I’d like to buy a vowel for $65 please?

Everyone needs a really big letter in their house, don’t you agree?

Dave from Second Use agrees, look how excited he is. He had to climb a ladder AND stand on a refrigerator to get it down.

No, I don’t want the F.

Bathroom Design: Using Salvaged Materials

I bought this vintage utility sink years ago at Second Use Building Materials. We had been considering a second floor addition and weren’t 100% sure the remodel would actually happen. But then I fell in love with the sink and had to get it. So my argument for the remodel became “we have to do it, we already have the sink!”.

The addition eventually did happen and I finally got to use the sink.

Here are some pictures of the finished bathroom. Things to note:

• Salvaged materials include: tile seconds from Architerra NW, castors, sanded Fir flooring from our attic for shelving, planed and sanded/finished Fir from basement cladding for baseboard/door trim.
• When we got the sink it came in an angle iron frame. It was rusty and a little thin, but the general design was cool. We modified it a bit, designed flanking cabinets to match, and had a local welder/artist build them.
• The counter tops (and floors and shower walls) are d.i.y. Milestone, a decorative/pigmented hybridized cement. That was a wacky Hammer Like a Girl undertaking that we will never do on that scale again. Counter tops – completely do-able. Floors and shower walls – not so much. But we did it and I only cried once.
• Speaking of crying, the day we set the tiles was 103°. (We reserved the wet saw and the husband took the day off work so we were determined to get it done.) Actually it was 103° outside and about 110° inside/upstairs. Sweaty.

If there is a moral of this story, I guess it would be: if you love something that is one-of-a-kind – even if you don’t quite know what to do with it – go ahead and buy it (if your significant-other will let you and you have room in your basement, that is.)

Salvaged castors on the iron frame counters.

Milestone countertops.

Storage.

Reclaimed and sanded Fir from attic.

Angle iron sink frame and matching flanking cabinets.

Cool stamp on ceramic sink: Crane & Trenton Potteries Co.

Wall mounted faucet.

Energy Efficiency – The Garage

This is part of an ongoing series where we learn about, implement and share projects that improve the energy efficiencies of our homes.

Heidi-Vanna insulates with style

We are learning a lot about energy efficiency these days and we really like it. (Nerd love, Seattle style). We’re planning multiple, simple upgrades to our homes which are highly effective, low-cost, and in most cases, easy.

Designing With Street Signs

Part two of “Street Signs and My Attic Access” and recently published online at Northwest Home Magazine

Sometimes things turn out better than you thought –

I was beginning to wonder what the heck I was going to do with the $60 worth of street signs I had piled in the basement. Turns out they don’t work so well for magnetic boards – since they aren’t magnetic. “What now?” we asked ourselves, (I wasn’t the only one with a basement stash of them). We decided to experiment by making a street-sign-collage-clad door for access to my attic. The location is basically out of sight in the house – you know – just in case it didn’t work out so well…

Guest Post at Northwest Home Magazine

We are happy to say that we’ve been asked to post some of our favorite diy projects on Northwest Home Magazine. Go check out our first post – “Sign of the Times“.

From Ugly to Lovely: Painting a Floor, Part 1

Our house was built around 1911 with Douglas Fir floors. Six years ago, during our remodel, we ripped out the carpet and saw why someone chose to cover up the floors.

Fir Floor: Patchwork of Finishes

Fir Floor: Painted, Stained, Natural

Screws and Screw Holes

Badly Patched Flooring

Hole from Register Vent

Another Badly Patched Area

There was/is:

• a sad array of worn finishes/surfaces – natural, painted (lead of course), and stained
• patched-in sections where there was originally a furnace and built-in bookshelves (and why did someone think that was a good idea – removing the bookshelves?)
• numerous large screws (+ holes) where someone tried to fix the squeaks
• holes where we removed the heating vents when we installed in-floor heat

Street Signs and My Attic Access

Sketching the door

Fitting the plywood

Insulating the door

Waiting…

I’m on a kick to make my home more energy efficient. Yeah! First project – a better attic access door. Boring! Thank goodness I have 2 willing girlfriends to help me… and I must say it’s turning out to be anything but boring!

So we sketched out our plan, knocked a bigger hole in the wall (after verifying it was not structural), built a plywood door panel, applied insulation to the back of it and then…

St Patrick’s Day

Graduation parties

Snowboarding

Ultimate Frisbee

Summer water polo

Christmas presents

Christmas decorating

Summer vacations

Summer sand mermaids

ONE YEAR LATER! Back to work… We had plenty of time to think about it, ahem, and decided to experiment with our Seattle street signs.

Installing Craftsman Window Trim (Finally)

A while back, we published a post about selecting douglas fir lumber from the odd lot section at our local lumber yard to use for window trim. That lumber sat for a while in the basement while we worked on other projects.

We (or should I say the husband) decided it was finally time to get to work on it. It went something like this: “The lamps, the pillows are nice and everything, but maybe you 3 could work on some projects that will get the house done.” He’s so practical (and right).

Just as a reminder, we had 9 windows without trim. The windows came from Loewen, a company from Canada. They make beautiful SDL (simulated divided light) windows – you can check out their website. One thing they do in their fir windows is mix a vertical grain (vg) fir with a less costly flat grain to make them more affordable. To save costs, that is what our plan entailed as well for the trim and we saved even more money by going to the odd lot section. We told ourselves that we would be ok with imperfections such as knots, and once everything was up, the knots did just become a natural part of the window.

Here is one example of window sans trim:

Our craftsman trim design was pretty simple –

Mosaics Tile

I’m looking for backsplash ideas. After 7 years of living with an a-l-l-l-most finished kitchen, I think it’s time to finish it up…

I have an area in the kitchen that can stand alone and be different from the rest of the design, so my thoughts turned to mosaics – specifically those that re-use broken pottery or dishes (keeping up my Seattle eco cred). It’s a design idea that can easily turn tacky so I wanted to do a bit of research – see if I could find a few good examples. We found a great project at Bradner Gardens Park, Seattle, located inside the public restrooms!  Here are a few photos of these super creative mosaics in the women’s side – I think the boy’s side has spiders…

Kudos to the artists Joyce Moty, Liz Cross and Gyda Fossland!

Gift Ideas – 11 Artists We Love

We spent an afternoon cruising the aisles of the Urban Craft Uprising in Seattle last weekend.

It was inspiring to meet so many talented people and to see their amazingly creative work. Plus we had some holiday shopping to do and there is nothing like handmade and/or local to counteract the frenzy going on all around this time of year.

Visit their sites by clicking on the photo, and even order some things if you likey, too . We vouch for the quality of all that we’ve included in this post. Have fun surfing…we did.