Paint preserving trick!

My least favorite thing about painting is the clean-up process. My friend Steve was lamenting that he had a lot of painting to do and it's difficult to find a chunk of time to do it all. [BTW - Happy Birthday Steve!] Who wants to spend an hour or two painting followed by 30 minutes of clean-up just to have more painting to do the next day? I recently filled him in on a tip I learned when I was doing a lot of the painting in my house. When I perused my blog posts on painting I didn't see it. I can't believe I haven't shared this yet!

This tip come from my friend Cori who was a huge help when I was painting my house! In addition to doing a lot of the painting (including ceilings which she does FAR superior to me), she showed me that you can wrap rollers and paint brushes with plastic wrap to keep the paint wet if you need to do more painting the next day! 

Steve can attest that it works. In fact, here's an email I got from him the other day:
"I finished painting a bedroom yesterday.  Your plastic wrap suggestion worked like a charm.  Thanks for the advice."

Baseboard finishing

Sometimes I just need to blog so I have a reminder about the little things I have done around my house. I may have mentioned before that this blog has been really helpful when I get overwhelmed with all that I have left to do. I go back through my posts and realize,  "wow! I have done a lot" and then I don't feel so bad.

This post is one of those situations where I don't have much to say about my experience caulking the baseboards and filling in nail holes with spackle. I spent a Saturday in June doing that for all of my baseboards downstairs and used a full tube of caulk. On Sunday, I used up another tube of caulk doing that for the baseboards in my bedroom and around most of the doors that I installed upstairs. I have gotten better about caulk.  One tip that I may not have shared before is have rags and a little container of water nearby. Smoothing caulk is much easier if your finger is wet.

A few weekends ago, I installed the shoe molding in the little landing/hallway upstairs, so that area is pretty much done. Making progress!

Closet makeover

In one room, I removed the whole closet. Meanwhile, in the other room, I decided to use the space more efficiently by making it a mini walk-in closet. The original layout had a single rod stretching 5 feet across the back of the closet and one shelf above that (see picture below).

I was in town over labor day weekend and had an extra rod after demolishing the other closet, so I spent one day adding an extra foot of hanging storage and special storage spots for my hats and my luggage. It only took 1 trip to home depot! I had to get a labor day present for myself (that's a thing, right?). I got a large set of spade bits. All of the ones I already owned were too small. These were on sale though!

My carpenter friend gave me some scrap boards that I could use to add trim to the front of the closet. I cut it to size, drilled holes, cut the rods, and installed the pieces all together. I realize that I could have bought brackets for the rods instead, but drilling holes directly in the trim seemed to be the most secure option. Besides, it gave me an excuse to get more tools that will come in handy later. :) Here are pictures of the new rods... well, technically old rods, but newly cut.

Next up, was hanging my ball caps. They had been hanging on a hook that was much too small for 4 hats. I used the space above the rod on the right side of the closest and a few small nails from my hardware stash to put a spot to hang each hat. [Go Nats!]

Up next... and my greatest success... was using the space above the rod on the left for my carry-on luggage. Previously my luggage sat on the floor, but it's light-weight and I'd rather use that floor space for my hiking, rain, snow, black, and brown boots. I used more of the scrap wood to make this little bracket. I installed a small wood piece above the original trim in the closet with drywall screws and screws. Then, I cut 2 triangle pieces that I fit over some nails that I secured into the small piece. In case you were wondering, yes, I did use another spade bit to drill the holes into the triangle pieces. :) To finish up the bracket, I secured the bottom to the original trim.

Even though it only took a day, my closet feels much more open and organized now. I still want to find some cool hooks to hang my belts, so I'm hoping Habitat Restore will have some in stock.