Thrifty Thursday: Fix Up Hardwoor Floor Scratches

Fixing up scratches in your hardwood floor can be quick and easy and only require a trip to your pantry. Look for a darker cooking oil; I used sesame oil. Using either a rag or paper towel rub the oil in to the wood and wipe away an excess. That's it. Although, I will warn you that if you use sesame oil you might start to get hungry for some stir fry. :)

Also, make sure you take care of what is making the scratches in the first place if it is due to rubbing. Turns out that the padded feet on the bottom of our ottoman had worn away and was scratching our floor.

This is a quick and easy solution.

Fix It Friday: Vinyl Seat Re-Paint

This project was actually done quite a while ago and the pictures have been sitting on my hard drive just waiting to be used.

Anyways, we bought a (old) boat this summer, but with an old boat you might not have the best looking interior. Actually, the family had kept it up well considering the age of the boat, but there was still updating that needed to happen.

The vinyl was in relatively good condition with just a couple of rips (which we used a vinyl repair sealant on those before painting) but was dingy looking and needed to be refreshed.

The seats were all removed from the boat and scrubbed clean with bleach and water before applying the vinyl paint (which is sold in an aerosol can at an Automotive Parts Store). After cleaning, all you needed to do was spray a few coats of the paint.

I was surprised it did not dry "crunchy" or stiffen the vinyl. It appeared to be absorbed right in to the vinyl as if it was always that color and didn't change the feel of the vinyl. So far so good!

The top picture you can see the different between one of the seats with the old look and then one with the paint job.

All seats were painted and held up well for the remainder of the summer and in to fall. We will see how it is after sitting this winter and how long it lasts.

The inside of the boat does look much nicer with it's re-paint.

Fix It Friday - Glitz It & Fix It with Some Shoes

 These are so darling looking now and my daughter was so excited when she came home from school and saw that her brother and I fixed up her shoes.

I don't know what she does with her shoes. Dragging her feet? Ballet tiptoe dancing? Playing marathon soccer? But this is what her shoes look like. Other that the toes, there is a lot of life left to these shoes and they still fit.

I know part of the problem is that these are dress shoes and cheaper one that have a glossy layer over the material instead of leather shoes and that glossy layer easily wears off.

There is no way to match & repair that glossy layer as it is, so my solution is to fix it by glitzing it!

 Tape off the area you do not want painted with some painters tape (you could try to use other tape, but painters tape works so nicely and removes easily.)

Paint the area with clear fingernail polish and sprinkle on glitter before it dries. Allow to dry completely (which should take no longer than 10 minutes) then spread on another layer of clear fingernail polish to seal in the glitter better. Allow to dry completely before wearing

Fix It Friday - Repair a Monster Hole in a Pair of Pants

Don't want to sport a holed jeans fashion?

Don't want to throw out (or re-purpose) another pair of jeans and buy another?

Have enough cutoff shorts?

Then think about turning those holes in to monsters/robots/animals - whatever you want. Just use a piece of felt (a craft piece is only about 25 cents) and stitch it in place behind the hole and let the frayed edges of the hole stay. I kinda think they look like scraggly teeth.

I recommend machine stitching the felt in place before hand stitching with DMC floss (which is merely  a decorative touch rather than for function).

Then stitch on some buttons or other cut out pieces of felt to add eyes, or maybe a nose/ear/horns/etc.

These are my son's pants. He was pretty excited to wear them when I finished repairing them and had to change in to them right away.

Fix-It Friday: Updating Paint/Stain on Planters

 I finally got sick of looking at this fading wishing well (which my parents made us for our wedding as the cardholder - instead of the pot there was a cardboard slot to place cards in - that would serve as a planter afterwards), I decided it was time to apply a new coat of stain to that the color would liven up this flower bed (now to pull all the weeds from it so that it looks nicer.) It really becomes a focal point and it much prettier to look at with a new coat of exterior stain. It's easy enough to do, I just needed to notice it needed attention.

 I wish I would have thought about this blog post before I took these planter boxes down. These were something my parents made me as a gift (birthday, maybe? I can't remember). I had given them a new coat of exterior black paint a few years ago, but now they not only needed new paint but also to be put back together.

They used nails to assemble them and after many years (we're talking around 10 years now) the wood was pulling off from the nails. All I did was remove the entire planter boxes, hammered them back in to place and secured them with a couple screws on each of the side of the back & front.

If you are trying to figure out how they made the planter box, they made an insert with 3 circles cutouts for 4" pots. We did this so that we wouldn't have a rotting wooden planter box, although over the years I realized with such small pots, that they needed to be water every other day and I would often forget which would leave the plants to dry out & die. So, I put artificial flowers in here because I do want that pop of color but I don't want the maintenance.

So, here you can see the planter boxes put back in to place over one of our flower beds.

Fix-It Friday: Couch Seam Repair

The culprit - a seam that has torn loose on my couch. Easy enough fix, but  takes a little time.
You do need to remove the cover from the cushion (and might as well wash it since it is off) to be able to sew the seam shut.

Minimal supplies are needed: upholstery thread, a heavy duty needle and scissors.

Here is what it looks lie from the inside of the cover. Be sure to push the plastic cording back in straight.

Hold & stitch! Be sure you have a heavy duty needle, otherwise it might not  be  able to be pushed through the upholstery. If you line the fabric back up right, you may be able to push the thread through the existing holes created from the original stitching.

Turn the fabric back with the right sides out and insert the cushion back in the cover (this will probably be the hardest part of this whole thing as you have to squish the insert and push and line up edges.) 

Fix It Friday! - Why I Love Gorilla Glue

I had a pile of stuff that needed to be glued! A train car (that I fixed once before with regular wood glue), a boot and a pair of shoes that the sole had become detached on.

Seriously, I don't know what my daughter does to her shoes that  both shoes and  the boot has had the sole become detached. I had repaired the sole on the matching boot previously.

First you need to wipe the area with a wet wash cloth. Make sure to wipe whatever needs to be attached and make sure it is dampened. Water is the key to activating the gorilla glue. After wiping with water, apply the gorilla glue. You only need a small amount and don't get too close to the edge because once the glue is activated it with foam and spread.

I use a plastic knife to spread it on the area, then I can just throw it away when it is done. There is no additional cleanup (which would be really hard to do.) Then be sure to clamp the piece you have glued. I generally allow 24 hours for the glue to cure and harden before using. 

I find gorilla glue to be a MUCH tougher glue than  any other wood glue, plus it can be used  on a variety of surfaces, not just wood.

Fix-It Friday: Chipped Stove Paint

 Every time I look around our house I keep seeing all these little Fix-It projects that need to be done; things that take a half hour or less. But things, I nevertheless, make it a priority to fix.

So, to help give me the motivation to fix some of these things I decided to make a list and commit myself to doing a new post called "Fix-It Friday" (I really like themes if you haven't noticed.)

My first project is to fix the chip in the paint on my stove. This first picture is of the biggest chip. The picture below was taken to show just exactly how it looked, but there are a couple other minor scratches I can cover that are not really visible in the pictures.

The stove before.

The solution

Apply just as you would white-out (do people still use that?), but this is paint so it will dry hard and is not water-soluble like white-out.

Allow to dry for at least 10 minutes before touching.  That's it!

Simple enough and you barely notice that there was a chip. The trick  is to make sure the paint is spread evenly and  blend it it slightly with the old paint.