Fingerprints on the Fridge…

Before MC and I purchased our shiny new stainless steel fridge, I asked the sales guy point blank:  Is this fridge going to show fingerprints all over it?  Because that will simply drive my brain batty…

And that sales guy looked me right in the eyes…

And lied.  LIED!  Won’t show fingerprints, my hiney!  It’s entirely possible that my refrigerator is actually a fingerprint magnet and can collect fingerprints from children who aren’t even in the same room with it!

But that doesn’t even come close to the aggravation resulting from the next problem I had with my shiny metal behemoth.  Ohhhhh, no.  Not even close.  My fridge’s next problem? 

Rust. 

{Rust. On a ‘stainless’ steel fridge.  I kid you not…}

I’m still not entirely sure how it happened, but I was now the owner of a rusty, fingerprinty, stainless steel fridge.

{People, I cannot make this stuff up...}

For about a week, I literally did not make eye contact with my fridge.  My brain simply couldn’t handle the double abomination of fingerprints and rust.  But, reluctantly I concluded that ignoring the fridge did not, in fact, take care of my rust/fingerprint problem and I would actively have to do something in order to fix it.

So I went to the place where all solutions exist: the Internets.  And the Internets gave me several different options.

Option number 1: Vinegar and salt.  I’m not sure what chemical processes are going on with vinegar and salt, but I had used it to get rust out of a shirt once, so it was my first choice.  And it failed miserably.  Undeterred, I moved on to:

Option number 2:  Lemon juice and baking soda.  When I mixed the two, they fizzed like hydrogen peroxide poured over an open wound and I was immediately impressed.  After playing with the foamy mixture for a minute, I gently rubbed it over the rust spots:

{Success!}

ACK!!! It worked!  I still can’t believe it worked, but who am I to question the knowledge of the Internets?  Instead, I will sit back and admire my now non-rusty refrigerator and pretend that it is not still covered in fingerprints.  

{Before and After}

Do you have stainless steel appliances?  What do you use to clean them off… and does it get rid of the fingerprints???

Holey Doorframe, Batman…

While preparing my backyard for our Fourth of July celebration, I noticed a small strip of paint had peeled off the stoop of the back door.  Wanting the backyard to look its best for the party, I got out some sandpaper and paint and prepared to do a Quick Repair.  

As I sandpapered the stoop, more and more paint chipped off.  I realized my Quick Repair was turning into a Big Job. 

Ugh.

I decided to walk away from the now Big Job of repairing the stoop and headed out front to pull out some seedlings that had taken root in the gutter over the garage.  Dragging the ladder out of the garage, I set it up and began pulling weeds and tiny little trees that had nestled themselves in the gunk that had settled at the bottom of the gutter. 

It was then that I noticed that the gutter was not actually attached to the fascia right below the roofline.  It was just hanging there, loose and unattached.

Ugh. 

MC was in the backyard, cutting up all the branches from our recent tree adventures.  He had been watching me mess with the stoop earlier, and warily watched as I walked over to him with more bad news. 

I told him what I had found out about the gutter and he asked if I could please not give him any more bad news until after the Fourth so he could enjoy the holiday weekend. 

So, I headed back to finish the stoop.  As I scraped the paint near the doorframe, I saw what looked like a small hole in the door itself.  I scratched at it a little bit.  Then I poked it.

{HOLY SCHNIKES.}

Uhh… Hmm.  Okay… well…

I used a screwdriver to clear out the hole in the door.  I looked at it for a long time before walking over to MC. 

Uh… hon?  I just wanted you to know that I… well.. uh… There was an earthworm in our door.  That’s all.  I’m gonna fill the hole in now and then paint over it.  K?   

I am not kidding, people.  As I scraped the debris out of the door, I nearly had a heart attack when the screwdriver came out of the hole with a wiggly critter on it.  A WORM.  In my door. That is seriously nuts.

Oh.  And disgusting.

Since I was already messing with the stoop, I decided to pull off a strip of metal that had at one time been the track for a sliding screen door.  The metal strip came off with relative ease, but pulling it off had left all the screw heads sticking up out of the stoop. 

This is why all my Quick Repairs turn into Big Jobs. 

I eventually got the screws pulled out, the hole in the door and one in the door frame filled with putty and the stoop sanded down.  I laid down a couple coats of paint yesterday when I realized I was painting the stoop with white paint that clearly states Interior on the front of it.

Ugh.

At least it’s white now.  And you can’t see any holes.

Have you ever run into a project that didn’t quite turn out like you expected? 

I’m Not Cheap, I’m Thrifty…

Okay, let’s just call it what it is.

I recently had some painting I needed to do.  However, the painting was not getting done because of two things:  Not only did I not want to have to purchase more of the needed paint tray liners, but I also didn’t want to leave the house.   

So… in conclusion, I am cheap and lazy. 

I have been told that necessity is the mother of invention, but in my experience, cheap laziness is.  Which brings me to what I’d like to show you today.  In this post I showed you my amazing prowess in hole patching.  After teaching the wall exactly who’s the boss in this house, I needed to paint over the patched area.  I headed down into the Death Spider Cave of Doom, which is located under the stairs in my basement, and found the paint supplies.  I had the paint, rollers, and metal paint tray, but no plastic paint tray liners. 

Now, I think it’s probably fair to conclude that my paint tray has lived well over its nine lives.  Or whatever life expectancy paint trays have.

Clearly I couldn’t just pour the paint into the tray, unless ‘rust’ was the desired color I wanted on my wall.  So here’s the little trick I used that enabled me to not have to buy paint tray liners (because I’m cheap) or leave the house (too lazy). 

First, I took a plastic bag from the store and pulled it over the paint tray.  Important:  Make sure the bag you use has no holes in it!

Take the handles of the bag and tie them tightly underneath the paint tray:

Hey, look at that: some free advertising for Target.  I really hope they appreciate that ; )

Your paint tray should now look like this:

All that’s left is to pour in the paint and then, you know… paint.  Whatever it is you’re painting at the time.  In my case, the wall.

Another nifty thing about doing this is that I don’t have to wash off my roller when I’m done. I just untie the handles of the bag and turn it inside out so that the paint and roller are contained inside the bag.  I then retie the handles and the roller is ready for storage.  (Note: check for holes and pour extra paint out of the tray and back into the paint can.)

I don’t know about you, but I’m forever painting over scuff marks, handprints, ink, and once, a grass stain.  The roller ends up holding just the right amount of paint to do a quick roll over for when you’re expecting guests and your two year old just drew an awesome picture of you, daddy and the sun on your living room wall. 

I shared my paint tray how-to; what home repair tricks have you come up with?  : )

I'm Fixing a Hole...

That's right, a hole. In the wall of our entryway. And if any of you know the story of how I met the Master Chef, I know what you're thinking. HOWEVER. I did not create this hole; it was the result of getting a new furnace awhile back. When the furnace was installed they took our old thermostat and humidity thingy off the wall and put in a touch screen deal that does the job of both.
The new thing is awesome and glows when you touch it, but now I had a problem:




Off to the Home Depot, where the Master Chef picked up a patch kit. Inside it had a metal mesh patch, Spackle, sandpaper and a plastic spatula thing that I found is actually called a putty knife.

Then ... the patch kit sat on the counter for about two weeks while I decided whether or not this was something I wanted to attempt. I was pretty sure I could really screw this up and it's right in my entryway, meaning that everyone who walked into my house would see exactly how bad a wall-patcher I was.

I reeeeally wanted to ask the Master Chef to do it. After all, he has experience. But I also wanted to report back and post on how anybody can patch a wall and not biff it up. Sigh. I opened the patch kit and set to work.

The mesh bit had a sticky side and all I had to do was trim it to the size I needed and stick it over the hole. After the simple act of sticking on the mesh, I immediately got pretty cocky and now fully believed that I was the Patch Queen of the Universe.




I grabbed the little tub of spackling with authority and slapped a giant glob onto the putty knife. I very gently and lovingly applied the spackling, just covering the patch.




I checked my instructions, which said to feather the spackle. I decided that meant to make the edges of the patch area very thin so that's what I tried to do.




Hmmm... this is not working like I thought it would. The spackle was now spread over an area twice the size of the patch.



Panic began to set in as I realized that what I had feared before I started this project was coming true. I was messing up my house and making it look crappy. A simple, small hole had turned into the pink wall of shame.

I decided that the best thing to do was walk away from it and perhaps when I returned it wouldn't look so bad. I also needed some reassurance that I can actually do something right and went outside to admire my flower basket and breathe deeply for a few minutes.

Ahhh! Much better.

I walked back over to the patched area with a renewed confidence and... Hey! Is that... fingerprints?



T Bub had saw my pretty pink mess and poked it. Surprised that his finger had left a big dent in the drying spackling, he tried to fix it. And created more fingerprint craters.

I walked outside to take a few more deep breaths. Then, with every ounce of patience I had left, I faced the wall.

This is on, wall.

I used my finger and gently smoothed out the fingerprints and deep lines in the spackling. As it dried it turned from pink to white, so I tried sanding the white edges. Not. Too. Bad.



I left it to finish drying overnight, then went to work sanding.


I began to very cautiously have hope that this might not turn into a total fail after all. Sanding the spackling smoothed all the bumps out but left sanding dust all over my floor. Turns out, sanding is VERY messy. But then again, so are most of the projects I get my hands on.



Also, please ignore the 80's tile. Once I work up the nerve, I'll get around to tearing it out and putting in new. Someday. Because right now I'm still recovering from thinking that I biffed up the entryway wall. Even though I didn't.

After I sanded it until it felt smooth and seamless with the wall, all that was left was painting it.
DANG! I really am the Patch Queen of the Universe.


And I proved that anybody can patch a wall and not biff it up. Even me. ; )