Patch Wood Holes

First let me apologize for the horrible before and progress photos. This post has been in the making for a while but I had yet to take after photos until a few days ago so I'm finally getting around to finishing it.

Nearly two years ago I turned this TV bridge into a sideboard for our dining room. I removed the glass shelves and now use the cubbies to house wine racks and square storage baskets. However, the ghosts of shelves past left holes in the wood. The holes didn't bother me too much but I wanted to test my handy-woman skills by figuring out how to mask them without consulting Mr. Google. Fortunately I had an inkling it would be really similar to patching a small hole in a wall and I was right on the money.

First I gathered the tools I thought I would need. 1. Wood Filler. 2. Putty knife. 3. A sanding block. (4. Paint—not pictured.)

I used the putty knife to scrape some wood filler into and over each hole.

After allowing to dry, I sanded the heck outta that thing.

I repeated the filler/sand steps one more time until I was happy with the fill and smoothness of the holes.

To finish 'er off, I touched up the spots with the same white paint I used to repurpose the piece.

And restocked.

Now, no one's the wiser that there used to be shelves there, well, except for you of course!

Fabric sweeper? Fabric sweeper!

When I write a post, I start by popping in photos then narrating as I see fit, but when I saw the order of these images and began collecting my thoughts, I thought it looked like a silent commercial for this trusty cleaning tool or almost like a photographic madlib game (remember those?). However, for those of you who don't have an overactive imagination such as myself, I commented anyways.

(Look at this horrendously hairy chair seat! It looks like Big Foot spent a few too many hours here. How can we quickly remove all of that in a few minutes and without having to remove the chair cover to throw it in the dryer—because that works too?)

(I know! Let's try this new cleaning tool that swears it can remove pet hair that would otherwise use 145 sticky roller sheets to eradicate.)

(Ooooo looky-looky, with just a quick little side-to-side, swish-swish, the black pet hair begins to disappear from the ivory chair.)

(Leaving this freshly cleaned chair seat—awesome!)

(Although the packaging touts a one-time use out of the little sucker, anyone with eyeballs can figure out that by snapping out one of the rollers, the hair is easily removed and can be snapped back for another go.)

(Thanks Pledge Fabric Sweeper for Pet Hair! Our chair looks new!)

I felt this mighty-tool was worthy of a post because it is, as I already exclaimed, awesome. We only have two cats but even then, it seems their hair is everywhere, so when my mother-in-law gifted us this nifty-gadget she gave me the responsibility of reporting back on its effectiveness. Well, as you can see, it is effective, quick, and best of all reuseable and it not only worked on the smooth fabric of this chair but also our microfiber sectional—yippee!

Mineral oil rub down

Justin and I have been doing a lot of cooking lately and as we pulled out our large wood chopping block to slice up our homemade italian pizza the other night, I was embarrassed by its condition. Let's face it, the board isn't the best or the top of the line, heck it was only $10 at Ikea, but I do my best to care for our belongings so they last as long as possible. Though, I must have been slacking on this particular piece. As you can see, the wood is extremely light and there are some darker spots, which I assume is from food.

To maintain our block's swedish quality, I follow some "rules" each time we use it. First, we do not use this board for raw meat, completely eliminating the potential for bacteria to harbor in the wood. Second, we give it a good scrub by hand shortly after using so our food doesn't stain the wood, and then let it dry immediately. Do not let wood kitchen items soak in water as this can lead to water damage, allowing more places for bacteria. Last, I treat our board with mineral oil on a semi-regular basis (every couple months or so).

Treating your chopping block to a mineral oil rub down is similar to you going to a spa. The mineral oil locks in the natural moisture and prevents cracking and other forms of wearing out. It is my understanding to not use any other type of oil such as olive or canola because these turn rancid over time and make your board unsanitary.

When Linen's-N-Things was still around a few years ago, I picked up this very large bottle of oil for less than $10. Each new wood tool we purchase for our kitchen gets an initial mild-soap wash and mineral oil rub down. As you can see in the above picture, we haven't even come close to using half the bottle—a little goes a long way.

After scrubbing and washing off the homemade pizza sauce from our board, I let it dry overnight. Then I treated our chopping block to a nice mineral oil massage. I'm not sure if each bottle has the same directions, but I put a small amount of oil in a bowl and warmed it up for 5–10 seconds in the micro. Then I used a soft rag to soak up some oil and rubbed it into the board. I have never applied the oil directly to the board because I fear really dark oil spots, but I'm sure if you follow the instructions on your bottle you'll be fine.

The last step in the application is to let the board rest for a while to allow the oil to fully soak in.

If you are treating one wood tool and have other wood cutting boards, bowls, spoons, or serving utensils you might as well fix them all up at the same time, or at least until you have used the warmed-up oil. Waste not, want not!

Embracing Gravity

In May, we hosted a Mother's Day grill-out at our house with Justin's extended family. Can you believe it was their first time coming to our home? You all know that I'm not a mom (nor soon-to-be), so I didn't expect to receive anything that day, however, Justin's relatives showered us with house warming gifts. One of these said gifts was this odd-looking tomato tower garden station.

As you can kind of see from the packaging (above), it is a stand with a container on top that you can plant flowers, herbs, or other favorite foliage. The unique part about this contraption is that in the bottom of the container (pictured below on the right) there are openings where you can plant tomatoes so they hang upside down. How cool is that? I have always wanted to get a topsy-turvy tomato plant, but never had a spot to do so, until now!

Assembly was a breeze and after a few minutes, it was standing strong and I was ready to go shopping for my vegetation.

Before I could do so, I had to ensure it wouldn't fall over, so I filled the base's container with leftover landscaping rocks and sand; then I went shopping.

While at Home Depot trying to decide which tomatoes to plant, I talked with an associate who recommended planting strawberries or cherry tomatoes in the planter. He suggested planting something with small fruit because as large tomatoes grow they become so heavy that they fall off the vine when hung upside down, even the topsy-turvy planters. I had already planted roma tomatoes in my garden, so I picked out a couple strawberries to plant upside down—yum! To fill in the top of the basin, I decided to plant an herb garden and bought catnip, basil, cilantro, and oregano.

Back at home, I separated some of the strawberry plants and slid a single plant in each hole.

The planter came with these handy-dandy caps that I put on the hole, leaving a small gap where the plant hung down through.

After placing them all in and securing them with the caps, I filled the planter with dirt and gave it a refreshing drink of water.

To plant the herbs on top, I filled in some more dirt and planted them like any other vertical plant. I also used the same marker tags that I used in my garden to label the plants. Can you imagine wanting cilantro but grabbing catnip instead? (Blech!)

All in all, the planter turned out great. It is awesome having an herb garden a step out my back door and before leaving for work this morning, I checked my strawberries and saw some buddings of future fruit. I can't wait until those are grown and ripe.

Does anyone else have a planter like this? What did you plant in yours?

PS: Check back for an update on our garden, it's growing like weeds!

Great Grad Gift

It's that time of year again, when kids will be flying their coops, as their parents watch with anticipation, fear, and pride. Although I don't personally know anyone graduating this year, hearing my coworkers excitement about attending grad parties made me think of my graduation and all the sweet gifts I got.

So, today, I am sharing with you one of my all-time greatest graduation gifts. However, I am kind of cheating when I call this a grad gift, because I didn't receive it until moving into my first off-campus apartment my sophomore year of college, but it was one of the practical things my parents bought me when I moved into my first off-campus apartment and it would have been extremely useful from day one my freshman year.

That said, I present to you the Rubbermaid Tough Tools Portable Kit.

This baby has it all: an adjustable wrench, needle-nose pliers, measuring tape, groove joint pliers, ratcheting screwdriver, level, hammer, and small selection of nails and screws. Since receiving it over five years ago, I have added a couple box cutters, a teeney-tiny level, a few allen wrenches, and some additional bits for the screw driver.

And speaking of the screwdriver, Rubbermaid really maximized the space because the end comes off, revealing a handy storage compartment for all the extra bits. There is even more storage in the divided container and is great for stashing extra screws, nails, and other odds-and-ends you collect over time.

But, the best part of all, is that you can zip it shut, around all three sides, and stow it in a small space. It's perfect for a dorm room or 400-square-foot apartment that doesn't even have a kitchen.

We keep ours in our coat closet on the first floor and it is the first thing we grab when needing a tool for a fix. Some people have a drawer where they keep a couple tools handy, but this works just fine for us. The final kicker (if I haven't sold you on it yet) is that it can be purchased for about $35 and in our opinion, is worth every penny. I highly recommend it as a gift for a fresh graduate, but also for anyone moving out on their own.

Compute this

On February 15, Best Buy launched an in-store e-cycling program in all of their US locations, and one of the many items they accept are old computers. Recently, my coworker got a new MacBookPro and chose to bring his old desktop PC in for e-cycling. However, before taking it, Best Buy told him to destroy his hard drive. The store had numerous reasons but their main one was that they did not want to be liable for the information on the disk. Fortunately, destroying a hard drive is an extremely easy process if it is less than five years old and a little more difficult if your computer is more than five years old, which my coworker's hard drive was, so he asked for my assistance. Also by destroying his hard drive, it reassures him to know that no one will be able to access the information in the future.

Generally, hard drives newer than five years have glass disks that a simple pound of a hammer will shatter, but hard drives that are more than five years old have metal disks that demand more extreme measures. Here is my coworker's ancient (in technology terms) 8-year-old 60GB Maxtor hard drive.

As you can see, it is pretty solid. So, to destroy this hard drive, I used my power drill to core a hole right through the area that the disks are in. My plan was to drill on each end of the drive to guarantee that the disk was thoroughly demolished.

After choosing my drill bit and making sure my safety goggles (my glasses) where in place, I got to it.

Justin wasn't home at the time, so while I held it down with one hand, my other hand held my power drill as it bore a hole in the drive.

Within a few minutes, I had successfully impaled the drive on one end.

And a short while later, the other end had a piercing to match.

I got a little drill happy and started a third, but it seemed my bit was exhausted and snapped in two. I took that as a sign to stop.

If you are still at a loss for how to disassemble and destroy your hard drive before recycling it, watch this video created by a few of Best Buy's Geek Squad agents.

Great Tape Debate

When I decided to refresh our yellow bathroom with a striped paint job, I knew it was going to be challenging. I knew that in order to do it right it had to be done in numerous layers and I knew I was going to have to heavily rely on painter's tape to keep my lines straight and crisp.

I have painted so many times that by now I am comfortable cutting in without the use of tape. However, before we went tape-free, we used 3M Scotch Blue Painter's Tape and achieved acceptable results. Yet for this project, I wanted perfect results so I decided to match 3M's blue tape head to head with FrogTape's green tape. I planned on painting three layers so I decided to use each tape once and which ever one won, would be awarded with another round for the third layer.

First I tested 3M's blue tape.

It was easy to apply and while painting, held tight to the wall so I wasn't afraid of peeling.

But I wasn't too pleased with the results. Like I said, in the past the tape was acceptable but I did not want to see this much bleeding especially since I wanted the stripes to have crisp lines. The photo below is how it looked all over.

This photo shows a spot where the paint excessively seeped under the tape.

And this photo shows the same bleeding, but also how the tape peeled up the dry paint once I pulled the tape off. I wasn't pleased to say the least.

So, after that first layer of paint, I was super excited to try out the FrogTape.

It too was easy to apply, but if you touched the back of the tape too much, it lost its stickiness and didn't adhere to the wall. I had to make sure I was careful not to touch the back too much but also make sure it was adhering to the wall.

But the results were so worth it! When I started pulling the tape off the wall and saw these crisp lines with no bleeding, I called Justin into the room and showed him how frogging awesome the tape was.

There were no areas that I had to touch up. It was easy to declare FrogTape the winner of the challenge and used it on the third layer as well. See how sharp it worked!

I couldn't be happier with the results and can't wait to show it off to friends, family, and possible any solicitor who knocks on our door.

If you haven't yet taken the plunge into painting in a tape-free world, I highly recommend grabbing FrogTape the next time you run out (and not just because it's green). It worked beautifully for me and I'm already brainstorming other painting projects that require its use. (On a side note, Home Depot does not carry FrogTape because it is considered "out-of-their-price-range", as one associate explained to me, but  the lovely Menards does!)