Jack's yellow ceiling!

This is your sign to paint your ceiling! I love how fun this room is now that the ceiling is painted!

What's in my Mural Kit | Tacoma Mural Artist

Having an easily transportable mural kit makes traveling for murals so much easier. I ended up using an old laundry tote to bring my mural stuff on site, which I actually like so much more than something like an Ikea tote because it has a rigid wire around the top to hold the bag open, I like being able to see everything in there and not have the sides flop in. The fabric is also somewhat water-resistant and wipeable on the inside which is nice when you’re hauling around paint that sometimes spills.

Since my murals are usually multi-colored, I like to have plastic wrap with me to wrap up the brushes that are painty but not done being used yet.

I keep a rope and picture nails on hand for making circles or arches, and a level for making straight lines. I also have a few different kinds of painter's tape depending on the wall texture (multisurface, delicate surface, etc).

A lot of the time I’ll dip my brush right into the paint can to avoid having to pour paint, but that’s not always convenient, so having easy to hold paint buckets is also a great to keep in your kit.

My go-to brushes are Wooster Short Cuts brushes. I love these with their little rubber handle— my hand never feels crampy or sore after using these brushes all day. I can usually get almost all areas with just this brush, but sometimes I end up with small areas that need a tiny artist/craft brush, so I also keep some of those with me as well.

Mess ups and spills are inevitable, so I love to keep baby wipes and some rags with me to quickly wipe up any mistakes. Baby wipes are clutch, I highly recommend keeping some with you for painting projects, even if you’re not doing a mural.

And for finishing up, I like to have a nice eraser to get rid of any stray pencil lines that didn’t get painted over!

Short Cuts Paint Brushes | Small Craft Brushes | Rope | Painters Tape | Carpenter’s pencils | Baby Wipes | Plastic Wrap | Paint can opener | Hammer | Paint buckets | Level | Picture Nails | Rags | Eraser | Laundry Tote

I hope that was helpful! I’m sure my mural kit will change as I do more and more murals, but for now this is my core kit. It’s easy to throw in my truck and carry with me to the mural site. If you do murals or just paint a lot do you have any other items you keep with you?

Removable Wallpaper Fridge Makeover

Spring 2022 One Room Challenge | Week 3

If you guys know me, you know I can't leave a regular fridge alone. In my last three places I've re-covered my fridge with contact paper. Refrigerators can be ultra boring, and if you're renting, it's not like you can paint it or replace it, so you're stuck with it. Not so! Ladies and gentlemen, removable wallpaper is your fridge's best friend.

I've used chalkboard contact paper, woodgrain contact paper, and marble contact paper, as well as removable peel and stick wallpaper to cover fridges.

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What you'll need:

Peel and Stick Wallpaper
Scissors
X-acto knife (optional
Tape Measure

First thing you need to do is remove the fridge door handles, which is very easy.  There's usually just a screw on top the door and either on the bottom of the door, or on the bottom front of the door.  Unscrew both screws and the handle pops right off.  You can screw the handle back on after applying your contact paper, but I liked how clean it looked without the handle and it's perfectly easy to open without a handle. 

Applying the removavle wallpaper to the fridge is pretty straightforward.  I did two vertical pieces of wallpaper on the front , and then the sides also took two vertical pieces, again, one full width and then a smaller strip to complete the side.  

Measure how much you need for each piece as you go, cut the piece and then pull a few inches of the backing off to start applying.  Make sure your measurements include enough to wrap around the edges of the doors.  Apply it to the front of the door, leaving the edges loose to wrap once you've got the front stuck on.  Pull the backing off and smooth the sticky side to the fridge in increments so you don't get air bubbles.  Once the front is stuck on, go around the edges and stick them down.  You'll need to cut a little slice out of the the corner so it lays flat.

Continue that process around the whole fridge till it's all covered!

 Now revel in the awesomeness of your swanky new fridge!  

DIY Easy click-connect laminate flooring install

Spring 2022 One Room Challenge | Week 2

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There are a lot of nailed-down details on this One Room Challenge remodel, but one thing that was up in the air when I started- the flooring. The original flooring was, well, it was okay. The kitchen/dining/entry area had vinyl plank and the living room was carpeted. It all looked very worn down, and there was a noticeable hump in the floor right as you entered the kitchen.

We needed to decide on the flooring situation ASAP because I didn’t want to paint the cabinets and get those finished nicely and THEN go in and do flooring demo and potentially bang up the new cabinet paint. Since this decision was being made last minute, we also needed flooring that was in stock and available in the quantity we needed to do the entire space— kitchen/dining and the entry/living room.

Well, my parents found some beautiful waterproof laminate flooring at Costco and bought out the whole store (and had to hit up another Costco to get the remaining boxes needed), and we quickly decided to tackle the floors first thing.

Demo was pretty easy, the old vinyl planks came out super easily, and the carpet did as well. Once the flooring was out we were able to figure out what what going on with the lump in the subfloors by the kitchen. The carpeted living room also needed a 1/4in underlayment plywood added to bring that area’s subfloor up to the same level as the floor that had the vinyl planks, which was much easier than fixing the hump.

We ended up pulling out the 1/4in underlayment on either side of the lump, which brought the peak of the hump down lower and we were able to fill in that area with self leveler so the new floors are nice and level with no awkward hump. We ended up needing a couple coats of the self leveler (we didn’t buy enough the first time), so that took a couple days of prep work, which we folded in with prepping the cabinets to prime and paint so there wasn’t any lost time on the cabinet painting front.

I’ve done floating click-connect laminate flooring before in our house, so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. These kinds of floors are very DIYer friendly. It’s hard to mess up the install, and it’s super straightforward, these were no different. We ended up with Mohawk Waterproof Laminate floors in Millport Hickory. They have the foam under pad attached to the bottom of the plank so you don’t even need to install a pad before going in with the flooring install!

I picked up a laminate flooring install kit from Home Depot, which was exactly what we needed to do the install, and Ryobi had sent over their flooring saw, which came in clutch. I was on cutting duty outside and my brother and Dad were on install inside and we made pretty quick work of the floor!

One thing manufacturers recommend, and I’ll second, is to use planks from different boxes as you work, and to inspect the planks as you install because there are only so many plank designs and you don’t want to end up with identical planks super close to one another. The other thing you’ll want to make sure of is that the gap you leave around the edges of the room (there should be a slight gap to allow for expasion) isn’t too big so that your baseboard trim is able to cover that. We weren’t super careful in a couple spots and had to to some tweaking to make it work.

Ultimately, click-connect laminate flooring is a perfect DIY project. It’s straightforward, relatively easy, and there are so many options out there now for different looks, as well as water-resistant or waterproof planks as well!

10 tools to start on your DIY journey

One of the things that can feel overwhelming when it comes to being a beginner DIYer is not knowing where to start when it comes to those first tool purchases. Whether it’s not knowing which tools to get first, or what brand to go with, or what accessories to get, the world of tools is one that you’ll need to enter in order to have success with your DIYs!

Another big reason it can feel overwhelming: money. Tools cost money! And some of them can be more expensive than others. Don’t feel like you need to run out and buy a whole workshop full of tools right of the bat. You can buy tools slowly, as you need them.

We’ll start with some non-power tools that I always keep on hand, and then we’ll get into the power tools that are essential!

Hammer

This almost feels like it goes without saying! A hammer is one of the most basic tools out there and it’s extremely handy. A hammer is great for everything from putting up shelves and building Ikea furniture, to framing a wall. There are lots of hammers out there, but a basic standard hammer is all you really need (unless you start getting into some more specific building realms). And! They’re very inexpensive.

Tape Measure

”Measure twice, cut once!” and in order to measure twice, you’ll need a Tape Measure. You may want multiple, because if you’re anything like me, you’ll misplace yours and there’s nothing more annoying than not being able to find a tape when you’re working. I also keep a smaller 12 or 16ft tape in my house for easy grabbing, and I’ll usually have a 12ft one in my purse for when I’m out and about and need to measure furniture or stuff at Home Depot. A standard 25ft one is a really great length for having in your toolbox, and is what I have in mine!

Level

A level is super handy and the type you get first may depend on what you’re most wanting to do, DIY-wise. If you’re just installing shelving, hanging pictures, etc— smaller stuff, you may only need a short little level. If you’re leveling counters, floors, or larger projects, you’ll probably want a larger one. I like having a small 1ft level for little things, a more substantial 4ft level, as well as an 8ft one. If you want to get techy and fancy you can also get a laser level, which is a very cool little tool!

Sawhorses

Havinga set of sawhorses, even just some cheap plastic ones, comes in SO handy when you’re working on projects. Cutting wood, making a makeshift table, painting things, sawhorses will help with countless projects and make things 100 times easier.

Power Tools:

Power tools come in two options: corded and battery powered. Typically corded versions are a little more affordable, and they can also be more powerful, but cordless battery operated tools can be more lightweight and convenient. For instance, my battery operated brad nailer is WAY more convenient because I don’t have to hook up my air compressor and pull out the long air hose. I just pick it up and start nailing. My battery operated circular saw is also much lighter and easier to wield than my corded version, but the corded version is more powerful.

Another thing to consider if you start buying battery powered tools is that you’ll want to stick to a brand, only because once you start buying batteries, those batteries will be specific to that brand’s tools and won’t work on another brand. So you don’t want to buy a Ryobi drill and get the battery pack and charger for that and then get a Makita circular saw, because then you’ll have to invest in Makita batteries and charger (and batteries can be expensive!). So stick to one brand, get a few batteries so you can have a spare or two on hand, or charging up so you’ll never get stuck with a tool and a bunch of dead batteries mid-project— that’s the worst!

This obviously doesn’t apply to corded tools since their power source will be the outlet, so you can go “off brand” with those. I use Ryobi for my battery powered tools and I have a few random brands in my corded tools.

Brad Nailer

Having a brad nailer is super handy for a lot of different projects. Working on furniture, installing trim, putting up molding, making shelving, my brad nailer gets a ton of use around my house. There are lots of different nailer types and sizes too, so depending on what projects you think you’re most likely to tackle, you may want a stapler, a pin nailer, a 16 gauge, etc. I LOVE having a battery powered nailer because then I don’t have to have an air compressor with a long air hose dragging through my house in order to work on projects.

Drill + Impact Driver

A drill is one of the most useful and basic power tools you can have in your arsenal. Not only can you drill various size holes with standard drill bits, spade bits, hole bits, and more, you can also use it as a power screw driver. I would say that my drill is my most used tool over the years and if you don’t have any tools at all start with a power drill! An impact driver is very similar to a drill and they look almost identical, but there are some differences. Impact drivers are more lightweight and compact and they also have more torque. While drills hold bits using a “chuck” which is basically a unique way to clamp down on the bit to hold it in place (and you can use standard or hex bits), Impact drivers have a quick change clamp and only take hex bits.

So why/when do you use an impact driver? Impact drivers are more commonly used to drive in a large quantity of fasteners, longer screws and lag bolts. If you use impact-rated, 1/4-inch hex-shank drill bits, you can accomplish some basic drilling tasks with an impact driver. However, these tasks will be limited in scope. An impact driver is not ideal for precision drilling tasks and should be limited to jobs where the size or placement of the hole is not crucial but more torque may be needed, such as drilling through metal and dense or knotty wood.

A lot of time you’ll see these two sold in a set, which is a nice way to get both, but if you can only afford one, go with a standard drill. I will add that driving in screws is much easier with an impact driver, and as a small (yet strong) woman, I have to use much less force to screw in using an impact driver, which is nice.

Circular Saw

The circular saw is an extremely useful tool if you’re doing any kind of building. It’s the first power saw you should add to your toolkit, IMHO. You can make cross cuts, rip cuts, angled cuts, and more. It’s great for cutting plywood, lumber, you can use a blade designed to cut metal, etc. It’s a super handy tool that will instantly level up your DIY. A circular saw can feel intimidating to some, so make time to practice to get the feel for and hang of how it behaves and cuts.

Jig Saw

The one big limitation that a circular saw has is that it can’t make curved cuts. Which is why I highly recommend grabbing a jig saw next. After my circular saw, my jig saw is my most used saw. I love it’s capabilities, and it’s the pervect tool for making more precision cuts.

Sander

Having a power sander on hand is super useful. I use mine all the time. Whether I’m sanding down a piece of furniture to refinish, prepping cabinets to paint, cleaning up cut edges, or smoothing rough surfaces, my sander makes it so easy. There are a few different style of sanders, but for starting out I’d get a sheet sander, or orbital sander, though a corner sander is also a great starter. These styles are great for most basic sanding you’ll be doing.