Painting a Concrete Floor

Ok, the floor in the music room is painted and I've been slowly chipping away at the final touches to call this room done, but in the meantime, it's habitable! Hooray!!

So about those floors.....here they are.

Well, the paint was still wet in this picture....it's not shiny at all now that it's dry!

So I already went over the crazy/scary part of painting concrete floors. The rest was easy (excepting maybe waiting 5 days to put anything on said floors while the paint cured).

The first thing I did was use a bonding primer so that the paint would really stick to the concrete. That had to dry for at least 24 hours before the first coat of paint went on. Here's a mid coat picture...

I used Behr's porch and floor paint for this because it was what they recommended at Home Depot. It's really thick and sludgy! And with the color I chose, it looked like (and was about the consistency of) chocolate cake batter coming out of the paint can.

I actually did two coats, because just one left a few spots that weren't completely covered, but since the second coat was so much thinner than the first, I got away with only using one gallon of paint.

Ready for the before and after? Here's the garage as it was when we moved in....

...and here it is (even with a little bit of furniture!)

While things look pretty decent in this pic (which I hurriedly took with my iphone, so it's not the greatest), there's still quite a bit to be done in here. I've still got to bring in a desk, more chairs, make another set of curtains (there's a window on the far wall), finishing touches on the paint....in short, I've still got plenty of work to do!

This is Your Brain on Drugs....

....and this is my floor on acid!

I feel like a little back story might be in order.

So I mentioned here and here that we were planning on (and in the midst of) converting our garage into liveable space that could be used as my music room. Well it's ALMOST done! You can see above that the walls have been painted (though there is some touch up work to do since the baseboards have been installed), the door installed, and baseboard added. What you can't see is the HVAC vent that has been added, the painted ceilings, the closet, and added electrical outlets.

Rather than adding the expense of putting flooring over the concrete, I decided to just paint the floor. At the beginning of this project, this looked like a no brainer. You just roll out the paint on the floor like you do on the walls right?

WRONG.

When I went to actually buy the floor paint, I was informed that because most garage floors are sealed (it's what keeps every drip and drop that comes out of our cars from leaving big ugly stains), I would have to etch the concrete in order to open the pores and get the paint to stick.

So how does one etch a concrete floor? With muriatic acid. Yes, I said acid.

The nice man at Home Depot was nice enough to walk me through the process, but when it came time to actually do this, I have to admit I was pretty intimidated. Acid eats through clothing, skin. It is harmful if inhaled....and besides the possibility of bodily harm, what if it got on something it shouldn't? And muriatic acid (which I have since been informed is a variety of sulphuric acid) is the sizzle and pop kind.

So the process goes like this:

1. Don long sleeves, long pants, shoes you don't care about, and rubber gloves. 
2. Open all the windows and doors so you have good ventilation. 
3. In a watering can, you combine 3 parts water to 1 part acid. I recommend doing this outside so the fumes aren't in your house.
4. This solution gets sprinkled on a section of the concrete (whilst being very careful not to get any of it on your clothes, shoes, skin, etc. Safety first). It will sizzle like an egg in a hot frying pan. It's scary. Just keep going.
5. Push the acid solution around with a broom to make sure you get full coverage.
6. Wait a few minutes.
7. With a mop and a bucket full of plain water, mop up the acid. You will get all kinds of nastiness off your floor that you never knew was there. I had to change the water frequently.
8. Repeat (still working in sections) until you have etched the entire floor.
9. Once the floor is dry, mop with plain water again.

All total (not including drying time), this took me about two hours for a room the size of a one car garage. I barely finished the acid part in time to get ready for school, and did the final mopping when I got home. I still have to prime the floor and then paint it. I'll keep you posted!

Has anyone else ever etched concrete? Was it as scary for you as it was for me?

Well obviously my New Year's intention is a bust....but we'll try and hop back in the saddle.

My mother, who is an avid and gifted seamstress (she used to make my formals when I was in high school!) got a new sewing machine for Christmas this past year. Since her old (and very nice)sewing machine still works just fine, she decided to hand it down to me. Well, it sat in my guest-room-to-be for a few months, unused. I have to admit, sewing has always been pretty intimidating for me. This weekend, however, I finally worked up the nerve to try my hand at some (very) simple curtains.....as in, all I had to do was hem all four sides of the fabric haha.

I had seen this neato fabric online....

But didn't really fall in love with it until I decided to paint the guest-room-to-be (currently serving as my music room until we get the garage converted to living space) a dark, muted teal color (Martha Stewart's Plumage, for those of you who are wondering).

See how the color just begs for some more white, and maybe some dove grey, plus maybe some pattern? Don't worry....the rug is not staying in there.....

Anyways, I picked up eleven yards of the stuff for just under $8/yard at The Fabric House a couple months ago (yes...I really have been putting this off that long). This past weekend, I took a deep breath and dove in.

Bam....it's not a great picture. I'll be able to get better ones, I think, once I can move things to the new music room....or at least figure out how to shoot looking at a window without the photo getting washed out....maybe I'll try to get some pics when it's dark outside.

Breaking down the budget, the fabric cost me about $88, plus another $5 or so for thread. That works out to about $45 per window. In most stores, you would spend at least that much per panel, so I think I did pretty well!

Anyone else been making curtains lately?

Dressing out the Man Cave

I've been charged with a very special mission: making the man cave a functional and comfortable place to be. That in itself isn't that hard, but doing it to my husband's tastes has thus far been more challenging!

One of the things my husband really loved about this house when we bought it is the finished basement that runs under half the house. The idea was that if I get my own personal space (my music room), that he should get one too. That way he has a place to retreat, work out in and watch all the football he wants. He can decorate it anyway he wants and I don't get a say, so he can deck it out in all the Georgia Bulldogs gear he wants, and I don't have to look at it! Haha

So here's what it looked like when we moved in. Very cave-like, no?

Before he took of for the other side of the world, he put down some gym flooring for his workouts (he's big into weight lifting). I also found an arm chair and ottoman at a local thrift store (it was less than $10, and if he had hated it, I could have Craigslisted it). It's comfy and gave him a place to watch the fancypants TV he bought to go down there.

He mentioned he wanted our old couch down there once we got the new one (this happened back in November, and I bribed a couple of college kids from my church with a home cooked meal to come and move it for me).

He also asked me to find a rug so he could walk around barefoot without freezing his feet on the linoleum floor. I approached this with some caution, since I was going to have to guess what he would like. The way I got around this? I started by finding a couple rugs online (this one and this one) I thought he would like and sending him the links for his approval (or non-approval).

I was ready to order one of them, when I was walking through Home Depot and saw this...

Very similar to the others that Jacob had already approved, but less than half the price. Plus, I figured the indoor/outdoor design would be easier to clean/more durable for the situation. I snapped a quick picture with my phone and sent it off to Jacob for approval. Score one for the wifey. He loved it! So I went back a couple days later and purchased the 5'x7' version to fit the TV area. Here's a picture of it in place.

It's a little messy down there at the moment.....I've definitely taken advantage of the fact that he's not here to gripe about it to store artwork etc. while I paint other rooms (yes...I've been at it again) and decide where I want it all to end up.

Next up, figuring out how to get a little more light down there!

Building a Storage Shed

....Or rather, paying someone else to build one for me. Professional carpenter I am not.

This project started back before the end of 2012. Jacob and I knew when we bought this house that we wanted to put a storage shed in the backyard so we could convert the garage into a music room for me. Well, it's done, and ain't it purty??

 

Obviously I still need to paint it, and I'm actually thinking I'll stain it, and just paint the trim, and I need to add shelving and hanging storage inside, but I elected to do those parts myself to save a little bit of money.

But lets get back to the beginning. I tried to do my research on this and in reading up on what makes a good quality shed. I found very quickly that I could get a larger, better quality shed for a much better price if I just had one built rather than buying one from the hardware store.

So I found a contractor that I liked and who gave me a price that I liked (a 10'x12' shed for under $2k) and let him have at it.

I worried that I would need to get a construction permit, but my contractor fortunately knew that Metro Nashville doesn't require a building permit for a shed that can be put on a skid and moved. With that knowledge, he was able to design and build a shed without the added cost of a permit. Gotta love a contractor who's on your side right?

He started with the floor built onto the cinder block foundation.

 

And then framed out the walls.

Next came the actual walls.

And the roof was framed. You can actually see the metal roofing material off to the side.

Next came the roof, fascia, cutting in the doors and trimming them out.

Then the window for some light (with associated trim)...

And finally the skirting around the bottom accompanied by some serious happy dancing!

Have you ever built, bought or otherwise added a shed to your yard? What was your experience like? Right now, I'm just excited that the garage can be cleared out for some music room making!

A Little Bug Control

Well I've learned something new....and there's a bit of back story here.

We have six giant hackberry trees on our lot, one of which hangs directly over our driveway. We had been told somewhere along the way that hackberries spit sap, which eats at the paint on your car (and we spend last summer with our cars covered in black sticky stuff), so we had thought we were going to need to cut the one by our driveway down. At the same time, we also thought that we were going to have to take two of them in the backyard down as well because they are very close to the house.

Now, I did get a quote to have all three trees removed.....and nearly had heart failure. It was going to cost us $5600(!!!) to get those trees taken down!!

This was the point where I started looking for alternatives, and someone suggested I speak with an arborist to find out whether the trees even needed to come down, or whether they could be trimmed back, and checked for general health. With this idea in my head, I started looking for arborists, and found Quality Tree here in Nashville (I'm not affiliated with them....in fact, they don't even know I'm writing about them!).

The arborist came and checked out the trees (I didn't even have to be there), and called me back with the prognosis: none....that's right, none....of the trees actually needed to come down.

What he did tell me was that all of the hackberries had been topped at some point. I don't fully understand why someone would lop off the top third of a tree, but I do know that it damages the trees. The arborist told me that one of the trees had developed a form of root rot, but that it wasn't nearly advanced enough to worry about removing the tree. He did, however, recommend that both trees up close to the house be trimmed to remove anything hanging over the house, any dead wood, and extra, unnecessary brush. Easy enough, and this process is far less expensive than removing even one tree.

As for what I learned, the tree over the driveway also didn't need to come down. Hackberries are extremely susceptible to aphid infestations. The black sap that was getting all over our cars is actually not sap. It's an aphid secretion called honeydew.

Nothing like having sticky aphid poo all over your car right?

Fortunately, the aphid problem has an easy fix: Merit. The arborist said he could do this for me, but that it would be less expensive for me to do it myself, and that it's a pretty easy process. All I had to do is get this merit stuff, mix it according to the directions, and pour it around the base of the tree. The tree soaks up the insecticide and the aphids die. The only thing I really needed to know is that this has to be done during March, well before the aphids start their summer-long party on my tree.

So off I went looking for this merit stuff. Home Depot didn't have it, but Bates Nursery did! I grabbed a bottle and headed home ready to kill me some aphids.

The directions were a little confusing at first, but I finally figured out that I needed to measure the circumference of my tree (easier said than done since my arms can't reach all the way around the tree!). Then, I needed to mix 1 ounce per inch of circumference with 1 gallon of water. Since My tree is (much) larger than 16 inches in circumference, I needed two gallons of this mixture.

Since my tree is 60 inches in circumference, I quickly realized I was going to need much more than the 32 oz. that I bought, so back to Bates I went for the gallon size. There are other brands, but this is the solution that I purchased:

I got out my 5 gallon bucket and got to mixing. The merit is a milky white substance.....

And it's actually not chunky....my bucket just had a little leaf debris from my fall cleanup.

I measured out 120 oz, mixed it with 2 gallons of water and poured it around the tree, covering two feed out from the base. Easy as pie. Oh, and this treatment should last a full year!

So has anyone else been killing some aphids? Tree trimming?

A Blank Slate

If you were starting with a completely blank slate of a room, what would you do with it?

This is what I am trying to figure out right now. We are in the process of converting our garage to living space and the finished room will be my music room/office. It has to serve as an office space, but also as a teaching space, a rehearsal space, a practice space, a generally creative space, a study space and as a space to house guests when we have more than will fit into our guest room.

Since it is such a large space, I have no doubt that it can serve all these purposes, and from a practical standpoint, I know what needs to go into the room:

• Desk
• At least four armless chairs (not slipper chairs....more like dining or side chairs)
• A sleeper sofa
• A large bookshelf
• Some sort of printer stand (this may be the previously mentioned bookshelf)
• My cello stand, keyboard (hopefully a real piano eventually), and other instruments

However, from a decorating standpoint,  I'm kind of stuck. And I'm not just stuck on curtains or a desk....I don't even know what color I want to paint the walls! or the floor! I've contemplated several colors: mint green, peach, pale pink, white.....I just can't seem to decide....or find the shade that I really want.

Boo hoo....waaaahhh!!!

So who has a favorite paint color?? And, to repeat my earlier question, if you had a blank slate of a room, what would you do with it?