Getting things in order: Cleaning to-do list

I'm a reactive cleaner. If I notice something's dirty, I clean it. I do make an effort to "clean as I go," but I don't have any sort of regular housecleaning schedule (and that probably shows).

I've seen a lot of plans (clean one room a day, do this on Monday, do that on Tuesday, etc.), but a giant list of recurring chores always looks so daunting. And perhaps a little crazier than I need. (Clean behind the stove? Really?) Plus I'm not liable to have the same amount of time available on a certain day from week to week.

Anyway, I'm good with to-do lists, so I decided to make myself a recurring weekly to-do list. A realistic cleaning to-do list. Some of these chores might be more like every two weeks rather than weekly, but we will see how things go. I added a couple of reminders about paying bills and watering plants so I do them regularly. I also left some space at the bottom to write in odd or special chores like washing windows or the shower curtain.

I printed it on some patterned paper and popped it into a cheapie frame to make a pretty dry erase board. (I've seen this general idea a bunch of places and I'm not really sure where it originates from.) We can cross the chores off as we complete them. I love crossing things off, so it's a subtle incentive.

We don't really need reminders for things like the dishes, the laundry or the trash/recycling. Those things get done routinely without any trouble.

This pace is what works for us. I kept this list simple and minimal. Obviously you might clean more or less frequently, but this list is just to get myself on some type of system. This is probably well past due, but better late than never, right?

No-cost paint tray liner: Use a plastic shopping bag

When I posted my newly painted porch, did you spot this easy paint cleanup tip in the (seemingly endless) post?

I am too cheap to buy those disposable plastic paint tray liners at the hardware store. I know they are only a couple of bucks, but I have problems spending money on things that are just going to be thrown away hours later.

I used to pour the paint straight into the tray, but that leads to a lot of cleanup. And then one day it hit me that I could put the paint tray inside of a plastic grocery bag so the paint never actually touches the tray. You could also use a trash bag, but a plastic shopping bag is the ultra-thrifty option.

Just make sure you turn the bag inside-out if it has any printing on it. I've found if the paint sits on top of the printed logos, the ink starts to run and mix with your paint.

The bag does cling to the roller sometimes, but for me it's a minor annoyance that is far outweighed by the fact that I don't have to wash out a messy paint tray. When I'm done, I pour any unused paint back into the can, then take off the bag and toss it. Super quick cleanup!

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Linked to: In My Own Style's Trick or Tip Party

Working around a problem: Closed up return air vent

Some previous owner of our home closed up this return air vent in our dining room, but didn't do much to fix it with a long term solution. There's no longer any ductwork running to this vent. It's just a hole in the floor that's been stuffed up with some insulation and a brown piece of paper.

Before

This register had become a major dirty spot, collecting all sorts of toddler food droppings. It was gross. I needed to find a way to close it up or cover it so that it would no longer be the nucleus of nasty.

The "right" way to fix something like this would be to patch the hardwood, so you wouldn't even realize there had been a hole there. But that would be so so much work, plus refinishing the floor. It's not worth the effort in my opinion. I needed a less complicated solution to the problem, at least for now.

I decided to work with the existing register 1) because it already fit the hole. And 2) it's strong enough to walk on/stand on and I'm not sure anything I create would be as strong.

My first idea was just to cover the register with thin strips of wood (what I had in the house), but even at a thickness of a quarter of an inch, I was afraid it would become a tripping hazard. The wood made the vent more noticeable as well and this is a design issue that might be better off downplayed.

So my second idea was to cover it with something thin -- as thin as possible. And that's when I remembered they make sheets of magnet that you can stick to vents. I found them at Home Depot in the HVAC aisle (a three pack for just under $5), but they were really hard to locate. The intention for the product is to block air flow to unused rooms, etc. But since I was still using the metal register, I figured the magnet would stick to that just as well. It was the perfect size and it was super thin!

But before I could plop down the magnet, I needed to take care of the register itself. It was pretty scratched up and the faux wood grain wasn't exactly attractive in the first place. I painted both the register and the magnet with a coat of oil-rubbed bronze spray paint. I thought about painting some design on the magnet or decoupaging paper on top, but again, I reminded myself that this was a probably a situation where less is more. It doesn't really need to draw attention to itself.

I replaced the register and covered it with the magnet. You can see the indent of the gridwork through the magnet, probably from gravity but more likely from Elise walking on it. I'm not really sure there's anything I can do about that. I tried slipping a thin piece of cardboard between the register and the magnet, but the magnet didn't lay flat enough. I think I'm just going to learn to live with it. It's much better than it was! At least now it is wipeable or sweepable. I can take off the magnet and wash it. Awesome.

Fixing a wiggly towel bar

I've been on fix-it patrol lately: mend this, glue that, touch up paint here and there. But the biggest fix-it around here was our bathroom towel bar.

Before

It was new not quite a year and a half ago with our bathroom remodel, and on a number of occasions since then, it has pulled away from the wall. My dad tightened it up a couple of times, but it eventually got wiggly again, and I decided we needed a more permanent solution. The towel bar was just too heavy for the drywall to support it. It needed something stronger to hold it up.

Before

My dad cut a piece of wood to fit between the closet door molding and the corner. I wanted it to stretch the full length of this wall to minimize the lines. Then he pre-drilled some holes for me in both the wood and into the studs and left me to finish the rest on my own.

I gave it three coats of paint in the same white as the rest of the trim (which was matched to the tile). Basically, I just wanted it to blend in and not draw attention to itself. Then I mounted the board to the wall and the towel bar to the wood.

I filled in the screw holes with some painter's caulk (I'm kind of obsessed with the stuff right now), and when it was dry, did some touch up painting over that. Wood fill might have worked a little better, but I was feeling impatient and didn't want to make a mess with the sanding wood fill would have required. You don't really see the indents too much when the towels are hanging up anyway.

It's so sturdy now, Elise could probably do chin ups on it. Kidding. Please don't tell her to do that.

Paint splotches on the ceiling? Hide them with a border.

No, no not one of those wallpaper borders. Just paint!

We painted our family room when we moved in about three years ago. I had intentions of painting the ceiling; it had a few dings and spots, so we weren't too careful about keeping the wall color off the ceiling.

But then I discovered something -- I hate painting ceilings! It's a pretty horrible task, and this is coming from someone who generally loves painting almost anything else.

So three years have gone by and there were still splotches of blue paint on the ceiling. Clearly, it was time that I did something.

I thought maybe I could match the existing ceiling color and just do some touch ups. But that probably would have ended up looking a little trashy. That's when I got the idea to paint a border around the perimeter of the ceiling.

Nothing fancy, just a simple design that would cover up my mistakes (and those of previous painters who did a bad/thin edging job on the ceiling).

I searched through the paint in my stash and came across this mistinted sample in a nice "greige." It was too dark as it was, so I mixed it with some white paint to lighten it. It's pretty much a lighter version of the color of our couch.

I don't want anyone to immediately notice the ceiling upon entering the room, so I kept the design and the color very simple and inconspicuous.

I taped off a four inch band around the entire perimeter of the room and painted. After that was done, I pulled off the tape and traced a small round dish to make the curves in the corners and painted those out.

The taping took less than an hour and the painting itself took about two, but I didn't spend anything. And the ceiling definitely looks "finished" now.

All that's left to do in the room is hang more artwork. Let's wrap this thing up!

Enlarge and elevate tiny artwork with a shadowbox

Sometimes tiny art is hard to display. I'm a firm believer that the scale of artwork should match the scale of the space where it's hung, so unless you have tiny strips of wall, tiny pieces can get lost. A great way to give them a little more bulk is to put them inside a shadowbox.

This small 4.5" x 5.5" piece was painted by my great grandfather. I don't know much about him or his art hobby, but this painting didn't have any glass to protect it. The least I could do was take care of it properly.

I took a small scrap of gold fabric (leftover from a pillow) to use as a background.

I stapled it directly to the backing of the frame. This is an inexpensive shadowbox and the backing is just thin cardboard, so it wasn't difficult.

Then I took a T-shaped pin and put it through the fabric so I could hang the painting on it, just like I might put a nail in the wall to hang a picture. The pins are strong and this painting is very light, so it worked fine.

I love how the gold fabric and gold frame look together. Dare I say, kind of fancy? Kind of like a museum display.

But really, I think having the whole painting and frame behind glass elevates it in a way that just hanging it on the wall does not. The shadowbox is only 8" x 10"; not huge, but it's a little more substantial on a wall than the painting alone.

Window air conditioner cover

In previous posts, you may have noticed we have a window air conditioner in our playroom.

While we have central air in our house, the ductwork to the upstairs was probably not original to the house and the airflow isn't the strongest. The window air unit makes the room much more comfortable during the heat of the summer.

Last fall, we tried to take out the unit for the winter, but the air conditioner wouldn't budge, and so it stayed. A couple of weeks ago, I discovered it was bolted in place. I guess we could still take it out, but who wants to mess with moving that every spring and fall? (Especially on a second floor window.)

Because it was staying, I felt it necessary to insulate it a bit from those icy drafts that could sneak through. I added to the spray foam insulation around the outside of the unit, then I cut a piece of bubble wrap to fit inside the front grill.

Last year, I put a freebie fleece blanket over the unit and it seemed to work pretty well. But since we'll actually be using the space this winter, I wanted to do something a little less obnoxious-looking. I bought a yard of white fleecy material. I had an idea about making some fancy fitted cover, stuck on with magnets. But in the end, I folded the fabric in half and tucked the edges all around the unit, and it worked way better than I thought it would.

Yeah, it looks a little cocoon-y. I have no illusions that this completely camoflauges the ugly AC, but it does prevent me from having to look at that beige plastic all winter.

Click here to see the finished playroom!

Books in the console table 2.0

Maybe I was a little naïve in thinking Elise wouldn't bother my book arrangement. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. Either way, it wasn't long before she discovered how to push the books and make them fall behind the stacks, which were pulled forward to be even with the front of the shelf.

Now smarter and thinking harder (not really that much harder), I doubled up some of the stacks with smaller books in back (so they cannot be shoved backward) and pushed the ones near the top back to the wall.

I also made everything fit really tightly which seems to deter her for the most part. There's only one semi-weak spot in this arrangement, and really, it's not attractive enough for her to put forth the effort to pull everything down.

So maybe I will declare success?

How to shorten woven bamboo shades

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Two problems, one solution: a place for books

First problem: This console table in our living room was looking a little barren. Everything on the lower shelf had been emptied by Elise and she had been climbing into the table, yanking on the lamp wire. Not good.

Second problem: Nowhere to put a collection of books that were previously in our future playroom.

Solution: Make the console table function as a bookcase.

Before

The table was the first piece of furniture I bought on my own, but I have little attachment to it. After a cursory online search for a short squatty bookcase to replace it, I realized I wasn't willing to pay several hundred dollars for something decent.

I am happy to report the table has been made super heavy by the weight of the books and cannot be pushed around by a busy toddler. So far Elise has only bothered it a little, but I'm hopeful she can be trained to ignore it.

To those who may pose that some of these books are inaccessible, I will suggest that they would be even more inaccessible packed away in cardboard boxes. At least here they are in view in our living space and in an artful presentation.

Bathroom renovation tub length solution

One thing we ran into during our bathroom renovation was an issue with the tub length.

Before

Our old tub was an odd 63" long, and most new tubs are all 60" or five feet long. In addition, the plaster and lath walls and tile we removed were a lot thicker than the new cement boad and tile we installed. All in all, we were left with about a 6-inch gap between the width of the tub and the width of the room.

In process

We dealt with this by building out the wall to the width of the tub on the back wall of the shower. I was wary to lose any space in our small bathroom and thought this build out would look very conspicuous.

But because we took it all the way up to the ceiling instead of just building it up to the height of the tub, it looks less like a compromise and more deliberate.

I think it even adds some visual interest and character! I chose to line up the tile with the corner to simplify the lines.

As a side benefit, building out the wall allowed us to include a very functional niche for shampoo bottles, etc. Hooray for no tub deck clutter!