Say I love you with…a toilet seat replacement?

Valentine’s Day is not just about giving candy and cards to significant others and friends, it’s about showing your love language. Which for my brother must be acts of service because it involves replacing a toilet seat.

Yep.

Well to be fair, I had already called my brother to help repair a piece of furniture, and we had both forgotten it was Valentine’s Day weekend, and since he already had the tools out for the furniture, he replaced the toilet seat in my guest bathroom, too. He uses that one after all. So, this really has nothing to do with love. Well, some caring.

Brief backstory: if you will remember my IG post from July 2020, I had this as a TO-DO project. It’s not a hard thing to do, especially with newer toilets like I have, but for some reason I didn’t have the motivation…or something to get this done. It’s probably a combination of not liking germs (I’m a little germophobic, and this is the guest bathroom) and scared that my phone would fall in the toilet while I tried to get a picture.

Instagram photo. The desk got done, the toilet seat not so much.

Before I had to return it for the right color. Oy vey!

So, after exchanging the seats because they were the wrong color, I just sat one in the guest bathroom and did nothing.

Turns out it really isn’t hard to replace the seat with the right tools. I knew this; I just didn’t want to believe it. The seat comes with all the hardware you need, and with a screwdriver and a basic adjustable wrench, you can replace your seat in 10 minutes.

The wrench is needed to hold the fasteners underneath (those white plastic parts) while you unscrew it at the top. The hardest part of the install was figuring out how to get the screw holes of the new toilet seat to lay flat so you can attach it to the toilet. Just a little spatial thinking (open the lid to work the screw assembly flat into place), and you’re ready to install. Easy peasy!

Now, I guess I’ve got to do my own toilet seat replacement. Do I love myself that much?

Quarantine 2020 Projects: Shelf Floor Lamp Upcycle

Quarantine has been interesting for my #WeekendDIYGirl projects. I can’t help seeing all these projects I want to tackle because I am around the house all day.

This project happened because I decided to rearrange my bedroom. (I had the furniture moving stuff out from my home office reno and thought why not? *smh*) When I did, I found that I had too much furniture in my bedroom, so I moved these to my bonus room, which could use some better lighting solutions. The oak wood and beige shades were not the right look for my bonus room’s vibe, so I repainted these and got new shades for them.

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  This is an updated picture of my lamp. On my lamp, the shade is a tan beige and inside the wooden supports. Photo source: Target Coporation.

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  Prepped for spray paint.

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The shades I wanted were hard to find in the right size. A quick search from IKEA gave me the right shade, but as many know, only IKEA lamps fit IKEA shades. So I kept searching, but I came up empty. I used a hack from the Shine Your Light Blog, which meant I had to go source the items. So what could have been an easy weekend project turned into a month-long research and sourcing project during quarantine. But the results are amazing!

Before image (left (or top)) a slightly updated version of my lamp. Photo Credit: Target Corporation.

Supplies:

• Paint Color: Pewter Gray Paint + Primer (Rustoleum) spray paint, 2 cans for each lamp
• Sandpaper, painter’s tape, and tack cloth
• Lampshades: RINGSTA from IKEA
• Lampshade hack supplies (See Shine Your Light Blog post)
• White zip ties ( to replace brown zip ties that keep the cord out of the way of the shelves.)

Home Office Reno, part 4 of…The Bookcase Debacle

In my Home Office Reno, part 4, I started off with two bookcases: a tall, 8-cubed unit in a satin maple finish, and a short, wide double shelf bookcase with an oak laminate finish that I spray painted an antique gold. Two finishes that no longer work in the space.

In a previous redesign, I painted the short bookcase (see that project here), but again, the outside paint no longer worked with the current design.

After a few tries with the taller bookcase (see that mess-up here!) I’ve finally got these two bookcases into the design. By purchasing another tall, 4-cubed bookcase, I now have a sort-of bookcase wall in my new home office!

Lessons Learned:

• Sand, sand, sand – but in the right way. Always sand wood and laminate pieces with finishes or old paint on them so the paint can adhere. And don’t try a harsh sandpaper (like 80 grit) and then a light sandpaper immediately afterward (like 220). You will gouge and destroy your piece that way.
• Before spray painting, fully cover up all areas you don’t want the paint to go. This is especially true for your work area and areas on your piece. It took more time covering up the inside of this short bookcase than it did painting it, but it was worth it! The finished look needed no inside touch-ups where the white paint might have gone through.
• Repainting is worth the effort. I love the way this new bookcase wall looks in the space. I was pretty bummed that I had wasted 2 cans of paint on a botched repaint and discouraged that I had to repaint my shorter bookcase after painting it just 2 years ago. But the extra spray paint and time and effort was worth it. I love this look!

Home Office Reno, part 3 of… Desk is finally done!

Finally! the desk I dismantled and sanded in April 2020 is finally done 3 months later! If you’ve seen my IG, you know I did have to break my quarantine to go to a home improvement store (for, among other things, a new toilet seat. Toilet seat replacement in an upcoming post). So, of course while I was there, I had to purchase everything I hadn’t in months! So let the painting begin!

Desk before Project (top), and desk after (bottom). Use slider to view each picture.

Painting a desk like this one is fairly straight forward once you have prepped your surface. This required:

1. Cleaning it out
2. Removing the top portion ( which required taking off the back part as well)
3. drilling and nailing some parts together that had come apart over the years
4. Removing the pulls (handles) and other hardware.
5. Filling in any holes with Plastic Wood filler (This desk is laminate.)
6. Dusting, sanding then wiping off sanding with a damp towel.

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I put a piece of cardboard under the desk to protect the carpet and so I could paint all the way to the bottom. This desk doesn’t have legs per-se or even furniture risers, so for a clean finish I had to paint it all the way to the ground.

With furniture, always use at least a semi-gloss paint. It costs more, but it is more durable in the long run. There is also cabinet and furniture paint specifically for these jobs that can be tinted. Here I just used a regular water-based latex in semi gloss finish.

Installing the new pulls required me to drill more holes for screws since the pulls are a different size. Always measure if you don’t have a template, so you’ll know where to drill the holes. I did one wrong by just eyeballing and not measuring. Can you tell which one it was?

Lessons Learned

After ripping desk from cardboard, some of the paint went with it!

• Sand lightly, even if it requires 2 or 3 passes. (This just needed a 220 grit paper to get the shine off.) Some of the areas on the desk were slightly gouged because I was aggressive with the sandpaper.
• Be prepared for multiple coats. Here, even though my paint had primer in it, I probably should have also primed because we are going from a darker color to a lighter one. this means less actual paint coats. But I had just enough!
• Cut away the paint before lifting it from the cardboard. Paint adheres. That is how it stays on stuff, unlike stain, which seeps into wood. So when I painted down to the end of the desk, some inevitably got on the cardboard. Which means, the cardboard is now stuck to the bottom of the desk at that point. Of course, I just ripped it up, which caused a messy bottom edge. Tip: Use a craft knife to cut a paint line and prevent the messy edge look.

Overall, I am excited to finish this paint project! It is a pivotal part of the home office renovation. Now on to next steps: hanging my new curtains, cleaning, arranging, and even some more painting. (My bookcase is getting another paint job!) And of course creating some creative accessories–like maybe a new clock?

Even DIYers get it wrong…

Parts 3 and 4 of my Home Office Renovation are to paint 2 pieces of major furniture: A double bookshelf and my desk.

The desk interior cubby needs one more coat, but after that, I’m stalled while doing my part to #StayAtHome. After all, there’s so much more to do on this renovation.

I thought the double bookshelf would be a snap–just spray paint it white, let it dry, and it could go back in the office. Two cans of spray paint later, and it’s in my living room waiting to be fixed. How did it happen?

This is a case of doing too much and not paying attention. Firstly, I was doing three projects at once: painting a wall in my home office, sanding my desk between coats, and trying to declutter this very same bookshelf’s contents. I did all of this with relative ease. Getting the bookshelf down the stairs and out the door was a little harder.

But my mistake was in not sanding. Like in other paint projects I’ve done here, I’ve played hit or miss with sanding. Every time I miss sanding, I always come out with a not-so-good result. Here, because I have a shiny laminate on top of this engineered wood, I need to sand the shine off so the spray paint can adhere. That’s why It came off on the right side (below pic)

Well, now I need to sand off more than that. See the drips? I’m pretty sure it’s mostly my fault for not sanding and for spraying too heavily and too close ( I was pretty tired that day). Although, I did get a better spray paint–one that I know works well. Hopefully, try number 2 will yield better results!