Remodeling For Girls!

There must be several of you who are wanting to know how I am doing on my kitchen remodel. I am plodding along at the moment, waiting for my weeks vacation to get the majority of the work done. I have taken the doors off of the cabinet today and begun to patch the damage done to the wall that I showed you in a prior post. I have been working on it a little every night, er almost every night. (Sometimes knitting/spinning/plying gets in the way.)

I want to share with you a product that I have used several times in the past. DryDex is a spackling product which changes color as it dries. And get this: It Goes On PINK! PINK -- what's not to love about that. As it dries, it turns white. This lets you know that it is dry so that you don't sand it too early. Wet sanding spackle will cause a build up on your sand paper (or sanding block) which will make the sanding ineffective.

When the spackle is completely white, you can sand it or apply a second layer of spackle as necessary. Easy Peasy!

During the week, I will continue to remove doors, wash the last of the wall paper paste off the walls and patch the damage. I have to find places to put all my dishes. And purchase saw horses in order to make a work bench in order to paint all the doors. So much to do!

Happy remodeling!!!

Quick Changes

Things change quick in remodel-land. I said in my last post that I would wait to pick out the tile for the back splash until I had finished the counter tops and cabinets. But on a second trip to Lowe's, I found this recycled glass tile that is just perfect for the price and since they only had four boxes and I needed two, I snapped up the two that I needed before someone grabbed all of them. There are so many different browns in the tile that I think it will work with my plans.

But that wasn't the reason I went shopping. I was having problems getting some of the old wallpaper off the wall. I had done some research and read where, in most cases, vinegar and water in a 1:1 solution worked just as good as anything in removing wallpaper. You will notice that I wrote "in most cases". The plaid wall paper and the paper with the little olive branches came off just fine, but it seemed as if the border was put on using super glue. After using nearly an entire gallon of vinegar, I knew I needed to use something different.

I went to Lowe's and picked up a bottle of some type of wallpaper remover and found Piranha Gel. It works really well and did not stink up the kitchen. Even though it said it was non-toxic, I did wear gloves when using it. I had to strip off the top layer of the wallpaper (which was vinyl) so that the gel could get down to the paper and the adhesive. But this ended up much quicker than water and vinegar.

Sometimes, things you do to prevent one problem, causes another problem later down the road. On the left, you will see a photo of one of several plastic corner guard that were on the corner of the walls. They were attached with both adhesive and nails; and when they were pulled off the wall - they took parts of the wall with it.

On the right, you can see the damage done to the wall. I have several corners now that have this damage and will require patching. I really don't need the extra work. . .

Happy patching!