Finally able to sleep in... and saved money making Blackout Curtains.

I have a south-east facing bedroom with 3 huge windows making it extremely difficult to sleep past sunrise. It wasn't too bad in the winter, but now sunrise is around 5:30 in the morning and it's bright!!! The blinds gave me privacy, but don't block out much light.

Solution: Blackout curtains! I got 3 long panels of brown blackout curtains (yes, they come in colors other than black) and did a little sewing with a borrowed sewing machine. From the 3 panels, I was able to make 6 curtains that fit my wide windows. I plan to add some sort of detail or tie-backs to them eventually. I'm thinking about integrating the teal color. For now they can be plain as long as they block out the early morning sun. Bonus - Blackout curtains are energy efficient b/c they prevent unnecessary solar heat in the summer, which lead to less AC use.

I believe I paid $10 each for the 3 panels, which would probably have been comparable or cheaper than buying blackout fabric from a fabric store. Tip: To save money on window treatments for shorter windows buy 1 long panel to make 2 curtains.

 

I've had two people ask me where I got the curtains, so I figured I would add that information to the post. I bought them at Anna's Linens. I think they were these.

Breaking bits building a knee wall

When I first moved into the house and was refinishing the floors I removed the banisters from the stairs. The ones at the top of the stairs were not particularly useful because the top 5 steps were missing a good hand railing. The only support would have been to grab the wooden balusters, which just seems like a recipe for disaster to me.

A knee wall is more useful in that spot because then I would be able to attach a long handrail along it going down the stairs. This blog post is about my weekend project of building a knee wall. It doesn't look pretty yet, but the structure is there.

I did my requisite google research about how to build a knee wall before getting started and bought my supplies. 2x4s, a 1x6 oak ledge, and drywall were the main purchases. I also got a dowel to attach the base 2x4 to the former baluster holes. I already had wood screws, drywall screws (thanks to Momma-G), wood glue, joint compound, drywall tape. I ended up buying a new drill because the hand-me-down drill in the picture below wasn't cutting it. I went for a corded one b/c I don't need the mobility associated with battery operated drills, it was cheaper, and I'd like to think it's more environmentally friendly. Somehow in the course of building the wall, I ended up with a bruised knuckle. I should be more careful when using my drill because people will think I spend my weekends punching people or things. I'm a lover, not a fighter.

I did some measurements and got to use my mitre saw to cut the 2x4s to length. I also drilled holes in them for the dowel pieces to line up with the holes in the floor. This picture shows hole 1 of 4. The holes lined up when I flipped the 2x4 onto the holes shown in the floor.

When I was cutting the 2x4 so that the wall would be almost 3ft tall, I decided to duct taping the 3 beams together for making the final cut so that they would all be the same height. Then I screwed the 2x4s all together and added the dowels resulting in this frame:

It was at this point that I broke the bit, which I mentioned in a previous post, so it will forever be in this wall. Word of warning - bits get hot! I secured this into the wall and the floor with 2½ inch screws in addition to the dowel pieces.

Then I cut the oak ledge to size and secured it with a lot of wood glue. After I let it dry I used some shorter wood screws to secure it from underneath... don't want those screws to show, so be sure to do this before putting on the drywall. I was a little paranoid about the sturdiness of the wall so I decided to use all pieces of the 2x4s that I could and added some extra support like so:

The last part that I was able to do over the weekend was add drywall to the sides and spackle over the screws. Here's the current status of the wall!

Why I need a truck...

... luckily I have roof racks so my lil car didn't take a beating. The Home Depot guys went a little wild with saran wrap to keep it from moving the whopping mile and a half it took for me to get this drywall home.

How would you have responded?

I took 2 trips to Home Depot this weekend. One left me feeling accomplished and happy; the second, offended. Disclaimer... neither of these stories involved Home Depot workers. The people mentioned were other customers.

The first trip involved buying a new drill. A man who does construction stuff as his profession was extremely helpful in helping me pick out the best drill for my needs. He didn't talk down to me and didn't try to force me to pick one drill over another, but explained pros and cons of the ones I was trying to decide between based on his experiences. Sidenote: I love my new drill.

The second trip involved buying a new drill bit because I broke one of mine. As I was deciding between drill bits a man said to me "Father's day present?" I replied "No" but really wanted to say "No, I need a new drill bit because I broke one building a wall thank you very much." Granted Father's day is coming up, I was offended he'd make the assumption that a female looking for drill bits wouldn't need it for herself.

What would you have said if you were in my shoes?

How I saved $150

My uncle had some mini blinds that he intended to install in his old house, but never got around to it before he moved. He remembered he had them when I was discussing window treatments for my new windows with my family and suggested that I wait until he checked the size of them before I bought blinds. Conveniently he had 5 sets of blinds and I had 5 windows of identical size in the bedrooms of my house.

Inconveniently...
The opening size of my windows = 34 inches. The size of his blinds = 33 inches.

Seriously? An inch too small?

Well...Where's the fun in having things work out perfectly? I thought about it and decided that saving 30 bucks a pop was worth exploring other options to make the 33 inchers work. Besides, the new vinyl windows have a good inch border around the glass, so having 1/2 inch gap on either side of the blinds wouldn't inhibit privacy. I started the search for 1/2 inch wood blocks that would fill the space where the blinds would attach, but couldn't find any smaller than 3/4 inch.
My M.O. for house projects has been to have a couple small ones going on at a time so I was also in the process of removing trim from the doors. The wood trim was very plain about 1 1/2 inches wide and the length of the door. It also turned out to be about 1/2 inch thick so when I was cutting the trim down to manageable sizes with my miter saw. I got to thinking that if I cut pieces the width of the inside of the window frame and painted the wood white, then I might just have a solution. I ended up having to get longer screws in order to ensure the blinds were secure through the block and into the frame, but it worked and isn't noticeable. Once I put up curtains they won't even be visible.

A lil' ingenuity saved me a nice chunk of change.