Previously I shared a post about how to paint MDF and get smooth edges. I wanted share a tutorial for painting plywood too. If you build with plywood with the intention of staining or clear-coating it, you would use edge banding. However, when painting plywood, edge banding is not necessary. You can Continue Reading
January 28, 2019
Kitchen Reveal
The kitchen is done! Five years and one back surgery later, I finally completed the kitchen renovation. You've seen a few sneak peeks as I've shared some kitchen cabinet tutorials. Today you get to see the whole room! I'll just say, it feels GOOD to be done!!! Real good. Kitchen Continue Reading
January 25, 2019
Sliding Cabinet Doors with Inset Track and Glides
When I built my coffee station hutch, I wanted sliding cabinet doors. It's surprisingly difficult to find hardware for that. Have you ever looked? In my workshop, I made sliding doors using bypass closet door hardware. Those wheels are exposed and not right for my kitchen. I needed something sleek. Continue Reading
January 23, 2019
Kitchen Island with Hidden Cabinet Doors
The kitchen is done but I have so many little detail "tutorials" that you're getting lots of snippets before the final reveal. Hope that's ok. Too bad if it's not. LOL Today I'm showing you how to have operable, inset cabinet doors, with no knobs or pulls. Just like the ones I have under my kitchen Continue Reading
January 21, 2019
Adding Decorative Legs to Cooktop Cabinet
I finished off my cooktop cabinet by adding decorative legs. This was always my intention and something I had to plan for when getting my granite pieces cut and installed five years ago. Back then, I had no idea what I would end up using as spacers, but I figured I'd find some kind of Continue Reading
January 17, 2019
Arthritis
Well guys, I am still working on my kitchen! It is taking a lot longer than I thought it would, or wanted it to. But, aside from chronic back pain, I have my health. All I can do is what I can do. After recently learning more about arthritis and how greatly it affects peoples' ability to do what Continue Reading
January 7, 2019
Lift Up Cabinet Doors
I designed a couple cabinets in the kitchen where I wanted the doors to lift up to open. Before building the cabinets, I looked around for hardware options for lift up cabinet doors. There were quite a few options ranging in price from ridiculous to reasonable. I knew I'd be able to figure out a way Continue Reading
January 4, 2019
Dishwasher Drawers with Custom Panels
The kitchen is coming and I finally got the custom panels on the dishwasher drawers. We have two of these drawer dishwasher units in the kitchen. One unit has two drawers, the other is a single. The handles are attached to the panels so we've been using the dishwashers without handles for five Continue Reading
December 26, 2018
Reflecting on the Past – Looking forward to the Future
Whenever a year starts nearing its end, I reflect on the effectiveness of my past efforts, and focus on my goals for the future. As my business evolves, naturally, so do my goals. When I started this blog, I never intended it to be or dreamed it would become --a business. But my blog (and Youtube Continue Reading
December 17, 2018
Moving Julie to TN
As you know, I'm working furiously to finish my house. But life isn't all work. Time spent with friends and family is important. And sometimes that happens spontaneously. Like last week while in the middle of installing my kitchen cabinet doors, I took a last minute trip to Huntington beach. Then Continue Reading
November 30, 2018
Board and Batten Wainscoting in Basement Bathroom
While focusing my efforts in the basement a couple weeks ago, I set my sights on "up-scaling" the bathroom with some visual improvements like installing board and batten wainscoting. A big thank you to Arrow Fasteners, maker of the iconic heavty duty T50 stapler. Before Aside from the Continue Reading
November 26, 2018
Kitchen Progress – Five Years Later
A while back I decided that in order to expedite completing this house before another 7 years passes, I needed to hire out a few things. Cabinet doors for the kitchen was one of those things. I measured all the cabinet openings for doors and drawer fronts-- three times to make sure I ordered the Continue Reading
November 15, 2018
Reducing Sound Between Rooms
When I built the walk-in pantry, I stole space from the hallway and master bedroom. They were both oversized and I had zero cares about stealing space from either. What I didn't anticipate was Madison's late night snack attacks...or the DING from the toaster before her early morning classes. I can Continue Reading
November 12, 2018
November House Update
The last two weeks have been all about drywall. Getting the basement ready for a LOT of drywall work. Wes and I continued sorting through our belongings and took a couple more truckloads to the donation center. We also made one trip to the dump. The belongings we kept where shoved into a corner of Continue Reading
October 25, 2018
Projects updates – because I did NOT stick to the loft.
Are you surprised? Although my plan was to work in the loft, finish it and then move down to the next floor, my plan changed. I was aware that my plans might change and therefore ok with changing them. I have to be flexible but I also need a plan or nothing would ever get done. So here's what I've Continue Reading
October 4, 2018
Progress in the Loft
I have to admit that I still haven't painted my front porch. It IS pressure washed but the weather has been too humid and/or rainy to paint. So I've been working inside and it has been AMAZING to get back to some of the projects that have been on hold since Calderwood. I am currently working in the Continue Reading
September 24, 2018
How to Clean a Garage Door and White Rubber Weather Stripping
Now that I'm completely done with Calderwood Cottage, I have all my tools back at my own house, including the pressure washer. I've been needing to pressure wash and repaint my front porch for a few years. Today the weather was beautiful, so I got started! I moved everything off the front porch and Continue Reading
September 10, 2018
Calderwood Cottage House Tour – Continued
Completing the Calderwood Cottage completed house tour today. Starting with the hallway that leads to the other bedrooms and the guest bathroom. Getting video footage while climbing the ladder into the loft was tricky. LOL We used one of the original doors to create another barn Continue Reading
September 9, 2018
Calderwood Cottage Completed
Y'all, Calderwood Cottage is finished and on the market! Calderwood Cottage Before Remember what it looked like when we bought it? We bought it on auction and didn't know what we were getting into. It was way more work than we planned or imagined. We worked a lot of long, looooong Continue Reading
July 31, 2018
French Cleat Storage for Track Saw Tracks
I'm focusing on small projects that I can do, here and there, until I get back to work on Calderwood. I recently put up a French cleat wall section in my workshop so I could put away some of the tools that don't fit in my drawer storage. Then I built some storage for all my track saw tracks. I had Continue Reading
June 20, 2018
Building Beams at Calderwood Cottage
We've completed round 3 at Calderwood Cottage and we're still not done but we made a lot of progress! We have an awesome new deck! And in the kitchen and living room, we added new, extended and bulked out some existing beams. Some of this work was simply for the look of it. most of the beam work Continue Reading
June 5, 2018
Finishing the Deck
We partnered with Wood, Naturally to build a deck at Calderwood Cottage. Phase two of this project was more effort than we planned for. However, it was totally worth the effort. It makes the whole house look bigger and provides additional space for outdoor living and entertaining. We had been Continue Reading
June 4, 2018
Building a Deck
Our cute little house looks so tiny nestled on it's 1.1 acre lot. We're pretty excited to partner with Wood, Naturally to build a deck. This project will create an outdoor living space, take advantage of the beautiful country views, and make our little Calderwood Cottage appear bigger! Clean Continue Reading
April 18, 2018
Calderwood Cottage – Round 3 – part 2 (Floors)
Hallelujah, the drywall is hung, mudded AND we stayed up late and got up early to get it painted. Now it's time to get some floors installed! (At least ONE room before Sid get's here!) We received product from Armstrong Flooring, and were so excited to open that first box of Maple Engineered Continue Reading
April 17, 2018
Calderwood Cottage – Round 3, part 1 – Over Budget and Behind Schedule
Hey guys, we're back! Over our 9 day holiday from working on Calderwood Cottage, we had time to look at our bank account and see how much money we've spent so far. "Big surprise" -- we're way over budget and way behind on our schedule. This is a special problem for us because our brother, Sid, is Continue Reading
April 6, 2018
Calderwood Cottage – Round 2 (part 5)
Our goal is to get drywall up by the end of Round 2 with Calderwood Cottage. Now that we have plumbing, HVAC and electrical taken care of, so we can finally insulate. We are doing spray foam insulation. The ceilings are "closed cell" which is more expensive but the only way for us to take care of Continue Reading
April 4, 2018
Calderwood Cottage – Round 2 (part 4)
October at Calderwood Cottage was 30 days of demo. During that time, we tore out the front porch enclosure. (Which stunk to high heaven!) We did not try to demo the brick steps at that time because we knew we'd be doing more brick work in round 2. Which is where we are now. Concrete Step Continue Reading
April 2, 2018
Calderwood Cottage – Round 2 (part 3)
Today I'm showing the progress we've made on the back section of Calderwood Cottage. In part 2 I showed you all the digging we had to do in order to get the HVAC ductwork installed. Today I'm showing you what we've done in the back of the house.Back in October, when we fought Round 1 with this Continue Reading