Sliding Barn Doors Rock!

My husband and I spent around $25 in lumber at Home Depot and $90 on the hardware through Amazon for this amazing sliding barn door. I considered creating my own sliding system using garage door pulleys and a variety of other items that I found while doing research on Pinterest, however when I found the hardware on Amazon I decided to pay the money because in the end it was not much more than buying miscellaneous parts, it was less work, and guaranteed to work. I am very pleased with my choice because as my neighbor Sam would say, "the door glides like butter".



Step 1: Purchase the hardware of your choice and lumber. For this door we used five tongue and groove 1x6x8 pine boards for $4.42 each and a 1x6x6 pine board for $6.75. We used 1 & 1/4" drywall screws to put it all together.

Step 2: We located studs and attached a stained scrap piece of pine board that we had left over from another project to the wall. We used self drilling construction screws.

Step 3: We attached the hardware for the door to the wall in order to get exact measurements for the door.

Step 4: Cut the tongue and groove boards the correct length. Run two of them through the table saw. One to remove the tongue and the other to remove the groove. Slide the T&G boards into one another using the tongue and grooves. One of the boards was a bit warped so my husband put a 2x4 up against the edge of one side of the door and a wall of the room that we were working in. Then I wedged myself up against the opposite wall and pushed on the door with my legs while my husband attached the 1x6 board with screws. You can see the 2x4 in the photo on the right. The door was laying flat on the floor.

Step 5: I stained the inside/back, upper, and lower part of the door and my husband attached the hardware. Then we put it up on the rail so that I could stain the rest of the door. I was going to do a distressed paint finish, however the knots were so beautiful that I couldn't bring myself to paint over them.

Refinishing a Table Purchased at a Lawn Sale for $40

Great finds can be found at lawn sales. With a little elbow grease, you can save yourself a lot of money! And I am talking about hundreds of dollars saved.

Often the first step is the messy step in any remodeling and refinishing project. In this instance, that statement rings true. The table will need to be cleaned and sanded. I used an orbital sander that has a bag that collects some of the dust. This tool is worth the purchase. I have used it on a lot of projects.

This DeWALT orbital has worked wonderfully, but I am sure any brand will perform well.

My husband having a little bit of fun while I slave away... Just kidding, I had to ask him to stop his project to snap a few pics of me working.

If you can, it is a good idea to do this part of the project outside.

All sanded and looking better already!

Time to stain the table. I used a blend of Early American and Ebony Minwax. I brushed the stain on and then wiped it down with a rag.

The stain is drying.

After the stain dried, I put on three coats of Polyacrylic. Lightly sand between each coat.

Now all we have to do is wait for more bargain chairs. We ran into a sale at Marshall's. These two chairs were on sale for $25 each. They were normally $80. Yo can't see it, but I have a long bench on one side, which I got at a lawn sale for $5. We can also add one more leaf, so if we have a lot of people visiting, we can seat ten people at this table.

My purchase price was $40. I still had the stain and the polyacrylic left over from other projects that I have been doing at camp.  To give you an idea of what a new table costs I did a Google search and came up with a lot of choices. Below is a screen shot of one section of the search.

Tiling Tips and "Misstips"... I May Never Tile Again, but Then Again it was a Bargain!

My husband and I found a bargain on porcelain tile at Mardens, 99¢ a square foot. Not only was it a great deal, but the pros were starting to add up. I read reviews on how tile holds up well to water and sand. Since this home is on a lake, porcelain tile seemed like a great choice. We also had decided to install radiant floor heating on the entire first floor and tile is known to work wonderfully with that type of heat source. The one con is we had never tiled a floor before.

If you are looking for a quick floor install, this is not the project for you. However, if you are looking to install tiles to save money and/or this material suits your flooring needs, read on to learn from my experience... mistakes and all.

Lay some kind of cement backerboard over your subfloor to create a foundation for your tile. We used Wonderboard Lite, but there are a lot of different choices. We paid around $10 per board. 

Mix and spread out mortar. Make sure there is even coverage in order to have a solid base for your tiles. In this photo there are some places that needed to be filled in. This step is important in order to not have tiles crack. Screw the cement board to the subfloor using special screws. The Wonderboard had marks for where you need to use screws. Probably most brands have a similar design.

The cement boards should be layed with staggered seams.

Tape all of your seams.

Smooth mortar over the taped seams. Try to make this layer as thin and smooth as possible to make it easier to lay your tiles evenly.

We placed tiles ahead of time to see what the pattern would look like and to decide where we wanted the tiles to go. In my research, most sites said to chalk out a line at the center of the room. We did not do this because we were tiling the whole downstairs of this home. We needed to have a continuous pattern throughout the whole downstairs.

At 2:00 am we set our first tiles. That was an extremely bad idea to lay our first tiles ever while we were exhausted! We had the mortar too thick and when I went to lay tiles the following day, the tiles from the previous evening were higher than all of the rest of the tiles in the room.

Progress!

I found it easiest to lay down mortar beyond the tile that you are placing.

I layed all of the tiles that did not need to be cut first, then my husband cut all of the tiles to lay what was left.

Foyer

Hallway! We left places for us to walk so that we could get to the bathroom. We played tiles in the empty spots on a different day.

Twenty four hours later you can clean any dried mortar from between the tiles that you may have not cleaned up when you were laying the tiles. Then you can grout your seams. 

Mix grout and smoosh between the cracks with a float. Then wipe away with the float.

Go over the grout with a wet sponge making sure to wipe with a rinsed sponge for each small area. Refresh your water bucket often. The better you do this step, the less likely you will have a film left on your tiles.

I felt proud at this point. My first ever tiled floor.

One room down!

In this pic you can see the variation in height from the 2:00 am tiles and the ones I placed the following day.

Remodeling a Half Bath for a Great Price!

There is nothing like having a brand new bathroom in a home. My husband and I are probably not going to have enough money left over in our construction loan to finish two bathrooms in our new camp so we decided to go completely new in the half bath since that would be the cheapest one to update. We spent $482 total. Here is the break down. Light - (House of Lights) $63 Sink and Cabinet - (IKEA) $300 Toilet - (Home Depot) $99 Flooring - We didn't use all we ordered for the rest of the upstairs so we continued into the bathroom. So, kind of free. Pallet Wall - Wood: Free (Left over stain and polyacrylic from the guard rail project.) Joint Compound - left over from another project. Paint - left over from painting our house. Trim/Moulding - We have yet to finish the trim, but it will cost around $20.  

This is what we started out with.

Then what some people call the fun part, demolition.

Before and After pictures of the pallet wall. A pallet wall seemed like a good idea when I realized how
stuck the wallpaper was to the existing wall in the half bath... 

How to create a pallet wall:
1. Cut apart pallets with a saws-all/reciprocating saw. I purchased blades that cut through the nails very nicely. It wasn't too bad to cut the wood apart this way. Some of the angles are a bit awkward to deal with, but once you cut a few you will get the hang of it. I got a bunch of free pallets from my local lumber yards.
2. Mark the studs on the wall.
3. Choose pallet boards that are the same width as one another in each row.
4. Use a level to start your first row along the floor. Nail boards into studs when possible. When it was not possible, I would nail at an angle into the board that is facing off with the board that needs support. All of the boards sat nicely and became one until by attaching them this way. I didn't want to glue the boards to the wall, just in case some day I no longer want the pallet wall.
5. Work your way up the wall, checking that it is level every once in awhile. I found that how it looks far out weighed whether or not the boards are level. There will be gaps between some boards. Pallet wood is imperfect, but that just adds to the rustic flair.
6. I have seen it recommended to paint the wall a dark color ahead of time to hide the layer underneath in areas that the wall peeks out. In my case there was dark patterned wallpaper underneath, so I waited until I was done and touched up with black paint in spots that the wallpaper patterns could be seen.
7. Lastly I stained and put polyacrylic on the boards. I used Early American Minwax left over from another project. You don't have to stain the wood. It totally depends on the look that you are going for. I also left all of the nail heads from the original pallet in the boards and didn't worry about sinking and hiding all of the nails that I used to attach the boards to the wall.

Open the French Doors, Even When it is Raining!

Often in Maine a rain shower will cool off the outdoors when it is really hot out. Those are the days that you want to open your house up and let the nice breeze flow through your home, however if you don't have an overhanging roof above windows and doors, the rain will invade your house. A few years ago my husband and I decided to replace our sliding door with a french door and I also wanted to have an overhang so that I could open up both doors and let the fresh air in any time that I wanted. We enlisted my father for this project. He has built additions onto houses and knew what we would need to do in order to make the overhang structurally sound.

This is what we started out with.

We started off with making the supports for the two rafters that we would later construct. We used 4x4 pressure treated lumber and created a right angle triangle with lag bolts that tied each piece to each other and to our house.

Next we cut into our siding to build the rafter that would be attached to the house. This piece did not need the middle support piece because this was also lag bolted to the home. It was not going anywhere. We used metal plates to attach the pieces of the rafter to each other.

Almost completed!

We then built two more rafters using 2x6 pressure treated lumber and metal plates on both sides of the rafters to attach each piece to each other. Plus we used nails in a few places. This looks like a quick project, but this took us all weekend. You need to make sure to get all of the angles correct. After the two rafters were hoisted onto the support, we hooked them into the support with screws and attached strapping with nails to tie the whole thing together. At this point I should have stained first, but instead we screwed the clear roofing material to the strapping. It made my job much harder when I stained the wood.

The following weekend we switched out the sliding door for french doors. We also purchased
screen doors that roll out and connect with magnets. It is really nice because it tucks the
screens away from damage during harsh weather.

I love how this project adds some much needed angles to the home and breaks up the blandness of the back of the house.
Not only did this project enhance the function of the home, but it also made it more ascetically pleasing.