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Goals for 2017: It’s Time

How to Keep Cut Flowers Fresher, Longer

When I was a kid, I thought one of the ultimate status symbols of being “rich” was to always have fresh flowers in the home. Adults seemed to complain — especially on days like Valentine’s Day — how ridiculous it was to waste money on something so frivolous and short-lived. So, with my kid brain, I assumed that only those making some serious dough could even afford to have fresh flowers on a regular basis. And it made me think of that someday in my future (as all kids often daydream about making millions and owning their own planet, right?) when a steady supply of fresh flowers would be my reality.

But as it turns out — if you know where to look — you can actually find pretty good bargains on common flowers like roses, lilies, and more (and not just on holidays). I usually try not to spend more than $5 at a time on a given bouquet, but when I’m needing something to brighten one of my interior photos or simply in the mood for a pick-me-up, flowers are an easy choice. Over time, I’ve learned that there are a few tricks for finding a decent bouquet and helping it to last as long as possible.

1. Know where to shop.

Two of the least expensive places where I’ve found pretty floral bouquets are Aldi and Trader Joe’s. I suppose it doesn’t hurt that they are both owned by the same parent company, but I tend to like the selection of Trader Joe’s a little better. I’ll occasionally pick one up at Aldi instead if I happen to be shopping there instead, but I find the bouquets are more brightly colored at Aldi when I tend to go for muted tons (like white or a soft pink). On rarer occasions I might pick up a mix of greenery instead from Kroger, which is also usually pretty inexpensive (and the variety in the leaves is pretty for photos).

2. Go for the closed bouquet.

Whenever I pick out things like lilies or roses, I go for the bouquet that has mostly closed buds that have yet to open up. They tend to last a few extra days.

3. Clean the vase thoroughly between bouquets.

Whenever I toss out a wilted bouquet, I give the vase a scrubbing and wipe it down before adding more. It may be mainly residue of old water, but any kind of existing bacteria for the vase before you put new flowers in will age the new bouquet a lot faster.

4. Cut the stems at an angle & under water.

As soon as I’m home, I’ll cut the bottom of each stem off about an inch from the end.  I’m not sure where I picked up the “under water” part, but I will either use a bowl of water to submerge the ends of the stems before cutting or run the stems one at a time directly under the faucet, then cut at an angle. The angled cut gives the tip more surface area to soak up the flower food + water mix.

5. Remove any leaves that will touch the water.

In addition to cutting the stems, I also trim off any leaves or greenery that fall near or below the water line.

6. Use the flower food packet (or a DIY mix) daily.

Within a day or two, the buds will begin to open up. I’m recommending to switch out the water daily, but I tend to forget after day 3 or 4. Still, it’s a good habit to mix in the powder that comes with the bouquet into the water when you switch things out. I also re-trim the ends when I switch out the water. Flower food (the stuff in the little packet that comes attached to the stems with a rubber band) has been consistently shown to last longer than other methods (like aspirin, Sprite, bleach, hairspray, etc.). If you run out and your flowers are still going strong, a mix of sugar and vinegar has also been proven to provide both the food the flowers need to open up and the vinegar helps keep bacteria growth at bay.

7. Keep the bouquet cool (if you can).

If I’m shopping and with a friend or if I am just too tired when I get home to set up the bouquet yet, I’ll stick the flowers in the fridge until I get around to it. If you ever go by the grocery store, you’re probably familiar with this trick since there always seems to be a refrigeration area nearby.

On average, I tend to keep flowers going for about 7 days… 9 if I’m really lucky (lilies seem to last a good while in particular). Some flowers continue to look kind of cool as they dry out, like hydrangeas, but no matter which ones I pick, it always feels pretty luxurious to have these beauties around.

Do you have any tricks you like to use for your flowers? And I hope you have a Happy Valentine’s Day!

The post How to Keep Cut Flowers Fresher, Longer appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

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from The Ugly Duckling House http://www.uglyducklinghouse.com/how-to-keep-cut-flowers-fresh-longer/

Laundry Room Makeover: Art Inspired by Emily Jeffords

Whether they are of sunsets or cloudy storms, the rolling, calm paintings of artist Emily Jeffords are easy to get lost in. Perhaps that’s why — half a bottle of wine into a painting class — I created a similar one of my own. You may have seen it, because it’s now a part of my recent laundry room makeover.

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The Backstory

However long ago, my friend asked me to join her at one of those wine and paint class things we saw on Groupon (around this area, Sips n Strokes is a popular studio). In case you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s basically an instructor-led paint by numbers class… only they let you bring in wine, because being tipsy is a brilliant excuse for why your “trees” wound up looking more like cake pops.

I thought it would be fun, but I also thought it would be kind of silly — because even there are plenty of options to choose from in terms of what you paint (you register for the class that’s going to teach the painting you want to do), most of the options are really brightly colored and don’t really match with my home’s decor. Plus, the canvas you’re provided is on the large side, so if you’re not 100% in love with your work by the end of the class, it tends to feel like a waste. I guess you can at least paint over it after, but you get what I mean.

Only, there was one little twist to this story: my friend who asked me to meet with her to do the class got the time wrong. By, like, half an hour. That may not seem like much, but each class is only about two hours long, so missing a full quarter of it can put you pretty far behind.

By the time I got into my smock (and let’s be honest, I had to get the bottle of wine open to truly feel immersed in the class), I had a choice: try to catch up with what all of the other people in the class were doing, start sipping and just watch everyone else paint (an equally good option, #nojudgment), or just start freestyling whatever came to mind.

I picked up the biggest brush I was given and just started painting — streaks of blue, white, green, and brown in a sort of ombre fashion. The more I layered and swirled the colors around though, the more it started to look like clouds, and I realized it was taking shape in a similar style to the uber-talented Emily Jeffords.

Artist Spotlight: Emily Jeffords

At this point, I can’t remember how I discovered her paintings. It could have been through Instagram, another blogger’s Instagram with her work in the picture, or stumbling onto her shop on Etsy. But no matter how, I’m glad I found her work. Her landscapes, abstract, and watercolors are all equally beautiful to me (she also does other things like ornaments, mixed media, and more… I’m obsessed, really). I don’t often have the budget for buying originals over print, but someday I’d love to own an original of hers!

I have a stack of prints I’ve purchased from shops on Etsy and elsewhere, and I one or two of hers in the mix that, shamefully, I’ve yet to hang. But can anyone every really have too much art? I think a series of her moody watercolor botanicals would look perfect in my master bedroom makeover.

Adding Color to the Laundry Room

I played around with the layers of the painting for a good half hour, but it was tough to find a natural stopping point. And since I wasn’t waiting on the instructor to keep going, I was done surprisingly early — leaving more time for sipping.

Of course, the ones from EJ herself have a little more depth and movement than mine, but I still liked it better than the assignment!

When we were all done, we took a group picture… which became instantly hilarious (humming the Sesame Street song, anyone?).

I didn’t really have a plan for what to do with the canvas when I was done (bathroom? office?), so like most people who come home from one of these painting classes… I stuck it in a closet.

But as the clock was ticking down on my deadline to complete my laundry room makeover during the holidays, I knew that the room could really use a touch of color on the wall to match with all of the greenery I’d placed along the back shelf. And it hit me: that painting! I nabbed it out of my office storage and placed it on the knob thingie I bought from IKEA (it’s a towel rack, I believe, but I got it on clearance so I think it’s discontinued now). The bar above the knobs is just wide enough to place a frame, but I thought the frameless look + leaning it against the wall instead of hanging gave it a more casual feel (coughcough, yeah, that’s totally why I was too lazy to frame it, cough).

P.S. I’m thinking about highlighting a few more artists I really admire this year… maybe you’ll find a new one you love! What do you guys think?

The post Laundry Room Makeover: Art Inspired by Emily Jeffords appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

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from The Ugly Duckling House http://www.uglyducklinghouse.com/laundry-room-makeover-art-inspired-emily-jeffords/

Cutting a rug in your Garage

There’s plenty of things that people do with their garages to transform the space into something more useful than a place where you put your … Read More

The post Cutting a rug in your Garage appeared first on Garaga Garage Door Blog.

from Garaga Garage Door Blog http://www.garaga.com/blog/en/cutting-rug-garage/

The Best DIY Projects of 2016

Laundry Room Makeover: DIY Plywood Countertop

I’ve gotten a few questions so far on last weeks’ big laundry room makeover reveal, and to no surprise, many of them were about the DIY wood countertop. So, I figured the first post I would put up this week should include some answers!

Note: some links to products are affiliates, which help to support the maintenance of this site. See my disclosure page for more info.

About the Plywood Counter

The laundry room’s wooden countertop is made from 3/4″ Purebond maple plywood. It’s pretty heavy, so I had a beast of a time getting it to fit on my walls, which were also wonky as hell (the back corners were just slightly wider than the width of the wall where the front of the washer and dryer are… oh, the joys of working on an old house!) :) Remember: measure twice, cut once, and hammer to fit. In my case, I also used an electric hand planer to knock off 1/16″ widths at a time until things weren’t getting stuck on the drywall anymore.

Before installing, I did a little research and spied that Mandi from Vintage Revivals uses a nifty trick to save on the cost of a thick piece of plywood by gluing a more expensive one underneath, and I love that idea! If I’d had more time than an extended weekend to finish mine (I was under a pre-Christmas deadline), I might have tried this same trick, too; I think it would have made the plywood counter even stronger and less likely to bend under any weight (it’s not doing that now either, but in time with use, that could be something I go back and try to reinforce even more). Perhaps if/when I upgrade the front piece of the counter to look more substantial (even though the supports are offset from the edge of the counter by a few inches, you can still see some of the support along the wall, which could be hidden with a longer decorative piece of lumber attached to the front), I’ll see about adding another piece underneath. The plywood is actually just wedged into place and doesn’t move, so I can easily take it back out again if I needed to with a few swings from a mallet.

Cutting Plywood to Size

I bought a full sheet of plywood, but I took my measurements to Home Depot before the purchase and asked them to cut it for me (which they’ll do for free unless you have a lot of cuts to make… I only had 2, and they also loaded the pieces for me into my SUV).

Tip: When having a big box store cut the wood for you, it’s important to inspect the full sheet of plywood and make your cuts strategically so that you can get as smooth of a cut as possible and wind up with the section of the plywood you like the most. Their saws can handle the cut with ease, but there’s a lack of control and speed that you’ll have as a customer (compared to, say, cutting it yourself with saws you’re more familiar with using at home) and it’s good to be observant when they’re cutting things down.

When the saw was cutting with the grain (along the length of the plywood), the wood had very little splintering. This was important, since this would be the cut along along the front edge, where it meets the front of the washer and dryer (as in, the most noticeable front lip of the countertop once installed). But on the pass for the crosscut (when you cut the wood perpendicular to the wood grain), I was worried that it would splinter a lot. Even though these edges would be on the left and right side walls in the laundry room (so, not as noticeable as along the front edge), the concern was that these areas would not take stain as evenly if I had to patch it up with wood filler (even when it’s a stainable filler, the texture looks different, and I wanted to prevent/minimize the obvious parts that were patched). Using the first cut as a guide, the clerk and I both noticed that the wood splintered slightly more on the front of the cut than the back on the saw. So, I used that as a way to plan which side of the plywood would be the top and bottom so I could hide the splintered side underneath.

Countertop Support

As far as installation goes, I treated the countertop similar to how I installed the floating shelves on the right side: as one large shelf in need of support along three sides. However, given the narrow space, the room’s dimensions were a little tricky to work around. For one, everything I did along the back wall had to be done around the washer and dryer; moving them out of the room through the hallway and into the kitchen would result in both units getting off balance (it’s important to keep them from knocking around), so I made the choice to keep them in the room and simply climb over them to install the supports along the three surrounding walls.

The supports were created mostly out of some inexpensive 2x2s (be sure to inspect them carefully at the store for warping). I would have used 2x4s, but the height of the lumber would have created a huge gap between the counter and washer and dryer, and I didn’t want that much clearance on top (while you do want to leave some space for air flow around the units, I wanted things to still look like a more snug fit). Measurements of the room are far from square, so it was a lot of trial and error to get things level. It helps in these situations to mark everything down on the wood itself so you know which end is up, where the studs are, etc. Given that the room is also surrounded by the garage on the left, an exterior wall with masonry along the back, and a closet and bathroom along the right, I was very careful to use a stud finder and heavy duty drywall anchors to put each support in place.

Figuring out how to support the middle between the washer and dryer was a little tougher; with the entire length a little less than 5 feet wide, I was reluctant to try to build support from the floor (I already had so little wiggle room to move the washer and dryer around, any structure in the middle would have been very snug!). So, I settled on a heavy duty shelf bracket — the largest I could find in store boasted a 600-lb weight capacity — by attaching it to the back wall.

Stain and Seal

As for the stain color, I pretreated the wood with wood conditioner for an even coat and then used a couple of coats of ZAR in Modern Walnut along with a few topcoats of poly to seal.

To hide the plywood layers along the front lip of the counter, I again used 3/4″ iron-on veneer edging like I did with my entryway closet. Again, since I can see some of the supports still, I’ll probably cover this over at a later date with a stained piece of wood instead.

To my surprise, it didn’t take much effort to get the plywood level (pictured is my 4-foot level that I inherited from my grandfather). Phew.

Once in place, I tested it out a couple of times, and it’s very sturdy. While I don’t think it would be wise to stand on top of the counter itself and put my full weight on it, I planned for it to handle at least two full laundry baskets full (though the hope would be not to leave things in the laundry room anymore!). Estimates online said a full laundry basket could be around 18 pounds, so I planned for 40 but still made sure that the anchors I used in the wall could handle twice that amount.

The depth of the counter still had a small gap in the back to allow for the cord for the washer.

There you have it! More details about other features in the laundry room makeover, along with more DIY projects, coming your way shortly!

The post Laundry Room Makeover: DIY Plywood Countertop appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

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from The Ugly Duckling House http://www.uglyducklinghouse.com/laundry-room-makeover-diy-wood-countertop/