Taming the Monster in the Closet: I

A project in which the closet itself becomes a monster.

I tell ya', full-on occupying these spaces for almost 6 years means that these rooms and their closets are full-on filled up which is adding complexity to this flooring project in that it takes not a small amount of time to move stuff around repeatedly.

When the room is too narrow to get frame the photo well so you rotate it in Photoshop and then realize that the shelf was level before you rotated so you leave the background weirdness to add to the overall non-fun house effect.

It also means that I am taking this as an opportunity to attack these closets by adding some shelves and getting a fresh coat of paint in there. I had a gallon of paint that was a bad choice for the guest room's neutral, but a fine choice for inside a couple of closets.

What are those cutouts for? Only the left-most is over a stud.

On both ends the closet has room for shelves; on one end they're deeper than is practical for storing clothes, but the only clothes we store in here are costumes and they are hung on hangers. So that means that we need some hanging space for costumes and I want to have some for guests should they want to hang any of their clothes. On the other end where the shelves are shallower, we have an access door to the shower plumbing, so the shelves work around that and will store something easy to unload.

Of course, the doors and base moulding will be reinstalled, but after the new floor goes in.

What follows is the long path, riddled with obstacles, that lead to this unremarkable closet:

I reused what I could from the closet as it was when we moved it; parts of the closet rod and shelf, as well as the drywall-textured and painted-over rod/shelf brackets. The condition of the brackets really bothered me, but the idea of wasting them bothered me more. I decided to soak them in a Simple Green & water solution, scrap/rub off the paint and texture, then spray paint them to protect them from rusting, then reuse two of the three. I also drilled holes in the rod holder parts, so I could keep the rod stationary when sliding all the contents to one end.

I'm sure I'm not alone in that when I am remodeling and find something... er, unusual... I wonder about the history of the processes that went into the existing situation. I had always assumed that the knock-down/brocade drywall texture had been added sometime after 1976 when the house was built, but when I removed the base moulding, I saw that it covered all of the drywall. However, apparently they had installed the closet hardware before texturing the drywall. Curiouser & curiouser. And it seems that they had an issue with the plumbing in the shower at one point and cut through this drywall to deal with it.  Fair enough, but when they patched the wall that wasn't the access door, they didn't remove the shelf that was on top of these brackets. Funny thing is: the shelf was not attached to the brackets. Just resting on there. The whole thing is even more puzzling since they aren't installed level.

Black was not what I was imagining, but it is what I already had on hand that wasn't a just-plain-wrong color or a color that might be better saved for more visible projects.

I used scrap moulding from the front door project to make a support for the rod/shelf part in the center of the closet. Despite all the extra steps in getting the brackets cleaned up and adding these supports, the was the easiest and most direct part of this project.

Just to get every inch out of that closet rod, I put some stops on the ends. I used some funky cabinet knob escutcheons that came off the upstairs bathroom vanity. They're definitely weird and probably gauche, but I think they're funny and... they work! So at least this section of the closet is no-cost... except the screws. GEEZ!

The access door to the plumbing for the shower on the other side of that wall is oddly fancy with it's angled trim and it's not-just-a plywood-square door. It also has a way more secure latch than did any of the three screen doors when we moved in.

I used this as an opportunity to take a whole mess of stuff we've removed from the house or that was left here to Home ReSource in Missoula for donation. I was hoping to get materials for building the shelves there, too, but they had none of what I was looking for. It would have felt good to use something that might have otherwise ended up in the landfill and to nurture my inner cheapskate by not paying full price. At least I was able to keep 6 light fixtures, a ceiling fan, a stainless steel kitchen sink and faucet, 3 curtain rods, some curtains, a couple-few dozen switch and outlet covers, and various other bits of hardware and some paint/stain out of the landfill with our donation.

[I had intended to take a photo of the stuff all loaded up, but forgot. It would've gone here] 

I decided to at least use what I could from our scrap wood stash to make the shelf cleats. Most of this is what was left from building the wood shed. I tried to buy 3/4" plywood from the local lumber yards. Yard I doesn't have a way to rip a 4x8 sheet into two 2x8 pieces so I can actually haul it. Also, the "new" guy there is almost-subtly patronizing and a blatant mansplainer... he once actually mansplained to me how I should feel about the weather. So yeah. Yard II simply didn't have any 3/4" plywood. I didn't have the heart to further inquire about the smoothness of the 3/4" that usually carry and to ask again if they could cut it - the poor trainee seemed to be really struggling with the phone call already. Well, dammit! I tried to do good, but had to drive back into Missoula to a big box supplier.

Dumb mistake: I had the audacity to assume a wall that is longer wider than 16" would have a stud somewhere between the two ends. This is not the case for the shorter front walls of this closet. Of course, I didn't check until I had 3/4 of the cleats cut... from a 2x4 ripped into thirds. What a waste of time and materials! Maybe at least some of these very specifically cut lumber will be suitable for the studio/office/sewing room/auxiliary guest room close when I get to that?

Sigh. And so. Thinking about what we had already:
-Standards and brackets, but what sizes and in what quantity are out there? And were exactly are they out there? Not the right sizes. In the two places I thought they were.
-What is there that would not be best used in another place, sitting unused for even more time until then? All of it would be best used elsewhere, unfortunately.
-What about all those wooden brackets removed from the master bedroom way back when? Nope. Too small.

You can see that I haven't yet gotten the top shelf installed. That's because I'll need to get more 1/4" AC plywood, so next time I'm in Missoula and near Lowe's I'll get it. Then I'll already have materials for the next closet!

Anyway, that's the deal with the pine-board brackets; they're screwed to the corner studs and to the cleat on the back wall. The shelf is screwed to the brackets. I added a piece of screen moulding to the front for a tiny bit of added stability and to cover the plies.

Something similar will happen in the studio/office/sewing room/auxiliary guest room when I tackle the floors in there later this year, but hopefully it will go much more smoothly, quickly, and unembarrassingly.

Hard as Hell Being Green Anymore

Remember how excited I was about having closer options for more recycling? Well, that's dead now.

Obviously I can take it to their facility in Hamilton, but I so rarely have any reason to go that way - it would be wasteful to make a special trip. So, I'll probably mostly be taking it into Missoula, but I have to verify where that place takes, because I'm not sure it's the exact same selection.

You might also remember that a couple other recycling options were killed earlier this year, too. Damn it, what a drag. 

Not THAT Easy Being Green

Remember how excited I was about the expanding recycling opportunities around here?

From Target in Missoula where I could take the glass.

From the locally owned grocery where we could take numbers 1 and 2 plastics. Perhaps it's blurry because I was shaking with sorrow or maybe because of the downpour. 

Yeah.

When I was at grocery a young man from the volunteer organization that runs the recycling program was there collecting, so I was able to ask, "Whyyyyyyyyyy?" It turns out that they have to send their plastics to southern California and with oil costs so low right now, it's cheaper to make new plastic. The non-profit, volunteer-run organization is currently having to pay to recycle the plastics. They can't do that and maintain other services. When I told him about the glass recycling at Target being discontinued, the said they were surprised it lasted this long. With the local glass recycling, even one wrong item in the whole giant dumpster and the whole batch is considered contaminated. Of course, we can't trust the citizenry to not put cardboard or paper or caps or freakin' dirty - or even clean -diapers in the glass recycling which is a whole 67 feet from a more-conveniently located garbage can and likely about 15 feet from their vehicle if they drove or rode one.

The good news is that I was told that they are working diligently to get the plastic recycling back, but my hopes are not high for the glass. I hope I'm horribly, wonderfully wrong.

Island Time in the Mountain Time Zone

"Island time" is especially apropos: We installed a kitchen island, but I took my sweet time posting about it... it was done in September during the building of the woodshed and boy, oh boy, has it made a difference in the functionality of our kitchen. Yowza!

(photo taken when we viewed the house)

The former owners had a big round dinette table in the kitchen where I think they ate most of their meals. We never considered putting another dining table in the house and we really wanted (needed?) more storage- and especially more counter space. Originally, I was hoping to find suitable cabinets at one of the used construction materials places that I could refinish, but anything smaller than a full kitchen's worth of cabinets that I found available was real crap. Then, I found this pre-owned butcher block top at the Home ReSource in Missoula! It was the perfect size for an island in our space and a good 3-inches think!  I picked it up and it sat in our shop for months while I kept looking for cabinets. Eric was getting very frustrated when cooking on weekend, so we started shopping for new cabinets.

The 3" thickness on top of standard-height, kitchen base cabinets put this a 1.5 inches over standard height and WE LOVE IT. It wouldn't work for everyone, but it is really comfortable for us slightly-taller-than-average folks.

We ended up ordering unfinished, maple, Kraftmaid cabinets through Lowe's when they were having a sale. The lead time was about six weeks, later extended to a little over seven. I finished them myself, then we hired Handyman Nick to install them - I just didn't feel confident to get them level and even and all that. I did cut and install the base shoe, though! I also sanded down all six sides of the butcher block starting with 80gr, moving through 120gr, and finishing with 220gr. Then I finished all surfaces with food grade mineral oil, letting it soak in between a couple coats.

You can see the very first or very second kitchen project in the background. I am not sure how the look of the fridge might change as we move forward with our redecorating/remodeling of this room.

While we were at it, we had Nick bring power to the island, too. I picked up one of those nifty outlets with USB ports for charging devices at the home center and chose a color that would blend pretty well with the cabinet stain - there's no reason to ruin the look of the cabinets with a white rectangle, right? You can see where it is on one end of the island in the top photo, but here it is all up close and personal.

The other end of the island is home to a new towel bar. You know you're a grown up when you are so eager for your towel bar to arrive that you compulsively check the FedEx tracking site multiple times a day, day after day. It's solid bronze with an "antique pewter" finish to coordinate with the drawer and door hardware. The towel bar came from Signature Hardware and the pulls and knobs from Hardware Hut. I did try to find this things locally, hitting the home centers and hardware stores, even places like World Market, etc., but had no luck finding what I wanted: simple, but not plain; a rustic-ish type finish.

As you can see in the photo take when the former owners' still lived her (2nd from top), the old towel ring mounted by the sink was both cheap-looking and not very functional. Sure it was convenient to the sink, but it also would get caught in both the under sink cabinet and the dishwasher. When it wasn't doing those things, it was shutting the door to the trash can when we wanted it kept open to put things in over the course of cleaning and such.

Speaking of the trash can, this might be Eric's favorite part of the new set up: trash can located right below the cutting station! It's a little bigger than our old can and easier to access because it slides out. The can and hardware are not as deep as the cabinet, which allows room for the electrical outlet and wiring, too. After I removed the shelf paper, scrubbed, I replaced the shelf paper under the sink. Now the cutting boards are off the counter and stored under there. While we generally cut directly on the new butcher block, we do use cutting boards for things that are extra stinky (onions, garlic, etc.), extra stain-y (beets, tomatoes, etc.), and extra bacterial (raw meat).

And now the dirty details:

The drawer pulls pretty much inspired the pewter-like finishes for the hardware. These are low profile so that the drawer hardware over the trash bin wouldn't catch a lot of detritus from falling trimmings and cuttings*.

These knobs are from the same line. They're a cast composite aluminum from Italy, but they weren't expensive and I just love them. We replaced all the door knobs on the existing cabinetry with them, too. And then chose a different drawer pull from the line for the existing drawers which I shared back in September.

Originally, we thought we would put stools on the overhang side, but it doesn't overhang  the standard depth, so we'll see. Besides, we ended up setting up a little bar there.

I was given this sweet bar set for my birthday last year, so it's nice to be able to put it where we can see it and use it easily!

And I picked up this vintage, hammered-aluminum tray for our bar basics. The handles are faux bois and there is a pine bough/cone pattern on the tray itself.

I am now all excited to start redecorating/remodeling the rest of the kitchen and have mostly-finalized our choices for finishes, etc. Hopefully, I won't wait months before posting and will share the projects in-progress, as well as finished.

Our starting points from when we first moved in:

* We would like to compost, but we haven't yet found a bear-proof method that would also work during the winter months. If we ever get chickens, I am sure they will help us out with this.

Easier Green?

A few months ago a new grocery store opened in a neighboring town. The building had been a grocery before, but had closed before we got here. The owner is the son of the owner of the previous store (if I remember correctly) who has a successful market in Missoula - it's where we got our Hutterite turkey for Thanksgiving. They are trying to focus on more local, higher quality and organic items which is cool and they seem to be getting into the swing of things. YEY!  We do some of our standard shopping there and Eric does most of his weekend meals shopping there.

I don't know if this is an accurate representation of either the Bitterroot Range or the Sapphire Range, but it's neato and changes everything*.

We moved from a place where every single week, right at the curb, you could recycle most metals, most non-film plastics, most glass, most paper, and most cardboard. Also used motor oil as well as yard debris and kitchen waste. Recycling was SO EASY. And several things beyond that were fairly easy to recycle with a trip to a center or event. Not so in the Bitterroot. You can recycle, but fewer types of things and you need to take them to a center. They'll pay you for some things which is cool, but let's face it; if it is even slightly inconvenient, most people won't do it, at least not regularly.

We'd already been saving and recycling our aluminum for a contest for the local 3rd or 4th graders in the spring, as we had the last 2 years. But either they didn't do it this year or they didn't mention it in the monthly school newsletter delivered to all the local mailboxes. We have a WHOLE YEAR'S worth of aluminum. That won't be going to the recycling bin at this spot, but will instead be put into a collection bin located at another local grocer & supplied by a pet food charity. That said I am SUPER excited about being able to recycle our steel and some paper there.  

Tiffany was visiting and gamely tagged along on this errand, even helping me dump at least 8 bags of cans into the bin. Bags of cans are always kind of sticky-gross, but I bet these would have been a lot worse and stinky, too, if they weren't mostly plain seltzer. THANKS!

There's more in there than it looks like. Blech.

*In this case "everything" means "some things."

Let There Be Reading Light

Now that we have an electrical outlet on this wall, we can have a light by the comfy reading chair. WOO!  This is what FINALLY inspired me to re-purpose* an old wooden telescope tripod that I have had for at least 15 years and had intended to re-purpose this way for at least 12 year. If I have a photo of it before I started this project, it's buried in an old hard drive or possibly a paper photo album somewhere. D'oh!

I disassembled ithe legs the hardware that holds them at the top and masked over the other hardware.  Then I sanded and finished the wood with Stain & Seal in American Walnut, two coats, which I already had on hand.

Then I pre-drilled holes in the legs for screw eyes that I had spray painted black. These attach the black chain I purchased which keeps the legs from spreading further than a certain distance. This makes the whole thing more stable.

I tried to find a lamp kit at all the local hardware stores and home centers to no avail. They had them and they also had many component parts of the kit, but what they didn't have was a kit with an 8" harp (the kits all had 10") or non-kit 8" harps in either black or some silver-colored metal. Those are the colors of the existing hardware on the tripod and I thought it would look classier if I didn't add yet a third color.  Also, the lamp cords were either white or too short.  Plus buying the component parts would cost 3-4 times as much.  So, I searched online and found a site with A LOT of different lamp kits in many combinations of size and color. YES!  I did those above steps while I waited for the lamp kit to arrive.

Being a kit, the assembly went really quickly and easily; the only trick was figuring out how to get it all attached to the tripod.  I went down the hill to my local hardware store, found a black rubber stopper, drilled a hole in it, and used to to attach the lamp hardware to the tripod. POW.

Then all I had to do was install the shade that I had picked up on sale in February.

I am still on the lookout for a cool finial, but in the meantime the one that came with the lamp kit will work just fine and we can use the comfy chair for more than just sitting.

We both think that we need to rearrange the key pieces here a bit. Now is not the time to do so, though.

* RANT ALERT! Why "re-purpose" and not "recycle"  or "upcycle"? I'll tell you why: I think that "recycle" should be used for what you do instead of putting something in the landfill - when you turn over material to be broken down and remade into another item of the same or consisting at least partly of the same material. If you use an empty beer bottle as a vase, that's "re-purposing" and if you used it to bottle you're own home brew, that would be "reusing."

I think "upcycling" needs two components. First, the new use must be better than the original or current use, hence the "up." Second, the item must have been destined to be recycled or thrown away, hence the "cycle." This might include burying a used beer bottle upside down with the bottom exposed to make a garden path, but how is that any better of a purpose for a bottle than holding beer? There may not be a better purpose for a bottle than holding beer! It may not even be possible to "up cycle" a beer bottle. [mind blown]

One Step at a Time: The Bathroom Redo Edition. Volume 2

Nothing like opening the curtain all the way and taking a photo to really see what crummy shape the finish on your cabinets is in.

Tiny step-by-tiny step the main floor bathroom is on its way to seeming all new-ish!  After a thorough search of the local hardware stores, home centers, and used building materials suppliers, as well as a shout out to some local friends for resources, I purchased new cabinet pulls online. This time through Overstock.com.

The original pulls.  Soooo 1970s and to my eye, soooo suitable for some creepy Halloween prop!  That's right, I'm keepin' 'em.

While it's silly to install the new ones now when I will just have to remove them to refinish the cabinets, I did it anyway. I just love hardware and having this sit around in a cupboard just wouldn't do. One thing I am counting on is that a light sanding will remove most or all of the color difference from where the last pulls were. That's what happened upstairs with the same pulls and very similar cabinetry.  I'm just glad that whoever installed the originals didn't tighten the screws so much as to dent the wood... you see that a lot when you remove hardware.

Simple, but not plain... why so hard to find? These are even a brand carried at the big box home centers, Amerock.

I am still on the prowl for a pair of knobs for the floor-to-ceiling cabinet on the other side of the bathroom, by the door.  I have some ideas, but haven't committed to anything just yet.

Despite my lack of photography and GIMP skills, the wood on this floor-to-ceiling cabinet is pretty close to the same color as the vanity.

I am not yet sure how I am going to handle the hinges (see photo, top).  I have not found the right finish locally and buying them online means either paying a lot or buying in bulk such as I end up with several extras (I need 12).  I am considering painting them, but I fear the results will be unsatisfactory and I'll end up buying new ones anyway.  I also haven't totally decided how I am going to refinish all these cabinets, but I do know what I want to do. I just have to do a test on the back of one of those vanity doors to see if it will work.  Stay tuned...

That 70s Bathroom: A Few More Details

It has been awhile since any kind of redecorating or remodeling has gone on around here and it is going to be a little while longer until anything of any real consequence goes on in the house.  That said a few fun, new things have been added to the upstairs hall bath in the last couple of weeks.

How we last left the foreign toothpaste collection.

First off, I filled the two remaining empty frames (above, lower left) with more of the foreign toothpaste collection plus one more frame.  Next time I'm in Portland, I'll need to pick up either 2 or 5 more of these Ikea shadow box frames, because there are more tubes to be framed and there will always be more foreign toothpaste.

Left frame: from left Gibraltar, Germany, South Africa. Right frame: from top Vietnam, Thailand, China, China.

I'd like to have 3 frames arranged vertically here like one column from the other arrangement.
From top: Russia, Spain, Kosovo.

The toilet in that bathroom doesn't flush, shall we say, thoroughly. I had a similar issue in my house on 80th Avenue and that was caused by the wrong hardware being installed in the tank by a previous owner.  I think this is the same issue, but I am neither ready to tackle it nor ready to pay a plumber to tackle it.  So, I thought a sign would help everyone who uses it leave the bowl as they found it. [wink] 

I wanted this to be both subtle AND obvious, so I thought hung over the wood paneling rather than the painted wall AND right by the toilet handle would achieve those goals. Time will tell.

I'm not a lady who usually likes to thumbtack or tape things up, so I mentally went through my stash of small frames AND remembered this little beauty that I picked up recently at a thrift store.  Not only does the profile mimic the *Ikea framed mirror on another wall in there, but the finish ties right in with the other antique brass finishes. Not to mention it has a certain 1970s home decor vibe reminiscent of Home Interiors, Inc. of which my grandmother was a leading sales person in her heyday AND loyal fan through all her days.  Practical, humorous, and nostalgic is a winning combo in my book... er, bathroom.

I was tempted to embroider it, but printing it meant it would be complete within minutes rather than possibly-never. I thought the semi-old western-y font seemed appropriate for our location as well as the vibe of the room.  There is no glass because the frame originally had a mirror in it, which lead to a whole other reason to giggle while deciding where to hang it.

If you'd like a reminder of just how far this bathroom has come and all the excruciating details of the transformation from actual-80s to retro-70s decor check out these posts:

*That 70s BathroomL Phase 1

That 70s BathroomL Phase 2

That 70s BathroomL Phase 3

SUPER SPECIAL THANKS TO THESE FANTASTIC FRIENDS AND FAMILY FOR THESE FANTASTIC TOOTHPASTE(S): Cousin Bud, "Cousin Sal," Eric, Lisa, Sandy, and Ellyn. 

Foolin' Around

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY!

Pretty much the only non-creepy clown around, Ms. Mavis.  Seriously, she's less creepy in person.

Once I spotted the red clown nose in the 50% off bin at Michael's, I knew Mavis had to have it.  What I couldn't believe was that between the two of us neither Eric or I had a rainbow clown wig!  That's not like us at all. Lucky for me, my friend, Denise, had part of one left over from a project and our mutual friend, Lisa, guilt-ed her into sending it to me!  YEY FRIENDS!  YEY GUILT!  The rest of her outfit was cobbled together with materials at hand, mostly scraps and remainders from other projects.

Something about this great, big , bushy beard makes Ramon look kind of cranky. That's how you know it's an April Fool's joke, because Ramon is the cheeriest guy there is.

We also didn't have a bushy, ginger beard for Ramon, if you can believe that.  I did have orange yarn in my stash, though. YEY STASH!  The hat was picked up from the Goodwill bins a few years ago & has been in the costume box waiting for the right occasion.