First Post... what's it all about?

So what's this blog about? Everything and anything related to home. It's what I do, everyday. As a beginning homeowner, I have so many projects going on to make our place livable and comfortable. I thought I'd document it here.

We paid so much for our house, that we have few funds left for those little repairs and renovations to make it a "home." So I improvise, I DIY, I reconstruct, and get a little dirty... okay, a lot dirty doing it. Recently I fixed a dripping toilet, and I KNOW there's a lot folks paying someone else big bucks when it can be done by an absolute beginner (like me) for about $10.00 and a couple hours. If you're a little more experienced in fixing stuff, you could get it done in just 30 minutes.

Just for comparison, here's what the average handyman will charge you:

Rates:
- $60 for first hour (1 hour minimum)
- $40 for subsequent hours that day
- $15 for subsequent 1/4 hours (as opposed to rounding up to the next hour)
- $80/hour for night & holiday

Most handymen will have a 1 hour minimum fee.

Hmmm... I have 4 children to send to college, and am saving some bucks on these repairs. I think I'll stick it into the college saving funds... or maybe start a vacation fund... What we could do with the money!

Bonfit Basic Top

Need to sew... need to sew... need to sew a top or something... Anybody else understand that feeling? I've been sewing journal covers and curtains for the past week and need to do something garment related really quick before I go nuts! So I take out the Bonfit patterner and have a quick fix... ahhh.

Bonfit starts everyone off with a simple basic top consisting of a front piece and back piece. It helps familiarize you with the way the patterner works. I've used the patterner several times before and am currently working on making a properly fitted shirt pattern. It still needs lots of work to get it to fit properly. I'm finding there are lots of adjustments necessary and am thinking that it would be easier to start from scratch. In the meantime, I wanted a quick sewing fix to curb my cravings for a decently sewn top, so I drafted and sewed up the basic top pattern.

The basic design features are cut on sleeves, front slit opening, side slits at the hem. I cut it on the bias to take advantage of the stripes.

Initially, the back piece fit poorly. I found this to be true of the shirt pattern I drafted as well. It's extremely baggy and I needed to remove a couple inches from the CB at the small of my back. I tapered it back up to the shoulder blades and that helped a bit. I suppose the basic shirt pattern is meant to be baggy, but adding the CB seam shaping made a big difference in the way the shirt fits. If I could take out a pinch from the waistline, it might improve the way it hangs at the hip. Here's a picture of the alterations I made. The red line shows how much I took it in, the black line is the original sewing line.

And here is the back AFTER I removed most of the excess bagginess. Imagine how bad it was before...

BUT, the withdrawal symptoms have subsided and I am content to get back to my work things.

Bike assembly. $10.00 or a child's feeling of accomplishment?

Mom and sis built me a bike! And I helped!
Time it took: 2 1/2 hours

Time it should've taken: 0 if you buy it already assembled ($10.00 more), or maybe 45 minutes.

I'm sitting here, having my celebratory glass of wine after spending the evening with my 4 year old son and my 19 year old daughter assembling a bike. Yes, we did it together, amazingly without killing anyone... much less breaking anything.

Of course, he started out with the easy job, unwrapping and showing us each part. I did the second easiest thing, taking pictures and trying to figure out and remove whatever looked like plastic or rubber bits of protective pieces... of which there were many.

And my daughter basically figured out how to put it together and did much of it herself. We tried using the instructions, but they were rather useless. The instructions were written for a whole line of bikes, not specifically this one. None of it really matched up too well. So the brain took over, and this time, I was just an assistant.

Here we go:
1) Take out all the parts, unwrap and make sure you've removed all the extraneous stuff. Some of it can fool you, until you try to figure out why it doesn't fit with the piece it's supposed to. (Yes, I did, and here's the one I almost missed.)

2) Now, for the first part, tell your 4 year old to go watch tv or have a snack so you can figure out how to get that front wheel squeezed into the fork. Yes it seemed impossible, until my daughter decided to remove one of the nuts and just shoved the darn thing together. Well, it worked, and it holds together. And logically, it should be safe to ride. I don't think we could've gotten it together the way it was... Of course all the nuts and necessary parts were on and it's solid, or we would've gone back to the store and paid the $10.00.

3) Put on the training wheels. My son actually did one side, while my daughter did the other one. This was easy. Put the pieces together like this, and make sure the part that sticks out on the silver piece is in the slot so it won't slip around. Think logically.... My 4 year old did this part with minimal assistance.

4) Adjust the seat. Easy enough, stick the seat in and tighten the screw. Ours has a quick release lever, so once it's adjusted properly, you can flip the lever and make any other adjustments when your child grows taller.

5) Put the handlebars in. Remove the little cap on the end (if it has one), it might be covering the mechanisms to hold the bars in place. Yes, this is where I had a brainfart... BUT after the lights went back on, I figured it out. Line them up and tighten the nut. It REALLY helps to have a competent assistant to help hold the front wheel in place while you keep the handlebars from moving.

6) Pedals were easiest to put on. They are labeled R and L. Must I explain what that is? Hmmmm... even I figured that one out. My 4 year old did one side, tightening with a wrench and did a better job than my 19 year old. She had a bit of problem with the wrench.

7,8,9,10... yes, it should take a while) It's almost done! The brakes were not too hard, here's a quick look at how the cable fits into the hand brake. There is a little knob in the end that slides into a little groove cut precisely for it. The cable slides into another groove, and the end piece should easily fit into the end of the hand brake... you know., uh. ahem..... male-female like. Okay, uh... now the male part naturally screws into the female part. Make sure nothing slips out (get your mind outta the gutter!) as you pull the cable to tighten the brakes. Squeeze the brake pads together while you tighten the cable and screw it tighter to hold it on. (SHAME ON YOU!) Okay... well, you get the picture... NO, NO, NOT THAT ONE! Here are a few real ones to help you visualize the actual process.

Cable end goes into the hole.

Slide cable through the slit.

Male-Female connections, uh..yeah... screw it in.

Cable end is like another male-female connection. It should just, um... slide right in. This one is sticking out and not doing the job. Oh my....

And lastly, pull cable and tighten up the screw to hold it in place. Whew... a job well done. You deserve a smoke... uh... a glass of wine. ;)

Honestly... we all went to sleep feeling happy and very competent. The job was done and now, my daughter, who can't coordinate her fingers to play a video game, is feeling a bit more capable in the world of tools. And of course, 4 year old little boys always feel capable amongst nuts and bolts. So was just $10.00 savings worth it? Yes... and then some.

Journal Covers

I carry around a composition book filled with my ideas and plans. It's with me wherever I go so I can jot down all those ideas that pop into my mind while I'm waiting for kids. But it's sooo ugly and makes me feel like a kindergartener. So I made a cover for it. Then I made a few more as gifts for my niece and my daughters. Of course they wanted some for friends too, so I kept making them.

Instructions for making a Journal Cover (for a standard composition book):

Create the following pattern pieces by tracing around the open composition book, allowing 1/2" seam allowances for the outer edges, and 1/4" seam allowances for all other pieces. Don't forget to add a little bit of extra width for the book to close. I added about 3/8."

Here's a pic of the pattern pieces for the journal cover shown above:

And this picture shows the cut pieces of the outer cover.
To sew:

1) After handstitching your sashiko block, trim it to the correct size and piece together the front cover section, using 1/4" seam allowances.

2) Sew the spine piece to the front cover and back cover pieces. I usually edgestitch along the spine seams too.

3) Apply interfacing to the outer cover piece.

4) Finish the edges for the sleeves.

This is what you should have so far:

5) Now, baste the sleeve to the cover pieces, right sides together.

6) Place the lining piece on top, right side down. Baste. At this point, I check fit for the composition book by matching the center back along the spine, and tracing the open composition book outline on the interfacing. I allow a scant 1/4" along the short edges of the book so it can close without distorting. I also sew just slightly outside the traced line along the long edges to allow for turn of cloth. Sew, leave an opening in the back cover to turn it right side out. Trim edges, clip corners, and finish edges.

7) Turn right side out, handstitch the opening closed and press. That's it!

Tada! What a beautiful way to keep your thoughts at hand. The best thing is you can reuse this cover for the next book when you fill up the first!

Bucilla for Christmas

Last Christmas, I wanted to have nice stockings for my kids. The year before that I wanted nice stockings for them.... and the year before that... and well, you get the idea.

When my first child was born, she's now 19 and in college, I made her a cute Bucilla felt applique stocking with all the glittery sequins and beads adorning it. She loved it then, and still loves it. 3 years later, when my second child was born, I bought another Bucilla stocking kit. He's now 17 and it's almost done, but I bought him a different kit this past year, along with one more kit for my 3rd child (now 12). And my littlest boy, now 4, will inherit the almost finished one. Considering it took me nearly 17 years to finish the second stocking, why did I buy more?! Oh well... I DID finish much of the second stocking in less than a month just after Christmas 2007.

Here's what I have for them so far:

I also started working on a beautiful tree skirt about 3 years ago when we moved into our new home.

It is my goal this year, 2008, to have all their stockings and the tree skirt finished for Christmas. Yes, Christmas 2008, not 2020. I've been working on the tree skirt for the past month. Nearly every night I spend about 30 minutes hand sewing, and here's what I have so far:

Occasionally, one of the kids will want to help work on it, so there are some odd bits. But it's a family project... and that's what I love most about it. It brings back fond memories of my mother and I working on a red Bucilla treeskirt with snowmen and white pompom trim around the edge. And I smile... what a nice way to end the evening.

Fixing the Pop up stopper

Time it should take: 20 minutes
Time it took me: 30 minutes


I don't know how he did it, but he broke the pop-up stopper in the bathroom sink. Okay, there's just a little cheapy plastic piece that holds it in, and Mr. Brute strength thinks he can make anything work so he pulled the darn thing out... manually.


After consulting my trusty "Plumbing 101" book, I set off to work. This job requires some prep before you can actually do it. Gather a bunch of rags, old toothbrush, 2 buckets, and the tool box. A flashlight might be helpful too. Clean out the area under the sink, yes, maybe even vacuum the cockaroach poop outta there. You might have to squeeze underneath the sink in order to see what you're doing.


Off to Home Depot I go again, and I discovered something new... Pop up stoppers DON'T come in blue. There's a little blue plastic protective covering over the stopper to keep it from getting scratched while you install it. DUH! (No, I'm a brunette.) I also discovered that you can take those pieces out of the package without breaking it open. The packaging is made in such a way that you can open it up, compare the piece with your original, and easily put it back together. Oh my... the world of home repairs... even us home repair DIY dodos can figure things out.

The stopper I bought looks somewhat different from the original one, but it seems they all work the same way. Here's my original stopper, without the broken off bottom part:

There was a small plastic shaft that had a hole on the bottom. It was way too gross for pictures. I dumped it with the rest of the slime.

Here's a picture of what you'll find at the store. I just matched the size of the stopper part assuming "Universal" meant it would fit nearly any sink drain. This one has the blue plastic covering removed.

There's a whole lot of info on fixing the stopper on the net, and Lowes.com has a good diagram of how it all works. So I won't go into the details on how to fix it. Here are just a few thoughts and ideas to keep in mind. It is a gross job and you may want to wear rubber gloves. First, make sure the bucket fits under the drain when you remove the trap. You definitely don't want it to slip. What'll come out is incredibly uh... for lack of a better word, disgustingly gross...and it stinks. Be ready for a trail of hair and more slime to come slopping out of the pipe when you pull it open. Dump the rubbish into the bucket and clean out the drain with baking soda. It'll deodorize it and get rid of some of that stink.

And yes, I said you'd need two buckets. The other one is use to hold the parts and clean them in after you remove them. You won't want to put it down anywhere on your sink. Clean the parts and reinstall the new stopper. Now you've got two buckets of toxic waste... where to dump them? Okay... that's a good question. I used the toothbrush to pull the hair/slimeball out of the trap/drain and other parts, let it drip into the bucket a bit then just threw it into the trash. After scrubbing the drain with the toothbrush, I rinsed it out and had a bucketfull of stinky grey slimewater. That went down the toilet. I figured there was nothing solid that should block it and it's no worse than anything else we flush.

So Voila! A clean sink (with new pop-up stopper), and now I don't need to worry about having to fish DH's lost little things out of the drain anymore. Good job MOM!

Total Savings: $60.00

To the Library

Books are my greatest resource. They've taught me crochet, sewing, drafting, gardening, parenting and a whole bunch of other stuff... like cooking...ick. I love books. The library loves me too, I donate so much in late fees that I should have a membership there.

Included here are some of my most useful books. I'll keep adding to this list whenever I have nothing else to write about... hmmm... Hopefully not too often.


I saw it at the library, and liked it so much, that I added it to my meager collection of home care books. I have several shelves full of sewing/crafting books, another cabinet of cookbooks and magazines (hidden away so I don't see them till I get tired of my own cooking), but my home care books... I can count them on my fingers. Lets see... 4? But growing. Anyway, this book is the one I use for my plumbing jobs. The pics are clear and well done, the information is basic, and it starts from the very beginning... how the plumbing system works. Ahhh... such a good read. Even my 4 year old enjoyed that part.

On Fixing the Toilet

Time it SHOULD take: 30 minutes if you know what you're doing.
Time it actually took me: about 2 hours... Read on to see why it took me so long.

It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. Last time we called a plumber, it cost an arm and a leg. I only have one of each left, so I thought I'd better start learning to do it myself. Here we go...

First, I had to figure out what was wrong. That was easy enough. It was broken. The water from the tank was dripping from the cover onto the floor. I opened up the tank to take a peek inside, and stupidly flushed the toilet to see what was going on.
WOOOWEEE! I received a nice cold wake up call from the fill valve. Maybe a gasket or a washer was not working anymore, 'cuz it was squirting throught the sides of the top.
Which one is the fill valve? If there's a floating ball attached to it, it's the fill valve. Some newer mechanisms don't have the tank ball anymore. I just replaced mine with a fill valve that has a floaty thing that's attached to the shaft.

This is the leaky one I had in my toilet previously:

See that blue cap with the float ball attached to it?
The water squirts out the sides and top when I flush.

This is the one I have now, It's the Fluidmaster Whisper Fill Valve with Leak Sentry:

I picked it up at Home Depot for about $12.00. There are actually two kinds offered there, this one has a leak preventing feature that prevents the tank from refilling when there is a tank leak. You can still flush, but you'll have to push the flusher twice to have the tank refill.
The other one is a basic model without the Leak Sentry.

The instructions were easy to follow, with pretty decent pics. It's a very doable job for a beginner. I basically had no problems with installation. The hard part was adjusting the special leak preventer. It took me over an hour of fine tuning to get it to work properly. But after it was finished, I told everyone in my family, including grandma and my BIL that I had fixed the toilet myself. :) Pat myself on the back!

Total savings: $60.00