Just How Much Do I Want to DIY?

My basic philosophy is that if I DIMDS, I will spend less, learn more and get better results. I'm at a stage in my life where it's worth investing the time in learning how to cook, do repairs and maintenance on my house, and make or build things out of found materials. If I learn to paint now, it will save me thousands over my lifetime in home updates. If I start collecting a good set of basic tools and corresponding know-how, I will gradually master home repair and again, save money in the long run. Most importantly, I want the knowledge to effectively hire experts when I need them and know I'm being treated fairly.

Beyond the basic stuff, there are lots of projects that are very tempting, like this recipe for homemade dishwasher detergent. They remind me of being a kid and mixing together either condiments or cosmetics to come up with some brand-new-never-before-tried creation that would wow my mom and win the hearts of the media. It's science!!

But how much time and money will they really save me over the store brand dry dishwasher detergent? I have set my hourly rate for these projects at $20, because I figure that's what it would take to get me to take on an extra part-time job. For less than $20, I would be better off staying home and getting caught up on chores and reading.

The other day, I got lost down the rabbit hole of DIY/frugal/sustainable projects online. I kept picking up my head and saying to Kevin, "What would you do if I started making my own ___?" I suggested bread, dish detergent, laundry soap, bath soap, taco seasoning, English muffins, curtains, and I still had half a dozen tabs open.

His response? "I would hope you would get bored with it soon and find something that is a more efficient use of your time." OK, so the man has a point. I am a person with a highly specialized skill set. People pay me both directly (when I tutor) and indirectly (when I work for a school district) to teach their children. And yet, and YET, what I really want is to make my own soap sometimes.

There are some things, like bread, where I definitely get a superior product for a lower price, at least during the summer when my schedule is flexible and I can be home to mix up a batch of no-knead bread dough and attend to it 12 hours later. I would love to do a little more wine-making (we've done a few small experiments) for variety and self-sufficiency.

Then there are other things, like laundry soap, that might save me money, but maybe the product isn't as good? And there are some things, like bath soap, that are just not worth the investment in learning, equipment and materials. Frankly, whatever bar soap is on sale is good enough for me. So I don't know where to draw the line.

My rule of thumb is if the project requires a minimal investment, and not too much time, then I should give it a shot. At worst, I'll learn something and gain a new appreciation for cheap, abundant products and their artisan equivalents. What do you think? When is it worth giving DIY a whirl, and when is it time to leave it up to the professionals?

Rush-Seated Chair

I explained to a co-worker once that I know if I ever went to an animal shelter, I would come home with a near-sighted, 3-legged dog with chronic asthma and the mange. I just pick the thing that needs the most love and attention. She suggested I never get married.


I am the same way about furniture. I have this impulse to uncover the good in each ratty table and chair at the curb, even when it's clearly not worth the time, or the money, to repair and refinish. Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't.

This rush-seated chair, which my dad inherited from his aunts, is one of my proudest furniture rescues. It fell over one night and one of the spindles on top broke. I glued it inexpertly, against my mother's advice, and left it in my room when I went to college. Years later, it ended up in my apartment in desperate need of refinishing and a new rush seat.

First, I cut away the old rush and the cardboard padding in the seat of the chair.

Then I used Citristrip to remove the old stain from the wood. Scrubbing the finish out of the woodwork on the legs was beastly, and it ended up still darker than the rest of the chair. I wiped the whole thing down with a tack cloth. I always think there must be a better way, every time I try to jam that sticky cloth back into a bag for storage.

This project is even more absurd when I remember that I managed it in a 550-square-foot apartment with wall-to-wall carpeting and no outdoor space.

When I finally had the wood clean and sanded, I coated it with stain. I have always used old pantyhose to rub on stain, which becomes harder every year because I am pleased to report that my life rarely requires pantyhose.

I put two coats of polyurethane on the chair frame and got a nice, semi-gloss finish. The wood has some really cool color effects that I never noticed as a kid because the stain was dark and covered with a hefty layer of nicotine. Mmm, nicotine.

Then came the fun part. I bought a roll of paper rush and a little how-to pamphlet from Cane and Reed in Manchester, Connecticut, because it's conveniently near my parents' place. I hoped that buying the materials in a store instead of online would get me some advice or at least some encouragement for my project. I didn't find it at Cane and Reed, but they had what I needed and it didn't cost much.

As you can see, I mostly used materials that I had around the house as place holders - binder clips, pencils and pens. Not only did I not know I would need these things before I got started, I still prefer to scavenge materials from my desk.

I followed the instructions in the book to weave the chair seat. The hardest part about the project was keeping the rush damp, but not too damp, and keeping the weaving even and taut. I used pieces torn from brown paper bags to fill the chair seat starting when I was halfway done, and I hope somewhere I put the date inside the seat, because I know that was all part of the plan.

I finished the chair seat by treating it with Johnson's Floor Wax rubbed into the rush seat and melted in with a hair dryer. This strengthens the paper rush and protects it from moisture and some wear. I repeated the waxing a few weeks after the first coat and, now that I think of it, should probably do it again.

It's definitely not a chair for everyday use, as the rush will wear, but it looks great in the corner and I'm really proud of putting it back in circulation. I just wish the stupid cat didn't like it so much.

There's a woven-seat rocking chair out on the porch, that was hear when I bought the house. Someday it will get the same treatment. Stay tuned!

This Old Hedge

When I moved into this house, it had a Hedge. Not a hedge, like a little group of shrubs providing some kind of border or visual accent in my yard, but a Hedge, designed to fend off invading armies. Once upon a time, it was privet. Once upon a time, it was probably only man-sized, too, but by 2011, it was threatening to overtake my front yard. This is the day I closed on the house, from the street...

And from the inside of the yard...

My aunts came to visit in the spring and in the course of a quiet Saturday visit, it was suggested that maybe we should trim the hedge. I said I was planning to take it out, but my aunt said, "Let's trim it and see how it looks. You don't want to give up such a nice hedge! We can cut it back and it will fill in and look lovely!"

It looked better. It really did. I tried to leave it and let it fill in. Really, I tried to love it, but it was choked with wild roses, bittersweet, and maple saplings. For like, a week, I tried to get used to this new hedge profile, and to appreciate the way it protected my front lawn and gave me privacy. But it was SO ugly and I hated it.

And luckily, my brother likes to dig stuff up. So, since he had a lot of the summer off, I persuaded him to go to town on the hedge. I did a couple hours of digging, sure, but he did the bulk of it. By September, it looked like this.

That big rock in the foreground of the photo was in a the ground among the bushes. We had to dig and lever it out. I think it will become part of the new walkway to my back door...someday. For now, it will just live in the front yard, where it makes the grass impossible to mow.

So now I have a blank slate. I'd like to move the front plantings, some low stuff, a little closer to the road than the hedge was. I did plant some grass, but mostly the weeds (and poison ivy) took over. The soil is terrible and sandy there, and the level of the soil is much lower than the lawn around it. It's basically a huge mess, but it is MY huge mess, and that counts for something.

Eventual plans:
-death to poison ivy in the front yard!
-a bed of low, grassy plants mixed with seasonal flowers
-2 dwarf apple trees in the front yard
-rework the flower/weed bed in front of the windows and the one next to the driveway, before they consume my entire front yard.
-keep one extra parking space in front of the house to supplement the driveway and leave the rest for growing things I actually choose
-use that big rock and a couple others to form an entry to the side yard, possibly with some kind of archway or gate

It's Good To Have A Man Around: Installing a Bathroom Vanity Light

Someone made some, well, questionable choices when outfitting my little bathroom. There is the full-size window in the shower, which looks out on the backyard. There is the hardwood floor. There is the flat yellow paint on the walls. And finally, there is this monstrous light fixture. It goes with nothing else in the bathroom, not the brushed nickel faucets, or the oiled bronze vanity knobs or the stainless steel shower fixtures, or the gold-toned doorknob, or the glass closet doorknob, or the brushed nickel robe hook.

This picture gives you a better idea of the unsuitable color and ornateness (that's a word now) of this fixture for my bathroom.

Aside from the light fixture, each individual fixture varies from functional to quite nice. The light, though. The light had to go.

I shopped around online and picked an assortment of three-light vanity fixtures, varying from curvy, modern metal to traditional straight bars with classic bell-shaped glass shades. I even looked at LED bathroom fixtures, but decided I didn't want to spend an extra $30 for LED when the one available at Lowe's put out less light than a traditional fixture and it would take me (according to Kevin's calculation) something like 28 years to realize the electricity savings.

In the end I settled on this fixture, which was in stock at Lowe's. It got the thumbs-up from both my sister-in-law and my friend, both of whom have impeccable taste. Plus it was only $69, a bargain compared to some of the other fixtures I looked at. Plus it didn't have that generic, contractor's-special look and feel that I got so sick of in all my years in apartments. 

I picked it up in the morning of my painting day because I wanted to make sure I had a new fixture to install before I took down the old one and started painting. I thought it would probably be smarter to uninstall the light when someone else was here to help me find the right circuit breaker and perform CPR if I electrocuted myself. But...then I got impatient and really wanted a pink bathroom, so I decided to wing it. 

It took me, no joke, 15 trips up and down the basement stairs to figure out which circuit breaker to turn off to kill the bathroom lights. Spoiler alert: It's wired to the same circuit as the kitchen light and the boiler. Go figure. Geniuses wired my house, without a doubt. Who needs a gym membership? I AM the Stairmaster!!

Taking the light down was no problem. I unscrewed the two philips-head screws and two nuts that held the fixture to the wall and to the outlet box, and unscrewed the wire connectors connecting the wires: black to black, white to white, uncoated to ground. 

I painted the bathroom and was all set to wait until Saturday morning to put the new light up because I was exhausted, sore, and sweaty AGAIN after my 5:00 PM shower. Except, guess what else runs off that circuit, the one that was still off because of the dangly wires in the bathroom? Did I hear you say bedroom air conditioner? Because you are right!! You win the bucket of sweat I produced while trying to install the new light so I could put on the air conditioning and collapse in a sleepy heap!

Luckily, Kevin was there by then, both to calm me down and to save me from myself by spotting me on the stepstool and handing me things. It was all going swimmingly until I looked up at the wall and saw this:

Count them with me: one (white), two (black) three (copper - ground).

Then I looked down at the new fixture and saw this:

Apparently this is the only picture I took of the new fixture in my exhausted rage, but there are three white wires, three black wires and one ground wire. That is not the math I counted on.

I said this: FUCK. I know just enough about electrical wiring to know that 1) it can be dangerous, 2) I am not qualified to do anything beyond the most basic-est of basics and 3) wires are supposed to connect to other wires that are the same color, and that's what makes it all go.

I had extra wires. There was nothing in the installation instructions indicating that there would be that many wires. Luckily, Kevin is a calm and smart person, so we retired to our laptops and while I looked for additional information about this light in particular, he branched out and confirmed his theory that we could just group the white wires from the fixture together and connect all three to the white wire from the outlet, and then do the same with the black wires. He was very proud to be the one to find the answer, in the most unlikely of places. I quote, "I can't believe my favorite gaming message board has the answer you need." 

(I can't help it, I love a geek. Anyone looking to form a support group? Anyone? Bueller?)

Anyway, we were a little unsure if all four white wires would fit into the same wire connector, but they did! And so far my house hasn't burned down. Not even a little bit!

While I ran around the house looking for three matching light bulbs, because I thought it would be a classy upgrade to my new fixture, Kevin attached - er, tried to attach - the glass shades. First, as he tried to wedge his big paws inside the glass globe to attach the ring that holds it in place, he complained, "This fixture was made for ladies with lady hands. It's a lady fixture."

Then I remembered, the fixture came with a weird little tool to reach in and screw those rings into place. I handed it over, and he said, "It looks like a personal massager you find at the back of the Sears catalog." Reservations aside, it worked.

Well, in the sense that we assembled it. Because there was a problem. See it?

Nope, it's not the angle. The shades definitely prevent the medicine cabinet from opening. Kevin's suggestions, "You could just take the door off the medicine cabinet," and "What if we just take the glass shades off?" were not well received. 

I ended up getting back up on my trusty step stool, unscrewing the fixture and hanging it upside down. It's totally a legitimate way to hang it, according to the instruction book. I even saw a fixture that I really liked that was hung like this, somewhere online, but let it go when I found that affordable one at Lowe's. 

It works fine, and the bonus is it distributes light much better with the bulbs pointing up. The light reflects off the ceiling and gives the whole room a soft, warm glow. It even lights the shower better, which means I may be able to shave my legs at night for the first time since I moved here! You're going to have to take my word for how great the quality of the light is, because I couldn't find the battery charger for my real camera, for like, weeks, and my cell phone doesn't deal so well with taking pictures of light bulbs.

Anyway, my bathroom is (about half) finished (for now) and I'm really happy with how it came out. 

Now I just need to hire a psychic or something to tell me what the rest of the circuit breakers in my house do. Anyone else dealing with wiring installed by drunks or small children? Advice?

It's Pink!!

It is THE pinkest bathroom.

When I bought the house, the bathroom was painted like this:

 

The walls were painted with a flat, pale yellow paint over improperly prepared walls. The paint was peeling on the walls and ceiling, the wall was dirty around the wall switch (you can see it on the picture on the left). The window inside the bathroom was wood framed and leaking down the wall into my basement. 

And, bonus, it had hardwood floors. Hard. Wood. Floors. They're nice, but it has been a big topic of conversation how long they will look good and what I will do when they start to look crappy from shower water. It works fine while my shower is used by a small number (1-3, historically) adults, but will it survive smaller people? Years of daily use? Summers like this where all I want to do is shower, and I want a shower after my shower?

Anyway, I guess I'll let you know what happens. 

I knew I wanted the bathroom to be pink, because I really like the pink in my shower curtain and towels, and I look good in pink, so I thought having all that pink light reflected off my face would make me feel beautiful on dreary mornings. As good a reason as any, right? Plus the bathroom has lots of natural light, especially in the morning, so I figured it could handle a pale pink. 

After quizzing everyone who used my bathroom about these colors from Valspar, 

I settled on the palest one, Pink Breeze. I happened to be near an Ace Hardware when I decided to buy paint, so I had them make a quart of Clark + Kensington Paint and Primer in One satin finish latex paint in this color. This was my first experience using a paint and primer in one, so you can look forward to a review of my experience soon. 

Let me tell you a couple things about how I paint. One, I do not use tape. This isn't really a philosophical thing, it's really just a matter of the age and condition of my house. I very carefully taped off the ceiling in my bedroom as I prepared to move in here, and the result, frankly, sucked. The old plaster walls don't quite, exactly, meet the ceiling at right angles in straight lines, so even if my tape made great lines, the paint didn't quite follow them.

It's just too frustrating, so I don't do it. I'd rather touch up with a tiny brush after the fact than go through the process of taping (then removing tape) only to be disappointed. 

I also do not do drop cloths. Because I am clumsy, and I trip on things and slip on things. Plus, if I were to leave drips of paint on a drop cloth, I would inevitably step in that paint and track it throughout the house anyway. So instead, I paint with a big cotton rag handy and use it to clean up drips as they happen. If I don't see them until they are dry, a cloth moistened with ammonia does a great job of cleaning up drips of paint on hardwood, plastic toilet seats, porcelain, vinyl shower surrounds, and painted radiators. Any other surfaces you want me to test?

Another thing you should know about my painting is that I am terrified of heights, which makes it all the more ridiculous that I had to do a good chunk of this painting while balanced on the side of my bathtub. I tried to channel the Fab Five U.S. women's gymnastic team, and managed to get everything painted without killing myself. 

Next steps include prepping and painting the wood trim and doors and the lower half of the walls, which are covered in wood paneling. I also need to pick out and install some towel bars and a toilet paper holder, and some shelving. I have an awesome, cedar lined, linen closet in the bathroom, but I would like some more towel hooks and an open shelf to hold my radio and a few other items and keep them off the floor.

But I'm really happy with the color and it makes the bathroom really feel like it belongs to me.

Here's the general procedure I used for painting the bathroom:

1. Move everything movable out of the bathroom, including the shower curtain rod and towels.

2. Using a three-inch metal putty knife, scrape all loose paint, trying not to gouge holes in the wall in your enthusiasm. 

3. While you're at it, improperly use the putty knife to remove the screws on your switch plates and outlet covers and put them somewhere safe. Either put the screws back in the wall or tape them to the switch plates. You'll thank me later!

4. Using a sanding block, smooth the areas where you scraped paint, any drips the last painter left, and anything else that won't look nice under a new coat of paint.

My prep equipment: spackle, a putty knife, and a sanding block made from a scrap of 1x4 with sandpaper tacked to it.

5. Using spackle and your (newly cleaned) putty knife, put a thin layer of spackle on any scratch, hole, or dent too deep to be covered by paint.
6. Wander around your house spackling other holes in areas that will be painted soon while you wait for the spackle to dry. Or sit and watch the Olympics, whatever.
7. Sand the spackle with your trusty sanding block, all the while plotting to pull a Tom Sawyer on your eventual children and convince them that sanding is both "fun" and "rewarding" so you never have to do this again.
8. Use a broom and dustpan or your trusty Shop-Vac, Rosie, to clean up the mess of scraped paint, sanding dust, and garden-variety dust and lint from all surfaces of the bathroom.
9. Wash the walls using a bucket of soapy water (I used a couple tablespoons of powdered laundry detergent in a 2-gallon bucket of hot water, and an enormous sponge, which worked great) and a sponge, and then rinse each section with a sponge wrung out in clear water. Make sure you get all the dust, hair and sanding dust.
10. When the walls are dry, use a small paint brush to cut in around the trim, ceiling and floor, being careful not to overload your paintbrush and drip pink paint everywhere.
11. Use a larger brush or roller to paint the big areas of the wall.

12. After the paint dries, look at it in good light and touch up any spots you missed. Lightly sand and repaint any drips or dramatic brush marks. 

13. Feel proud and enjoy your new bathroom!

Blueberry Jalapeno Jam for the Fridge

I picture myself in my own little house on the prairie, making a larder full of pickles and preserves. What actually happens is I buy fruit and vegetables and they mummify in the back of my fridge unless I have a very specific recipe in mind.

That is nearly what happened this week. I bought a pound of blueberries on Thursday, and accidentally left them home instead of bringing them when I went away for the weekend. So I came home to a bunch of blueberries and three nectarines on their last legs. I had a handful of berries with my yogurt for breakfast, but I decided I needed to act fast or lose these berries.

I looked at some small batch blueberry jams, including this one from Food in Jars and this one from Local Kitchen Blog. I love Marissa's small scale, but I didn't have any ginger. I did, however, have half a jalapeno left from some recent cooking.

I followed Marisa's sugar to berry ratio from the ginger jam and took some advice from Local Kitchen about ingredients. Here's how it went down:

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of blueberries, rinsed and picked over (2 cups once mashed)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 large jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Mash the berries, pour in a saucepan. I guess you could mash them in the saucepan, but then how would you know how much you had?
2. Add sugar, pepper, lemon juice and cinnamon.
3. Heat over medium heat for 20 minutes or so until it is thick (if I knew what I was talking about I would tell you something about degrees or the plate test, but I don't, so I just pretended). Please feel free to refer to the recipes I mentioned for the science-y stuff.
4. Pour into jars. I got about 2 half pints (but I only had one half pint jar so I had to put the rest in a (very clean) salsa jar I had in the cabinet. (Yay for nested parentheses!)). Store in the fridge.

It's good. It isn't spicy, probably because the pepper was surprisingly mild, but it has a bit of a pepper smell/flavor. It is sort of...lip-warming. It's going to be awesome on buttered bread, or cornbread. I'm also thinking maybe about quesadillas with sharp cheddar and this jam, since I read this blueberry cheddar dip recipe. I can't wait!

Bachelor's Jam

I first read about Bachelor's Jam back in the winter in this article from the NY Times and was captivated. It combines two of my favorite things: preserving fruit and drinking booze. I didn't think I'd get around to it until I lost my ever-loving mind and did Target supermarket-sweep style visited the kitchen section in Target tonight and made some carefully considered purchases.

In addition to some pint canning jars (because I have used every single Ball jar I own plus all the glass jars I can scavenge from salsa and pasta sauce without actually managing to do any canning) I picked up a one-gallon glass jar for bachelor's jam. It was about $8.00, so not an extravagant investment. And I figure if I don't make bachelor's jam every year of my life (for some reason) it will look really nice with cookies or something in it.

No matter what recipe I look at, they seem to be pretty much the same, probably because they all refer to the NY Times article.

I ended up buying vodka because reasonably good vodka was cheaper than reasonably good rum. I had two nectarines I wanted to rescue before I leave on vacation, so I peeled and chopped them, tossed them in the jar, covered them with about 1/3 cup of sugar and poured vodka over the whole mess. I put it in a dark cabinet and I hope I will remember it when I am at the grocery store and pick up some berries. Mmmm boozy berries.

I'm thinking it will be ready in time for the Christmas party, or maybe for New Year's.