Closet Door: Mission Accomplished

I did it!  I moved the closet door!  Now, instead of opening into the closet and taking up all of the space with the door swing, the door opens out, into the room!  I just found 9 squart feet of closet space that we either couldn't use or couldn't get to before!  This is the best feeling.  Finally, I can actually use this closet to put Ms. Princess' stuff in.

I talked about how the different ways I could accomplish this task in my last post and ended up deciding to move the hinges.  I started by dry fitting the door in the outer frame.  The door fit even without notching out for the hinges.  I put 2 boards under the door so it would sit at the proper height.

Dry fitting door (I used boards under the door to get it to the proper height):

Next I had Alex help me open the door, keeping the boards under for the correct height, and figure out where to screw in the hinges. 

I started with the center hinge. 

Traced the screw holes, predrilled, and attached the hinge. 

Then we attached to the door and closed the door, checked to see if it fit.  The first time I did this, I had to move the screws in the center hinge over about 1/4 inch.  I'm glad I only did 1 hinge at this point.  The second time worked though.   I did the same with the top and bottom hinge and closed and opened the door making sure they were in the proper place.

OK, time to notch out the hinges.  Since I had just screwed them on, I was able to trace around each hinge and score with the utility knife.  Then I got out the chisel and hammer and made this mess:

I don't own a router and even if I did I don't know how easy they are to use.  So, I went out and bought an early Valentines gift, Dremel 3000.

I spent several hours just reading the directions and trying to figure out what all of the attachements that came with the Dremel were for.  Then I realized it didn't come with a router bit.  So I decided to give this a try:

 After a LOT of noise, smelling smoke, and wrestling with the Dremel I realize that this tool is going to take some practice.  But I did get the hinges in.  I'll show you a pic but its not pretty.

 The important thing is that the door works!  It opens and closes and I just hope that no one ever stares at these hinges.

 The last part was to make the hole for the latch.  I looked through the drill bits (?) to find the right size for the hole.

 Then I opened and closed the door a few times to get a mark on the frame to determine where the hole needed to go.

This part, I can honestly say, was easy.  And it works great!  I screwed in the latch plate over the hole (and don't have a picture of this).  I didn't notch out the latch plate because the door is opening and closing fine without it and there is no need to make another big mess in the frame.

My last task I finished this weekend.  Reattaching the moulding that I pulled off, filling in the old hinge recesses with wood putty, caulking and painting. 

I finally finished this past weekend and all I can say is that its DONE.  I'm not too happy with my filling in the hinge holes and the moulding is all beat up (I'll have to add a pic here) from where I pried it off in the last post.  But its really not too visible, unless you look for it.

I used an off-brand of caulk and have to say that it didn't seem to be as smooth and easy to work with than and name brand I normally buy at HD.  Disappointing. 

I have to say that although this project isn't overall 'pretty' I learned a ton, almost enough to discourage me from attempting more projects in the future.  But I'm not going to do that.  I'm going to continue on because I enjoy these projects and its an education.  Can't beat that.

Operation Gain More Closet Space

Want to see some pictures of a messy room?  How about a messy closet?  I love looking at beautiful pics of peoples homes, but that is not happening on this blog. 

Every few months I go through the daunting task of decluttering my daughters room and trying to organize it.  Each time feels like the movie "Ground Hog Day", like, wasn't I just doing this yesterday?  She has a decent sized closet and its time to really utilize all of the space in there.  First order of business is to flip the door.

With the door opening into the closet (as it currently is), only 1/3 of the space is really usuable.  If the door can open into the room we'll gain almost 9 square feet of accessible closet space.  Worth it?  I think so.  Can I flip, or rehang a door?  I'm not sure.  Here is where I am right now.

This is the usuable closet space right now, pretty much all you can see when the door opens into the closet:

I'd already removed the door when I took this picture but the door swings open to the right side of the shelves.  All the floor space is taken up by the door swing.

This is the potential space we'll gain with the door flipped (door opening into the room).  I put another shelf (shown to the right inside the closet) that is not accessible at all.  The few times I actually used this shelf I had to 1,  step into the closet, 2, find a sliver of space that I could stand in and have room for the door to close, and 3, shut the door completely.  Then I had to do the reverse to get out. 

So I've been reading online about how to reverse a door, how to rehang a door and how to install a door.  Looks like I have 3 options. 

1.  I can remove the whole door jamb and casing and buy a prehung interior door and install it.  This is what Rachel did recently. 

2.  I can remove the whole door jamb, pull out all of the nails and flip it around and rehang it (if I don't damage it too much).

3.  I can just remove the door and rehang the hinges on the other side. 

Last night I started my exploratory research.  I first wanted to see how easy it would be to take off the door jamb and casings. 

What a mess!  This took me about an hour:

Options 1 and 2 involve removing this whole jamb.  There are a ton of nails to saw through and then pull out.  I don't own a nail gun and compressor.  I did lots of gouging of the jamb and casing while pulling this off, not sure if I can really reuse it.  Also, not sure what kind of saw to use to cut through those nails.  Will my jigsaw work?

If I choose option 3 it requires creating another hole for the door latch.  Also, notching for the hardware.

 Can I really notch out 3 of these hinges?  I'm not feeling too confident here.

In the meantime I have a door in my hallway.  Complete with One Direction posters.   

I'm going to give Option 3 a try.  I am really not feeling confident about this but I feel like I should at least give it a shot.  I'll keep you posted.

----Adrienne



Family Disney Trip 2012 (Disney with 4 tweens)

In early November we took the kids to Disney in Orlando Florida for 5 days.  I have to admit I am a recluctant traveler.  I get motion sick on almost any moving object, I have very little patience and have 4 kids ages 9 to 13.  We tried to make this a frugal trip but that's hard to do at Disney.  Here is our experience.

Getting there.  We flew Jet Blue out of Regan National Airport.  I love, love, love Jet Blue!  I love the satellite TV, wide, cushy seats, extra leg room and the free bag check (only 1 bag per person).  That made the flight soooo nice!  We each checked 1 bag (each child had their own) so we didn't have to shove a ton of bags into the overhead compartments.  The satellite TV occupied all of the kids, and me, during the whole flight.

Getting around.  Since we weren't staying on a Disney property with tram access, we opted to rent a car.  This was a good idea.  Problem was that we rented a Jeep Grand Cherokee which wasn't quite large enough for us the 4 kids.  The kids were uncomfortable even though we weren't in the car for very long.  We should have rented a minivan.  This was a cost savings fail. 

Lodging.  Since we had a timeshare trial (that we purchased a year or so ago for about $99? can't remember exactly) we were able to rent a 2-bedroom, 2-bath Mariott vacation suite for 4 nights provided we went to their 90 minute timeshare spiel.  Honestly, I am a total skeptic and I would never purchase a timeshare but this worked out for us well.  The suite we stayed in was beautiful and clean with maid service each day.  There were 3 pools and a game room on the property that we got to use, and the 90 minutes of our time was really only 90 minutes. 

Tickets.  We purchased 4 day passes to all of the Disney parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Disney Hollywood Studios).  These weren't park hopper passes, we could only go to 1 park each day.  We purchased them through the Mariott where we were staying and the price was a little better than any other that I could find while searching online.  This was the most expensive single expense of the entire trip.

Weather.  Early November was surprisingly (to us) chilly at times.  I wore pants and a hoodie each day.  There were a few times I was really hot (so good thing I had layers) but that was only in the direct sun.  It wasn't warm enough for shorts and sandals the whole day and at nightime I could have used a jacket.

Day 1 (Tuesday).  We took an early flight, so arrived in Orlando before noon.  We picked up the rental car, picked up our tickets at Marriott and drove to Magic Kingdom.  Parking at Disney parks was $14 for the day.  We got to the park around 2PM and the park didn't close until 1AM so we had plenty of time.  We loved the option of taking a ferry to the gate and seeing some of the Disney hotels along the way.  There were almost NO lines this day.  We waited around 20 minutes for some rides but most we practically walked right in.  The kids loved "Space Mountain" and "Splash Mountain", I loved seeing the castle lit up in pink lights at night.

We didn't stay for the fireworks, I can't remember what time we left but there were a ton of people lining up waiting for them.  It was really cold by the time we left.

Day 2 (Wednesday).  We slept in and took our time getting to Epcot.  There was way too much to do here in 1 day.  We had to endure lines this day but they weren't too bad.  I found this park completly overwhelming.  At first I didn't want to go to any of the countries because I'm fascinated with the science stuff at the front.  Being Disney novices, we were very hit and miss with the attractions we choose to visit.  The kids loved "Mission: Space" but weren't too thrilled with "Ellen's Energy Adventure" and "Journey into Imagination with Figment" (this was for 3-year-olds) but the 'play' areas when you get out of the rides are really cool! 

In the afternoon we headed to the countries to meet up with a friend who was visiting Disney with his family.  I really enjoyed this part of the park and this is the part I didn't even really want to visit.  It is so cool the way they make the whole area look and feel like you are in another country. 

Unfortunately the kids were not thrilled with the country area of Epcot so I didn't get to explore nearly enough here. 

The kids were very amused with:  the dancing fountains (my daughter wanted to get drenched even though it was 50 degrees outside and I had no change of clothes for her), the banisters (they were fun to slide down) and the light up sidewalks (areas of the blacktop that would light up and fade out) at night.

Day 3 (Thursday).   Once again we slept in and took our time getting to Animal Kingdom.  This park closes early, at 6PM.  I LOVED this park most of all but I was starting to understand the Disney thing of making the entire park (the streets, buildings,  characters, even the bathrooms) part of the experience.  The Safari was so awesome, just blew me away! 

I loved these beaded animals we saw in Africa in Animal Kingdom.

Day 4 (Friday).   Once again we slept in (this is the theme :)) and took our time getting to Disney Hollywood Studios. 

DIY Bat Mitzvah Candle Lighting Board

Hello!  Welcome to  my blog!  I've been busy, busy for the past few weeks getting ready for my stepdaughter's Bat Mitzvah.  I did a bunch of DIY projects for this event.  Today I'm going to show you how to make this awesome candle lighting board.  Its a tradition for the bar/bat mitzvah to call up a close friend or relative to help light each of her 13 candles (the bat mitzvah is celebrated when a jewish child turns 13 so its also a birthday party).

Supplies:

4"x4" post approximately 24" long (this will vary depending on how many candles and the size of the candles)

ruler

taper candles

3/4" drill bit

paint

ribbon, tulle and letters to decorate and embellish

Directions:

Gather your supplies. 

I had a left over 4"x4" post from building our refrigerator platform and purchased some white taper candles from Walmart.  Using the width of the taper candles and length of the board, we measured and marked where each hole would be drilled.

I drilled each hole approximately 1/2 deep.

Paint the entire board.  I used Kyrlon spray paint and primer in white.  It took at least 3-4 coats.

Wrap the outside of the board in ribbon.  I used the silver ribbon shown above.  Secure with hot glue.  The idea here is to cover up the outside so it doesn't look like a block of wood.

Embellish with tulle and letters.  I got the letters at AC Moore for $2 each.

Before placing the candles in the holes, we folded a piece of tulle and placed it over the hole.  This created a 'pouf' of tulle around each candle and helped to finish off the hole edges.  I was really trying to disguise this block of wood.  You can kind of see the poufs in the pic below.

 

That's it!  Thanks for stopping by and visiting my blog.

----Adrienne



Foyer Updates and Kids Cubby Labels

Hello!  We moved into this home 2 years ago.  One of the first problems I saw when we were house shopping was that this home had no mudroom, a tiny hall closet and no other space to put the kids shoes, coats, backpacks, and etc.  In our last home we built lockers for each child in the small mudroom area that was completely out of view, right off the garage.  So nice! 

The temporary solution we came up with for this house was to stick our extra Expedit shelf in the foyer.  Four columns of shelves was perfect for 4 kids.  We planned on building some nice lockers in this area. 

After 2 years here we decided that we like the Expedit shelves and they work fairly well.

Get ready for this "beautiful" iphone pic.

I don't love that I have all of this open shelving showing all of the kids stuff but I know from experience that if I had doors or baskets or whatever the kids are less likely to use the shelves and then everything ends up on the floor. Also, there is no mudroom (or room for a mudroom) in this house.

So, without spending a lot of $$ I made some update/improvements to this area. 

List of problems:

1. The shelves would not sit flush on the wall due to the moulding on the floor.

2. The walls still had the builder beige flat paint and they were dirty.

3. I wanted the area to look brighter and the artwork to draw the eye up more.

First, I added some CAPITA legs to the shelf unit.  The legs were purchased separately from IKEA, I think they were $6.

Then, I painted the walls in a light grey/taupe color, I made some new cubby names and added new artwork (also from IKEA, I already had these sitting in my basement from our last home).

I switched to my DSLR for this pic but obivously still not a good pic, sorry.

Here is a close up of the cubby label.

I started with some simple white frames I had on hand, also from IKEA.

And some letters purchased from the craft store.

The kids can change out the picture when they like.  I hot glued the letters to each frame and used command strips (love those!) to hang each frame to the shelves.

Thanks for stopping by!

----Adrienne

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