Archive for the ‘Tips and Tricks’ Category

I recently put a chain link dog kennel in my backyard to keep the deer, possums and squirrels out of my garden. Once I had it put together it stuck out like a sore thumb. When I looked out in my backyard all I could see was this huge galvanized steel structure glaring out at me. I decided to paint it black and wow what a difference, with it being painted black you see straight through it and it doesn’t interrupt our views.

I had my entire structure put together when I decided to paint so I chose to use spray paint on the support bars and roll the chain link fence. Make sure you choose a paint that is suitable for metal, I used RustOleum. When choosing a roller to paint the chain link make sure you get one with a really thick nap, this will save you a lot of time since it will get into all the little areas.

I learned a few lessons from my little project. The first was paint the chain link first and then go back and spray the support bars. If you paint the support bars first the movement of the chain link when your rolling it will remove the wet paint you previously sprayed on. The second is painting the chain link is MESSY! I had paint splashes all over my hands and arms. If you are using an oil based paint the most natural and easiest way I found to remove it is using olive oil. The third is paint the chain link diagonally one direction and then the other. The time spent painting a chain link fence is well worth it, it gives it a whole new look and makes it look more expensive than a cheap chain link fence.

You can see the before picture here.

My painted chain link fence

I love the outdoors, we spend a lot of time out on our patio area in the summer. As beautiful as it is Mother Nature sure can make a mess of it. Yesterday I went out to pressure wash the house around the patio area. I love the look of a white house but white vinyl siding takes a lot of work to keep it clean. I pulled the ladder out, cleaned up to the roof line and thought I’d give the concrete a spray down while I was out there. I knew it wasn’t pristine but I sure wasn’t expecting what I got after the first swipe. The concrete was uniformly dirty so I never realized the amount of mold and dirt that had become such a huge part of my patio. I spent an hour cleaning the patio and can’t believe the difference it made.  I have a love hate relationship with my pressure washer, I love how easy it is to get everything looking sparkling clean but when I clean one section it makes everything around it look dirty. I clean the next section, then the next and soon realize there is no end in sight. It has to be my favorite piece of outdoor equipment, something all homeowners should have.

Last year I took my pressure washer to my parents house and gave their old fences an all new look in an hour. My dad was complaining about needing new fence boards. It took about two hours but the fence looked like new. I found that I could teach a very old dog new tricks. The two hours I spent washing the fence saved my dad a small fortune in time and supplies and gave their back yard a fresh new look.

My daughter has a head full of hair and I’ve been able to put bows in it since she was six months old. In the past three years we’ve managed to accumulate more bows than I care to admit. I had a makeup case that we called the bow bag they were all being stored in. When the bows started multiplying the bag became filled to the point that I couldn’t find anything in it. Then my son discovered how to work zippers and he found that dumping all the bows was fun. I started looking online for bow holders and couldn’t believe the price of some of them. Really, $70 for $8 worth of supplies and it’ll only hold 50 bows. When I finally had enough of picking up bows I decided to make my own.

I made a trip to Hobby Lobby armed with a 40% off coupon they have available on their site almost every week. I had no idea what I was after so I started on the ribbon aisle and picked up some ribbon that matched my daughters room. I was happy to find that it was a week where all ribbon spools were 50% off. I picked out four spools of ribbon and started wandering the aisles aimlessly looking for something to attach them to. I walked by of display of 16×20 canvases that were 50% off and decided that would be perfect. The grand total of all supplies $8.73. I thought I was a genius for thinking this up by sadly with the power of Google I found a few people thought of it before me.

When I got home I pulled out my hot glue gun and went to work gluing the ribbon to the back of the board and wrapping it across the front. I also used the hot glue gun to glue on the ribbon that it hangs on. I spent less than half an hour putting this together. I was worried how it would hold up with the ribbons being put on with hot glue but after three months of daily use it is still holding strong and still looks great.

I’m a self proclaimed expert at stripping wallpaper. We bought our current house because of its potential, it certainly had nothing to do with nine rooms of hideous wallpaper that all needed to be stripped. When I was preparing to strip the paper I went online and looked for the easiest way to do it. Everything I read pointed to the scorer and stripping gel that you can buy from local hardware stores. I managed one wall with that in three hours so I considered that a $35 lesson learned and a big fail. The next method I used was dawn and hot water in a spray bottle, this method took three hours as well. It was time consuming and extremely messy so another big fail. I would have tried a steamer but we have wallpapered ceilings in some rooms that look really nice and we wanted to keep so steaming was out of the question.

I finally devised my own method that is both cheap and easy. The only tools required are a large paint brush, a bucket and hot water. I boiled water, poured it into my bucket, painted the hot water on over the wallpaper with the paint brush, let it sit for a minute and peeled the paper off. Depending on the paper you can sometimes get lucky and get both layers off in one go. If the backing stays on the wall just paint over it with more hot water and peel or scrape the second layer off. On sheet rock walls it really can be that easy! Don’t make my mistake and fall victim to all the expensive “miracle” products.

Here is a small sampling of the eclectic mix of wallpaper that was in this house when we bought it. I’m sure most of you agree that this wallpaper was well past its use by date and had to go.