Weekend Warriors: Tearing Up Tile { Part One }

Last Weekend our dining room and kitchen where a dusty mess

We finally torn up the cracked, stained, Ugly tile up in the dining room and kitchen!

I was nervous in the weeks approaching 'Removal of the Tile' Why? Because, I did want to deal with a huge mess and what if this harder then it looks on TV? I decided to some research and find the easiest way to tear ceramic up tile.

Supplies Needed:

• Drop cloth
• Rubber Mallet
• Hammers
• Wood Shins
• Chisel Set
• Eye Glasses & Face Mask
• Heavy Broom, Dust Pan & Trash Can
• Heavy Duty Paint Scrapper
• Tile Scrapper
• Shop Vacuum (optional)

Tearing Up Tile Steps:
1. We emptied the entire dining room and kitchen out and place plastic over the vents in the ceiling and plastic of over the entrance to the kitchen/dining room to contain the dust.

2. We removed all the baseboards. Removing the baseboards to some patience, but it was worth it all the baseboards remained in tact! Which saves money. We placed a heavy duty paint scrapper on the top of the baseboard, then gently tapped it with a rubber mallet loosening up the baseboards. Next place wood shins into the baseboards - which helps loosen the nails. CAREFULLY remove the baseboard.

3. Determine what your tile is laying over. We have a raised foundation and I read its much harder to remove tile from a concrete foundation, it might even require renting a machine. How do you determine what your tile is covering? Place your drop cloth over a tile square, hit you hammer on the drop cloth, your tile should break in pieces. Gently remove your tile chucks. Under our tile we found linoleum. Which explains why our tile was cracked in many places. If you place tile over linoluem it can expand and contract and then crack

4. Carefully remove all the tile, we placed a drop cloth over the section of tile we planned on removing to avoid tile filing everywhere! Which it will. We hammer away with our chisel and where able to remove large sections of tile easy. Work smarter not harder. We would stop all sweep up all the debris and tile chunks along the way, less to cleanup

What We Learned:

• Gather all your supplies the night before, trips back and forth to Lowes  are not fun. We had one trip, MR CLH forgot to buy himself safety goggles
• Have fun! Remember it gets ugly before it gets pretty
• Work Smarter not Harder - take you time tearing up tile, less mess to clean up
• We also learmed removing tile was the easy part - the next step in the Demo process was mucher harder for us

DIY Easy?

I think this is easy (sometimes long and boring) DIY project - I'd recommend a two person team in a space larger then a bathroom. It took us two days from start to finish for both rooms, I think we would have completed the removal of the tile faster, if we started earlier. We didn't start until 11:30 on Sat - way to late to start a project.

Part Two - Removing the Thin Set & Why ony DIY Projects on TV get done in one day

Project List Update: January

At the begining of the year I decided to keep a monlthy project list to stay on track.

My Goals & How I Actually Did

Paint Bedroom Dresser - Dresser Primed! Need to buy paint

Paint Small Desk for Sons Room - Didn't even touch his desk

Paint bench for bedroom - Done!

Order fabric for bench - Done! See bench here

Sew Pillow Covers - Fabric Cut, will sew over weekend?

Create Mood Boards for Master Bedroom - No board but lots of ideas

& Sons Bedroom - Ideas in my head, nothing concrete

Finally find the perfect faux or engineered flooring for Dining Room & Kitchen - DONE! We have all our flooring and have ripped up all the tile, next up is installing our new floors. This project slowed down some above projects.

I'm feeling pretty good about getting at least 2 projects done, it looks like other items will move into Feb. This project list has really kept me focused and motivated, to at least try at get a bunch of stuff done....What keeps you motivated to get your projects done?

Four Books For Five Bucks

I love to read, I read anything from Jane Austen (love her and the movies) to John Grisham. I often read up to 45 mins per day, How? I take the train to work which allows me to read at least 45 mins a day. So last week I stopped in a local Goodwill looking for thrifty finds, and I didn't find anything! On the way out my son wanted to see what books they had, he was hoping to find a few Captain Underpants (great book series for 4th grade boys) books he doesn’t have. When I started browsing books for myself and came across a bunch, I've wanted read or looked interesting to me.

I was able to buy four books for five bucks!

The Books

Baby Proof, by Emily Giffin
Knitting Under the Influence, by Claire LaZebink
In her Shoes, by Jennifer Weiner { I love this movie! I've always wanted to read the book }
The Nannie Diaries, by Emma Mclaughin & Nicola Kraus

I can't wait to get started on one of these books (I'm currently reading The Gold Coast). Have you found any great books from Thrift Stores are used books sotres lately?

Bench for My Bedroom: Before and After

A few months ago I mentioned I was planning on making over a little bench I've had for a while for my bedroom. When I first started thinking about redoing the bench, I picked this fabric from Calico Corners  in white only to discover they discontinued it a few weeks ago. I was back to square one, which turned out to be perfect. I love how the bench turned out.

Here's a reminder of how the bench looked when I purchased it in 2003 ( green fabric) and recovered it with fabric that used to be oh so me (purple). It was cute, banged up  though

 It's amazing how pretty the after became becasue of paint from Sherwin Williams and the fabric from Calico Corners. Without further adieu, here's the lovely after.

~ Here's what I did ~

Paint Steps

1. Primed the bench with two coats of primer using a brush, lightly sanding between coats.

2. I painted the bench with Three coats of Satin Paint by Sherwin Williams, Color: Aqua-Sphere - I applied the paint with a mini sponge roller. I waited 24hrs between each coat of paint, to apply the next coat. Becasue there is so much detail with this bench I also used craft brushes to get into the tight spots.

3. I applied three coats of Clear Poly by Behr to get a shiny gloss to the paint, it worked perfect - I lightly sanded between each coat of Poly. I waited 24hrs  between each coat, before applying the next coat. Poly takes 48 hours to harden, so after the final coat I did not handle it for 48 hours

{ I cleaned  the bench with mild soap and lightly sanded to remove chipped paint }

Simple Upholstery Steps

1. I removed the old fabric and used it as a template for my new fabric, and cut out my fabric. I choose not to add new padding to the bench since its already nice and soft

2. Center the fabric on your board. I started in the middle of the bench and used a staple gun to sercure the fabric, then did the other side. I smoothed out wrinkles before applying the next staple

3. Last I re-atttached the the seat to the bench.

Here's my budget breaksown for this ReDo

   4.99 - 1 qaurt of paint - Sherwin Williams sells 1 quart sample paints on Satin!
19.99 - 1 yard of fabric 10% sale discount, + free shipping  (I have plans for the leftover fabric)
  2.99 -  mini roller from Sherwin Williams - perfect for small areas
no cost -  Primer already had
no cost - Clear Poly already had
no cost - Craft brushes already had

 27.97 not including tax


Money well spent, I love how this turned out, my first project completed for Master Bedroom.