The cabinets have been one of my most despised home components all this time. Using stock models from the local big box, the kitchen received a total overhaul in the late 90′s which included moving the plumbing, creating more counter space, adding a dishwasher, upgrading the windows, and voila, adding umteen-million heavy oak cabinets. They’re inexpensive, this I know because I’ve seen them at The Home Depot, but in mass quantity I can’t exactly blame the previous homeowners for buying them. There still aren’t many affordable and easily accessible options when it comes to kitchen design. As shown on move-in day, aren’t they plentiful? Sorry for the terrible photos.

All in all, I know things could be way, way worse. The inset routing could be all swirly and curvy. The doors could mismatch. They could be not level. Even the hardware, a brushed nickel, has been totally bearable over the last three years. I’ve had bigger projects to tackle.

I had considered painting them right away, maybe a nice clean white coupled with fresh hardware, but my plan fell through when a few friends (and my more notoriously opinionated family members) pointed out that generally speaking, people like, no, love hardwood cabinets, so blah, blah, maybe I should live with them awhile and give them a chance. Maybe they’d grow on me. Maybe I’d come to my senses and love-me-some-serious oak when the VOC’s from other projects cleared from my brain cavity.

Leaving the oak cabinets as-is for resale was one thing that continued to resonate with me, but with no immediate plans to move out and with the rest of the house pretty much customized to my tastes, it felt wrong to not pull the kitchen into the 21st century and give it a deserved update (regardless of what Grandma is going to say when she sees it, I gulp loudly). After living with them for 3 years, even though I removed a bunch of them, my decided verdict was still a firm no. The oak had to change.

The big change, as you know by this far into the post, wouldn’t involve paint. Maybe my friends and family were right, natural wood had grown on me. Staining the cabinets seemed like a win-win-win option; it would tie the kitchen in with the shiplap walls in the neighboring dining room, leave the wood natural for future homeowners, and most of all, update the kitchen in an impacting way. And of course, if this all fails I will be painting over it. So, yeah, I have a Plan B. One way or another, the kitchen will look better.

But, as I said in the very first sentence here, I’m downright scared about my first ditch staining process for a number of reasons:

• The sanding. It’s going to be a lot of sanding. As in, a lot more sanding than you’d have to do if you were just cleaning and smoothing out the grain to paint it.
• The staining could be inconsistent. I’ve been perfecting my staining technique over the last year, but I’m still no pro. No way, no how.
• The grain might look uglier when it’s darker. Is it possible? Sure, maybe.
• Will a dark stain make the gray and black flecked countertops look weird? Ummm, if I keep over thinking this, my head will absolutely explode.

All of those factors in the back of my mind, I did what I do best, I tested my theories and concerns using a real-life model. After I removed seven of the cabinets a few years ago, I stored them in the attic with the thought in mind that some future homeowner might want that extra kitchen storage. Easy to take down, easy to put back up. I even labeled each unit and kept the screws taped to the inside of the door to keep it tidy. Deciding to sacrifice one of them for the better good, I brought it down and positioning it off the asphalt in the driveway, I was ready to see how this would look, beginning to end.

Naturally, what I’m getting to here is that I spent a long, sweet afternoon working on my first test subject. No details left behind, here’s how the whole process went:

1. With the door, hinges, and hardware removed, I mixed up my first-ever batch of TSP, a heavy-duty, strong, skin-irritating cleaner in a large bucket. Sure, it sounds intense but it’s heavy-duty stuff and affordable (one <$4 box will probably last me my entire DIY life). With junky clothes covering all my limbs, I donned pretty latex gloves and took things seriously. Scare tactics on the packaging worked this time for whatever reason. I used 1/8-cup of TSP to 1-gallon of water to create a stronger-than-everyday-cleansing formula.

2. With two separate sponges, I wiped everything down with the TSP mixture, let it sit a few minutes even though the packaging wasn’t specific if I needed to, and then wiped it off with a clean sponge dampened with fresh water. And then I let the whole thing dry and TSP’ed it again for good measure.

Contrary to some super-outdated online forums yet totally aligned with our friend Heather’s experience, the TSP actually did very little to remove any manufacturer’s finish, but it did leave the wood feeling very smooth and not grimy, which I now notice most of the cabinets of the kitchen are from the years of cooking and touching (awesome, it’s so gross).

3. The surface of the cabinets didn’t start to look different until I began sanding with a brand new piece of some medium-grit sandpaper (which is what we had on hand with the multi-tool). As opposed to the round random orbital palm sander that was my second choice, the triangular head of the sanding attachment gave me a little more control when it came to getting into the inset areas on the cabinets.

As expected, sanding it in entirety wasn’t quick, but I started to see progress pretty quickly. Moving with the grain and applying even pressure, the true oak exposed itself. This next picture really demonstrates how nicely the edges of the multi-tool fit along the inside bevel in the cabinet.

The only questionable observation? The sharp bevels of the detailing on the front of the door did dull down a little bit. Do I care? Not sure yet, but I’m not going for that distressed look here.

The whole sanding process took me about one hour (no exaggeration, I took my time and tried to be really thorough). Knowing this, I have a more realistic expectation of how long it’s going to take me to finish (1 hour x 24 drawer and door faces of varying size means that I could very easily spend a full 24 hours sanding). I also know I’ll want to use a fresh piece of sandpaper for each door to keep it easy and consistent. Mo’ money, but still less expensive than gutting the room apart.

4. Identifying what stain I wanted to use was an adventure in and of itself. With oak, many blogs and forums I referenced cited using General Finishes Gel Stains thanks to its thicker consistency that makes hand-application a little easier on cabinetry, and on pieces with more detail. Products like Rust-Oleum, by contrast, can be runnier and therefore soak in too quickly making the piece stain unevenly.

Fortunately for me, there was one specialty furniture store within 15 minutes from my house that was listed as a distributor of the General Finishes product. Unfortunately for me, the gel product was discontinued (likely minutes before I walked into the shop after a month of putting off stopping in). The owner and woodworker himself suggested trying the General Finishes brand water-based wood stain in Espresso (the same color I had been shopping for in gel) and he promised that it was still going to be markably thicker than any commonly store-bought stain. For just $10, I was willing to give it a try, knowing full well that if it sucked, it was still just $10 (two mochas, or four iced coffees). And if it worked I might be able to get away with only spending $20-30 to refinish the entire kitchen (whoop-ah). Stain goes a long way.

I think, I hope, that here, you can tell that the consistency is a little more like watery pudding than common watery stain. Or maybe partially-solidified Jello when it’s startin’ to get that jiggle.

5. Even though I have full intention of using nice foam brushes to evenly lay each coat of stain (and effectively get into all of the crevices in the bevels), this trial time around, I gave staining a try with a plain old rag. Because I forgot to buy foam brushes the last 4 times I was at the Home Depot.

First thoughts with this first coat:

• “AHHHHH, OMG.”
• “Hmmm, it stains a little more easily on the edges that were sanded down excessively”
• “Is that dark enough?”
• “Is it sanded enough?”
• “Do I see more grain now?”
• “Do I see less grain?”
• “Where’s the grain?”

Fast forward 6-hours and I tested out a second coat. And later on, a third coat. Close up where the second and third coats overlap, it looks rough, but the tips to get it nice are to let it dry really well between coats and then re-apply evenly from edge to edge without picking up the brush or the rag you’re using.

The best looking part of the door happens to be this outer edge with three coats of stain. Now, what are the odds that I can do the entire kitchen looking this nice?

The cabinet itself looks great after its test run, and applied much more easily on the first try because it’s so sharp-edged and not beveled. This photo was it after one coat.

For experimentation’s sake, I applied a second coat to the cabinet too:

And because you’re probably wondering about my plan for the insides of the cabinets, I’m going to paint them. It’s going to be a real pain in my you-know-what, but while the doors and trim are solid oak, the rest of the cabinet is partially faux.

Final thoughts? Still scared crazy, but I’m going to try it while the weather’s nice and I can sand and stain outdoors. Summertime project high-five. If anyone reading this has actually done their own cabinets and can offer any words of advice, speak now.

Will keep you updated as I begin the process!

Have you upgraded anything from a garage sale freebie box lately? If yay, I’d love to see it!

I couldn’t resist cashing in some of my earned credits on a print by Design Milk’s own Jaime Derringer when her collection went live a few weeks ago, and just last week the piece arrived in the mail in all its glory.

Inspired by one of her flights over the rockies, I can resonate with how impacting a sight that is. The bursts of color and fresh geometric pattern make it a perfect new piece for my own home. And if you missed her sale, I’ll bet you can make your own version of it, but you didn’t hear that idea from me. Get all fancy with your markers, scan, and print it centered on a 8.5×11 sheet of heavy stock. It’s a pretty thing.

If you haven’t yet explored fab.com, here’s my referral link.* Have fun, spend a little.

*Links to this post include my personal referral link to fab.com. If you sign up for an account, you’re helping me to reach a new tier and get pretty little treasures for my home. And after you sign up, spread your own referral link around to your friends and you can earn too.

Or maybe the real thanks are owed to our neighbors, a nice family who legitimately has more important things to be concerned about than curb appeal. See, we don’t have hedges on our property. And yes, hedge trimmers could be useful for any number of backyard projects, like shaping my mini-Mountain Laurel plants and maybe for playing swords, but we wanted to give them a real workout. True story: Word on the street is that my neighbor’s row of hedges was once maintained to be just shorter than the chain link fence on their property. And up until late last week, the hedges stood tall, stretching nearly 11-feet high in some places. An eyesore. A Desperate Landscapes in the making. A yard maintenance afterthought for years, and years, and years.

Do you see where this is going? If not, this video should do the trick. It’s not even a minute-and-a-half long, and you can turn down the sound without losing effect, so enjoy it at the office if you so wish.

Pete’s G12 camera was stationed in the sunroom window for 90 minutes, which was the full length of time it took us to do the entire hedge trimming project. That also included us cleaning up the back side of the hedges on the family’s property, and string trimming along the base and curb, but the damn camera inexplicably stopped recording after just 23-minutes and I was having too much fun hauling armloads of branches to come back inside to check in on it like I should have. It was starting to rain outside only 15-minutes in and we just wanted to go-go-go. Good news is for the last 45-minutes of the job, my jeans had stretched out so much from bending and moving that I was pulling them up every 2 seconds. I thought it might have looked awk on camera, so maybe things worked out for the best. Overshare?

The good news is, these trimmers were awesome. If you couldn’t tell in the video, they cut like butter, and that’s so exaggeration, it was easy-breezy. Pete’s was working a little harder than mine, so while we started with two fully-charged 36V batteries, we swapped about 40-minutes into the job so that he could finish the project without having to miss a beat.

Using a 6′ ladder gave Pete enough height to cut 3-4 feet clean off the top while I cleaned up the lower parts with grandiose swishing motions to give it a good front. The whole project was a great feel-good workout, even if Pete did lose his balance and tumble in once. That didn’t feel so good. But there were no injuries, just scratches, and it only happened once, so, oh well.

The end results? So fresh and so clean-clean.

We’re still waiting on the city to pick up the pile of branches that stands as tall as my shoulders, but they’ll take care of it and we don’t have to dispose of it anywhere specific ourselves.

Update: Look who showed up this morning to eat branches for breakfast. Chomp-chomp. Best arcade game turned real-life job ever?

The main focus for this first go-around was to see just how low we could cut the shrubs without them becoming totally stickly (that’s stick-ly, not sickly, since the leaves are really only growing on the outermost sun-reaching branches what remains underneath are naked twigs).

Yes, there are some more barron spots, mostly in the out of control section that I was hacking at most aggressively, but we expect that the leaves will fill right in during the summer and by fall we might even be able to take it down another few feet.

One observation that Pete made was that since the hedges had been unattended for so long, the branches towards the top on the inside were mature and thick. The trimmer ate through branches that were 3/4″ in diameter with no problem, but the thicker ones might require a different when the time comes.

Second observation: the neighbors have a big beautiful posted light that would illuminate their driveway and sidewalk if it were exposed. We’re still about 3-feet away from getting it back into view. Who knew!

And then we took some photos just for fun.

I believe this was Pete’s DIY MCA tribute? All he’s missing is the fish-eye lens effect.

With all this said, it was a pleasure to be able to make someone else’s property look nicer. We’re so happy they let us tackle it instead of letting it go completely, or having a company charge big bucks to get the job done. Plus, now we know that the tools are great.

Anyone else spending time raging on the neighborhood landscaping?

Not re-birth-birthday-related, I mean, more like life-related. It’s my one year anniversary from leaving my job to do this whole thing full-time, to explore what it is I want to be doing next, to soak up the summer rays, and stay in bed late on snowy mornings.

True to form, I even made a cake inspired by this one I adored by The Cilantropist.

And then I proceeded to sloppily eat half of it myself in a full-fists-into-devil’s-food-mess. No big deal.

It (my new life, not the cake) has been sustainable. And I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.

I’m off to walk the dog on the beach and work on a cool new Anthropologie-inspired DIY project that you’ll be seeing soon enough before I get down to answering my emails and making the morning coffee (we switched to decaf, BTW, being jitter-free and level-headed is just more icing on the live-a-good-life cake).

So, with that said, go follow your wildest dreams today. I’m not trying to be all hokey and inspirational, just do what it takes to be a happier person.

We had a few very wet, cold, windy days immediately following the afternoon that I assembled our veggie and flower planter boxes in the backyard. It’s a good thing I hadn’t put the tomatoes in the ground right away. With the sun out this week I couldn’t put off the project any more, so I got right down to it.

Last you saw, I had this set of planter boxes assembled and resting in the middle of the yard just off the deck. Super convenient placement. Not. After discussion, we had determined that installing the planters in the back left corner of the yard would be most logical: close to our raspberry bushes, in a part of the yard that gets a lot of sunlight, and best of all, far enough away from Cody’s running loop so as not to trip him up. Dog likes to run, you know?

I debated removing the grass in an oval all around both boxes and making a mulchy walkway, but in the end decided to only clear out the spaces directly on the inside of both planters, leaving the outer edge grassy, and most of the yard in tact.

Easily said and done, once I was positive that the planters were in position, I used some leftover white spray paint to mark the inside of each box so I knew precisely where to cut. I didn’t spray the outside of the box because I didn’t want to chance a lot of white paint coating the wooden exterior, which I anticipate to wear naturally over time.

With the boxes out of the way, my dig-plan was clear. And the dog was intrigued.

The dig only took an hour, but was a good workout; I trimmed around the edges first with a straight edge shovel to loosen the grass, and then moved inward, shaking as much loose soil back onto the ground as I could manage, aiming to only throw out a lightweight grass toupee.

Completely cleared, the ground was ready for the most exciting part: a serious tillin’.

The tiller, I’ve been really excited about since our trip to Arizona for the Black & Decker Blogger Event. It’s the only product that we didn’t have a chance to test on-site, probably because the Angels field maintenance crew didn’t want to deal with our path of destruction, but I’ve been eager to give it a try in our own yard.

No, I’ve never tilled before. Never operated anything that did such a thing so powerfully. I assembled it myself on the deck last weekend, and was eager to put it to use, so I got to it.

For a number of reasons, I decided to make this part of the post a video:

• Pete wasn’t home to see the tiller off on her maiden voyage. It’s partially for him.
• Sure, it’s kind of like a lawnmower, but I’ve never operated a tiller so I didn’t know what to expect. I thought you might like to see what a first-timer goes through to operate the product.
• It seemed like a more entertaining option.

It was a one-time video shoot, with no redos and no retouching. I think you’ll be able to tell that I’m a tilling newbie right off the bat. Nonetheless, enjoy. I want to take it to the whole lawn now. Anyone have something I can power through?

I’m weird, right? Was I tilling deep enough? That thing was yanking me all over, which I guess is what it’s supposed to do to an extent, and I guess goes to prove that the 36V cordless product by Black & Decker has some brute strength for being battery-powered. Yeah, I need to practice more, that’s the lesson here.

The finished and tilled squares looked and felt good. Very light soil, but not enough yet. Before I loaded more into position, I had to get the planters in place and installed, which was as simple as pulling the structures back into position and hammering the rebar into the ground so they were flush with the top of the box. The dog happily scratched himself in the background, he’s uncontrollable.

These things are locked. in. tight.

The big game plan was to use the box on the left for tomatoes, and the one on the right for an assorted mass of flowers. Before I could begin planting and seeding, I bought a lot (a lot, a lot) of soil to optimize the situation.

$30 bought me a healthy amount of peat moss, planter soil, in-ground gardening moisture-hold soil, hummus and manure for the tomatoes, and extra dirt. I made my dollar go a little further by purposefully selecting damaged bags at Home Depot; even a little tear in the bag (with seemingly no lost soil) saved me 10-50% off the retail price depending on the extent of the damage. It’s my understanding that “it all depends on the person ringing you out” so be sure to inquire and point out all damages when you’re paying to save a few dollars.

Spread and mixed up a little by hand, both planters were considerably more filled and ready for planting. Notice that the soil on the left is darker? That’s thanks to the hummus and manure bags, which I layered in to give the tomato babies extra nutrients.

I sprinkled flower seeds in the one on the right; only time will tell what that’s going to look like. For now, not much, but expect to be seeing Four O’Clocks, Marigolds, Gazania, and Gomphrena. Crossing my finger that they take root since the impatients were a big fat failure.

The tomatoes have been adjusting to real sunlight in the sunroom over the last week; my parents start them from seed early every spring and hand deliver me whatever ones they think I’ll like best. So lucky. These little guys just about ready to go into the ground. Hoping to get them adjusted this afternoon.

Till anything good lately? How does your springtime garden grow?

I successfully chiseled off a lot of it when I painted the garage door last summer, but that doesn’t mean that it’s inching it’s way back into place.

In this week’s post on DIY Network, I corralled the wild beast with a unique contemporary trellis. Check it out for yourself, and then go make one for less than $5.

To see more of my posts on DIY Network, browse here.

The yard is entirely fenced in, which as a dog-owner, is a great thing. I never thought Cody would try and escape through this little hole beneath the kitchen overhang in the backyard, but we have visiting dog friends over routinely enough that I’ve kept these cinder blocks from the previous homeowners in place to plug the gap between the steel frame fence and the house foundation. I suppose it helps to keep out other people’s wandering pets and wandering wild animals too.

Funny thing is, as soon as I removed the cinder blocks in preparation for this project, Pete came outside to find Cody exploring the unfenced front yard. So much for thinking my big dog wouldn’t try to shimmy through that little hole. Curious peanut.

The simple solution that I’ve been planning for some time involved making a little fence, almost like a picket fence, to cover the space subtly, but look more finished than a stack of cement.

After spending Sunday re-familiarizing myself with all of the scrap wood during the springtime garage clean-out, I picked out a few pressure-treated pieces of 5/4 lumber that we had saved from when we built the deck. Measuring only 18″Wx15″H, it was a small space to be building for and wouldn’t require that much wood, so the plentiful amount on hand was more than enough.

We even had a few narrower 1x boards that would serve well as cross braces. And as much as I wanted the new fence to look like the front porch and pergola railings, it made more sense to align the lumber to stand vertically and blend in more with the steel-framed gate over time. With a few quick chop-chops from the chop saw, I had them sized to perfection.

Oh. The Gennifer Choldenko novel? Just something from the shelf that helped me evenly separate the boards while I secured the pieces together with the nail gun. Sometimes I’m really high-tech like that. I haven’t actually read the book yet, but I picked it up from a garage sale because I thought it might be funny. Yay or nay?

Material investments for this project were of minimal expense. Because let’s face it, it’s a tiny gate. I bought:

• Two 2-3/8″ brace bands used in chain link fence construction. Priced at $1.22 each, they didn’t break the bank.
• A new set of 1/4″x5″ galvanized bolts, washers, and nuts for $2.50 (those shown in this picture are actually 3/8ths and ended up being just barely too thick to fit in the holes on the brace bands but I had to try them anyways since they were leftovers in the basement. The 1/4″ diameter was perfect.)
• The lumber was free-zilla since it was pulled from my scrap pile, and the nail gun, 1-3/8″ brads, and air compressor were pulled straight from the basement.
• Total cost: less than $5.00

The brace bands themselves were the perfect find. They clamped right onto the steel bar that the real gate hinges to, and because they grip so well, it takes a lot of force to move them around. This was good, because I didn’t want a doggie-door style gate that could be pushed open.

Side note: See how the band actually wants to splay a little bit? That’s an easy fix with a little tap-tap of the hammer to force the tabs closer together.

By pre-drilling through the assembled fence, I was able to install the carriage bolts easily through the braces and secure them tightly. Buying 5″ bolts was clearly overkill so I had to trim the long ends down a little bit with a hack saw to make them less of a dog-poking hazard.

The resulting piece is so fresh and clean in the space. Eventually, given time and weather it’ll age to look more like the gate it’s beside.

And as I’ve said, the braces make it stay really strong in position. Even though it’s not anchored to the house itself, It doesn’t want to twist or swing like a normal gate would, so “fully fenced-in” still holds true.

With the beautiful weather this week, I was also able to finish two other outdoor projects this week. I’m feelin’ all muscle-y and power-tool-pumped. More to come tomorrow!

Three years ago this morning I still didn’t know what I’d owe at closing that same day (poor girl, bank-panic, high blood pressure). Three years ago by noon I was scared that the old homeowners would take it back (there were issues all around, and luckily they didn’t). Three years ago at 2PM they told me they lost the house keys (and then found them moments before I went into hysterics). And three years ago by nightfall, I had already removed every last piece of carpet in the living room, on the stairs, and in all three bedrooms (and I love those hardwoods every day). Take a moment to speed through the before + afters page today in celebration.

Not intentionally aligned with the 3rd home-a-versary festivities, Pete and I spent all day Sunday doing something that I’ve been talking about doing since I moved in: Getting the garage seriously organized.

For the first year I lived here, I didn’t have much and only opened the garage door in order to move the garbage can in and out. One year later, Pete and I were dating and became the proud owners of a pair of scooters which lived in the garage for most of the year. We also rebuilt the deck, a task which left us with a garage full of tools and materials. Last spring, he moved in and the garage became home to more stuff. Car stuff. Motorcycle stuff. Heavy-duty home repair stuff.

And as recently as Saturday, it looked like this:

Our first order of business was to clear the entire space out and sweep it clean. I can’t even explain how it ends up getting so dirty when it’s closed 99% of the time and trafficked mostly by foot, it’s like a magical forcefield for dirt and pinecones.

Quickly cleaned out and swept, it looked good. We need to keep it looking this good. I was downright close to repainting the walls while we had it emptied, but I left it for another time.

The contents, on the other hand, filled the driveway. And part of the neighbor’s driveway. And the backyard.

Pete’s big goal was to install shelving into the cinder block frame, a task I hadn’t bothered tackling myself because it seemed more intimidating than installing shelves into common wall studs.

We had a set of three white shelves with brackets still attached the day three years ago when I moved in and removed them from the inset cove in the dining room that’s now home to my built-in shelves. Living in the basement ever since, it was nice to have decent shelving on hand that we could reinstall in a pinch. Fo’ free. Well, almost free.

Our only splurge for this endeavor was a set of heavy-duty wall anchors. This kit at Home Depot only cost $11 yet gave us more than 10x the amount that we actually needed for the job. Always nice to have some extra anchors on hand, right? And these are “for all materials” cinder block included, so it’ll be nice to have for the basement whenever we get around to reorganizing that space.

Installing anything securely into something as robust as cinder block is something I’ve been curious about, but it went really smoothly. We predrilled each hole with a masonry bit, and then easily tapped the anchor into position. (the $25 set that Pete has actually has a whole selection of these heavy-duty-toothy bits, score, and our set of anchors came with one too, double-score).

It’s times like this when we’re cement-drilling and pounding and shop-vac’ing that I wonder why the dog can be so calm and sleepy, when anytime he’s in the same room as the Dyson, even when it’s not running, he’s looks like he’s about to pass out cold from fear.

This particular bracket that he was installing above has to do with a little wood storage area we built in the back of the garage. By anchoring two brackets opposite each other, we were able to run a 9’4″ 2×4 across them to create a little barrier. Just before the barrier was installed, we hauled a bunch of flat cement blocks from the back storage shed built onto the garage and lined the floor with them, partially to help keep the scrap wood from sitting directly on the sometimes-wet cement floor, but also to get them out of the back room and let them serve some purpose until we actually need them. We’re wood hoarders and cement block hoarders over here. (Side note: The latter, I have to attribute to always having to buy cinder blocks to hoist my dorm bed during college, which was a total waste of money and a pain in the you-know-what. Are you with me?)

While Pete worked on installing the white shelves on the left wall of the garage, I reloaded and organized our scrap lumber into the back 18″ of the garage. The scraps consist of reclaimed barnwood and trim pieces, a bit of common lumber (some pressure-treated, some not), a bin of short-pieces that still big enough to be considered useful for something, and plywood pieces. And the dog still slept.

The shelves that Pete hung on the left side of the garage are the ones I mentioned being repurposed from the dining room. In solid condition, they’re deep, and since the anchors can allegedly each support 51-lbs. and six are supporting the horizontal weight of each shelf, they should be able to hold quite a bit once we get them loaded.

For now, it’s just a nice place to hold our bike helmets and riding gloves.

We did purposefully hang them at our own eye-level (about 5’5″ off the ground) so that it would be:
1) easy to see so you don’t whack your eyeball into them,
2) high enough to not disrupt the average car that’s pulling into the driveway (we don’t use it for our cars, but you know, someday maybe),
3) we could still see on top of them without a step stool

The third shelf was added in the back beyond the window and is already packed with “stuff we need but don’t need often” like Pete’s bike cover and back support for the Harley, and an extra couple of chargers. We also saved Julia’s 3-wheeler and all of our yard sale signs for future play. The wine bottles on the floor in the corner? Don’t point fingers at me, I pulled them from the curb of a restaurant (odd, I know) and have been planning to do something with them. You know, someday.

Stepping back, the room as a whole looks pretty charming.

What do I like most of all? How Pete lined our bikes up in a very showroom-esque way. It’ll be so easy to get them in and out of there now if we keep the other half of the garage cleared.

On the other wall, Pete hung two brackets to support the extension ladder (it was previously just on the floor, so it’s nice to get it up and out of the way since it isn’t used all that often). He also screwed some cement screws into the wall on which we could hang the sawhorses. The plywood along the wall is something we’re about to take away, Pete has big plans for it in his parent’s kitchen. More to come on that at dadand.com.

And if you’re wondering, celebrated with my Mom on Saturday, which is why our whole Sunday was free to tackle crazy things like this. There was no Mom-neglect. And Mom thought the garage was damn messy anyways. How was your weekend?

The easy solution was to design and build a little step stool, mostly with Pete’s daughter Julia in mind, but really to service any kids that were over and needing to use the bathroom sink. I finally built it easily in an afternoon and am really thrilled with it as a utilitarian piece, but also love how it turned out as a whole. Best of all? It was f-r-e-e using scrap wood, and extra screws and bolts.

I started with a single piece of leftover 2x10x4′ pine board, from which I planned to make a chunky wooden model that would be small enough to tuck aside in the bathroom, but tall and sturdy enough to do what it was intended to do, hoist kids closer to the faucet. I got to work.

Side note: We used this scrap back in the bathroom tiling days as a place to set our mortar bucket and  tools. Consequently, it still had lots of mortar stuck to it, but it all sanded right off.

Picking measurements for this step stool, I went based on what “felt right” for my bathroom. I ended up with a top surface measuring 15″ in length, two legs measuring 6″ in height, and two center support pieces measuring 10″x3″.

Loosely assembled (upside down), this is how it was designed to come together:

I even took an extra step to cut a series of 1-3/4″ circles in the top to serve two purposes: 1) they give adults something quick to grab to pick up and move the step stool out of the way and 2) give the kids feet something to grip to, lessening the chance of accidental slips. No, the holes aren’t big enough for a kid’s foot to accidentally fall through.

With the placement of all four circles marked in pencil (evenly spaced apart horizontally and along the same plane vertically) I used a common drill bit to pre-drill through the board itself, and followed up with the hole saw drill bit to create my 1-3/4″ holes.

Pre-drilling isn’t always necessary with the hole saw bit, but these 2x boards are thicker than the hole saw bit is, meaning that I had to cut part way through on the board one way, and then flip it and drill through from the other side. The predrilled hole keeps everything aligned really nicely, so there was no mis-drilling on any of the four holes.

With the top step of the stool done, I moved on to the base and assembled the frame using 2.5″ wood screws and several sized drill bits to create a counter-sunken effect. We don’t own a Kreg jig, but by pre-drilling with a small bit and then following up by drilling about 1/4″-1/2″ with a bit larger than the head of the screw, you can achieve the same finished effect by sinking the screws out of sight but still at the necessary angle.

Getting the base fully assembled was an effort, because the drill itself is only so tiny to get into the small area between each reinforcements. I wanted all eight screws hidden within the frame, not visible from the outside, so I made do by using Pete’s impact driver which is a bit shorter and narrower than the rest of our cordless and corded drills. Still a tighter fit than if the entire stool was 18″ long instead of 15″, but it worked well.

By attaching the step stool top to the frame from beneath using four 4″ lag bolts, I was able to achieve a finished look that was clean-lined without protruding bolts and screws, and really, really sturdy.

The finished piece is sanded smooth but still raw wood and heavy; I’m planning on eventually giving it a coat of stain to finish it off although I’m kind of digging how nice the light wood looks beside the IKEA veneer. It’s a charming little addition to the bathroom.

It fits perfectly beside the sink and is easily accessed, but is completely out of the line of traffic when you’re walking into and out of the bathroom. Easy enough to slide out of the way with your foot, and thanks to the holes in the top, it’s a pinch to pick up as well.

Make anything handy this weekend?