feel like this room will transform well from nursery into a little girls room. I am thinking about getting Dave to build some shelving for book storage and to free up floor space. I am loving the job we did and I think Addison will be happy spending her time in this room.

After