Deep Cleaning: Pillows

Ever remove your pillow cases to throw in the wash and notice that the pillow itself could use a good cleaning? Is it turning yellow from sweat? Gross! No worries, here is how to clean them!

Washing
1. Remove pillow cases and pillow protectors. Check the tags to make sure your pillows are machine washable.
2. Set up your washer like you would for a normal load, but don't put the pillows in yet. I set mine on HOT, Regular Heavy cycle, and added a bit of detergent. (I have a top loading washer)
3. Let the water fill up and then put the pillows in. I usually do two at a time to balance the washer, but I have done three at time before.
4. Run the pillows through two cycles, flipping the pillows over before the second cycle.

Drying (can be done in the washer, or if it is a nice sunny day, set them out in the sun to dry)
1. Set your dryer on the setting specified on the tag (mine said Low/Delicate).
2. Add dryer balls, or take two tennis balls and place each inside a sock. This helps to fluff the pillows up.

My pillows usually end up slightly lopsided when they come out of the dryer, but I just move the filling around and they are back to normal. I love that they come out smelling clean and that all the gross yellow spots are gone!

Master Suite: Final Reveal!

We have finally declared our master suite remodel completed!

Here's how we went from this:                  to this:                     

 

First, we closed the wall between our bedroom and bathroom.

Then we had a new shower installed by a contractor.

I made old towel rods and light fixtures new with some spray paint.

 My husband tiled a floor for the first time.

We moved a door.


And installed new shelving.

We created an open linen closet.

And my husband did some electrical work.


We are so pleased with how everything turned out. Everything that we DIY'ed (that is, everything except the new shower) totaled just under $2,000. Here are some other pics from the space. Next step is decorating!

Master Suite: Switching Electrical

When we decided to move our closet door, there were two electrical issues we needed to tend to. First was that the light switch would not be easily accessible from the new door, so it needed to be moved. Second, there was an outlet where the new door would be installed, so it needed to be moved over.

Neither my husband or I have any experience with electrical work, and we figured this would not be a good project to do on our own, so we called up my father, a retired electrical engineer, for assistance. He and my husband bought a huge spade drill bit, electrical boxes, electrical box covers, and some wire. After they turned off the power (very important step!), they tackled the outlet. (I wasn't there, so this is my best interpretation of what my husband says they did). They took it off of the stud it was connected to, added some wire because it was going a further distance, installed a junction box, and attached it to another stud along the wall. Next up, they drilled a series of holes in different studs to create a path for the wire to the new light switch. They created a very sophisticated tool using a wire hanger and some string to weave the wire from the original location to the new location. The thing about electrical is that you never really know if all your work was correct until you turn the power back on. This project was a success!

Project Cost: $25.16


On a related and unrelated note, I know I have mentioned before how some of the things in this house make me laugh. Add the electrical outlets to that list. Most of the outlets and switches in our house are white with white plates. However, the master bedroom had a mixture of ivory and white...like this:

Lovely, isn't it? There were some that had white plates and white switches, and there were some ivory plates with ivory switches. Basically it was a mixture of everything. I thought it looked terrible, and I wanted it to match the rest of the house (white on white).

First, I had to count how many white outlets, switches, and plates that we had, and how many we needed. Since my husband dabbled with electrical with my father, he was nominated to be the one to switch all of the outlets. It didn't take him much time at all. Basically, you look at the old outlet and match up the wires to the same places on the new outlet.

We did run in to a few snags. First, the outlet that was connected to a light switch was working, but not in connection with the light switch. We called up my dad and he said to check the little tab on the side of the outlet. On the old one, it had been taken off, and we needed to do the same to the new one. I guess it had something to do with the connection. Second, two of the outlets in the bathroom that he replaced were not working. One was one of those heavy duty ones that have a reset button. My husband took them back out and wiggled some wires around and got them all working. He is proud of himself to figuring all of the electrical out and I am happy to have matching outlets and plates!

Project Cost $66.79

Master Suite: DIY Linen Closet

One thing our new house was lacking was a linen closet. There is a small closet in the other upstairs  bathroom, but I wanted one by our master bathroom. When we remodeled the shower space in our master bathroom, we had to decide what to do with the empty space left behind were the old shower stall was.

Old Shower Stall

We decided it would be a good idea to put a linen closet with open shelving in that space. We knew it would be one of the last projects we tackled on the bathroom, so we had the contractors put up the drywall, but said we would do the rest.

Then I painted the walls with Olympic Paint's Sterling Silver and Blue Fjord in a semi-gloss. I also painted the ceiling with some white ceiling paint.

Then my hubby installed 3 shelves. We spaced them 18 inches from the top of the space. We really wanted to maximize the depth the space offered, so we bought 1 x 2 x 4 ft melamine shelves and cut them down to fit. I used an iron-on white melamine edge on the part of the shelves that would be facing out. It was really easy to put on. Next up, my husband installed brackets using drywall anchors and screws and made sure they were level all the way across. Finally, he put the shelves in and screwed them in to the brackets. These shelves are very sturdy! I plan to get some baskets for storage and eventually, my husband wants to build a laundry basket cabinet that slides under the bottom shelf. We love the storage space this has added to our bathroom!

Project Cost: $72.03

Master Suite: The Closet

When we were house hunting, all the houses we looked at had wire shelving in every closet and I hate wire shelving! The hangers don't always slide right and anything folded on the shelves gets lines on it. We decided to take out the five wire shelves in our master closet and put in melamine shelving.

First we had to decide whether to DIY or purchase a closet kit from the hardware store. Our closet is 12 feet along the main wall so we had a lot of space to cover and we knew it wouldn't be cheap. The first closet system we looked at was going to be about $658. The second closet system at a different store was going to cost about $520. We tried calculating doing it ourselves and figured it was going to be more complicated to build what we wanted (especially after looking at the nice kits), so we scratched that idea altogether. We decided to go with the cheaper option.

After we took out all of the shelving, we had to patch up the holes. There were a lot!

Then I painted the closet with Olympic's Country Beige with a satin sheen. Doesn't that look better?

 Next up was to assemble and install the closet system. I planned to do this part on my own, however, it involved making sure things were square and I had to call in reinforcements for help (aka my hubby)!

Now I have so much storage space that I don't even know what to do with it all!

Project Cost $519.06

Master Suite: Let's Move a Door!

We have a serious door issue in our bathroom. The doors between the bedroom and bath are double doors. The left double door hits the toilet room door when open and the right double door blocks the entrance to the closet. It was very frustrating having to move doors all the time to get around! See all those doors in the bathroom? It was a mess!

In the middle of our tiling project, we decided to move our closet door to be off the bedroom to help solve some of the door issues we were having. Here is the old door:

First we knocked out some of the wall in our bedroom. I got to take the first swing! As I have mentioned before, we are lacking in the tool department, so we just used a hammer and a crowbar to create the opening. There were pieces of drywall everywhere, but at least we had fun doing demo!

As far as supplies for installing the new door, we bought a pre-hung door, shims, drywall, 2 x 4 studs, 2 x 8 header, and screws from the hardware store. The door was fairly easy to install. It did take both of us and took about an hour.

One issue that we still have not resolved is the floor where the old wall was. It is down to the sub floor and is too large to put a transition down like we did to the bathroom. Our temporary solution is carpet samples. It's not perfect, but its better than the wood!

Project Cost $96.86

Master Suite: Tiling Newbie

The next big to do item on our master bathroom reno was the floor. Check out this dated, ugly linoleum floor:

Doesn't it just make you want to cringe? Me too! After our contractor fiasco, my husband decided to tackle this project on his own. He had never tiled before, so he attended a tiling class, watched a ton of YouTube videos, and did plenty of research beforehand. He made a list of what he needed and we headed to the hardware store.

We bought:

- tile - tile spacers - wet tile saw - mortar - square notch floor trowel - grout float - buckets - grout sealer - sponges

- fibatape - cement board - cement board screws - floor trowel - chalk reel - circular saw blade - drill bits - carpet edge - grout sand

- baseboards and shoes - wood putty - baseboard nails - wood glue - miter box - cherry moulding - white caulk - sandpaper

Apparently you need a lot of stuff to tile a floor! I was totally hands off on this project (and I apologize for my lack of pictures during the process!) First my hubby pulled up all of the old linoleum to expose the sub floor. Then he measured and put down concrete board with concrete screws. He filled in all the gaps between the concrete board with mortar, fibatape, and more mortar, all while making sure it was all staying level.

After that was dry, he laid out the tiles to figure out the most sensible arrangement (thought about different cuts he would have to make as well as making it aesthetically pleasing). Once he knew what the layout was going to be, he made straight lines with the chalk reel. Next up was putting down mortar, spreading it out with a square notched trowel, laying the tile down, and putting in tile spacers.

Once the tile was set, he filled it all in with grout sand. Next, he formed the grout and the grout lines (that signature slight dip down isn't automatically made apparently). Finally he cleaned the floor and sealed it.

That's the quick and dirty explanation of what he did. In reality, that all took place over a few weeks. He says he could have gotten it done in a week, but he only worked in the evenings after work and on the weekends. Plus in between putting down the concrete board and laying the tile, we decided to move our closet door. More on that later. In the mean time, I painted the walls in Olympic's Sterling Silver. Love it!

Next on the flooring list was to install the baseboards. I am all about reusing things around the house, but the baseboards in the bathroom were looking pretty dingy and we would have had to paint them anyway, so we opted to buy new.

We found these nifty miter boxes by the baseboards at the hardware store (my hubby wanted a table saw, but the miter boxes were a couple hundred dollars less, so they won). He measured, cut, and installed all the baseboards and shoes using some nails, wood filler, wood glue, and white caulk. I think they look so fresh and clean against the tile and new wall color.

After all the baseboards were installed, he could finally put the toilet back! The only issue he ran in to was that the tile floor was higher up than the old floor, so he had to get some longer floor bolts.

 

 (see my beautifully spray painted toilet paper holder!)

And finally, we needed a transition between the carpet in our bedroom and the new tile in the bathroom. There used to be an ugly gold transition, but we thought a pewter one would look better: 

 We love how it turned out and now my husband can't wait to tile our other full bath.

Before

After

Project Cost $727.54