Brushing Nickel

I am way overdue on posting, but it's not because we haven't been busy. In fact, as is usually the case, I've been too busy to blog--but getting good material for when I finally have a chance to organize my thoughts. So in the meantime, please accept this sad excuse for an update. I discovered this funny little fix a few months ago during our mini bathroom revamp. I wanted to put hooks in both showers for my soap poof and comb, but was having trouble finding a nice piece of hardware. After all our re-grouting work (and the professional remodel upstairs), I didn't want any ugly suction cups. So we bought these--they stick on with adhesive but if that doesn't stay up, my parents actually had luck grouting them in place. The only problem was that they only came in one finish--shiny chrome.

It sounds stupid but I don't like to mix the metals in my decor. Our downstairs bathroom is all done in shiny chrome, so it was no problem sticking one of these up next to our fancy new shelves (alcohol swab to clean, then press and hold for one minute, then don't actually use the shower for about a day). I didn't want to put one upstairs where we've managed to stick entirely to brushed nickel. I bought some spray paint in nickel but was trying to figure out how to get the white part taped up and still get spray paint into the inner section of the hook.

So I decided to try something different. I "brushed" the finish...I took sand paper (probably 220 or 320 grit--can't remember) and gently started to sand the hook. Now this obviously won't work on plastic made to look like metal and probably isn't a guaranteed fix any time, but I actually managed to create the finish I wanted with sand paper. See the difference below? Now maybe that seems minor to you (I mean, I do understand that really in the big scheme of things, having a shiny hook next to dull shower hardware is not a big problem), but I thought it was pretty exciting.

Interesting to note--my mom had a go at "brushing" the nickel and sanded hard enough that she scraped the silver finish off completely to find what looked like copper. I wonder how many layers these things have!

I am still looking for a pretty razor holder to stick on the wall, if anyone has a suggestion.

I promise I'll have more material soon--I'm in the middle of refinishing 3 pieces of furniture and a lot of yard work. Stick around, I promise it will get more exciting!

Toilet Tweak

We made this upgrade a few months ago, but I saved it for this round of blog posts on our main floor bathroom. It was really stupid and minor but was a nice improvement for our toilet.

Ever since we moved in, our toilet was bolted to the floor with exposed, rusty bolts.

We picked up a $3 kit at Home Depot and covered them up! Now it's much easier to clean around the bowl and not worry about getting tetanus!

We still have a rusty ring around it that didn't respond much to scrubbing--any ideas on how to mask it or get rid of the rust?

Timber!

We have a dead tree in our backyard that was just asking to come down. No leaves ever since we moved here, and pretty brittle looking branches. We nervously watched during a hurricane last summer, but it stayed up. It wasn't a big problem because it was tiny enough that even if it fell, it wouldn't be able to inflict much damage. But it worried us that one day it might come down all by itself in some unthought-of inconvenient way. Once we cleared the area by the patio, D started to think that maybe he should take the tree down since he thought it would probably be an "easy job."

He has no experience cutting down trees.

He didn't have the right tools.

That worried me.

Fortunately we have a friend who knows an awful lot about cutting down trees, being a carpenter, builder, general repair specialist, and all around great guy. I emailed him and his wife on a Saturday asking if sometime in the near-ish future, they would mind helping. Maybe summer sometime. Or early fall.

They called me and asked "how about tomorrow?" (Actually, they asked "how about this afternoon?" but we have plans we couldn't cancel, and asked if the following day would work.) How's that for good service?

Of course that day was rainy, but that didn't stop the boys. D and our friend, R, went out to assess the tree. R thought it might be too dried out to safely cut (it could do crazy, unpredictable things like shatter or fall in the wrong direction), but then decided it was so tiny, they could manage. He didn't bring his chainsaw, so they just used manual tools--a hand saw and an axe.

We learned how to chisel out a space to encourage the tree to fall in that direction. They alternated using the axe on the one side and the saw on the other. We also learned that for "unpredictable" dried up trees, it was safer to cut the trunk pretty high, so that you could be on your feet if it started to fall when and where you weren't expecting. Cutting lower to the ground means that you're hunched over and it takes time to get up to run away.

 In just about 5-10 minutes, down it went!

They pondered the tree and decided to start taking off branches. We aren't sure exactly what kind of wood it is, but it's definitely hard wood that will be good for our fireplace this winter.

Once the branches were off, they moved the trunk into the brush so it didn't kill the grass. R left us with the tools to chop it up, though we haven't gotten around to it yet.

That tree came down three weeks ago and we've made no progress since. Here's the view from our dining room window last night (please excuse the screen in the window--I didn't want to open it all the way and risk having a cat escape). But it works for now, at least--the branches are on the patio and the trunk in the brush, so neither is damaging our yard. And we learned how to take down a (very small and inoffensive) dead tree.

And now, because I can't think about cutting down trees without this reference, it's time for something completely different:

Shelf Upgrade

As promised last time, here's our last major main bathroom upgrade. Our downstairs shower didn't have any built-in shelving except for a soap dish. We inherited the last owner's scummy over-the-shower-head plastic shelves and eventually bought a metal 3-shelf stand from Ikea. It held its own for a while, but rusted over time until it was rather nasty.

So during our do-it-yourself remodel weekend, we decided to install real shelves. My mom planned ahead and ordered us some shelves from here. They had a lot of color and style options to choose from. We chose flat mount, since we were not about to cut into our existing tile. We went with black to match the soap dish. We decided to mount it to the wall next to the shower fixtures, so "normal" was the best size to make sure it didn't interfere with the faucets.

Mom did more research and figured out what kind of glue we would need. She came prepared with some waterproof (not resistant) sealant.

Then came the hard part. Once we decided where we want the shelves, we put the glue on the backs and stuck them into place. The problem was that this stuff took a while to dry, so we held it in place forever all the while trying to use a level to make sure that we weren't accidentally sliding it off balance. We were. Frequently. We held it for a long time and then taped it up, as you see below.

Then we checked back about 30 minutes later and they had slit and gone off-kilter. Again. You might be able to see a tiny bit of brown above the lower shelf in the picture above. That is the glue, as the shelf slid down the wall (it was not fun to scrape off afterwards). So we slid them back, re-held, and re-taped. It was pretty miserable.

But finally we ended up with something more or less level and even and (more importantly) dry. We left the tape on for days before we were brave enough to remove it and then we waited even longer before caulking. (Remember, we're not really using this bathroom right now.) Here's what the glue looked like once it had dried. Pretty solid but obviously with space for water to get in. Even though the glue said that it dried in a few hours, the instructions that came with the shelves said to wait a few days to make sure it was really dry before caulking, because once it was sealed it wouldn't be able to thoroughly dry out any more. So we waited until we got up the nerve to try it, which equaled a couple of weeks--plenty of time for the glue to be good and dry.

Time to caulk. This was our first attempt at having to use a caulk gun on something that actually had to look nice. It was quite a challenge and very gooey. But D did a great job while I assisted with a  rag and a finger to help wipe off the extra.

Weeks later, the shelves are still up and I think they look pretty nice, even if the silicon lines aren't exactly professional. It sure beats a slimy plastic or rusty metal shelf!