Apartment Renerdvating Project

Friend of the nerds here. I’m planning on renerdvating my 2 bed/1 bath apt so I thought I would post the adventure. I have 2 rules: can’t be too permanent, can’t spend too much unless it’s completely removable/adjustable. Everything I’ve done so far in the place can be scrapped, so to speak. So I’m starting from scratch. I’ve done some research as to what I think could be good ideas. Here’s a summary of my research and most likely what I will be buying. The notes here are mainly for myself so don’t feel like I’m telling you what to do (I’m just telling myself so I don’t forget). I’ll be posting updates/pictures as things progress.

1. Walls (Wallpaper? Wallpanels?)
I painted the walls ~2 yrs ago so at least that looks nice/new. It would be better if there was an accent wall though. My better half really wants to do some wallpapering and I think it’d be a great idea. Don’t know which pattern to choose though…
Inexpensive Wallpaper @ DesignYourWall.com
Less Inexpensive Wallpaper @ InsideFabric.com
Angela Adams @ MDCWall.com
Wall Paneling @ Bnind.com (this might be cool in the bathroom)

2. TV, Media Center & Console
2a. 47″ LG LCD TV 1080p 120hz @ Amazon Warehouse (They have some great open box deals here. Stay away from refurbished though.)
2b. XBOX 360 as the DVD player/media center. I’ll be getting an XBOX Harmony Remote. My XBOX is already wireless so I can hook up a Netflix acct and stream through the XBOX. For downloaded movies/music, I’m using 2 Western Digital Passport HDs (get the white one!). *NOTE: They need to be in FAT32 format for the XBOX to read them (Use EASEUS Partition Manager). The beauty is they’re small and USB-Bus powered. P.S. Buy all XBOX stuff on eBay.
2c. TV/Media Console @ IKEA
However, I’ll be getting it in white, with the 2 middle doors as glass doors and the frames in white.
I really wanted to shy away from IKEA, but I think this will look nice. I have the high gloss brown doors right now and they look pretty classy.

3. Floors
Bathroom/Kitchen: Temporary Vinyl Flooring @ DesignYourWall.com
Shaggy carpet @ Flor (a little pricey though @ $25.99/tile – maybe get the Short Shag @ $16.99/tile)

4. Windows
Shades @ Smith and Noble
Etched Glass @ Home Depot (good if you want privacy AND light still coming in)
*you’ll need this kit

5. Bathroom
I like this IKEA hack to cover your cistern.

6. Guest room/Office
This desk @ CB2

If you have any good tips/links, leave a comment! I haven’t started any of this, so I’m still open to ideas (plus we still have the dining room, bookshelves, seating, and kitchen to figure out…)

Replacing a Broken Water Heater

Happy New Year!  I guess our new years resolution should be to get caught up on blog posts…

Here’s one from around Thanksgiving time – we got back from a trip to Portland and discovered our water heater had broken & the garage had flooded…

The first step when you have a leaking water heater is to turn off the water (There should be a lever towards the top of the water heater). Next thing you need to do is diagnose if the heater needs replacement, or if it’s simply a faulty pipe. Good rule of thumb is if it’s leaking from somewhere near the top of the water heater, it’s probably a pipe. Find the leak and replace the faulty part. If it’s leaking from the bottom, the water heater has corroded and needs to be replaced.

Ours was definitely leaking from the bottom and needed replacing. I’d gotten as far as draining the water heater (you can connect a hose water and your plants, wash your car, or fill up a kiddie pool with warm water and let the kids go nuts), then went down to home depot to check out water heater prices ($600-$900!!!)

Luckily Flathead remembered we had a 1 year home warranty when we bought the house and they’d replace the water heater for a $45 deductible. Unfortunately it was a Saturday, so we had to sit out the weekend with no hot water, but them’s the breaks for free stuff.

In case you don’t know the difference between Homeowner’s Insurance & a Home Warranty, the former only protects the structure of your house in case of a disaster, and the latter covers items & appliances within your house (water heater, air conditioner, dishwasher, etc..). I’d think most of the time a home warranty probably wouldn’t be worth the money, but if you’re moving into a new house that has old appliances, it’d be highly beneficial to negotiate it into the escrow agreement. It saved us about $800…

Anyway, here’s what the brand spanking new water heater looks like, complete with an overflow pan which the previous owners didn’t install before:

Since we got the replacement installed for free, I don’t have pictures of the extra steps involved in replacing the heater yourself (it would have been kind of awkward standing behind the repairman taking pictures…), so if you need further instructions, here’s a good resource:

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/h2installwaterheater

Laying a Pavestone Patio – Part 2: Cutting Edger Bricks

It’s been a busy past few weeks since starting the backyard, but we finally have the patio mostly done

Here were the remaining steps:

Step 1: Mark & cut the bricks to fill in the edges around the perimeter of the patio. This was the most time consuming part, as there were literally hundreds of cuts to make. Took about 3 to 4 weekends to finally finish.

I highly recommend shelling out the extra dough for a diamond tipped blade ($80). I tried starting off the cheap way with the $5 masonry blades, but it took about 5 minutes to cut 1 brick (and they wear out quickly). The diamond tipped masonry blade cuts through bricks like butter, and still cuts like new hundreds of cuts later.

Step 2: Brush paver sand into the spaces between the bricks. We had to do a couple of runs – brush the sand in, wet it & let it settle – then after it dries, repeat again. After time the sand hardens like concrete between the cracks.

Finishing Up: We’re testing putting in groundcover around the tree stumps to see if they’ll take. Then we need to get started on building planter boxes & the new backyard fence!

CardboardDesign Kids Rocketship

Socket’s new playhouse: his cardboard rocketship! Courtesy of Cardboardesign
Thanks for the birthday present Uncle Pete!

Blik Wall Decals

We’ve been scoping out different wall decals for a while now, and Flathead just found some awesome ones over at Blik Surface Graphics. Now Socket’s getting attacked by paper airplanes when he sleeps in his crib at night & when he’s getting his booty wiped at the changing station. If mom & dad have to wake up at 3am, baby doesn’t get to rest either!

They’ve got tons of other styles – from Birds, to Space Invaders, to Boom Boxes – go check them out!

Irvine Antique Market

Our new favorite past time is hitting up the outdoor Irvine Antique Market at Irvine Valley College the first Sunday of every month.

It’s much smaller than the massive Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market, but we end up finding way better deals on really nice pieces. Here’s some cool things we liked this week:

And here’s some of our latest scores that we picked up over the past few months. First up, a new walnut bar for our kitchen. The top panels open up for expanded counter space, and the inside has racks to fit liquor and wine glasses:

Next up, Flathead’s pride and joy – a 60’s Drexel bench table. We picked this up in beautiful condition for $100 and later found them online selling in the $700-800 range!

Not as fun, but still a good find, was this antique mirror that we picked up for $15. The lady who sold it to us said there’s an old newspaper lining inside from the 1920’s that was there when she got the piece, but I haven’t opened it up to take a look yet. It’s replaced the gaudy etched oval mirror that was in our bathroom before.

Also, the coffee table in our living room was one of our first purchases at the Antique Market – only $40 – you can see pictures of the coffee table here, or newer pictures of it covered with foam corners here, now that it’s Sockets favorite thing to climb up and jump on.

Somehow we always manage to score at least one really good find every time we go, so it’s highly recommended to anyone who lives nearby. The Antique Market is the 1st Sunday of the month from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., and located at Irvine Valley College, 5500 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine CA 92618.

Laying a Pavestone Patio – Part 1: Getting Started

We have grand plans for the backyard. Currently it looks nice, but it’s not very functional. It has an oddly curved cement patio which only really allows you to sit on one small portion of the backyard – the rest is all dirt.

The eventual plan is to completely re-do the fence, build a planterbox & benches along the perimeter, dig out the dirt and lay down pavestones to complete the patio, then build a pond for our turtle Worst. Master plans are below:

First up is laying the pavestones. Laying pavestones is a 3 step process.

Step 1: You have to dig out about 4-6 inches of the existing dirt to allow room for the foundation sand & bricks. For this we rented a rotor-tiller from Home Depot to loosen up the dirt, then had to shovel & wheel barrel it out of the backyard.

This step is the biggest pain in the ass of the whole process. Of course the day we did it it was about 90 degrees out – it was so hot my mouth was getting sweaty from my face mask, so i ended up taking it off. Smart move that resulted in me filling my lungs with dirt & catching a cold for a week.

Step 2: Define the shape of the patio & lay down paver sand. To lock in the bricks/sand, we’re using edge-all guards. They’re pricey, about $8 each, but they work really well & bend easily around corners. If you wanted to be cheaper, you could build a perimeter with wood, but it would be a bit more work. The edge-all guards are the black liners in the photo below:

When laying the sand, you usually need to lay a few inches of gravel as a base, then about an inch of sand to allow you work the brick into a level surface. Since our backyard dirt has clay in it, it’s really strong and stable, so we eventually figured out we didn’t need so much of the gravel & were able to save some money.

Step 2b: Enlist the Yips! Flathead’s folks triple as babysitters, gardeners, and master patio levelers. To help get the sand level completely level with the cement, they dug trenches & laid 2×4’s down that they could level perfectly with how deep the sand should be.

Step 3: Once you have your sand laid out, compacted, and leveled, you’re onto the easiest step – laying the pavestones. This is pretty quick and easy – lay them out and use a rubber mallet to work them into the sand, making sure they stay level with the rest of the bricks.

We’re about halfway done – more pics to follow soon, plus the painstaking process of cutting the edger bricks around the rounded patio…

UPDATE: More pics of the finished patio here

UPDATE 2: We’re finally done!

Building Cabinets

In the office, Flathead wanted to create some storage and workspace inside the closet. We took off one closet door, and her dad helped build the wall & some shelves using nice wood purchased for super cheap in Ikea’s AS-IS section. Then, inspired by Adam’s furniture, I took my first crack at building cabinet doors for the shelves. Had the wood cut to size, painted & lacquered it, then spent about an hour trying to get them to hang evenly so they’d close right! It was a little difficult because the shelves weren’t 100% level, but it turned out all right. Toss on some handles & magnet latches & boom, nice green office cabinets.

Adam & Jenny’s house

We just got back from Boston for Adam & Jenny’s wedding and were totally in awe of their house. Adam’s always done a lot of woodworking, but his skill’s raised a few notches from carving pipes in college, to now handcrafting Crate & Barrel level furniture. The wood art, green computer desk, veggie tray, and orange kitchen shelf are all his handiwork.

It was a nice reminder that you don’t have to buy expensive furniture to make your house look nice. You can do things DIY and keep them looking classy.

Before & After: Fireplace Room

Now that we have the house on lockdown with baby gates, the Fireplace room is now safe to put all the breakable & low to the ground things that Socket loves to try to eat and/or toss on the floor.

Before:

After:

As you can see, we gave up on the earlier idea of stripping the paint off the fireplace. It’s just too big to deal with, and once we got the walls painted, decided the white didn’t look so bad anymore. I’d still like to do something about restoring the ceiling to a natural wood color, but that’s still a far-off project…

Also, we had a friend come over and take some pictures of baby Socket, so here’s a few more finished photos of his room: