Knife Drawer

OK so we all know I suck at blogging.  So there's no before picture.  And my after picture isn't great.  But you get the idea.  For the before, picture a drawer with knives randomly thrown in there, fearing getting dinged and/or a finger getting cut.  It always bothered me to put my fancy expensive Wustof knife in the drawer so it usually sat on the counter on my cutting board.

I'd been thinking about getting a slab of wood and cutting grooves in it for the knives so that they would stand vertically, ie a custom homemade drawer knife block.  But obviously that would require effort and like so many other things, I hadn't gotten around to doing it.

I saw this and realized what I needed to do. This is a much simpler solution and can adjust to whatever knives are in the drawer at the time.  No figuring out which one goes where.  No figuring out how to get all these cuts into a piece of wood.

Krista used cork but I had a stack of foam sheets that has been steadily growing with no particular use in mind.  I cut them into lots of about 8"x3" sheets.  Stacked them up, stuck them in the drawer and stuck the knives in.  It took all of 15 minutes to do.  And really that's just because I cut them to the wrong size the first time and had to recut them.  You want the length to be the length of the blade of your longest knife.  There is a small section of the knife where the blade meets the handle that tends not to want to go into the foam.

I could actually see this being done with cardboard and looking pretty cool.  You would probably get the sizes more consistent with cardboard.  Or if you are less spazzy than me.  We'll call it 'artisan'.  Cue the hate mail from people who actually do artisan crafts that don't look like a 5 year old made it.  But hey, at least my knife drawer is finally getting some order.

New Table

So my hoarder tendencies are going strong.  With the warm spring weather, everyone seems to be cleaning out and I have picked up a ton of furniture at the curb.  My garage is now packed with furniture.  A dresser, shelves, platform bed.....

Here is one piece. When I brought it home, I was figuring would be a really nice table for garden planning in my seed growing room and I can use one of the random chairs that I hoarded with it.

Well, only when I reassembled it, did I realize it's only about 1.5 feet tall.  Yes, I realize when the legs are just over a foot, it's not exactly going to be a standard table height but for some reason I didn't realize that until I assembled it and stood it up.

So now the question is, what is this table supposed to be for and what the hell am I going to do with it?

Playing House

Yay for taking some vacation! One that I apparently desperately need. For weeks now, every time I would say anything, my coworker would respond with 'man, you really need to take a vacation'

I am taking the week off for Thanksgiving. I am cooking the turkey and stuff. I can't say it's a terribly exciting vacation but it's relaxing. I've sat around the house. Watched a season of Mad Men. Painted my coffee table. Played with my compost pile. Cleaned assorted surfaces. Although I still can't seem to get the grout in my kitchen/lining room floor clean. I lead an exciting life, I know.

After numerous rounds of scrubbing it with a toothbrush, scrubbing brush, all purpose cleaner, bleach and a mop. It's still not quite clean but at least it's better. A stiff toothbrush wes the best way I've gotten at cleaning the grout. The scrubbing brush just didn't get into the grout as well as the toothbrush did. I will probably pick up a bunch of them the next time I am at the grocery store. Although maybe an electric toothbrush would cut back the amount of elbow grease needed.

Anyway... this post is supposed to be about the coffee table.

There was a time when I didn't really care for this coffee table. It is a handmedown from my parents. Who had probably picked it up at the curb at some point. When I got my first apartment after college, they gave it to me. It was beat up. It's particle board with a wood veneer and the squares on the legs that you can't really see in the picture are plastic with some sort of coating on it. There are spots where the veneer is worn away, and paint drips and spots where it was warped from moisture. I decided I wanted to get new furniture but I'd hold on to this one until I got the new one. Well, it's been almost 10 years and... well... as you can see I still have it.

But I still don't love it. I put it in the basement, still with the intention of getting new living room furniture. I have accepted that I'll probably keep it for a while longer.

So I decided to at least make it less ugly. I sanded it down and painted the whole thing bright red. It's still back in my basement and at least the warped damaged parts of it are not so noticeable.

Built In Shelving

So I've decided to call these shelves done. Not because I'm extremely thrilled with how they came out but because I've got too much other crap to deal with.

Before:

When I saw this space when I was looking at the house, I knew immediately what I was going to do with it. It just screamed built in shelving.

So now, who knows how many weeks, 4 trips to Home Depot and 2 trips to Walmart (because I just couldn't handle going to Home Depot a 5th time that week) here are my shelves.

If you read a blog that says 'slap a couple coats of primer, paint, polyurethane and done' or something like that be wary. Very very wary. I had started a post where I carried on about how much more work this was than that. Aren't you glad I forgot that I wrote decided to spare you of that?

My shelves have 4 coats of primer, wood filler, spackle, 3 coats of paint and 2 coats of polyurethane. Now to figure out how long it takes, each coat actually has to be done in 2 phases. You do one side, let it dry, flip it over and do the other side. So pretty much a day per coat. Well with the primer it went a bit faster but with the paint and polyurethane it was a day per coat. Not to mention the spackle and wood filler need time to dry as well. You do the math.

And that's just the painting. Maybe it's just me, but levelling the shelves is a royal pain due to the angle on the left side. And if you're off by 1/4", suddenly your board length is off by almost 1/2", which really sucks.

Before you start a project like this, you should check what's behind your walls. I assumed they were all wood studs. Well, that wall on the left is not the case. Apparently there is a metal stud in there. Wood drill bits will not get through a metal stud. Guess how I figured that one out. Needless to say, there are a few extra holes in the wall.... fortunately the boards and trim hide them well enough that I don't care any more. Of course at this point, as long as they don't fall down, I'm probably ready to call them good enough, at least for a while.

Another trip to Walmart got me the Bankers boxes and now it looks like this

And yes, there is a reason why every picture is cut off on the left side. I didn't say everything was unpacked.....

Now, back to trying to dry out my carpet in the basement. Sigh.

Decapitated Giant Lego Men

So I was intending for my next post to be lots of pics of my house after everything is unpacked and stuff. Or of the built in shelving that I am putting in, all shiny and happy and pretty. As the title suggests, that's not what this post is. 4 trips to Home Depot and the shelves still aren't done.... but I think I have everything now.... I hope... Of course I said that after each Home Depot trip so I guess we'll see. And I need these shelves so I can unpack boxes and put stuff in places. At one point it made sense to build the shelving rather than buy some random shelf.

So I decided to do something else. Why finish that project when I can start something else instead?

Now before you even consider thinking that I am creative and came up with a cute thing, I definitely stole this from someone else. Right down to the spray paint. And if I hadn't closed the window, I would give credit where credit is due but I don't remember and I don't feel like trying to find it.

So here are my decapitated giant lego men.

One will be a candy dish at work. Not entirely decided what the other two will be.

PS That is not some random crap stuck on my counter on the left side of the picture. It's the granite. I swear. I even checked when I saw it in the picture.

Linen Closet

Project #1 in my new house: Painting the linen closet. When I moved in, it was completely usable but not pretty.

Before: Bare drywall and particle board

While I guess I could've just put my stuff in and then I'd be closer to unpacked but I decided I needed to paint it first. So that's what I did. And that probably explains why there are still boxes everywhere.

I had to trim the boards down a bit. The fit of the shelves was really tight before the paint. As in use a hammer to get it out tight. I was rather confused for a bit. Apparently the closet is not quite square. Who builds a closet that isn't square? By square I mean 90 degree angles, not L=W. Because lots of closets aren't squares. Usually they are rectangles. Why am I still typing?

So I trimmed off about 3/8" off the boards. By I trimmed, I mean I had J trim with the table saw at work. The boards are square (90 degree angles) so they don't fit 100% perfect but oh well.

After: 3 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint later.

Yes, that is a fan that was blowing on the closet to help it dry. No, it didn't bother me enough to move it and retake the picture.

Lesson of the day: Buy decent paint. Bought a quart of Kilz Casual Colors Semi-Gloss Interior/Exterior paint at walmart for $5. Used it as is since I was going for a crisp white. The paint has no coverage. I may end up repainting it again with better paint eventually but I give up for now.

And when you do that many coats of paint, they take forever to dry. Especially in the summer and the humidity is through the roof. As in 48 hours+ with a fan blowing on it and it is still a bit tacky.

Also, it's a pain in the butt to paint the inside of a linen closet. The closet goes up another couple feet or so above the door frame. And I wasn't going to just paint the back and sides even though no one will ever see the inside of the wall above the door. The door is too narrow for a step ladder so I stood on a bar stool inside the closet. Every time I moved, I'd get paint in my hair or on my arm, etc.

Oh well. At least it's painted and I can put stuff in it now. On to the next project.