Garden News

We have finally been getting some rain here in WI and boy is my garden happy.  It seems like they all doubled in size in the last couple weeks.  Which makes me a very happy girl.  One of my goals for July was to pick some fresh produce, and I know I'll be able to cross that one off my list.

This is one of my three raised beds.  It contains four tomato plants, three hot pepper plants, two green pepper plants, and one stevia plant.  The fences is about two fee tall, so that gives you an idea of how large the tomatoes are.

Here are some of my Super Sweets, not quite ready to be picked.  The two cherry tomato plants are loaded with these little guys.  I can't wait to make some caprese salad.

And look, there is an orange Roma tomato hiding towards the bottom of the plant.  Roma tomatoes are one of our favorite tomatoes.  It's nice and meaty, and rich in color.  They make great salsa, sauce, and caprase salad (if you haven't guested, we're big fans of caprases).

And speaking of salsa, here are some tiny, tiny jalapenos.  We will have a freezer full of jalapenos this year.  Last year, my jalapenos didn't form fruit, so I'm pretty excited for all the peppers we'll have.   

And here are some of the hot peppers on one of the heirloom pepper plants.  I planted two from a mix of different peppers hoping for a little variety, but looks like I have two of the same plants.  That's okay.  I used two of these little guys in my Soba Noodle recipe the other day.  I can say, these little peppers have quite the kick.

This year I decided to give Stevia a try.  It's off and growing well.  I read that they take a little while to get established, but once they are, they grow like crazy.  It really is a pretty awesome little plant.  The leaves are so sweet.  You would never guess it by looking at it.  They work well to sweeten tea or you can just eat them straight off the plant.  I plan on drying it to use as a natural sweetener all year round. I think I'll be planting this one every year.

And of course my broccoli and carrots seem to be doing okay.  They did not react very well to our extreme heat wave, which has returned.  I've been keeping them well watered and hoping for the best.  You can see that I had some cabbage loopers enjoying the broccoli leaves, but I remedied that with a quick removal of the worms and a little natural pesticide designed specifically for worms like this.  Maybe I'll even luck out and get some broccoli this year.  

The rest of my plants aren't doing the best.  My onions and snow peas did not like the 100 degree weather at all.  I tried to keep them as happy as I could, but I lost almost all of my onions and the snow peas are on their last limbs.  That's okay, I can do a fall crop of both of those plants.  My garlic, another first this year, did pretty well.  I got small heads of garlic out of all of them, so I'm pleased.  Now that I know how to grow them, I'll plant a ton more this fall.  

And as always, my herbs are doing great.  I've had to cut back the mint two or three times now.  I've also trimmed all three of my basil plants (Thai, Purple, and Sweet) back a number of times.  The secrete to large herb plants is trimming them back.  I know, it doesn't make much sense, but it really does work.  

And just a note on my raised garden beds.  I use a combination of peat moss, compost, and wood chips in one and straight up soil in the other.  The one with the combination is doing much better then the soil alone.  I wanted to try growing without soil, but was skeptical.  I can honestly say, I'm sold.  The plants in the combination are so much happier, so all the beds will have a combination in them next year.  And hopefully will be overflowing with happy, healthy plants.

How does your garden grow?  Have you harvested anything yet?  Did you try anything new or plan on trying something next year?  I'd love to know.  

And always stay creative my friends.     

The Old GD finally went

Like many houses, our house came with a garbage disposal installed in the kitchen.  Now I know that there are a few people out there that don't like the ideas of garbage disposals for various reasons, but I love ours.  Our kitchen smells so much better because we never are throwing food in the garbage.  And we don't actually use the garbage disposal as much as most, because we have a composter, so all the organic material goes out there.  We both really love the convenience that the disposal offers.

But we've had trouble with ours since we bought the house.  Just one thing after another has gone wrong.  It's loud, but that doesn't bother us because it's not on for very long.  It's more of a bother to have to fix is every other month. 

It first started leaking around Christmas time.  But we tightened it all up and it was fine, for a while.

Then it stopped working all together.  So I turned off the power and took a little look inside.  The internal structure is not stainless steel, so it was all rusted out.  A small piece of metal had lodged itself in a small rusted out crevice, and it was jamming the disposal.  So I pryed that out and all was good again, for a while.

You see where this is going.  Then a few days ago, I noticed a large puddle of water under the sink.  I cleared everything out, mopped up the mess, and went to work trying to figure out what was the culprit.  Big surprise, it was the garbage disposal.  So I went through all the motions.  Tightened everything up, checked all the connections.  Turned on the water and the disposal to check for leaks, and we still had a waterfall.

So after discussing it, we decided we have had enough problems with it, we'll just replace it.  Then we both remembered our realtor (who was also selling the house) tell us to replace that baby with a new one as soon as we saw signs of it going out.  So he obviously noticed it was a pile. 

And off the Menard's we went.  Not that it was an extra trip, we were already headed there to pick up our lumber for the bathroom vanity and some plumbing supplies.  You know, our daily trip to the hardware store for supplies. :-)

Now I don't know about you, but I'm not an expert on garbage disposals.  I sort of just figured there would be a few to pick from and we would be on our way.  Ha, I should have known better.  There were at least 8+ disposals to pick from.  So back home sans disposal we went.

And after doing some research on the subject (hey I'm a researcher by trade, so nothing gets purchased in this house without a little research), we decided to go with the GE GFC530V.

I read a lot of good reviews online, so I'm confident that this will last us a little while.  I guess time will tell.

It says that it is extremely easy to install, so I'm going to hope that's true.  But I'm sure it will be an interesting experience.  I'll make sure I post about installation. 

Always stay creative, my friends.

Soba Noodles

I haven't done a recipe on Fridays for a while and I think it's about time to do another one.  Honestly I haven't been doing a lot of cooking these day because of the never ending heat.  Who wants to turn on the oven/stove when it's 100 degrees outside?  No one.  But, I'm back in the kitchen baby and ready to cook!

Today I have some super yummy Soba Noodles with a sweet and spicy sauce.  This recipe is awesome.  It's the perfect blend of spicy and sweet, with a hint of smoky.  My mouth is watering just thinking about them.  They were delicious.

First I gathered up my ingredients. Here are some of the soy sauces we have. Just a regular one and one that is mushroom flavored.  Num, num.  We get most of our Asian foods from the, surprise surprise, the Asian market up the street.  It's mainly a Vietnamese store, but they carry stuff from all Asian cultures.

A side note, if you're looking to save money, you should definitely check out your local ethnic markets.  They usually carry a lot of the things you get at the grocery store for a lot less.  We stopped in last night and paid under $20 for a whole bag of food.  And don't just stick to Asian markets, check out Latino and Italian markets as well as a local butcher (we have all of these right by our house).

But back the the recipe.

All your sauce ingredients will go into a bowl so that they can interact with each other creating an amazing taste.  Look at how yummy that looks already.  I made the sauce before we ran to the grocery store, and when we came back, the whole house smelled delicious.

These are Soba noodles. You can pick these up in a lot of grocery stores. They will be in the Asian foods isle. If you can't find them in your normal grocery store, go try you're local Asian grocery store, they will have them. They are a noodle that is made with buckwheat flower, which is what gives them their brown color.  Soba actually means buckwheat in Japanese.  If you go to Japan, they have a few places where you can still get soba noodles made from scratch.  Yum. 

I sauteed some portabella mushrooms.  I know, not very Asian, but we love mushrooms and this is what we had.  I have also used shitaki and button mushrooms.  That's the great thing about cooking, you can use what every you like and/or whatever you have on hand.  It can be personalized to you.

While I was cooking the mushrooms I was also boiling some water for the soba. See, the pot is on TURBO BOIL.  I usually use my large pot with the noodle insert thing.  The soba seem to take up a lot more room once they are cooked then a wheat flour noodle, so even if I'm making a small amount, I still use the big pot.
Then once you're noodles are done cooking and your mushrooms are slightly sauteed (soft, but not completely grilled), you mix everything together and you have this......

Oh yeah, look at that.  I garnished with some raw carrot, cucumber, black sesame seeds, garlic chili paste, and some green onions.  It was amazing.  I love the spice of the noodles then the cooling sensation the cucumber gives you.  Amazing.

And yes, those are light saber chop sticks.  I never said we weren't nerds.  We have quite the chop stick collection, but these are our favorites.  J has the Luke Skywalker's and I have Mace Windu's.  You can pick them up at ThinkGeek.com if you're interested.

Soba Noodles with Mushrooms in a sweet and spicy sauce
Based on recipe from Simply Reem
  
Ingredients

• Sauce 
• 2 chopped green onions
• 1 tsp minced ginger - fresh ginger goes a long way, but you can add more if you'd like
• 1/4 c chopped cilantro - I was out of fresh so I used fresh dried cilantro, fresh is better though
• hot peppers - I used a few small hot peppers from the garden, but you can use any kind you want - add to taste
• 3 tbs sesame oil
• 3 tsp garlic chili sauce - more or less to taste
• 1 tbs soy sauce
• 2 tbs rice wine vinegar 
• 2 tbs honey
• salt and pepper to taste
• Pasta
• soba noodles
• sesame seeds for garnish
• julienned carrot for garnish
• julienned cucumber for garnish
• green onion for garnish

Directions

1. Mix all of your sauce ingredients together and let them sit while you prepare everything else
2. Boil a large pot of water
3. Cut up the mushrooms in thicker slices and saute until they just start to release their juices
4. Once your water is boiling, add your soba noodles.  The cook pretty fast, so you should watch them.  The package I had said it would take 6-7 minutes to cook, but they were done in about 4.  
5. Drain the noodles
6. Mix your mushrooms into the noodles
7. Add your sauce and mix everything.
8. Add your julienned cucumber and carrot.  Sprinkle with your sesame seeds and add a little green onion and chili sauce if you would like.  
9. Enjoy

This can also be eaten cold.  If you want it as a cold noodle dish, rinse the noodles with cold water after they are done cooking.

Remember when cooking noodles, that they continue to cook once you take them out of the water.  To prevent mushy noodles, take them out of the water while they are a little bit undercooked.  That way you'll never have a mushy noodle or sticky noodles that form one large lump.

This recipe would be good with snow peas, tofu, chicken, or beef added.  Play around with it and add what you like to it.  The next time I make it, I'm going to try lo mein noodles.   

Now lets see what you guys come up with.  Have a fantastic weekend and always stay creative.

Freaking Out!

Work continues on the upstairs bathroom remodel.  A little bit slower this week since it looks like we both have a lovely stomach bug.  Yay for summertime illnesses, oh wait, boo summertime illnesses.  But we trudge on.

We've also started getting ready for our housewarming party.  Not just thinking about it or picking a date, but actually sitting down and deciding who to invite.  Actually sending out the invitations.  There is no going back once the first one is sent out.  It's always a little nerve racking.  Did we invite the everyone?  Are we really ready for this?  Blah, blah, blah.

It's especially stressful considering our upstairs bathroom is still only half a room with no sink and we haven't even started on the sun room.

It still looks like this, only instead of my canopy, there is a double sink in the middle of it.  The good news is last weekend we got all the old bathroom stuff dropped of at Restore.  That is except for the toilet, that is currently gracing our back yard.

We only have four weekends to finish up everything (minus a Saturday that I have an art show).  I think that now that our date is official, I'm starting to get nervous.  But I'm sure we'll be fine.  The whole house doesn't need to be done, just functional.        

So I'm not really freaking out, I've just realized how much we still have to do before we let friends and family into our home.  I'll save the freaking out for closer to the date. 

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

And in other news, I've been thinking about adding guest bloggers to this blog.  I was thinking posts about DIY projects, house projects, decorating, food, etc.  So if you are interested shoot me and email (threefatesdesign@gmail.com) and let me know.  I'd love to share some of your projects with everyone. 

DIY Projects

I'm gonna take a break from updates on the bathroom remodel today.  One, because nothing has changed from yesterday and two, I'm sure you would love a break from updates on that room.

I thought today, I would show off a few of the DIY projects I've been working on.  I've been trying to add our personality to our house and get some decorating done.  Oh yeah, decorating.

So what have I been working on?  Lets see.

I made a nice little crocheted place mat with some light yarn I picked up at the thrift store.  It's so colorful and fun.  I'm practicing crocheting in the round, so this was a great projects to work on.  J was making fun of me for making a doily, but I don't think it looks like a doily, okay, maybe a little.

Right now this guy is under my faux cherry blossoms on the dining room table.  I like how it looks with the red wall.  It allows me to bring in some bright color that still looks nice with the bold red wall.  Perfect.  Will it stay here?  I don't know.  I guess we'll just have to see.

And speaking of our dining room table, I've been working on some new napkins.

I picked up some fabric at Joann's this past weekend that has some fun color in it.  Then I trimmed the edges in a fun bright turquoise.

Here are all of the napkins I made this past weekend.  I love how they are bright, fun, and perfect for summer.  We now have five sets of fabric napkins, no paper napkins for us.  And they are so easy to make.  Just cut fabric into squares and serge the edges.  Can't ask for an easier project then that.

I also made a few more pillows for the couch.  All the red was starting to get to me.  I know J loves it, but I wanted something a little bit more light.  I'm loving the new pillows.  They were just simple pocket pillows that took me about a half an hour to make three.  Not bad.

As you can see, it really brightens it up.  Now the couch feels a little less dark.  And as you can see a little pug has staked her claim to the blanket.  She actually has two of her bones in there.  She can't go anywhere without them. 

And if you may have noticed, we have a new coffee table.  Well, you probably didn't notice, I haven't shown pictures of the living room for a while.  But it's new.  And if the weather cooperates with me soon, I'll be able to sand and stain it.  And yes, it's already covered in J's stuff.  He was rewiring his stereo for his car last night.  Yes, in the living room.  I just let him do it, it's easier that way. :-)

But anywho, we picked this baby up at the ReStore East.  It's simple, yet is still interesting.  I'm going to sand it and stain it ebony.  No orange oak in this house.  But I have to wait for the 100 degree weather to pass, if it ever will, before I stain.  Stain doesn't like high temps, I learned that last year.   

What has everyone else been working on?  Any fun projects?  

So close to being done!

We are so close to finishing up the upstairs bathroom remodel.  And when we're done with that, we're done with all major renovations (this year).  That means we can focus on finishing up all those small projects that have been pushed aside.  You know the ones, the ones that look so easy, so you say you'll finish them later, then you never get back to them.  You know the ones.

We have plenty of these projects.  All the little things that need to be done in the kitchen, bedroom, living room...well, you get the point.  There are plenty of them to keep us busy.  And with our housewarming party looming near, we should probably get going on those little projects.

But back to some bathroom progress.  This past weekend we installed the new floor and the new toilet.  It looks nice if I don't say so myself.

We have plenty to do still.  The baseboards need to be primed and painted, and oh yeah, cut to fit.  That's an important thing.  We also have to find some new trim for the windows.  If you remember, most of the original woodwork was full of mold when we started.  So most of it was pulled out and will be replaced.

And you may have noticed that a very important part of the bathroom is missing, the sink.  Well fear not, it came in last night.

Oh look at that, what a pretty girl.  Yes, our bathroom sink is a girl.  Maybe I should name her, no I better not, that's pushing super weird.  :-)

Since we now have our sink, we can start designing our new vanity.  We'll be making our vanity from scratch.  This will be an exciting experience for both of us. But we're sure we can do it.

This is what we're going for.

We really liked this one from Restoration Hardware, but the three thousand dollar price tag made us stop breathing for a while.  I mean we like how simple it is and how it's open, but I think we can make it for a tad less.

So I guess we should probably get started on that.  We plan is to draw up the plans this week and pick up the needed supplies this weekend.  Then we can start building that.  And hopefully the ridiculous heat will give up for bit so we can stain.  Hey, at least it rained today!

Stay creative my friends.    

Are you done with that bathroom yet?

I think I just might be done with painting the upstairs bathroom.  And boy do we like it.  The grey walls and white paneling look so nice and very modern.  A face lift this bathroom needed. 

I will admit that the white has taken me a lot longer to do then I had expected.  I should have done two coats of primer, but I got a head of myself.  I guess I figured the Kitchen and Bath paint would be a lot thicker then it was, so coverage was not the best.  I'm now regretting not going to Sherwin Williams to pick out paint.  Sad face.

But, now that I have about forty-two layers of paint up there (I actually think there are four), it looks bright and wonderful in there.  And I will make sure to go get the good paint, not convenient paint, next time.  I will also do two coats of Fast Prime 2 as well.  No more getting excited and moving on to paint before it's time.  See, this was a learning experience.

But anywho, back to the bathroom remodel.  We also picked up our new faucets.  We bought them before the sink came in because they were on sale this past week.  We decided to go with the brushed nickle finish.  We thought a lot about this and decided that that the chrome finish would stand out, but if all the fixtures are chrome, it might start looking tacky.   So brushed nickle it was.  I'm glad we picked this finish.  It will hide water spots and finger prints, and that's always a plus.

So tonight we'll remove the rest of the old toilet and install some flooring.  Yup, that's how we roll; bathroom remodeling on a Friday night.  Rebels we are. 

Always stay creative, friends. 

What's new in the loo?

We're making great strides in the upstairs bathroom redo.  It's slowly starting to look like a modern bathroom.  Okay, it really just looks like an empty room right this second, but it's getting there.

This past weekend we removed the vanity and pulled up the flooring.  Now I was pretty scared at what was under the floor.  I had these nightmares of rotting boards and mold.  A wrong step and you would fall into the basement.  We had no idea what was lurking under the old vinyl.

Luckily it wasn't any thing awful.  There was a little mold around the toilet, but nothing to severe.  Remember there was mold everywhere in our bathroom, so finding some under the vinyl wasn't too bad, especially the small amount we did find.

Now the bad news.  The original flooring is, more then likely, asbestos tile.  We already knew it was under the flooring in the basement and had a feeling it might be in the upstairs bathroom as well.  It's not a huge deal.  Since there was no structural damage to the floor, we'll just leave the old tile in place and put the new vinyl over it.  As long as the tile stays on the floor, we'll be fine.

And speaking of new flooring.  We picked up some new vinyl from Menards.  It's pretty cool stuff.  It's glueless.  It just sits, free floating, on the floor.  It's made for wet environments, so it's perfect for laundry rooms and bathrooms.

We went with the faux stone look.  I'm always a little frightened over the faux stone stuff, but I think this works.  We tried to go with something that would hide dirt (aka puppy tracks) and be neutral so when we want to change up the bathroom, we don't have to worry about trying to match it to the floor.

We hope to have the new flooring, as well as the new toilet, installed this coming weekend.  That means I have to get my butt in gear and finish up the painting.  I just need to focus. ;-)

Always stay creative my friends.  

DIY - Rope wrapped jar

We have been busily working on the bathroom remodel.  It's taking many coats of bright white paint to cover the paneling, but it's looking good!  We plan on pulling out the sink this week and then the toilet will be next.  I can't wait.

In between coats of white paint I've been keeping myself busy with little projects.  I've made some more dish scrubbies, I'm working on a crocheted basket (pictures soon), and I made a little rope covered jar.

I love glassware.  I always have, I always will.  There is something about it that just appeals to me.  I love going to thrift stores and garage sales, you can find some of the best glass there.  And I fear my love of glass is rubbing off on J.  We own so much stemware, we don't know what to do with it.  And every time we're thrifting, he always grabs some candle holders or glasses.  Oh my, I think I created a monster. 

Our upper shelf in the kitchen has a fair amount of glass, almost all of it clear.  I just felt the upper shelf needed something.

Out went the pink flowers and the clear glass vase (which I absolutely love, I'm just now in love with it here).  And in came the green hydrengeas and a cute little white rope covered jar.  Now that looks nice.

This was a quick and easy project that only took a few minutes to complete.  The perfect project.

First off I gathered my supplies.  I bought this rope years ago when I was dabbling in macrame, but I'm sure you can get it at any hardware store.  I also grabbed my trusty little hot glue gun, a few extra glue sticks, and an old pickle jar.

Then I just started gluing the end to the jar.  I had a little difficulty getting the rope to lay right on the top part, so I would just add a little bit of hot glue every inch or so.  That solved the problem.

I continued wrapping the rope all the way around the jar, adding a drop of glue here and there, until I reached the bottom.  Then cut the rope and added a little bit of glue to keep it from unraveling.

That's it.  All done.  A super easy project that looks so cute up on the shelf.

I did learn that a little bit of glue went a long way.  You don't want to glop it on or your rope will have a slight bump in that area.  So I would just add a very very small drop.

So go find an old jar and some sort of rope or yarn and make one for yourself today.  It's the perfect quick (and more then likely free) project.

Stay creative my friends.

What did you do this weekend?

You know what we did?  We bought a new toilet.  Exciting I know.  And it only took us about two weeks to pick one out and buy one.  Only a month ago, I thought all toilets were the same, yeah, I was wrong.  Who knew there were so many options when it came to the loo. 

This is the one we went with.

Impressive I know.  :-)  Okay, so it sorta looks like every other toilet out there, but it's not.  We put a lot of thought into this purchase.

First we had to consider the type of bowl we wanted; round or elongated.  Who cares?  That's what I said when asked before, and well, honestly, I still say that.  I'm not sure why one is superior to the other, but maybe I'm not a toilet aficionado.  We went with a round bowl.

Then we had to pick a color.  That was an easy one, white.  All the permanent things in the bathroom are white, then we never have to worry about them matching when we change it up.  But if you want, there are a wide range of colors to pick from.

Next we had to make sure we found one that would fit in our bathroom.  Our bathroom is a nice size, but it's very narrow.  So we had to make sure the toilet would fit.  We went with one that was 28 inches deep.  Perfect for our space.

Now we had to decide on bowl height.  I know right now, you're exasperated by the amount of decisions that need to be made when purchasing a toilet, but I assure you, you have to think about all of this.  Back to bowl height.  You can purchase a toilet that is from 14-16 inches high.  I'm sure there are probably more options, but if you want to buy a showroom model, that's what they come in.  We went with a tall bowl, because our current toilet feels like you're sitting on the floor.  Our new throne will be 16 inches tall.

Nope, not done yet, there are still more things to consider.

At first we wanted to get a dual flush toilet, but after doing some research, we decided on a lower flush toilet.  New toilets are a lot more efficient then the older ones.  Old toilets are between 3.4 to 5.6 gpf (gallons per flush).  New toilets are usually 1.6 gpf.  Duel flush are approximately 1.0 gpf and 1.6 gpf.  Ours is 1.28 gpf.  Right in the middle of the two.

It also is specially designed to not clog.  Not as fancy as the ones that claim to flush a whole basket of golf balls, but still better then an average toilet.  Seriously, who would test that claim?  Okay, I would go buy some golf balls and test that out.  Then the city would be pissed at me for flushing a basket of golf balls. :-)

And finally, price.  You would be surprised to see how much some toilets cost.  Home Depot had one that was on clearance for $400.  And I know you can get some that run in the thousands.  Who needs a toilet that expensive?  I would never let anyone use it.  You can also get a toilet for $60.  We didn't want a super cheap one, nor a ritzy one.  So we went with one on sale for a mid range price.  Perfect.
 
Once we had the toilet all picked out, we made sure to pick up an extra thick wax ring.  Our waste pipe is a little below the floor level, so to make sure we don't have any leaks, the extra thick ring will make up the slack.

And after all of these decisions, we have a toilet.  I know, who would have know that it would be that involved.  I know we didn't.  We honestly thought it would be a quick task, it was not.  Now comes the installation.  That will be this coming weekend after we install the new flooring.  Don't forget to stop back and see how that went.  :-)      

Makin' Progress

Things are moving a long here.  Our bathroom remodel is coming along nicely.  We're still patiently waiting on the sink top to come in and we still need to pick out a new toilet, but we're getting there.

We picked out lights we think will work in there.  Since we're going for an industrial feel, we decided to look for some outside lights and this is what we found.

We thought that the had that industrial/factory feel to them.  And at $12 a light, they would be a lot cheaper then buying a set of lights that would fit over the 61 inch vanity.  We think we would need about 6-8, so that would run us about $72-96.  Not bad for lights.  We bought one to bring it home and see what it looks like in the bathroom. 

So what other progress have we made?  We took down the lights and the medicine cabinet.  Those will be making a trip to the ReStore so someone can use them in there bathroom.

And after taking down the mirror and lights we found a layer of wallpaper.  That quickly came down with a little mixture of water and fabric softener.  Yup, to take down wallpaper, just saturate it with a 1:1 mixture HOT water and fabric softener, and it will peel right off.  Easy Peasy.

Once that was taken down and the walls wiped down, painting began.

Oh my, that looks nice.  I'm so happy with the color we decided to go with.  It's so pretty.

Before we started with the woodwork, we scrubbed it down with hot water and vinegar just to make sure we got rid of all of the buildup from over the years.  Then a layer of Fast Prime 2, I love this stuff.

sorry for how dark this one turned out.

I'm at two coats of white and it looks like I'll need at least one more, if not two.  That's okay.  We figured that it would take a lot to cover up the old wood.  But, look at how different that looks compared to only a few days ago.  I can't wait to rip the sink and toilet out so we can finish painting.

Then on to picking out and installing new flooring.  That's our project for this coming weekend.  But there is a big likelihood that when we rip up the current floor, we'll have to replace the sub floor.  It feels soft in quite a few spots, so who knows what's lurking under there.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

And before anyone gives us a lecture on painting the oak in there, most of the woodwork had to be taken down and tossed.  It was covered in black mold.  We're hoping by installing a fan and sealing the woodwork (with paint) we won't have a mold problem in the future. 

Stay creative, friends.

Oh my!

So this week, we started the bathroom remodel.  It's going well so far, well as well as it could be going.  Only a few surprises.

We started with scraping the ceiling.  The paint has been peeling off the ceiling since we bought the house.  We've attributed this to the lack of vent fan in the bathroom, lets hope that's the problem.

This is what the ceiling looked like.

The lovely yellow color peaking through the lovely sea foam green color.  Oh, so pretty.  Oh wait, I mean the opposite of that, horrible. 

I spent an afternoon up on a ladder scraping all of the large pieces off.  Then we took a trip up to Menards, good thing we live so close, to pick up a scrubber for the angle grinder.  It worked fantastic!!!

It worked so well, the ceiling looked like this when we were done.

Wow, that's a lot of the old paint that came off.  It was searously just falling off.  I'm not sure what was happening, but we took care of it.

Then we primed with Fast Prime 2, one of my favorite primers.  Two coats of primer and we had this.

I'm actually the one that did all the painting.  J and one of his friends decided to swap out an engine on the hottest day of the year.  I know, crazy boys.

But anyway, back to painting.  Here is what the ceiling looked like after two coats of primer and two coats of paint (I also primed the walls).

You can still see where the paint had pealed off, but it's not too obvious.  You probable won't notice unless you were looking for it.  I'm calling this a success.  Now on to the rest of the room!!!! 

We are going to just paint the ceiling for now, but we plan on putting on a faux tin ceiling in here someday.  So we don't want to spend a lot of time right now on the ceiling.  And we're not doing the faux tin this year, because we don't have it in the budget.  Have you priced that stuff?  Oh my!  We have joked about buying one tile each time we go to the store.  Then it won't seem like so much.  Maybe we should do that.  I guess I'm off to research the interwebs for cheaper faux tin tiles.

Stay creative my friends.