Flood in the kitchen

Our dishwasher broke, it leaked most of the washing water on the kitchen floor. New washers are very energy and water efficient but our old one was not (it was 30 years old!) and so we had a real flood in the kitchen. Also bad thing is that we have a parquet in that room and you know what happens to parquet when it gets wet, it starts to bubble. I did dry the floor with bathing towels right after the dishwasher had leaked and I assumed that a good drying with a fan would be enough and there would not leave any damage. Next day my dad came to help with removing the old washer and while here he came to the conclusion that the floor will not dry nicely and since he is not a person to waste time he started to rip off some strips from the parquet. We had some parquet left over from some previous renovation and next day my dad and A put the new old pieces of parquet on the floor.

So now we have a new floor. There is bit of a colour difference between the "new" parquet and the old, but I'm fine with that. I have for quite some time planned to do some bigger renovation to the kitchen, so there is no point changing the whole floor now. But that wont happen any time soon. And besides the floor was not that perfect before either, so this colour difference is not a big deal. Next we need to buy a new dishwasher. Oh and put the moldings back.

Plastic versus metal

Sorry for the long absence, I have not finished anything blog worthy in a while. There is one biggish project I am doing and then there is the HUGE project of those boat cushions which is pressuring me. For now I will show a very very small thing we improved.

Once upon a time I made a post about organizing the tools cabinet we have in the vestibule. The order is still working, but the shelves are heavily loaded none the less. The tiny brackets holding those shelves are plastic and few days back one of the brackets broke. Luckily that is all what happened, the three brackets left hold the shelf on place, but imagine what would have happened. The heavy shelf would have collapsed most likely collapsing all the rest of the shelves underneath it. The tools and paints we have in that cabinet would have been all over the place. That is why we changed the brackets to metal ones. Those should not brake.

(Sorry about the dreadful pictures.)

Uh-oh, it wont hold

Don't worry, we still have the headboard canvas. This post is about the bedside tables, I just used the above picture to show those bedside tables, incase you've forgotten what they are like.

After painting the bedroom and reinstalling the bedside tables the old fixings didn't hold up anymore. My bedside table, on the left, was a bit loose even before the reinstallation. But now even A's side was coming off from the wall.

See, it's loose and it was starting to feel bit scary, I was afraid to place my drinking glass on the table, it felt like that could collaps the whole thing. So off to the hardware store I went and I bought special drywall anchors, I had previously used just regular plugs, which even might had been too big. I don't think they squeezed the wall well. Then I removed the tables and I saw that the old plugs were definitely loose. I pulled out the old plugs.

The drywall anchor was screwed to the drywall. It seemed really solid, I guess sometimes buying the right gear makes all the difference. 

No gap anymore, whew!

Fixing my pyjama pants

The rubber band from my pyjama trousers had worn and torn the edge of the trousers and also the rubber band had lost all it's elasticity. I still love my NY pyjama pants and would not like to part with them, so I made some modifications to them. 

I used a serger to attach welt rib knit fabric on the waist and on the legs too. I have always been really annoyed that during the night the legs roll up to my thighs. But I did not really measure well when I attached the welt rib knit fabric because the waist is now really loose. I have to tighten the band to keep the trousers from dropping to my ankles. But maybe loose is good now. I might modify these again after the kid is born. Or I might make something for the kid from the trouser fabric since the fabric is already quite worn from the bum. 

Also sorry about the over exposed photo, it was a really super bright day when took these photos and I was too lazy to shade the trousers in any way.

Another finished silicone joint

I realized the silicone had not yet dryed up in it's tube. I had been pretty certain that the nozzle would be totally clogged by now, but it wasn't. Which was good because A found yet another place where to use it.

I removed it with the carped knife like I did in the toilet. This area was so small that removing the silicone took only like two minutes.

Then I taped the edge and squeezed the silicone. Then I evened it with my finger. And Tadaa! it's done. That took like fifteen minutes. Now I think there is not enough silicone in the tube to fill even this small gap.

PS. Incase you are interested, I have painted a lot in the office, there are some layers of paint still needed both on the wall and on the shelf. But it's not a huge job anymore.

Saw dust

After sanding of one shelf the surroundings looked like this. Everything was covered in saw dust, including me.

One shelf is up!

Hihhey! The shelf for the painted side of the room is now dry and assembled! Yay! It's white! So pretty.

I must say the assembly was not pretty. I placed the top, bottom and middle shelf on the vertical support pieces, which was freakingly difficult because I didn't have anyone to help me. A is in Shanghai for two weeks and I did not want to wait putting the shelf up.

I had the shelf lying on the floor and then tried to measure that the shelf would be straight before I screwed the cross support on the back. I lost my nerve when I made the measurements, the measuring tape just did not stay on place and my arm didn't reach anywhere and I got really mad. Also I made the mistake of starting to put the shelf together while I was hungry. I guess my blod sugar was too low because I started coursing to the shelf. Now I've eaten and the shelf is also up and not crooked so I feel lot better.

That table top that sticks out from the shelf will be A's work surface. A tends to pile stuff on horizontal surfaces so I thought to prevent that he should not have as much space for it as before. And we will get separate work areas, so his stuff wont slide onto mine.

The shelf under the work surface is for collecting the cord mess, I plan to tuck all the excess cords there and maybe also the external hard drives. I hope the shelf does not hit his knees. The bottom shelf on the right most likely needs to be moved away since I think it will be on the way of A's feet and also the computer tower needs to be placed somewhere.

But it's up, Wohoo! Next I need to move some stuff on the shelf to make room for the other side of the room so I can paint that side and the shelf there.

One of two walls is painted

Yippee!! The first one of the two walls I need to paint is now done. Actually I got it painted already on Friday but I struggled putting the skirting and the light switch cover back. Well it wasn't really a struggle I just didn't bother and I was busy sanding the shelves.

Here is the intermediate state, where I was removing the wall paper. 

After some taping and covering the floor and then two layers of paint.

And the other side of the room looks like this. Bit difficult to take pictures when there is just a long path way to stand in.

But now after three(!) layers it's painted and ready and looking very nice and fresh. Love it! Next the other wall...

How to remove rust

Patience please. No finished paint work in the office yet. I hope I get a chance to finish it on the weekend, but on saturday we will go to a wedding and on sunday my sister moves and I will need to help her, but still I hope I have some time for my painting project.

I had a lamp and a door handle, they were cool but they were covered in rust. One ex co-worker happened to tell me about how she cleaned rust off with citric acid from some components (Yes, you know if I'm talking of you :D ). Too bad I didn't know about this trick last summer.

In Finland citric acid can be bought at least from the pharmacy in chrystal form. The chrystals look very similar to sugar. According to the information I found online the citric acid should be mixed with water in a ratio of 40 grams citric acid per one liter of water or around, it's not very precise. Use this unit converter if you don't like metric units.

Only problem cleaning with citric acid solution is that the whole component should be dipped in it. I read from somewhere that you could make a paste from water, citric acid chrystals and wallpaper paste and then smear that on the rusty areas. I cannot say if that would work or not, since I haven't tried it.

But dipping the whole part in a citric acid solution really does the trick. I left the door handle and the plate thing in the solution for over a night but the lamp cover it self was still looking a bit rusty so I left it in the solution for another ten hours or so. The solution didn't seem to do any harm on the areas where the metal was not rusty. Heat is supposed to accelerate the reaction, but I felt it was just easier to let the parts sit in room temperature water for as long as they needed.

Don't expect your steel parts to look brand new and shiny after the bath. Since the citric acid removes only the rust it leaves the surface very rough. The metal must be polished afterwards if that is the look needed.

Toilet renovation - for now

I've been writing and writing about how I will show a finished toilet renovation soon. That is finally happening now. But the post is not going to be the post I wanted it to be. I had really planned to paint the radiators in the toilet and I still haven't done that. I have an excellent excuse though, I noticed I cannot close the other radiator so it's constantly hot. I doubt it's wise to paint a hot radiator. I need to ask someone to come and check the valve, since it's somehow stuck. That is why I haven't painted the other radiator either. But I did paint the metal sheets that cover the holes to the piping. Since I doubt I will truly finish the toilet anytime soon I will post this post of the toilet renovation now before I forget the whole subject.

Also I realized that I did not take any proper before pictures of the toilet. Well I had planned to only change the silicone so I did not know to take pictures of the whole toilet. This is the best I can show. It's from the phase when I had started to remove all the accessories from the toilet.

I was hoping I would need to paint only once since the original wall colour was sort of white, but it still required two layers. I removed the toilet lamp too and used a table lamp so I could see at least something.

I did also paint the towel rack and then finally just few days ago the metal sheets. The toilet does look very fresh and white, but now the radiators and the door frame are really shouting to be painted. That might happen some day. Maybe.

That radiator on the top of the toilet seat is the one I cannot close and I'm pretty sure it has never been white, but I'd like to paint that too. And I was thinking of painting the screws which I attached the metal sheets to the wall with but I don't know if I'm up to it.

So there it is, the finished toilet renovation - for now.

Silicone again

Sorry no post about finished toilet renovation. I had planned to paint the radiators and the metal covers from the toilet, but on Thursday morning I realized I did not have any paint for metal and Thursday was a holiday here because of the Ascension day, so all stores were closed. I think I had kind of realized that, because I remember thinking that I should go to a hardware store on Wednesday, but then didn't feel like going.

That is why I will bore you with another silicone post. I had some silicone left in the tube and also we had the ugliest silicone joint in the bathroom between the toilet seat and the floor.

Yuck!! We had the bathroom toilet seat changed some time ago because it leaked and the guy who put a new seat there did a horrible job with the silicone. First of all it seems that he had not wiped the floor after he had installed the toilet seat but left all the gunk there. Then he also used clear silicone so all the gunk he left under it can be seen. Horrible!

I removed all the silicone using the carpet knife again. Looking at the silicone from so close and it beeing around the toilet seat made me feel sick. Then I also got a small cut to my finger from the carpet knife and I imagined getting a horible sepsis from the ickyness in the knife and dropping dead in no time.

I'm still alive, luckily with no sepsis.

Then I taped the edges and borrowed A and his thumb to press and even the silicone. I felt that my fingers were just too small for this place.

Ah, so much better. Now it feels clean.