DIY: Staining the Back Porch

She Says:

Once HoneyDo finished building the back porch, I stepped in with the stain.

In Canyon Brown.

Before staining a deck or porch, the wood surface has to be cleaned.  Older surfaces need a good cleaning and stripping.  Because the porch is new construction, the prep work for the stain was pretty easy.  

A sweep up of the pine needles (I love having pine needles to sweep!):

Light sanding of the wood with 60 grit on the sander:  

Wipe down with a damp cloth:

And let it dry:

Apply the stain with a brush.  The trick with stain (just like with paint) is to maintain a wet edge so you don't get a dark line.  Let dry for 24 hours; no one should walk on it.  I guess this guy couldn't read the wet paint sign...

I came back and gave it a second coat because we wanted the color a little darker:

One stained back porch: done.

Sorry about the dust- you never can really get rid of the dust when you're living in a reno.  We'll finish up this project by painting the banister and under the step, but that will have to wait until the front porch is done and ready for paint.

The Ramp

He says:

So, I'm not proud of this one.  Here's what happened:  We sold our previous house and moved into the reno, and a few things needed immediate attention, such as no water, no hot water, no bathroom, etc.  In the midst of this mad thrash to achieve habitation, some things were pushed aside.  Like the ramp.

You can see the original stairs to enter the back door down below.  They were rotted beyond hope.  I had to replace the back door, and so, not having a way to safely enter the house, when I removed the old door, I made it into a ramp.  I figured it would buy me a few days to fix the plumbing, etc., then I could fashion a permanent solution.  

The ramp stayed in place for some time.  A refrigerator was rolled up it.  So were lots of building materials.  Eventually, however, all of this weight took its toll.  Although I had made a 2x4 frame to strengthen it to buy some more time, it had to go.  So, a new porch was designed and built.

The new porch bridges the gap between the carport foundation and the house foundation.  Various protrusions on the carport slab required some juggling of lumber sizes.  

I think she likes it.  The two posts are the beginning of the stairs down to the back yard.  Here they are finished:

So, the ramp is banished, and we are happy.

I love tools. I love every kind of tool...

He says:

So, although you can definitely save money doing your own labor, you can definitely spend a LOT of money on tools.  I felt somewhat bad about the amount I spent on my saws until I saw a DIY show that featured a house which had $40,000 spent on trim carpentry inside.  Our project has a LOT of trim carpentry inside, maybe these saws weren't such a bad deal after all.

We want craftsman style door and window casings on the house, and that involves a lot of individual pieces of trim per door or window.  You can buy all of the necessary pieces at the lumberyard, but they add up.  The crown molding is a few dollars per foot.  The separator piece is a dollar per foot.  

Or...you can make what you need on a good table saw.  I choose a good, straight 2x4 (about $2 for 8 feet) and I can produce 32-40 feet of molding, sometimes more.  I can get 50-60 feet of separator strip wood from one 2x4.  

Put together with trim nails and white carpenter's glue, the finished casing costs several dollars less if made on my own saw.  Multiplied by the 50 or so casings on the house, the saw is easily paid for.  There, I feel better.

 She Says:

And I get exactly what I want!  Win Win!

DIY: Basket Storage

I am always on the lookout for extra storage space, but I also like to put our little stamp on things to make it uniquely us.

We had some extra space in the laundry room and decided to add some cabinets.  We went back to our old faithful cabinet shop and found some small wall cabinets that fit perfectly.  These are the size and shape usually used above the fridge, but we used three side by side to create the look we were going for.

We mounted them flush to the ceiling using cabinet screws.  

Then we cut a piece of 1/4" furniture grade plywood to make a bottom for the cabinets:

and trimmed them out with a simple cove molding.

For the paint, I used Sherwin-Williams ProClassic oil base, just like on the laundry riser.  

As I started painting the cabinets, I realized I didn't want a monolithic block of cabinet doors and experimented with this basket I had on hand:

I liked the look of it, so I headed to Michael's to find some matching baskets and these stenciling tools:

and labelled the baskets with things I keep in the mud room: garden, auto, lights and misc:

I kept the doors on the either end to add a little interest.  And there you have it!

Fall Back

She Says: 

I took advantage of the extra hour this morning to enjoy the autumn color:

He Says:

I took advantage of the extra hour this morning to sleep.

DIY: Washer Dryer Riser

She Says:

As I've mentioned before, one of the things on my laundry wish list was a custom riser for our washer and dryer.  We looked at buying the factory risers, but they were soooo expensive, and just didn't seem to be that useful.  After some web surfing inspiration, we decided to design our own.

The first step was actually the most fun... shopping!  I found three of these laundry baskets (one for lights, one for darks, and one for reds) at Target, and we designed the openings around them.

He Says:

Washers and dryers are heavy.  I chose a 1" thick hardwood ply for the project.  It's a big box with internal dividers, not too difficult.  Like all the cabinetry we're doing in the house, it's a ply box then faced with a poplar face frame.  The face frame is assembled with pocket screws and glue while clamped in a simple 90 jig clamp, then finish-nailed to the front of the cabinet box.

She Says:

I filled in the nail holes and other imperfections with wood filler, then sanded the whole piece with 120 grit paper and my beloved Mouse Sander.

Then I took a tack cloth over the whole piece, and brought out the paint!

Here's one point where HoneyDo and I disagree.  I love to work with oil based paint.  For anybody who doesn't know the difference, oil base is more forgiving on the application side (it goes on smoother and dries more slowly, so you have more than one chance to lay down the perfect brush stroke), and it takes everyday wear and tear much better than latex- no chipping.  It's a must for cabinetry, and really any wood furniture that anyone will be living around.  HoneyDo, however, despises it because it takes so long to dry- 24-48 hours to be able to touch it, and I like to give it a good week before i really test it out (say, placing a washer and dryer on top of it).  If you couldn't already tell, HoneyDo is, well, a Do-er, and he always ends up in the wet paint I am patiently watching dry.

Anyhoo, over the course of a couple of days, I gave the riser two coats of paint.

We used our trim color, Spice Delight from Olympic, but again, since I can't get oil based paint from Lowe's and Sherwin-Williams is often more helpful anyway, I got them to color match it.

We then had the obligatory fight over whether or not the paint was actually dry, and finally put the riser in place.  I will let him tell you about getting the front end washer and dryer up on the riser...

He Says:

It was freaking hard.  I think I pulled at least 3 or 4 somethings in my back.

She Says:

And here she is!

Very useful: brings the washer and dryer up to waist height, so I don't have to bend over or kneel down to transfer loads (renos are hard on the knees, so every little bit helps!) and I've got a great place to hide dirty laundry (or clean if I just don't feel like folding it, which is *always*).

She thinks my tractor's sexy.

He says:

So, if you are going to renovate a house in the country and live in it, you are going to have to do some country things...like dig post holes and mow vast swaths of acreage.

We plan on building a front porch, a back deck, and a long fence at the road.  All in all, about 200 post holes will be dug.  We're also committed to mowing over two acres of "yard" out here.  So I went tractor shopping.

I wanted a new one for about 5 minutes, then I saw the prices.  Even a small "garden" tractor that can use a hole digger is about $20,000 without any implements to go with it.  Craigslist, however, had the answer.  This little beauty caught my eye:

It is a John  Deere 4100 tractor that has about 900 hours of use on it.  It runs well, uses diesel fuel, and has passably good tires.  It has the huge bonus of a front-end-loader installed to lift, push, dig and scrape with.  The ad offered it for $8,000 and the address was about 3 miles away from the reno.

Once we arrived, we found the tractor surrounded by every conceivable type of implement we could want, so we offered $9,000 for everything and drove away with the lot.  We got:

Tractor
Front end loader
Dirt bucket for loader
Fork lift forks for loader
Yard mower
Brush mower
Wood chipper
Big garden tiller
Road maintainer blade
Post hole digger
Fertilizer spreader
Sun-shade roof thingy
Rollover protection bar (important!)

That should be everything we need.  A trip to the tractor doctor fixed an oil leak and got it a clean bill of health.  We've used it for everything, including:

Unloading wood and concrete mix for construction
Moving every heavy thing (including a hot tub) into place
Mowing and clearing brush
Pushing our dirt and rubble piles out of the way

I love this thing.  I love it so much I bought a John Deere T shirt to wear when I'm driving it, and I don't normally do things that geeky.  It runs for weeks around here on 5 gallons of diesel and so far nothing has really gone wrong.  Score one for the homeowners.

NOTE:   Little tractors can be dangerous.  Only buy one with a proper rollover bar, and always wear your seatbelt.  They can carry heavy loads for their size, they are tall and narrow, and as a result they can tip.  They are chock full of hot spinning things that can hurt you.  They are awesome and useful and I love them, but treat them with respect.  I can see that I will be writing something similar about ladders, nailguns, electrical wires...

She says:

I have, in my day, dug post holes with a two man post hole digger, mowed vast swaths of yard with an electric lawn mower, and tilled gardens with a hand tiller.  Yes, I absolutely think his tractor's sexy.