Porch bar with industrial corbels

We had wanted a table with chairs on the porch, but weren't sure about the space.  Instead, we settled on a custom back bar.  Using a long piece of 2 in cedar, we installed this using galvanized pipe as corbels.   They were a bit pricier than I would have liked, but we love the look. And, of course, it wouldn't be complete without our stools from Cameron's!

Reclaimed barn wood pendant lights

When designing the lighting for the porch, we wanted extra lighting for the back bar area.  Drawing inspiration from these great lights,

Source

Source

And using reclaimed wood and lights from Lowe's with Edison bulbs, we made this.

Bonus: it matches the mantel!

Covered and screened porch

We've wanted a covered porch forever and our second-story deck was in questionable shape and almost useless in the evenings when the sun was blaring down.  After a lot of thought, we had it stripped down, redone and added a roof, screens and a fireplace.  We love it and now use it all the time.

What do these three things have in common?

Update to Outdoor Curtains

Well, it’s been nearly four years since we made outdoor curtains out of drop cloths and, overall, they have held up great.  There has been some rusting around the piping, but it’s not too bad; however, the clip rings did not hold up at all, and the tie backs eventually succumbed to the elements.  We do take these down every winter, and they have survived our Midwest thunderstorms, tornado warnings and high winds with no problems at all.

I had my doubts about that first set of curtain rings, as they were wood and metal…the metal rusted and the wood broke.  So, to fix the curtain ring situation, I got some simple black grosgrain ribbon and sewed that, tab-style, to the drop cloth.  It was just a bummer I had to get the sewing machine out and sew them on, but, at least by using the grosgrain, it wasn’t too expensive and I had nice edges without any real hemming. Now, we could have slid the ribbon tabs right onto the metal rod, but then it didn’t slide very well.  We tried some plastic shower curtain rings from the Dollar Store, but they didn’t slide much better than the ribbon did, so, we purchased some metal shower rings from Lowe’s and it is all holding up well.  It wasn’t the cheapest solution at about $10 for 12 rings, but it’s working great.


To replace the tiebacks that fell apart from the exposure to the elements, we got metal curtain holdbacks, and screwed them into the post as shown here.  We tried just one, but one wasn’t enough to keep the curtains back--even in the lightest breeze.  With two for each post, the curtain is held in place perfectly.  Now these can be expensive, but ended up free for us—my mom found a good deal on them somewhere and contributed them to the cause. 

The mildew problem has been less and less each year, but I do give them a good bleaching in the fall when we bring them in and, again, in the spring before we put them out.

  



Would love to hear about other experiences/solutions with outdoor curtains, too!

How to Defrost your Deep Freezer

This is the best way to defrost your freezer.

Instructions courtesy of my mom.

It had been several years since our deep freezer had been defrosted, and we were losing space due to the ice getting so thick on the walls.



I waited for a cool day to begin the process so that my food would stay frozen.

First, I put two big pots of water on the kitchen cooktop to boil.



Next, I took everything out of the freezer and put it in laundry baskets.



Then I covered it all up with a ton of blankets.  The ice cream and a snowball from last winter went into the refrigerator freezer in the kitchen.



The water was now boiling.  I placed the pots of boiling water in the freezer and put them on top of cutting boards.



I shut the lid and walked around the yard.



My mom said you should begin the next step in about 15 minutes.  My ice was so thick, my freezer needed a good 30 minutes.

After about 30 minutes, most of the ice was melting and sliding off in big chunks from the sides.  I got a bucket and began carrying the ice chunks out and dumping them in the yard.  To speed up the process, I used a measuring cup from the kitchen and poured small amounts of hot water behind the ice that was still stuck to the sides.  After hauling all the ice out, there was a small amount of water in the bottom of the freezer.  I used the shop vac to suck it out.

Clean Freezer!



The entire process—from start to finish—took under an hour, and I was able to reorganize my freezer goods.

Thanks, mom.

Getting Wax out of fabric

 

Decorating for the holidays means candles.  And every year a candle gets blown out with too much gusto and wax ends up on tables, tablecloths and table runners.  To get the wax out, do the following -

1. Let it cool completely

2. Once completely cool, scrape off any wax that you can.  A fingernail works just fine for this, but you might want to do it over a trashcan.

3. Heat your iron to the hottest setting and make sure you don’t have any steam on.

4. Get a piece of cotton fabric (an old t-shirt works great) and put this on top of the wax-stained fabric.  And, depending on how thick your fabric is, lay a piece of cotton fabric underneath it. 

5. Iron until the the wax melts and soaks into your cotton fabric. 

6. That’s it!  You may have some staining if you have, say, red candle wax on a white tablecloth, but then you can try different methods for getting the stain out. 

Here is a Before and After of a table runner I “ironed” a few days ago. In the After, there was some mild staining, but I couldn’t get my camera to pick it up.

Hope it works for you!

Master Bath Tub Before and After

 

I think my favorite “cheat” on this before and after is the surround around the tub.  The original plan was to rip out the tile, but it was too difficult.  Solution: Black grout paint—cheap and easy.  I also love that we added the Sprayer.  Although it was a bit scary to drill a hole in the tub, it was a very simple process.

Master Bath Before and After

 

James Taylor and Starlight Magic

Eek! We saw JT on Saturday night at Starlight Theatre.  Even with the 103 degrees at 7:30 pm, the concert was FANTASTIC.  I really can’t wait for him to come back to KC! 

And at the end of the concert, we got to meet JAMES TAYLOR!

I know that’s Ryan in the picture, but guess who is taking the picture?  ME!  See! They are both looking right at ME! It was divine. 



My two favorite Handymen.  Heh!

Kitchen Before and After

Click to see some of the details:

Kitchen Remodel

Demolition

Where to put the Cooktop

The Center Island

More about the Cooktop

The Pot Filler Faucet

Before and After…Powder Room

 

Front Door Redo on a Budget–The Inside

Our front door: functional, yet plain.  While working on the exterior, we also dressed up the interior.

Following the same steps as outside, this is what the interior looked like after he added the trim.  A definite improvement, but, we also wanted to make the door more substantial by connecting the door with the window above, to make it feel like one HUGE piece.

Using a variety of boards and trim from Lowe’s, Ryan “beefed” up the door and connected the door with the window above.  I love how this turned out.

Since we were having the exterior of the house painted, we decided to go ahead and paint the interior of the door, too. We chose to go with this color to tie it all together.  We really wanted it to look like one big massive piece.

I think it turned out great!   And we finally painted the railings!  More on that to come.

Front Door Redo on a Budget

 

Our front door:  not the most impressive. 

It’s a standard metal door, which the builder dressed up with wood trim.  (Don’t you like how this Arrow points at the rusty spots on the lantern? 0 We discussed replacing the door with something new, but kept hearing about problems with hanging a new door in the old door’s place, and the cost to rip it all out and replace the unit was not in the budget. Plus, this door works great!  I absolutely hate replacing anything that isn’t broken. 

So, we decided to give the existing door a makeover.

 

First, Ryan used a razor to cut through the paint between the trim and the door.

Next, he pried the trim off of the door.  It had been nailed and glued on, but came off quite easily.

He then patched all the holes with Bondo body filler.

And then sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded.

The end result was pretty cool – all those layers.

This is how it looked from the street after he finished sanding it.

Next, he took leftover beadboard from our Laundry Room makeover and cut to size.

Then glued that directly to the door.  Initially, we were going to center this piece, but luckily realized that the bottom of a door will typically have greater width between any decorative elements than the top of the door. The piece is centered horizontally, but has much more space on the bottom than the top.

He then added decorative trim around the beadboard, caulked, primed and painted.

The BEFORE.

The AFTER.

Now wait until you see what he did to the inside!!!!

And yes, I also painted the rusty lantern.  Door swag from Cameron’s in Downtown Lee’s Summit.

Iris are in Bloom

 

A mishmash of “found” iris are blooming in the yard.  Some were found at the back of the property.  We moved them up to a sunnier location so they could bloom; some were gifts and some were borrowed.

I am amazed at the number of large, bearded flowers blooming.  I fully expected smaller, more common flowers.  And while I love those old time, hearty stand-bys, it’s been great fun to be surprised by these big, handsome blooms.