Last week, I finally bought something I've been lusting over for months now ... a subscription to HGTV magazine. I have a feeling B and his dad are going to have a bunch more projects added to the list for this summer. Anyway, I had been watching subscription rates for a while, and when they dropped to $15 for a year's subscription, I knew it was the perfect timing.
What I didn't realize when I purchased the subscription was that it was for print only. Martha Stewart tricked me. With my Martha Stewart Living magazine subscription, a digital copy of every issue from the subscription was available - at the time, I didn't have my iPad and I couldn't get it on my Kindle Fire, so I never used it. When I finally bought the HGTV subscription - post iPad purchase - I was really looking forward to my free digital copy, only to be let down when I realized that I would have to pay a couple dollars an issue for the digital version. I did a little research, and found out that if I want to, I could switch my subscription to digital only, and now I can't decide. If I keep the print subscription, I'll be able to tear out pages I like and share my magazines with my mother-in-law (she was pretty pumped when I said I ordered the magazines - she's a huge HGTV fan). If I go with the digital subscription, I'll get the issue sooner, I won't be contributing to the death of trees, but I also won't be able to share, plus I think I'd kind of miss the feeling of the glossy magazine paper. I hate making decisions. First world problems.
This debate that I'm having with myself very closely reflects a conversation that B and his friend had during one of the earlier episodes of their podcast regarding their preference between print or digital content, specifically discussing movies, comic books, and video games. The general consensus was that digital copies are convenient, publishers of different forms of content are creating the digital files anyway, so people should have the option to buy premium packages for a couple extra dollars to have access to both (like most film companies offer Blu-Rays with Ultraviolet codes or just the Blu-Ray disk for a slightly discounted rate. The same should be offered for books, magazine subscriptions, etc.) I'm definitely the type of person who prefers to buy the physical copy of a book - there's something about a bookshelf full of things I've read and enjoyed that makes me happy. On the other hand, I also love the convenience of having content available on my iPad or phone rather than carting around a heavy book (my purses are stuffed full as it is).
I feel kind of awkward asking questions because this blog gets so little traffic, but what the hell ... where do you - my few but dear readers - fall on the digital vs physical copy spectrum?
Showing posts with label DIY on a budget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DIY on a budget. Show all posts
20 May 2013
28 September 2012
The Itch
I’m getting it again. The itch to give part of our house a facelift. Unfortunately I’m probably not going to be able to follow through for a while because we don’t have any money to put toward house projects (thanks, stupid medical bill). B isn’t going to be happy that I’m wanting to do this either. He hates house projects - he’s just not a handy DIY type of guy, so he probably won’t be too involved in the process when I finally get around to it. And that’s okay with me, I’m more than prepared to do this mostly on my own once we have the budget to do so.
My desire to update another room never really goes away, but it became a stronger, nagging need within the past month or so. Recently, my break between work shifts has been spent obsessively looking at home decor pins on Pinterest and watching HGTV (specifically Love It or List It, Property Brothers, and Income Property. Those are my top 3 favorites). All of the beautiful inspiration made me realize how ugly different parts of our house are (sorry house), and it sparked some ideas in my mind.
There are 2 rooms that I’d really love to tackle that I think could be done on a minimal budget and wouldn’t call for a lot of physically demanding work (I hope) - the laundry room and the front entryway. These rooms are in decent condition, but they’re so unattractive - wood panels in both rooms - including the ceiling of the front entryway. Yuck.
When I finally get permission from the Mister to update these rooms, they’ll both go through similar updates. Due to budgetary restrictions (aka we’re cheap and broke), the wood paneling will have to stay. It’s kind of crappy, but that’s more of a phase 2 update that will happen wayyyyy down the road. To make it look less gross, the plan is to prime both rooms with a high quality stain blocking primer (I’m researching what would be the best option), and then both rooms will be covered with a pretty color. In the laundry room, I’m thinking a nice pale blue to give it a light, clean, airy feeling. Choosing a color for the front entry is a little more difficult - it has to go with the ugly brown and orange-y floors (hopefully those will also be part of phase 2) and transition well into our brown/tan living room, but because the room currently wood and there’s wood paneling on the ceiling, I’m not really feeling more brown. I’d love to throw in a light, fun color, but it needs to “go” with the style and feel of the rest of the house. Paint colors are tricky. Both rooms will get some nice DIY’ed art treatments and will be de-cluttered, and that’s pretty much the bulk of the work I’ll be able to do on my own.
There are a few projects that I’d like to convince my father-in-law to build for the 2 rooms (I’d try to help at least). In the laundry room, I’d like to find room for a laundry basket dresser (like the one shown here) and possibly even a litter box hider (like this one). The front entry needs a bench with storage underneath for shoes. I feel like all three of these projects should be fairly easy for B’s dad to build, but they’re the lowest priorities on my list, so they’ll be more likely to be a part of phase 2.
I really hope that we can get around to doing the easy, minor updates soon - I’m ready for some change.
My desire to update another room never really goes away, but it became a stronger, nagging need within the past month or so. Recently, my break between work shifts has been spent obsessively looking at home decor pins on Pinterest and watching HGTV (specifically Love It or List It, Property Brothers, and Income Property. Those are my top 3 favorites). All of the beautiful inspiration made me realize how ugly different parts of our house are (sorry house), and it sparked some ideas in my mind.
There are 2 rooms that I’d really love to tackle that I think could be done on a minimal budget and wouldn’t call for a lot of physically demanding work (I hope) - the laundry room and the front entryway. These rooms are in decent condition, but they’re so unattractive - wood panels in both rooms - including the ceiling of the front entryway. Yuck.
When I finally get permission from the Mister to update these rooms, they’ll both go through similar updates. Due to budgetary restrictions (aka we’re cheap and broke), the wood paneling will have to stay. It’s kind of crappy, but that’s more of a phase 2 update that will happen wayyyyy down the road. To make it look less gross, the plan is to prime both rooms with a high quality stain blocking primer (I’m researching what would be the best option), and then both rooms will be covered with a pretty color. In the laundry room, I’m thinking a nice pale blue to give it a light, clean, airy feeling. Choosing a color for the front entry is a little more difficult - it has to go with the ugly brown and orange-y floors (hopefully those will also be part of phase 2) and transition well into our brown/tan living room, but because the room currently wood and there’s wood paneling on the ceiling, I’m not really feeling more brown. I’d love to throw in a light, fun color, but it needs to “go” with the style and feel of the rest of the house. Paint colors are tricky. Both rooms will get some nice DIY’ed art treatments and will be de-cluttered, and that’s pretty much the bulk of the work I’ll be able to do on my own.
There are a few projects that I’d like to convince my father-in-law to build for the 2 rooms (I’d try to help at least). In the laundry room, I’d like to find room for a laundry basket dresser (like the one shown here) and possibly even a litter box hider (like this one). The front entry needs a bench with storage underneath for shoes. I feel like all three of these projects should be fairly easy for B’s dad to build, but they’re the lowest priorities on my list, so they’ll be more likely to be a part of phase 2.
I really hope that we can get around to doing the easy, minor updates soon - I’m ready for some change.
28 December 2011
Not-So-Extreme Home Makeover: Completed Edition
Yes, that’s right - the guest bedroom project has finally been completed … mostly. The hard labor is done anyway. We still need to replace the blinds and ceiling fan/light and move the furniture back in, but other than that … done-zo. It is so exciting to see the mostly finished product - it looks like it belongs in a different house. Rather than babbling on, I’m just going to load this post with after pictures. Enjoy!
*Warning: These pictures are kind of redundant. I tried to get every angle, so what you’ll see is the full room*
There you have it, the completed room. I’m quite proud of this little transformation, and can’t wait to share my ideas and inspiration for the future of this room!
*Warning: These pictures are kind of redundant. I tried to get every angle, so what you’ll see is the full room*
There you have it, the completed room. I’m quite proud of this little transformation, and can’t wait to share my ideas and inspiration for the future of this room!
11 December 2011
Murphy's Law
Today was supposed to be the day the bedroom project was finally completed. Of course, that was before we found an uneven spot way back on the side we started with. It couldn’t just be left alone either, because there was a significant gap. Not cool. So B and his dad attempted to fix the spot, but a piece of laminate broke and had to be replaced, and then the rest of the laminate wouldn’t lay flush … And I failed to mention that this happened when the entire floor was nearly finished.
So B and his dad had to take the floor apart, but they kept it in order so that reassembling it wouldn’t take as long. Unfortunately, that fiasco meant that the guys ran out of time to finish the room (all that’s left is installing the trim), so we’re looking at another weekend of working on the room. After that though, it should be done. I hope. Anyway, here’s how the room looks, sans trim:
So B and his dad had to take the floor apart, but they kept it in order so that reassembling it wouldn’t take as long. Unfortunately, that fiasco meant that the guys ran out of time to finish the room (all that’s left is installing the trim), so we’re looking at another weekend of working on the room. After that though, it should be done. I hope. Anyway, here’s how the room looks, sans trim:
06 December 2011
The Funny Thing About Life
Is that things never go as planned.
According to B and his pops, ugly orange-rust carpet removal was super easy (I was in the kitchen washing a shitload of dishes and begging any deity who would listen for the means to purchase a dish washing appliance during that step). But alas, it turned out the hardwoods beneath the ugly carpet were not so pretty after all. Super disappointing.
After discussing our options with my Father-in-Law and Hubs, we all decided that it would be the best decision to just buy laminate floors instead of refinishing the existing floors (Option A: put down laminate. Option B: spend a fortune putting down new carpeting. Option C: spend a fortune refinishing the floor). Father-in-Law broke it down like this: it would take over a month to re-finish the floors (because he only comes over on Sundays to help us with our home improvements), there would be no guarantee that they would turn out nice, and the cost of renting the sander and dealing with staining and sealing the floors would all be a pain in the behind. As much as I would have loved to preserve the original hardwood floors, it just didn’t make sense. After very briefly mourning the hardwoods that would be no more, I went into research mode, looking up our laminate options at Home Depot and Menard’s. Realizing that online prices can sometimes be too good to be true, we ventured out to the stores to see what we could find that would *hopefully* not break the budget.
We started at Home Depot in the clearance section, where we found a viable option in a medium finish, but it wasn’t perfect. Our ideal flooring was a darker cherry finish, so we went into the full priced flooring section, which we quickly realized was a mistake. To put down a full priced laminate floor in our 9’x13’ room, it would cost us over $300 for the flooring we liked. Not going to happen. For comparison’s sake, we decided it was time to head across the street to Menard’s to see what they had to offer, keeping our choice from Home Depot’s clearance section as the front runner. Menard’s had several more reasonable options, and we all agreed pretty quickly on Tarkett Newport Laminate in Walnut Exotic Cherry. At $25.99 a box (sale price), we only (ha!) spent $193 on the flooring, and it looks awesome (even in it’s partially finished state. It will be completed next Sunday. I will be very angry if it isn’t).
The addition of laminate floors moves the total spent on this project up to $260. Over our budget of $250 and still not quite complete (we need to replace the blinds on both of the windows), but the room looks a million times better, so I think we’re okay with the overage.
Here’s a [blurry-ish] iPhone picture of a finished corner of the room as a reward for reading this saga.
According to B and his pops, ugly orange-rust carpet removal was super easy (I was in the kitchen washing a shitload of dishes and begging any deity who would listen for the means to purchase a dish washing appliance during that step). But alas, it turned out the hardwoods beneath the ugly carpet were not so pretty after all. Super disappointing.
After discussing our options with my Father-in-Law and Hubs, we all decided that it would be the best decision to just buy laminate floors instead of refinishing the existing floors (Option A: put down laminate. Option B: spend a fortune putting down new carpeting. Option C: spend a fortune refinishing the floor). Father-in-Law broke it down like this: it would take over a month to re-finish the floors (because he only comes over on Sundays to help us with our home improvements), there would be no guarantee that they would turn out nice, and the cost of renting the sander and dealing with staining and sealing the floors would all be a pain in the behind. As much as I would have loved to preserve the original hardwood floors, it just didn’t make sense. After very briefly mourning the hardwoods that would be no more, I went into research mode, looking up our laminate options at Home Depot and Menard’s. Realizing that online prices can sometimes be too good to be true, we ventured out to the stores to see what we could find that would *hopefully* not break the budget.
We started at Home Depot in the clearance section, where we found a viable option in a medium finish, but it wasn’t perfect. Our ideal flooring was a darker cherry finish, so we went into the full priced flooring section, which we quickly realized was a mistake. To put down a full priced laminate floor in our 9’x13’ room, it would cost us over $300 for the flooring we liked. Not going to happen. For comparison’s sake, we decided it was time to head across the street to Menard’s to see what they had to offer, keeping our choice from Home Depot’s clearance section as the front runner. Menard’s had several more reasonable options, and we all agreed pretty quickly on Tarkett Newport Laminate in Walnut Exotic Cherry. At $25.99 a box (sale price), we only (ha!) spent $193 on the flooring, and it looks awesome (even in it’s partially finished state. It will be completed next Sunday. I will be very angry if it isn’t).
The addition of laminate floors moves the total spent on this project up to $260. Over our budget of $250 and still not quite complete (we need to replace the blinds on both of the windows), but the room looks a million times better, so I think we’re okay with the overage.
Here’s a [blurry-ish] iPhone picture of a finished corner of the room as a reward for reading this saga.
04 December 2011
Light at the End of the Tunnel
I can finally see it. Last Sunday, I spent a good portion of the day working on the bedroom project. My father-in-law sanded because I’m useless at it, then we (even B!) touched up the primer, re-painted the ceiling, and got the first coat of paint on the walls. So exciting! The second coat of paint went up Monday morning (all by myself), and then I worked on moving the books that were stashed on the bed into the scrap room, where the bookshelf was hidden away. This Sunday, we will be removing the ugly orange-rust carpet. I’m not sure how soon we will start refinishing the floor, but I’m hoping right away so that we can get this room moved to the finished column of my home improvements list. To be honest, I’m a little nervous about the floor underneath the ugly carpet. B’s dad has told me about a dozen times that when he owned this house, they were putting in new carpet, saw the hardwood underneath, and were going to refinish the floors in the master bedroom but couldn’t because the carpet was glued to the floor. During this project, I’ve been seeing some carpet fibers stuck to floor. I just hope that the wood is in good enough condition that refinishing will be an easy-ish process. My fingers are crossed. Now that the room is painted (and mostly complete), I have to say that I love the way the room is turning out. It would be nice if the room had better lighting (the only source of artificial light in the room comes from a ceiling fan that is not centered in the room), but I think I can live with what we have. Besides the floor, there are a few other finishing touches that are left to complete, but we’ll get to those later. The updated expenditure on this room is about $67 currently. I ended up having B buy more primer for about $15 (the stain in the ceiling leached through the color changing paint, so we painted the ceiling again with stain blocking primer), and we paid $7 for rollers because I was tired of washing the ones we had. They were old and nasty. The edges near the ceiling turned out looking pretty nice and finished so we will not be putting molding around the top of the walls, so we will be saving a bit of money and labor there (yay!). Hopefully this is a good omen.
21 November 2011
Update on Guest Room
So I’ve been working on this guest bedroom pretty regularly for the past week, and I haven’t made all that much progress. After sanding some areas, we found more spots that needed to be mended with mud. I actually did the mudding myself - I’m pretty proud. While that was drying, I ended up priming 3 of the 4 walls (the fourth had wet mud on it), and on Sunday B’s dad came over again and did some sanding and found MORE PLACES THAT NEEDED MUD!! Ugh. Of course.
Before my 2 hour shift at work this afternoon, I managed to get one area of the angled ceiling painted. And then … I found another spot that needed to be mended with mud. So frustrating. B’s dad thinks that we should paint the ceiling before we paint the walls - I don’t want to wait! I want to get my lovely Coventry Gray paint on the walls! (Coventry Gray is a Benjamin Moore color, but we had it color matched to the in house brand at Ace to save money) My goal for the rest of the day is to get the final wall primed, and maybe I’ll do some more work on the ceiling … I really really really want to get paint on the walls by Thursday (or Wednesday night), but I don’t think it’s going to work out.
This weekend, we (who am I kidding, this is all me) decided to put white molding around by the ceiling like B’s dad put in the bathroom. So that’s another thing to add some time and money onto this project. Oh, and under the carpet we have some nice hardwood floors, so the carpet will come out, the floor will be refinished, and molding will go around the bottom of the wall. I’m hoping to keep our budget limited to $200. We’re doing pretty well so far - the primer and ceiling paint were leftovers from previous projects (aka free), the paint and one roll of painters tape cost us $29, the small container of mud was $8, and the sand texture to be added to the paint was about $8, putting the grand total so far at about $45 (I rounded totals up). All of our materials have been bought from Ace Hardware. It is possible that we will need to buy another can of ceiling paint (we’ve been using Glidden’s color changing ceiling paint - it’s pretty nice. It starts out light pink when you first roll it on, and it changes to white as it dries) but I’m realllllllllllllly hoping we won’t have to shell out the cash for that …
I hope this project is over soon.
For funsies, here’s an in-progress picture!
Before my 2 hour shift at work this afternoon, I managed to get one area of the angled ceiling painted. And then … I found another spot that needed to be mended with mud. So frustrating. B’s dad thinks that we should paint the ceiling before we paint the walls - I don’t want to wait! I want to get my lovely Coventry Gray paint on the walls! (Coventry Gray is a Benjamin Moore color, but we had it color matched to the in house brand at Ace to save money) My goal for the rest of the day is to get the final wall primed, and maybe I’ll do some more work on the ceiling … I really really really want to get paint on the walls by Thursday (or Wednesday night), but I don’t think it’s going to work out.
This weekend, we (who am I kidding, this is all me) decided to put white molding around by the ceiling like B’s dad put in the bathroom. So that’s another thing to add some time and money onto this project. Oh, and under the carpet we have some nice hardwood floors, so the carpet will come out, the floor will be refinished, and molding will go around the bottom of the wall. I’m hoping to keep our budget limited to $200. We’re doing pretty well so far - the primer and ceiling paint were leftovers from previous projects (aka free), the paint and one roll of painters tape cost us $29, the small container of mud was $8, and the sand texture to be added to the paint was about $8, putting the grand total so far at about $45 (I rounded totals up). All of our materials have been bought from Ace Hardware. It is possible that we will need to buy another can of ceiling paint (we’ve been using Glidden’s color changing ceiling paint - it’s pretty nice. It starts out light pink when you first roll it on, and it changes to white as it dries) but I’m realllllllllllllly hoping we won’t have to shell out the cash for that …
I hope this project is over soon.
For funsies, here’s an in-progress picture!
14 November 2011
Guest Room Facelift
This weekend was pretty monumental for our household. Let me set the scene:
Hubs and I are in one of the spare bedrooms (Hubs is changing his clothes, I’m bothering him, as per usual)
Me: Hey B, why don’t you try pulling on that Packer border to see how easily it comes down?
Hubs: Okay.
Me: NO NO NO I was just kidding. If you pulled it we’d have to do the whole room.
Hubs: Okay (yank)
And so our next project began. We removed the ugly and falling down Packer border and the equally ugly white with green stripes wallpaper. By we removed, I mean we both started it, then we went to Menards to get supplies (after making a detour and getting dinner and picking up B’s dad), and then I rocked out to some jams and finished removing the rest of the wallpaper while Hubs watched “Breaking Bad” and hockey. On Sunday, B’s dad came over and fixed up some of the cracks in the plaster with some mud, and that ended day 2. He also loaned me his sanding attachment for the shop vac so I can sand the mudded areas and not have to deal with all of the dust. I wanted to work on it today but I couldn’t figure out how to attach the sander to the vac - turns out you have to put another attachment on first. Duh. So now the plan is to sand everything tomorrow so that we’ll know if there are any areas that need more mud, and hopefullywe’ll I’ll be priming and painting by this weekend.
At this point, you may be wondering - what color did we choose for this room? I’m going with a light-medium gray. I think it will look really clean and modern, and will be a great backdrop for some awesome punches of color. Specifically, buttery yellow and aqua. Oh, and this room? It’s the future nursery. I’m pretty excited to have this started. We’re still working on the baby-making, but the room is going to be an awesome guest bedroom until the time comes.
For comparison’s sake, here’s a couple of before pictures. Enjoy!
The ugly wallpaper and border
A [blurry] picture of another corner (you can see the plain white wall behind the dresser) - and a sneak peek at the beautiful rocking chair and the dresser that will be returning to the room in the future.
Hubs and I are in one of the spare bedrooms (Hubs is changing his clothes, I’m bothering him, as per usual)
Me: Hey B, why don’t you try pulling on that Packer border to see how easily it comes down?
Hubs: Okay.
Me: NO NO NO I was just kidding. If you pulled it we’d have to do the whole room.
Hubs: Okay (yank)
And so our next project began. We removed the ugly and falling down Packer border and the equally ugly white with green stripes wallpaper. By we removed, I mean we both started it, then we went to Menards to get supplies (after making a detour and getting dinner and picking up B’s dad), and then I rocked out to some jams and finished removing the rest of the wallpaper while Hubs watched “Breaking Bad” and hockey. On Sunday, B’s dad came over and fixed up some of the cracks in the plaster with some mud, and that ended day 2. He also loaned me his sanding attachment for the shop vac so I can sand the mudded areas and not have to deal with all of the dust. I wanted to work on it today but I couldn’t figure out how to attach the sander to the vac - turns out you have to put another attachment on first. Duh. So now the plan is to sand everything tomorrow so that we’ll know if there are any areas that need more mud, and hopefully
At this point, you may be wondering - what color did we choose for this room? I’m going with a light-medium gray. I think it will look really clean and modern, and will be a great backdrop for some awesome punches of color. Specifically, buttery yellow and aqua. Oh, and this room? It’s the future nursery. I’m pretty excited to have this started. We’re still working on the baby-making, but the room is going to be an awesome guest bedroom until the time comes.
For comparison’s sake, here’s a couple of before pictures. Enjoy!
The ugly wallpaper and border
A [blurry] picture of another corner (you can see the plain white wall behind the dresser) - and a sneak peek at the beautiful rocking chair and the dresser that will be returning to the room in the future.
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