January 2013 - Page 2 of 2 - Storefront Life

XL Art Project

The main floor of the Storefront has almost 11 foot ceilings and is open concept, and to be honest its been very hard to decide on art for the space. Everything I own and try to hang is way to small for the large walls. I have been hunting for some large art in my budget, but have struck out. I decided to take matters into my own hands, and set out to make some extra large art.

My Mom was coming to visit and was bringing my Dad’s truck. A truck meant that I could get some big building materials that I cant normally buy and take on the bus. We got materials for a few projects, and also picked up a 4×8 sheet of 1/4″ masonite hardboard. A lot of artists actually use masonite as artist canvas. It is a nice smooth surface to paint on, and is acid free.

I took my 4×8 sheet and built a frame for it out of 1×3 lumber (I wanted a shallow frame/support as I dont have a lot of space for a thick frame, in hindsight however 2×3’s would have made a beefier support). The frame consisted of an outer stretcher bar with mitered corners, and two cross supports.

Frame pieces cut and ready to be attached

I used pocket holes to secure my frame, then brad nailed my masonite to the frame using 5/8″ brad nails.

Using Pocket Screws to attach the frame together

After that was completed, I sanded the masonite to rough up the surface for painting.

The masonite sanded to scratch up the surface for primer

The hardest part is maneuvering the super sized canvas. I advise having a friend to help you carry and flip this lightweight but awkward art project.

I primed the whole shebang with some left over primer/sealer I had laying around, then I set to painting my art.

I wanted something with some colour, but that wasn’t super in your face (the painting is 4×8 after all, its already gonna have a ton of impact!) Heeding the ombre trend, I decided to do a turquoise ombre painting. I hit up my Home Depot, and got 5 sample pots of paint in varying shades of turquoise (from light to dark).

After my primer had dried, I got to painting. I painted a stripe at the top about 20″ high of the lightest colour.

Then proceeded to do stripes 19″ high of all the other colours. I painted the lightest and darkest colours first and let them dry, then worked my way fading the colours. The lightest colours were fairly easy to fade, but the darkest colours were harder.

I ended up mixing up a “pallet” (paper plate) of paint where I faded the colours together, having dark on one side of a large paint brush and light on the other.

I then painted one stripe between the two colours with the fade in the middle. It only took me one afternoon to complete, and it makes quite an impact.

It currently is leaning against the wall in my dining room, but I think it will end up in my kitchen or even sideways over my sofa. So many options!

SOURCE LIST:

Materials:

4×8 sheet of masonite – Rona
4 – 1x3x8 spruce – Rona
CIL Primer – Home Depot
Behr Paint + Primer Sample pots – Home Depot

Tools Used:

Mitre Saw, Kreg Jig, Brad nailer, Paint brush

Difficulty Level (on a scale of 1-5):

Two out of five

Total Cost: $45

Coffee Bar – Temporary Countertop

We will be living with the coffee bar without doors for a few months untill the budget will allow us to pruchase all the door and drawer fittings. The DIY concrete countertop will have to wait until spring (when its warm enough to pour in our unheated garage) but in the interim we still wanted to get some use out of our new cabinets. So we decided to make a temporary countertop using some inexpensive $20 shelving we found at Home Depot. It is finger jointed pine which looks a lot like butcher block. It’s 3/4″ thick and came in a 8′ length and 16″ wide. It was wide and long enough to fit the bill, and we figured we could finish it up to be a passable temporary butcher block countertop for our coffee bar untill project Concrete Countertops can happen.

We cut to length, sanded, and got to finishing it. We decided to give it a couple of coats of tung oil (same as our dining table) and call it a day.

Not bad for a $20 counter top eh?

SOURCE LIST:

Materials:

Pine Shelf – Home Depot (note we used the #2 grade, you can also get a #1 grade version for $46)
Tung Oil – Lee Valley Tools

Tools Used:

Circular Saw, Tape Measure, Sand Paper

Difficulty Level (on a scale of 1-5):

One out of five

Total Cost: $20

In the Hood – Whipporwill Restaurant & Tavern

I know the blog is usually about our DIY projects, and I sneak a bit of lifestyle in here or there. In the last few months I have been thinking about including some details/reviews of the great local business in our west end Toronto neighbourhood. Continue reading “In the Hood – Whipporwill Restaurant & Tavern”

How to Open an Ikea Box

Ever tried to open an Ikea box and got so frustrated you just started ripping the cardboard hoping to somehow get that damn box open? Dont worry, we have all been there. Ikea boxes are strong and sturdy but glued shut encased in a little Swedish tomb that you think you’ll never be able to open. Well my friends, we have figured out how to open most Ikea boxes simply and easily (I say most cause some boxes are so well glued nothing will open them. In those cases I resort to tearing and swearing.)

So what you ask is our trick?

Take screwdriver of your choice, and weedle it into one end of the box.

Pull up on the screwdriver.

Then slide the screwdriver along the box, opening the end in its wake.

*one word of caution, watch where your screw driver is going, and don’t let it come flying off the box and make a divot in the hardwood in the dining room, or else your wife will screech at you “watch the floors dumbass!”

I know. Its so simple you’re surprised you never thought of it. Instead you broke countless fingernails and scratched your new cabinet when you tried to open the package with a box cutter. Now you love me and will forever be grateful for saving your marriage. I wonder what the divorce rate as a direct result of Ikea arguments is? Oh come on, you know you’ve had an Ikea argument. “If you like the Kivik sofa with the Dansbro red slip cover so much you can sleep on it indefinitely!” Shopping at Ikea is a domestic situation in the making. Don’t believe me? Check out this post from Apartment Therapy.

Now go forward and open your ikea boxes!

Coffee Bar – Stage 1

On our list of 2013 DIY Goals we noted one big project being the coffee bar. The coffee bar will be placed in our open concept kitchen/dining room. It will be on the opposite wall from our U shaped kitchen, and will be placed half way between the kitchen and dining room.

We decided to build a coffee bar there for several reasons. A.) We wanted more counterspace to house our prolific array of coffee paraphania. B.) We needed more storage for kitchen dishes and barware, and C.) we wanted more space to lay dishes during parties. We decided instead of getting a freestanding buffet, we would build in the coffee bar using cabinets that match our kitchen. I set to planning the coffee bar about a year ago, but it hasn’t been on the top of our DIY priority list, and to be honest its also a bit of a big ticket item. We decided to do it in stages to alleviate the financial burden. Thanks to some Ikea gift cards for my last birthday and Christmas, we were able to use our time off between Christmas and New Years to get started!

The first stage was buying and installing the cabinet bases, then making a temporary countertop. Stage two will be wiring in new electrical outlets, pouring a DIY concrete countertop, adding some reclaimed wood open shelving and getting a few doors for the bottom cabinets. The last stage will be adding glass doors to the uppers, and a three drawer unit to the middle base cabinet.

So here’s part 1 (aka the manual labour):

We headed to Ikea with plans in hand and had the friendly kitchen department write us up a purchase order for the cabinet bases. We went with two 12″ deep, 30″ wide lower cabinets as as well as a 12″ deep 24″ wide lower (which will have a drawer unit in it). For the uppers we went with two extra tall 12″ deep 30″ wide cabinets which will eventually have glass doors. We also purchased some feet and the hanging rail for the upper cabinets. What we forgot to purchase were any shelves for said cabinets. Oops, looks like another trip to Ikea is in our future! After our purchase order was made up, we headed down to the checkout to pay and then off to full serve pickup to get our order. It was fast and easy and we were outta there in no time.

A_KMWDGCMAETzG2 — Ikea Full Serve Pick-Up

We got home and set to assembling and installing. We had previously assembled and hung an Ikea kitchen for a friends reno, and having assembled our fair share of Ikea we were fairly proficient in our assembly.

We averaged about 12-15 minutes per cabinet, and with the help of a brad nailer to nail on the back panels, we were ready to install!

We started with the lower cabinets which we attached together by clamping them, drilling out the hole and attaching with the accompanying screws.

Drilling out hole to attach cabinets together (protect your cabinets from the clamps!)

We then attached the stainless steel feet we had purchased. We decided to go with the feet so that it looked more like a piece of furniture, rather than the rest of our kitchen which has a toe kick panel. It also made the unit look a little less domineering from the hallway.

Attaching the foot bases to the cabinets. When you’ve got two cabinets right beside eachother you dont want a foot on each cabinet (would look silly) so you place the foot right in the middle of both cabinets. It saves you buying more feet, and it looks better.

8 feet later and we had ourselves a fully assembled base unit.

photo 1 (2) — All the feet attached, ready to be flipped and installed

We flipped it over, decided on the position on the wall, we leveled it using the level-able feet (thank you Ikea, you are awesome for owners of an old crooked house!).

photo 2 (2) — El Granto looking super impressed while leveling the cabinets

Once everything was correctly positioned we attached it to the wall. Our biggest issue was that we were attaching to a firewall which has 1 1/2″ thick drywall and our stud finder was having a hell of a time finding anything! After a few curse words and a couple heavy duty EZ Ancors we were in business.

After the lowers were done, we set to hanging the uppers. They were to be placed one cabinet on either end with a stretch of open wall 24″ wide in the middle. We want to put some reclaimed wood open shelving in there, so we left the space open for now.

Hanging the uppers was also super simple, as Ikea’s system is amazeballs. You hang a track on the wall all level and nice, screw it into the studs, then your uppers float on the track!

photo 5 (2) — Ikea cabinet rail attached to the studs and showing the movable anchor where you attach the cabinet

It’s super simple for a long row of cabinets, and makes it so that you don’t have to worry about finding studs to attached each cabinet to. We only needed to hang two smaller individual cabinets. So we cut the rail into two pieces slightly smaller than the cabinets, and following Ikea’s instructions installed them in short order. All in all it took the two of us one evening and one morning to have everything hung.

Upper cabinets half hung, art project sneak peek on the ground and general mayhem and mess

The next steps to stage 1 will be getting the shelves we forgot at Ikea, adding a temporary countertop and some filler panels. This should all be complete by the end of January 2013.

Stage 2 will involve a DIY concrete countertop, some electrical outlets, open shelving between the two upper cabinets and hopefully a few doors and hardware. (ETA Summer 2013)

Stage 3 will complete the coffee bar with all the cabinet doors, drawers, and hardware. (ETA Fall/Winter 2013)

DIY Custom Door Mat

We needed a new door mat for the front door. We started hunting around for something useful but nice. What I found was a lot of ugly door mats, or ones that were hugely expensive. ARG. The problem is, when I get frustrated with not being able to find what I want for the price I want, I take matters into my own hands. So I refuse your overpriced or ugly door mats, and I will make my own thank you very much. So I stubbornly lugged my ass on the bus to Ikea and picked up some large coir rubber backed mats.

Coir is a natural coconut fiber and is very durable. If your mat gets dirty, shake it out, and you can even sweep it. Note to self, large coir mats are pretty heavy. After lugging them back on the bus I sure had sore arms the next day!

Okay, so now I had a plain mat. It would be fine as is, however I am never one to leave well enough alone. I decided to add some simple painted type or a design to the mat. I made a few layouts, but ended up loving a simple design of a small lowercase “hello” on the bottom right corner of the mat. I could have easily embellished the mat further with a border etc, but I liked the negative space the “hello” left on the mat. To save time, I broke out my Silhouette SD (yes I do use it for everything!) and cut out the hello from some cardstock. I popped out the letters, and used the cardstock as a stencil. I taped it onto my mat, and then used some sewing pins to get the paper to stay put.

The rough surface of the coir mat made it hard for spray adhesive or tape to adhere, so I found the pins the best course of action to get my stencil stay in place. I covered the other areas of the mat to make sure I didn’t get any overspray on the mat.

Using a can of spray paint, I carefully painted my letters trying to spray completely parallel with the mat, to try to limit how much paint sneaks under the stencil. You will have some, but this careful paint technique should limit the paint’s sneaky sneak under the stencil. Give the stencil a few passes with the spray can, then let it dry for 5 minutes or so. When you go back you will notice that its lighted up quite a bit as the paint soaked in, so give it another couple passes with the spray paint, then let it dry. I got a bit impatient and removed the stencil about 10 minutes after I painted. Just make sure that you’re careful and don’t get paint on anything (including your hands, spray paint is hard to get off your cuticles!)

photo(21) — Detail shot of mat after spray painting

We let the paint dry for at a day or two, and the placed it at our front door.

AdobePhotoshopExpress_2013_01_02_19 — The Mat

What do you think?

SOURCE LIST:

Materials:

Ikea Trampa Door Mat – Ikea
Spray Paint – Left Over Rust-oleum Universal in Black

Tools Used:

Silhouette SD
Sewing Pins

Difficulty Level (on a scale of 1-5):

Two out of five

Total Cost: $16

The best of 2012

I cant believe its 2013 already! We started the blog just six months ago, and have already completed some big(ish) projects! Here are our faves projects of 2012.

The Backyard Fence

The fence was a weekend project that made a huge impact. Odin has a secure backyard to play in and we have a safe and pretty fence that still allows socializing with the neighbors.

The Office Bookcase

This project got started at this time last year but took until the summer to be completed. It was a big project in a small space, but we couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. A lot of blood sweat and tears went into this build!

Bookcase Wide Angle — The bookcase project

The DIY Iron & Rope Mirror

This was an unplanned and dirt cheap project that turned out so well. It gets almost as much praise as the board & batten. All in all a great project that we’re super proud of.

The Dining Table & Bench

Not a project that was planned, but it has greatly improved the functionality of our dining room. We hosted 7 people for Christmas dinner, and threw a NYE party with lots of space for all. An easy but big impact project that we get a ton of use from!

The Master Closet

This is a project that most people never see (unless they’re creepin in my closet…) but that I absolutely adore. It’s so nice to open the closet and be met with a perfectly organized pretty room. I love how the painted wallpaper turned out, and it gives a bit of glam to the room.

cclosetfinished2 — The Master Closet Project

The Guest Room Board & Batten

This is my favorite project of 2012! For less than $100 in supplies and a lot of saw cuts and curse words, this room turned out better than I could have hoped for! I also love the new bedside tables, transom and of course the mirror, but the woodworking sets this room apart!

board&battencorner (2) — The Board & Batten

So there it is, my faves from 2012. Which project do you like best?

2013 DIY Goals

I am not a new years resolution kinda person. I know I will never stick to a diet, or exercise more. I will most likely fail on any person goals in about the first month. However, the house goals are much more attainable. Why is that? Perhaps cause improving the house is fun, whereas jogging is not. So in 2013 will I be giving up sugar? Not bloody likely, but we will hopefully check off a few of these projects this year. So here’s the list!

2013 DIY Goals

The Coffee Bar – Installing a set of 12″ deep cabinets & some open storage onto the big wall in the dining room. It will be used as a coffee bar/buffet and hold a lot of our less used dinnerware and serving dishes as well as all our coffee related paraphernalia. (i.e. the espresso machine, milk frother, drip coffee maker, grinder, kettle, bodum etc. ) And yes, each of those items gets used SEVERAL times a week. We like our coffee, mmkay.

DIY’n new countertops for the kitchen & (hopefully completed) coffee bar – This one hinges on us getting a new sink first, then taking on this big project. I will be ever so happy to cross this one off the list, especially after my laminate countertops started de-laminating when I used the self clean cycle on my oven…eep.

photo(17) — Hopefully this kitchen will be more functional and look better with new concrete countertops!

Reno the laundry room – This is a big project, that will cost us a bit of $. Hopefully we can fit it into the budget this year, as it would be sooo nice not to do laundry in such a damp dreary space. The bonus is that I will have a nice workshop in there as well! We have to lay down a dricore subfloor, flooring, walls, storage and a ton of other things. Wish me luck on this one…

Finishing the upstairs hallway – This one seems fairly straight forward, so hopefully we can check it off our list soon!

photo(26) — The hallway still needs some paint, art, plants for the nook and maybe a carpet runner.

Building a patio for the backyard & some landscaping – Its a small space, but this project will require a load of muscles. Anyone wanna come shovel? I pay in beer and pizza…

backyardafter2 — We hope to build a reclaimed brick patio and new walkway, as well as a flower bed near the fence. We also hope to build a modular sectional sofa to reside on the new patio.

Re-configuring our living space, and finally purchasing/building some grown up furniture for the livingroom – A smaller project, but it will involve some carpentry, some techy things, and hopefully a new sofa purchase.

So what are your house goals for 2013? Got any big DIY or BIY (Buy it yourself) projects on the go?