creative little daisy

I like to bring you easy and inexpensive projects

this one will not fall under either of those categories.

It's a sewing room project, the cutting table.  Not a tutorial, just me sharing  what I did to dress up some cheap cabinets. It happened to be cheap for me, because I had the stuff on hand. I kept thinking though, while I was working, should I share this or not? I guess what made me question was a comment I read on a blog recently. I don't remember the name of the blog, I followed a link from somewhere else. It's a blog that talks trash about other blogs. I didn't read much, mostly because I don't  read any of the blogs they were talking about. Kind of like hearing gossip about someone you don't know. I did read some comments about a few home dec blogs. The one they seemed to have the most to say about was Young House of Love. (which I happen to read and enjoy) The one comment that stayed with me was about the play kitchen they made for their little girl just a few days before Christmas. The commenter was like who has the tools or know how to throw together a play kitchen in a few hours a few days before Christmas. Well, readers of YHL, that's who. I mean if you follow their blog, you likely have some interest in DIY and home decor. I have the tools and a little know-how, so I could appreciate such a post. Now, I would not have the same interest in a post about professional baking or expect to read one and be able to go into my kitchen and make an intricate wedding cake. I don't have the skills or tools. All that to say, you may not have a junky garage full of scrap pieces from left over projects and you may not have access to a circular or miter say. If not this project might not be for you. If you do have some scrap and want to dress up a cheap piece, you might be interested in what I did.

I'm not saying it can't be done inexpensively, but if you had to buy all the pieces involved, it would end up being a little pricey. I think to buy the cabinets, the molding and the beadboard, you would end up spending what you could on a nicer set of cabinets and save yourself a lot of work.I didn't say a nice set, I said nice-er.

That said, I already had the closetmaid pieces. They function well for my needs and the size is just right. I also have a junky garage full of scraps, so lets dress 'em up. The cabinets I'm working on are from Lowe's. On one end is a cabinet with doors and shelves inside.

The other end is actually two units that stack containing two drawers each.

Some flat-pack, put together at home furniture looks nice. Alyssa's bed for example, it came from IKEA and had to be assembled, but it doesn't look cheap. These peices are dorm room cheap. Not the least bit attractive right out of the box. 

I tried dressing them up a bit by changing out the hardware and that was fine when they were under the ginormous cutting table. Now, they are front and center in the middle of the room, first thing you notice when you walk in and they screamed cheap and ugly. At least, that's what they screamed at me.

Just looking at them from the front they aren't awful, it was the sides that really bothered me.

And the cardboard backs. Something had to be done about those backs. Beadboard wallpaper was my solution. I would use it on the sides and back.

First I had to do something about those huge screws sticking out on the sides. Wallpaper wouldn't cover that.

I removed each screw and used a countersink bit to make a hole so the screw head would be well, countersunk.

After they were all sitting below the surface a bit, my assistant and I filled in the holes with some spackle.

See the screws now? What screws?

The next step was beadboard wallpaper. I put it on the sides and proceded to do the back. Well, silly me! I didn't consider how that cardboard would react to having wet wallpaper placed against it. It didn't like it, that's how it reacted. It warped and did all kinds of ugly stuff. Of course it did. It's just layers of paper after all. Duh.

So, I had to pull it off, the wall paper and the angry, wet cardboard underneth, then pry out each nail that was holding it on.

I thought a trip to Lowes was in my future, but I went out in the garage to dig around for something that might work. Much to my surprise there was a piece of bead board-ish stuff. It looks like beadboard, but it's slick and shiny. Some sort of pressed board. I just needed it to be solid and to be at least four feet wide by 30.5 inches tall. It was my lucky day, it was exactly 4'x3'. Mitch wasn't home so I was going to have to wait or cut it myself.  Wait? Heck no.  I cut it myself, beautifully, I might add. I'm not bragging, just passing along my delight and surprise. Until very recently, like the past couple of weeks recent, I was scared of the circular saw. It's awkward to hold, maybe cause I'm a lefty, and dang near impossible to cut a straight line with.  I clamped a straight board to piece I was cutting to serve as a straight edge to guide the saw and got a straight line. Then I did a little celebratory dance. Right there in the yard.

The beading is not the same pattern as the wallpaper, but I don't care. I slapped that found-in-the-garage, cut-by-me stuff up there and was pleased as punch with myself.

The camera was in Jacksonville with Mitch (remind me to share with you why), so I don't have pictures of each step. No pictures? What kind of tutorial is this? It's not a tutorial, remember? Just me sharing how I pimped my cheapo cabinets.

In the junky garage, we had some baseboard left from the attic project so I put that around the bases. The only thing left was the corners. I needed some sort of trim to hide the gap between the wallpaper sides and the beadboard on the backs. I promise, I'm not making this up, we had some corner trim in the garage, only not enough.  I got Alyssa to pick up  2 more sections (8' each) at around 6 dollars a piece.  Then like all my molding projects, caulk, caulk, caulk to hide my many mistakes, one coat of primer two coats of paint and I had a couple of respectable bases for my cutting table.

Oops, looking at this photo, I see I forgot to mention that trim at the top, I don't know what it's called, but it was cheap. I bought it when I did the cabinets in the attic but didn't use it. It's 3/4" wide and has rounded edges. I think it's called screen molding.

So, since I was using cabinets I already had and materials left over from other projects, this cost me around $40.  That's for the corner molding and the half sheet of plywood for the top.

The top is birch plywood. I bought a 4'x4' piece and had Lowe's cut one foot off one end. I wanted the table top to be 3'x4'. It was twenty something.

My cousin,  (the one who gave me the stool) did this to the edges for me using a shaper. I think I said a router before, but he said it's called a shaper. Different tool. 

I stained it with this

about three coats, wiping off the excess and letting it dry between coats. Then I mixed some dark walnut stain with the sun bleached and gave it another coat. I was going for that Restoration Hardware color. I sealed it with several coats of Minwax wipeon poly in satin finish. I attached it to the top of the cabinets with screws from inside the tops of the cabinets.

You can see, I didn't finish the underside of the table top.

I just did a quick calculation of what I estimate it would cost to do this without having the materials on hand and I'd say it would run me somewhere around $200.  $90 for the cabinets, $18 for the corner trim, $6 for the screen trim, around $15 for new hardware, maybe $10 for a the backing piece- a complete guess there, and $35 for the wall paper, (including shipping). You can buy it cheaper at Lowe's, but the quality isn't as realistic looking. You can order from Home Depot (they only carry it online) but what they carry is now under the Martha Stewart label and is not pre-pasted. Since I last bought some from HD, I've  learned you could order the pre-pasted realistic looking stuff from the lady who made it a blog sensation in the first place. Rhoda of Southern Hospitality sells it in her blog shop.

Now that I've looked at the numbers, I guess even if I had to buy everything $200 isn't that bad for two custom cabinets. I surfed around a little and found this at IKEA for $79.00. The dimensions are right, but I don't see a matching one that is a cabinet with shelves.

I guess the purpose of this long and rambling post is... I'm not sure, I've been writing this so long now I've forgotten what the point was.  I guess I'm trying to say that DIY projects aren't always cheaper than buying new, in fact many times they are not cheaper. You have to look at your own situation and weigh all the factors. For me, I had cabinets that worked, why buy new? I just wasn't happy with the look of them and by using left overs I was able to make them look more custom and less dorm room.

What are your thoughts? Would you rather buy or DIY in a situation like this?

For me taking the money comparison out of it, I actually enjoy doing this kind of thing. I loved getting a chance to improve my miter saw skills. I feel much more confident using a circular saw and I kept two ugly cabinets out of the landfill.

 

Sewing room makeover take... three?

I've lost count to be honest. You have to live with a room a while to learn what works and what doesn't. Especially so for a working room.

While Casey was away becoming one of the few and the proud, I took over his room. I figured the Marines owned him for at least four years, he wouldn't be needing it. At the time it seemed like the perfect arrangement, but it wasn't.

About a year later, I moved things around again. It was better, but over time, it just wasn't working either and eventually became a junk hole. Not at all conducive to creativity. I just wanted to close the door and pretend it wasn't there. Except it was. It was there, and I may have had a bad dream or two about it. 

Think I'm exaggerating? Brace yourselves folks, what you are about to see isn't pretty.

Are you ready?

Now you know why I haven't posted any sewing projects. I'm not sure I could even find the sewing machine.

Yea, bad. Real bad.

Let me say one tiny thing in my defense, I had already started some of the reorganization when I took these photos. You know, things get worse before they get better.  I had pulled things from under the table and piled them on top. The other stuff, like mount lampshade over there, that was there already.

Then it got even worse. You see, to implement my plan, most of the furniture in the room had to come out. There was a lot of stuff hanging out on that furniture

Enough ugliness, it's giving me the heebie-jeebies.Lets get on with the afters.

Wall to wall work table and all it cost me was the price of the legs. It's the same hollow core door I'd been using as a cutting table, only now it's fourteen feet long instead of seven

No new furniture was purchased. Almost everything was reused and repurposed. I did purchase a new plywood top for my cutting table and legs for the work table. I also purchased tissue paper for the pom poms and a small amount of molding. It was a use-what-you-have makeover for sure.

I reused the computer desk by taking the top off, turning it upside down and putting wheels on the new bottom.

All the closetmaid components that were below the cutting table were reused in various ways. The book shelves were placed under the work table.

This one was turned on its side to hold storage boxes and the printer. I made the little shelf to hold my silhouette with a scrap of plywood from the new cutting table. Did you catch that? I said I made that shelf. Yep, me and my kreg jig. It ain't much, but I did it, start to finish, all by my lonesome.

That's not all folks. I also made this thread rack. Alone. Just me.

These shelves? I hung 'em.

I recovered the chairs with fabric I bought a while back and never used. (Hancock Fabric)

I also pimped the closetmaid cabinets that serve as bases for the new cutting table.

I added beadboard backs, beadboard wall paper to the sides and baseboard around the bottom. Oh, and some corner trim on all the corners too. 

You're looking at my stool aren't you? I know you are. It was free. Yep, free. Don't hate.

I was at my cousin's, next door,  he was finishing the edge of my plywood table top with his router and I spied that stool in the corner, dusty, stuff piled on top, and I shamelessly begged him for it. Not really begged, but I let him know if he didn't love it to pieces, I'd give it a happy home. And he said OK.

I spent hours, no joke hours, trying to get the placement of those two cabinets right this morning. I measured and moved, measured and moved. I just knew the first thing Mitch would say when he walked in the room would be,  the table isn't straight. He has one of those eyes. He picks up the slightest offness and it drives him crazy, and when he points it out to me, after I've slaved over some project, it drives me crazy. Like I want to beat him to death with a level or something. I kid.

So, in an effort to keep him from pointing out my nonsquareness, I measured. A lot. I even got the laser level out. Not that I knew what to do with it, but it was there. Moral support, I guess.

One of the bases has drawers and holds my patterns.

The other one has doors to hide crafting necessities.

My books were in the closetmaid book shelves under the cutting table before. Now I can see them all.

I made the cover of this one. Well, not me, but one of my projects.

I was already storing yarn in this bushel basket. I just stained it gray and recovered the little top.

The pegboard was just moved from one wall to another.

Same plastic jars for ribbon storage.

I think I am going to paint the doors on this cabinet with chalkboard paint and I have an art piece planned for the wall above the work table, so it's not 100%, but I couldn't wait any longer to share.

I'm thrilled that I got a new room without going out and buying a bunch of new stuff. I forced myself to used what I had and I couldn't be happier.

I lined my bamboo roman shades

I tried to share a few of the changes I've made in the masterbedroom, but Willie stole the show. That's the honest truth. I went in there to snap a few pictures, and suddenly I was taking pictures of him. Just him.

If you did happent to get a glimpse of what was going on in the backgound, you were probably thinking to yourself, hmph, nothing special there. And you'd be right. I don't have any show stopping before and after pictures. I've just made a few small changes over several months. That goes completely against my typical method. I'm a vicitm of the trading spaces mindset. You know, you get the urge to redecorate and want it done now, but I've had to change that way of thinking. 

I've been pinning ideas, mulling over the feel I want the room to have, and implementing changes gradually.  One of those changes was the window treatements.  My color palate is going to be blue, white and some light sand/linen tones. 

The room is void of architectural details. The ceilings are not high, there is no crown molding. A pretty boring box of a room. To add some interest I stencilled the wall behind the bed.

It gave the room so much interest. Stenciling gives you so much bang for your buck. Even without a headboard, the room looks so much better.

The stencil I used is the Anna Damask stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils. I'll talk more about that later this week.

Today I wanted to share what I did with the windows, hence the post title. Sometimes I get sidetracked.

Pay no attention to the ginormous used to be in the bathroom mirror leaning against the wall. (Unless you happen to need a ginormous mirror, then look closely at it and email me. It's yours if you want it and live close by.) Also ignore the comforter draped futon at the end of the bed. Like I said, no stunning after photos here, it's a work in progress.

Where was I? Oh yea, the windows. The curtains are simple white panels from Target. I doubled them up because they aren't very wide and look a bit wimpy with just two per window. So for these two windows there are actually six panels. Good thing they were on clearance when I decided to double up.

What I'm here to talk about are the bamboo shades. I love the look of bamboo shades, but they provide no privacy and let in lots of light. Not really great for a bedroom. Especially when someone who sleeps here sometimes works nights. If you've ever worked nights and tried to sleep during the day, you know light blockage is essential. Even a sliver of light peaking through can seem like a spotlight. I'm telling you, we go to great lengths to block light. Not only did we have room darkening roller shades, but over that I made from black-out lining a panel that is removable and covers the whole window. It has grommets and velcro and completely covers the window and blocks all light.

But again, that's not what I'm here to talk about. Those roman shades. Remember I said I had room darkening roller blinds? Well, my friend Kelli recently hung roman shades in her daughter's room in a front facing window. She wanted to keep visual uniformity from the outside of the house, so she left the white roler shades she had and hung the bamboo shade outside the roller shade. You can't see the roller shade from inside the room and you can't see the bamboo shade from outside the house. Sneaky and smart huh?

Well, my widows aren't deep enough for that to work so I had to come up with a different privacy/light blocking solution. I googled how to line roman shades and found this tutorial. Woohoo. So, I proceeded to do just that. I decided to reuse the roller shades for the lining.

I opened the bamboo shade out completely, laid it on the living room floor, placed the shade over top and followed the tutorial. I was quite pleased with myself. It's easy-peasy. Just glue the liner to the shade at the top and cut slits for the metal rings, oh wait, back up. You have to untie the strings from the rings first and pull those out of the way. After that you glue the liner to the top and cut slits for the rings. Then run the string back through the rings and you're done. Be sure to follow Jane's tut at the Borrowed Abode. She goes into more details and has good pictures.

All was good. It was easy. I hung my lined bamboo shades and was quite pleased with myself. It should be noted I did this at night. It was dark when I hung the newly lined shades.

I woke up to the strangest sight.

In the photo it's dots of light. In real life it was as if rays of sunshine had pierced the shades and were invading the room.

Well, that had to be remedied ASAP.

Think, think, think...what to do. I pulled the shades back down and tried to think of what I could do. I thought to myself, I need something like those stickers that reinforce the holes in notebook paper.

So, I got myself some white silhouette vinyl from the craft room, which by the way looks like a war zone right now, but that's a post for another day. I used a circle punch to cut circles from the vinyl then punched a hole in the center with a regular hole punch.

Then I cut a slit in my little vinyl donut and covered the slit in the liner.

 

As usual, being supervised every step of the way by the foreman.

And his less hands paws snout-on sidekick.

Some of the slits were larger and required a little extra vinyl to completely cover over, but once it was all on, the shades went back up and all was good. No more darkness piercing beams of light shooting through my shades.

*This photo was taken before I doubled up the curtains.

 

Such a ham

I've been so busy with all the apartment happenings I've not even thought about making any changes elsewhere in the house.

 

 

Ha! I had a hard time even typing that sentence. My severe case of decorating ADD doesn't allow me to be reasonable and recognize that I have too much going on. Oh no, I don't seem to grasp the concept that if I would just step away from the paint brush, put down the drill, and for all that is good and holy, stay the heck away from Pinterest, if I would do those things, I might find myself relaxing in a calm and un-chaotic surroundings. It isn't meant to be my friends.

As I type this I am in various stages of unfinishedness in no less than three rooms, besides the apartment.

I've been making some small gradual changes in the master bedroom. I tried to take a few pictures but a certain little weenie kept hamming it up for the camera and upstaging my bedroom decor.

Look at him, trying to look all casual and uninterested in the camera.

What? Me? I'm just relaxing. Being handsome. I can't help it if I'm irresistible.

Go on, take your pictures. Don't mind me and my big beautiful eyes. 

I really don't like the attention, I'll look away. 

Don't you have a stencil to talk about?

Are you going to say anything about that mirror with the  shish kabob sticks?

Did you tell em your idea for a headboard? You know you really do need to get a headboard, slacker.

Excuse me.... hey, I'm talking to you. Back over here with the camera.

That's better.

You didn't even mention the furniture. Remember when you were painting it and I got paint in my hair? Do you have a picture of that?

 

Such a camera hog! I'll share more when a certain little diva boy isn't around stealing the spotlight.

 

 

A few details

When we built this house 16 years ago, we had to cut many of the extras that were included in the plans. One of those was a finished bonus room over the garage. Over time Mitch put sheet rock up and had it wired, but for all those years it was just an overflow from the attic. Particle board floors, bare bulb lights, untrimmed window... bare bones.

The only access to the room was by pull down attic stairs in the garage.

I won't go into the details of how Alyssa's marriage ended, it's not my story to tell. But as a mom, I didn't want my child to stay in an unhappy situation because she felt she had nowhere else to go, no other options. Without thought as to how we would make it work, I told her we would turn the bonus room into an apartment for her and Bayleigh. A little to my surprise and much to my relief she accepted the offer.

We began work last summer. It was slow going as we did most of the work ourselves. We hired a carpenter to build the stairs and frame in a bathroom and a friend of Mitch's helped him with the electrical work. My nephews helped with some of the painting and a friend of Alyssa's did some sheet rock work. 

We didn't have a very big budget to work with. The biggest chunk went to getting the stairs built. Alyssa chipped in on much of the expense, but ultimately, finishing the room will add to the value of our home, so we covered the structural stuff.

Mitch built this book shelf that serves as a divider between the room and the stairway.

And now

He also did the plumbing on  a small powder room that is at the base of the stairs and this little kitchen area. We found the cabinets at the Habitat Re-Store for 15 bucks each. We saved our old counters when we installed butcher-block and one section fit perfectly on the cabinets. Alyssa purchased a sink and faucet from O.com, and a friend gave her a fridge. A couple of shelves and some pretty dishes and they have a little kitchen. 

Alyssa purchased the Hemnes daybed from IKEA because it has three huge drawers for storage, can serve as seating during the day and also pulls out to become a king-size bed. Yes, I said a king-size.

Here it is during the day,

and at night.

Surprisingly , the room doesn't feel claustrophobic, even with the bed pulled out.

The "built-ins" on either side of the bed started out as this

Two laminate cabinets from Lowes.

I added some trim and beadboard wallpaper.

Left over stair treads were used for the tops.

A little more trim to bridge the gap between the cabinet and the wall, and a little white paint to finish it off.

They provide quite a bit of storage and don't take up much floor space.

The dandelion wall art was made from leftover wall planks, painted by Mitch. It was inspired by Bayleigh's love for dandelions and the design on our matching tattoos.  I knew we needed something large for that wall and I wanted it to tie in with the plank wall opposite. When I came across this on pinterest, by DIY Diva I knew that's what I wanted.

You can read about the wood plank wall here.

Lighting is from Lowes.

Flooring is Allure vinyl planks in hickory from Home Depot.

There you have it, our journey from an unfinished bonus room to a little attic apartment.   

If you see anything I didn't cover, just ask. I'll be glad to answer any questions.

 

I'll be linking to some of these parties.

 

In the middle of the information super highway driving a tractor

That's what I feel like sometimes. I just can not keep up. I guess it doesn't help that every little bit I know about blogging has been self taught. I'm not a very good teacher. I'm a good worker, but not a good teacher.

So, apparently Google Friends Connect is going bye-bye. I'm not even sure if I should be upset.  See, I told you I'm darn near clueless. I don't want to loose any friends, not friends who read my blog and I also don't want to loose the blogs I've subscribed to. I use Google Reader, will my GFC subscriptions no longer be updated? Clueless I tell you.

Why does Google have to be all sneaky in trying to make folks try Google +?  Another learning curve I have to navigate. Folks, I'm not getting younger. I'm not nearly as sharp as I once was. Not that I was ever the sharpest tool in the shed.

So, can anyone enlighten me? What do I need to do to assure we can all still be friends?  BFFs.

While googling around to try to find some answers, unsuccessfully btw, I came across a suggestion to check out Bloglovin. First I'd heard of it, but I'm going to try it out.

Anyway, I guess I'm going to have to devote some time to tweaking the blog a bit. It looks like a dinosaur in this world of sleek and sophisticated blogs. I need to streamline things, remove some things, add some. Lord help me, my head hurts thinking about it. I guess the GFC gadget will be the first to go. If you are following me through GFC and would like to continue reading my sporadic and semi interesting ramblings, please follow me through... oh I don't know,  some other method. There's a Blogloving button over there on the left, there's also a button that lets you follow through a reader of your choice.  I added the Google + badge, but I'm mad at Google for starting this whole mess to begin with. I'm mad at Picnik too. I'm mad and pouting.

Now, aren't you glad you checked in here today for all this positivity? You are welcome. Now I'm off to take some motrin and  demo work on this blog. Can't I just spray paint it?

test post

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As I sit here with an ice pack on my back,

with three days left in the month, I have come to the realization, I will not be meeting the challenge. Dang it. I really, really wanted to build a sofa table.  I still plan to get it done, but not before the end of the month. Frowny face.  It was looking a bit doubtful that I would get it done anyway, but there was still hope, then I pulled a muscle in my back. Standing up straight is about as much challenge as I can see myself taking on in the next couple of days.

I've not been a complete slacker the whole month. We've accomplished lots in the apartment, and they have actually moved in. I'm really excited about how it all came together. It's much roomier than any of us expected.

I'll go into more detail in another post, for now I'll just share a few pictures.

We aren't 100% finished, there are pictures to hang, some touch up painting to do... minor details at this point. For now, the girls are happy to call it home sweet home.

 

Because I love a good challenge...

My new friend Linda who blogs at It All Started With Paint, has put forth a very intriguing challenge. Tackle that project you have feared, dreaded, or just plain believed impossible. The time has come to stop putting it off, look that project in the eye and tell it who's the boss. Turn your impossible projects into impossiblities.

Linda plans to finally give her master bedroom the makeover she's been dreaming of by facing her fear of heights. She has mile high vaulted ceilings in her bedroom, well maybe I exaggerate, but man, she's going to need a ladder and a long roller handle. How about cutting in? How will she do that? Is she scared? Yes, but she her desire for a newly decorated sanctuary is stronger than her fears.

I had to think a bit before settling on what would be my impossiblility. Not much in the realm of DIY scares me. Many shake at the thought of painting their kitchen cabinets. I've painted mine a few times.

I've tackled slipcovers, I've changed light fixtures. The one thing I've yet to attempt is building something from wood. I don't mind using power tools. I just get all anxious at the idea of precision cuts and joining wood.

When I gave my bar a makeover I cannot tell you how many cuts I had to redo. That old measure twice cut once adage, how about measure three or four times and still cut half a dozen times.

I got a Kreg Jig for my birthday, and it's still in the box. I see other bloggers using plans from the amazingly talented and generous Anna White and I want to be able to say I built a book case or a bench. I just haven't been able to face my fears and just try. I get dizzy just thinking about the math involved. Did you know a 2x4 does not actually measure 2 inches by 4 inches?

I have a sofa table pinned that John of Young House of Love made. I have the same sectional, so I know the dimensions he used will work for me. I pinned it with the intention of convincing Mitch to make it. He really deserves a break from my never ending honey-do list, so I'm taking Linda's challenge. I'm going to build that sofa table. I think I can, I think I can...

What can you say about caulk?

It's messy, it's tedious, it's not the least bit fun, and for the most part, no one ever even notices it, if it's done right that is. People get all excited about paint. Throw some wood on the walls and it's a party. Caulk is like the eyebrow or moustache waxing of DIY. It doesn't get much attention unless you don't do it.

Yesterday I caulked the stairs. It took a long time, a lot of tape and pretty near a whole roll of paper towels.

This is what the stairs looked like after staining the treads and painting the risers. Not too good. That's a bummer. You do all that work and stand back to admire the lovely....cracks. Even though I spent hours sanding and staining, sanding more and applying polyurethane. Taping and priming and painting. Three coats. It looked like crap. All you could see was cracks and imperfections.

Now, let me say, there will be no after photos of perfection. I'm not a great caulker, but it will pass, and there are no glaring cracks staring at me.

More importantly in this case, there are no cracks for hot or cold air to creep through.

I'm not going to give a tutorial on caulking.

I'm in no way qualified. But I did find a product recently that makes me dread the job less.

Caulk-EZ

I'm not in any way being compensated for mentioning Caulk-EZ. I just happened to come across it when searching tips on removing old caulk.

There is a video on the site that shows how to use it. Basically you just run your bead of caulk and spray the Caulk-EZ along the line, then run your finger along the line, like you normally would.

The caulk smooths out beautifully. It doesn't get all over the surrounding area, and though it still gets on your fingers, it's much less messy.

I used one roll of paper towels, as opposed to two, but I'm the messiest DIYer ever.

By no means perfect, but no more cracks and gaps

Now excuse me, I have about 20 more things I need to mark off the to-do list to get that room finished.

 

PS

On an entirely different note, I need help with my blog. I have been reluctant to admit that. I've always just played around with the layout, and through trial and error got things somewhat presentable. These days, I can barely find the time to post, much less to tweak the blog design. I don't make money on the blog, so it's hard to justify forking out big bucks to make it pretty. If there is anyone out there interested in helping a sister out, maybe we could work out some sort of trade. Free advertising? Cheap labor? I'm pretty good with a sewing machine...