So, Monday was a snow day for us (a rarity this winter) and we made the most of it. Benny was off too, so we decided to tackle two of our projects that have been in the basement for waaay too long.
The mission: give new life to two old dressers desperately in need of some love. See Exhibit A.
The players: Benny, myself, and a ReStore dresser we moved into the basement when we built the house and a little dresser that was my great, great aunt's (it's got her signature on the back) and was mine as a kid.
The first is the little lady that was mine as a kid. It's solid construction, though the runners of the drawers needed a little paraffin (we had none so resorted to bar soap) to help them slide better. Originally, it had painted wooden knobs that had a few coats of paint that had seen better days, so I knew these would go. It also needed some serious sanding since the backs of the drawer fronts had been painted and had adhered to the dresser front after years of storage in my mom's attic. And, of course, it needed to be primed and painted. It's got this cute little apron front detail and is a nice small scale, perfect for additional linen storage in our kitchen. (It seems you can never have enough storage in the kitchen.)
I should mention here that I'd been drooling over this cool paintable textured wall paper that they now carry at Boone Paint and Interiors where Benny works. Since we're not the wallpaper on our walls type of people (too many horrible experiences removing the stuff after people didn't prep the walls properly), I kept trying to come up with a way to use the stuff. These projects ended up being the perfect fit, since they were pretty plain pieces without any ornate detailing on the drawer fronts or anything. (Plus, the ReStore dresser had a horrible finish that had been poorly scraped off leaving the sides very distressed, and not in a pretty-I-meant-to-make-it-look-like-that way.) So, Benny brought home the book and I chose a modern circle pattern that was the right scale for the pieces.
So, on Monday, we took these babies up two flights of stairs to the office to paint them, after they'd been prepped and primed earlier in the basement. They both got wallpaper pasted to the sides, which we measured and carefully cut with a razor blade. The wallpaper paste ended up being free from a painter Benny knows (it's great to have him work in this business sometimes). The painter recommended that we thin down the paste with some water and mix it with a kitchen whisk, which was perfect. (We did spend all of 94 cents for a new whisk so that we didn't risk mucking up our good one for baking.) We rolled it on with a disposable foam roller, so that made it really easy. Then we carefully smoothed down the paper and pressed out any air bubbles. This part was a little tricky with the textured paper to see all the bubbles, but once we got the hang of it, it was pretty quick work.
After pasting the paper and letting it set for a while (we went downstairs for a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches... yummy, one of my favs that Benny makes), we painted each one with paint we had leftover from other projects. The little one got white Aura (this is Benjamin Moore's low VOC stuff and it covers great... one coat!) trim paint and the taller ReStore one got some paint we'd color matched to go with the aged white paint on the furniture in the guest room. This way, if we ever need another dresser in the guest room, it will be the same color and we won't have to paint it again. The drawer fronts on the little lady for the kitchen got painted out in leftover blue Aura paint from our living room to help tie the two spaces together a bit more. We applied the paint using the red feather mini rollers left over from another project, and since we didn't have any roller tray liners, we used plastic grocery sacks (which somehow inexplicably make their way into our kitchen, even though we use reusable totes whenever possible--even to the extent that if we forget them and leave them in the car, we'll go out of the grocery store with an armload of produce and cereal and the cashiers think we're nuts).
Once we finished with all the painting, we came downstairs and ordered the hardware for the dressers from . We searched out an online coupon code for the site and found one that would work for our order and gave us 5% off. (There were better ones, but we didn't have a big enough order.) One trick with this site is to order all your hardware from one manufacturer to save on shipping, otherwise it's an additional cost per manufacturer. We ended up paying about $60 for the hardware (10 knobs, 4-3" handles/pulls, 3-5" handles/pulls), which was above my $50 goal for the hardware for both, but still pretty good when you compare to retail prices. The hardware should arrive tomorrow and I'm so stinking excited! I can't wait to put the jewelry on my little lady in the kitchen! (I'll put a new pic up when I get the hardware on.)
Last night, I lined the drawers of the new kitchen linen chest (little lady sounds so much sweeter) with some wallpaper we found at my grandmother's house that was what used to be in her kitchen. I think it's so neat that this piece has so much family history and is getting used again after a lot time in storage. It's such a nice addition to our kitchen and really helps to clear out some of the areas that were just too full. I love that I can now store all our cloth napkins right in the kitchen, along with our dish towels, place mats, and table runners. (These used to take up a good portion of the bottom shelf in our bedroom closet... we so did not plan enough storage in this house.)
The ReStore dresser is now kind of in limbo in the office waiting for us to finish up some more cleaning out and finish some other projects before there's space for it. It's going to look great in the office and will provide some much needed storage in there for our winter items (scarves seem to multiply around here with me, and hats) and office supplies.
So, here's the estimated total, for those of you wanting to know:
"little lady" kitchen cabinet: free (gratis as Benny would say)
ReStore diamond in the rough: $10-15 (I can't quite remember, I bought it like 4 years ago)
textured paintable wall paper: $15 per roll (we only needed one)
primer/paint: free (leftover from other projects)
wallpaper paste: free (gifted by painter)
whisk to mix wallpaper paste: 94 cents
sponge rollers: $2.50
cabinet hardware: $60 (including shipping)
Total: $93.44 for two dressers
So, what do you think? Have you been up to any painting projects lately? How have you saved a buck (or saved something from the landfill) and still added storage to your home? I'd love to hear from you!
** I'll be back with pics later. I just couldn't wait to post this! :)
Showing posts with label VOC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label VOC. Show all posts
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Reflections on a Home
After numerous snow days, I've had quite a bit of time to think and reflect on our life as a family and decisions we've made, and continue to make. One of the things I am most grateful for is our home, which we tried to design with our planet and wallet in mind. While there are many things that we wanted to incorporate into our home, our initial building budget just couldn't handle them all. Here's a run-down of what we did thus far, and where we'd like to go in the next few years.
First, we knew that we could only build within a certain footprint because of the building site, so we only looked at plans that fit these requirements. Since we wanted to make the most of our space and our money, we decided to go with a modular home and basement system. This meant that our home was built in a factory, largely, and not subjected to the elements, it meant that we didn't have to worry about moisture issues in the framing. It also meant that the house went up quicker, meaning fewer days we had to pay crews to work on the site and fewer months of interest on the construction loan. We chose a two story Cape Cod style house on a basement foundation to make the most of the vertical space, meaning that we had to remove less topsoil than if we had chosen a ranch or other sprawing design. Our floorplan has the master bedroom on the main level, so this means that until we have kids, we don't have to heat or cool the upstairs, saving us money on energy bills and saving the planet by using less energy from coal fired plants.
In choosing a modular home, we had maximum flexibility with where we wanted windows, the fireplace, decks, and other features. We chose to have the house face south to take full advantage of the passive solar lighting and heating. In the years to come, we plan to add solar panels to the roof, which will be ideal with our southern facing roof. We added windows on the east and west sides of the house to allow for as much daylighting as possible, meaning that we had to run our CFL lighting as little as possible. We also tried to make the windows on the north side of the house as small as possible, so that this colder side of the house would lose less heat during the winter. Earlier this winter, we added curtain panels that are lined to allow the daylight in, but we can easily close them at night to keep the heat in. During the summer, these will allow us to block the glaring sun during the afternoon, keeping the house naturally cooler.
For flooring, we chose an eco-friendly bamboo for the main level, even though the modular kit came with carpeting. We had the carpeting installed upstairs for now, although one day, we would like to add bamboo upstairs as well. The bamboo flooring is eco-friendly because it is a grass, growing rapidly and sometimes invasively. (When purchasing bamboo, it is key to make sure you purchase from a reputable agency. Unfortunately, because of the rising popularity of bamboo, sometimes entire forests are cut down and replaced with bamboo--hardly an eco-friendly move.) Our bamboo flooring is the natural finish with the vertical grain, looking more like a standard hardwood floor. In order to save money here, we purchased our flooring from a friend through his hardware store, meaning that we got his wholesale price for almost 1000 square feet of flooring. Then, my husband and father-in-law installed the flooring over the Thanksgiving holidays, saving us several thousand dollars in installation fees.
Because of our budget, we did choose standard insulation and sheetrock, although we may do things differently when we decide to finish out the basement. To save a little more, my handy husband and father-in-law, as well as several friends, helped to hang most of the drywall upstairs (that part of the home was not finished in the factory).
We got a deal on paint, since Benny (my husband) works for a local Benjamin Moore retailer. In keeping with our earth conscious mindset, we opted for the Aura paint, a low VOC (volatile organic compounds) paint in an eggshell finish. Even if you don't get the family discount, I would highly recommend going with a low VOC paint, as it means that the overall air quality in your home will be better because those nasty compounds won't be in the air you and your family are breathing. If you're painting new sheetrock, Aura is a great product because it is self-priming on new drywall, meaning that we only had to paint the rooms once, not two or three times. (I think we did have to paint the burnt orange in the office twice, due to the deep color.)
My uncle worked for a building supply company at the time and had several materials he could give us, as they were slightly damaged and could not be sold through the company. This meant that we acquired 7-inch baseboard for the upstairs rooms, as well as his help in applying the beautiful wood edging on our laminate countertops. He also took some of the scrap wood from the lumber yard and built some wonderful benches for us to use on the deck. The design is very simple, yet functional. It's great to know that we kept these materials from ending up in a landfill somewhere.
As far as plumbing and fixtures goes, there wasn't a lot that we could negotiate with the factory, other than style for the main level. However, upstairs we were able to install a low-flow toilet, which uses less than half the water required by conventional models. To retrofit our downstairs toilets, we've added plastic containers filled with water to displace the water in the tank, meaning that we use less water per flush. We've also made sure that each sink in the house has an aerator, meaning that it uses less water, and we've installed low-flow shower heads.
I'll post more later, along with some pictures. I hope you find some useful tid-bits here and come back for future postings.
First, we knew that we could only build within a certain footprint because of the building site, so we only looked at plans that fit these requirements. Since we wanted to make the most of our space and our money, we decided to go with a modular home and basement system. This meant that our home was built in a factory, largely, and not subjected to the elements, it meant that we didn't have to worry about moisture issues in the framing. It also meant that the house went up quicker, meaning fewer days we had to pay crews to work on the site and fewer months of interest on the construction loan. We chose a two story Cape Cod style house on a basement foundation to make the most of the vertical space, meaning that we had to remove less topsoil than if we had chosen a ranch or other sprawing design. Our floorplan has the master bedroom on the main level, so this means that until we have kids, we don't have to heat or cool the upstairs, saving us money on energy bills and saving the planet by using less energy from coal fired plants.
In choosing a modular home, we had maximum flexibility with where we wanted windows, the fireplace, decks, and other features. We chose to have the house face south to take full advantage of the passive solar lighting and heating. In the years to come, we plan to add solar panels to the roof, which will be ideal with our southern facing roof. We added windows on the east and west sides of the house to allow for as much daylighting as possible, meaning that we had to run our CFL lighting as little as possible. We also tried to make the windows on the north side of the house as small as possible, so that this colder side of the house would lose less heat during the winter. Earlier this winter, we added curtain panels that are lined to allow the daylight in, but we can easily close them at night to keep the heat in. During the summer, these will allow us to block the glaring sun during the afternoon, keeping the house naturally cooler.
For flooring, we chose an eco-friendly bamboo for the main level, even though the modular kit came with carpeting. We had the carpeting installed upstairs for now, although one day, we would like to add bamboo upstairs as well. The bamboo flooring is eco-friendly because it is a grass, growing rapidly and sometimes invasively. (When purchasing bamboo, it is key to make sure you purchase from a reputable agency. Unfortunately, because of the rising popularity of bamboo, sometimes entire forests are cut down and replaced with bamboo--hardly an eco-friendly move.) Our bamboo flooring is the natural finish with the vertical grain, looking more like a standard hardwood floor. In order to save money here, we purchased our flooring from a friend through his hardware store, meaning that we got his wholesale price for almost 1000 square feet of flooring. Then, my husband and father-in-law installed the flooring over the Thanksgiving holidays, saving us several thousand dollars in installation fees.
Because of our budget, we did choose standard insulation and sheetrock, although we may do things differently when we decide to finish out the basement. To save a little more, my handy husband and father-in-law, as well as several friends, helped to hang most of the drywall upstairs (that part of the home was not finished in the factory).
We got a deal on paint, since Benny (my husband) works for a local Benjamin Moore retailer. In keeping with our earth conscious mindset, we opted for the Aura paint, a low VOC (volatile organic compounds) paint in an eggshell finish. Even if you don't get the family discount, I would highly recommend going with a low VOC paint, as it means that the overall air quality in your home will be better because those nasty compounds won't be in the air you and your family are breathing. If you're painting new sheetrock, Aura is a great product because it is self-priming on new drywall, meaning that we only had to paint the rooms once, not two or three times. (I think we did have to paint the burnt orange in the office twice, due to the deep color.)
My uncle worked for a building supply company at the time and had several materials he could give us, as they were slightly damaged and could not be sold through the company. This meant that we acquired 7-inch baseboard for the upstairs rooms, as well as his help in applying the beautiful wood edging on our laminate countertops. He also took some of the scrap wood from the lumber yard and built some wonderful benches for us to use on the deck. The design is very simple, yet functional. It's great to know that we kept these materials from ending up in a landfill somewhere.
As far as plumbing and fixtures goes, there wasn't a lot that we could negotiate with the factory, other than style for the main level. However, upstairs we were able to install a low-flow toilet, which uses less than half the water required by conventional models. To retrofit our downstairs toilets, we've added plastic containers filled with water to displace the water in the tank, meaning that we use less water per flush. We've also made sure that each sink in the house has an aerator, meaning that it uses less water, and we've installed low-flow shower heads.
I'll post more later, along with some pictures. I hope you find some useful tid-bits here and come back for future postings.
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