Friday, May 27, 2011

Giant Magnet Board

I am helping my sister (age 17) redecorate her room. She had a lot of stuff hanging up all over her room so I thought a big magnet board would be nice to have. Then she could corral all her pictures, notes, certificates, ribbons, etc in one place.

I went to Orange and looked around for something metal to use. First I tried magnetic paint which was a dismal failure. It was just never strong enough no matter how many coats I did.

Then I looked at corrugated roofing material. Great cost wise, but the ridges made it kind of impractical.

I looked at the sheet metal they had there but one little 12 inch square was like 4 bucks.

Then an employee helped me look at other options. I finally ended up in the plumbing aisle. They sell "panning" which I guess they use to make pans for under water heaters and such? No idea. Anyway, it was nice and thin and magnetic and a decent sized piece was just a little over 6 bucks. I bought 4 and decided I would adhere them to a piece of luaun I had in my garage (free for me, but about 11 bucks if you go and get yourself some).

I cut it to size (giving a 2 inch border around the sheets of metal).


Primed the edge with spray paint.
Painted the edge with spray paint.
Used this spray adhesive. It works okay but I probably should have roughed up the smooth surfaces a little. The metal seems to lift up a little on some of the edges. By the way, I really needed my daughters help to get the sheets in place after they had been sprayed with glue. It was tricky. If you are off just a little, you can pull the metal up but it will be bent and pretty much unusable after that.
Here is the finished product. I would say it is about 3 ft x 5 ft or so.
The panning has a little fold at the bottom. I thought it worked out perfect because she can stick photos (or whatever) right in the channel without a magnet.
I need to look at it again because I might screw down the metal in some spots just to be sure it is all secure. I probably should have glued it down with liquid nails instead.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Tiling a backsplash. For the first time.

Actually, it is the first time I have tiled anything at all! Let me tell you...it was sure a learning experience. Any professional tile setter would just shake their head at me but I don't mind. I am the one who has to live with the imperfections.

Here is the master bathroom before the backsplash went in:

Here it is with the tile set, before grout.

Here is the kids bath before tile:

Again, after thin set but before grout. The tile came with plastic protective film so if it looks funny it is because I hadn't removed it yet. I left it on there while I stuck the tiles on.


More on the bathroom in a later post. I have an issue to deal with in there before I can reveal the final results.

Here are some kitchen photos. This is after the thin set had dried and I took off all the plastic film from the tiles. Ready for grout.


During grouting. See the haze? That is normal.

Here is what it looks like after you buff off the haze with a clean dry cloth.

Outlet covers back on...

Yesterday I worked on caulking. I caulked where the tiles meet the counter, all the edges and corners. So here it is today!


painted kitchen cabinets

glass tile backsplash



Technically, the tiles are "beige" but clearly they lean green. Though I didn't intend it, I don't hate it and it is growing on me. It is kind of nice to have a suggestion of color while everything else is pretty neutral.

There is a 3/4 inch area under the window sill that I didn't tile. When I realized cutting the tiles was causing chipping on the edges, I put off cutting those itty bitty skinny tiles until the end. Good thing too because when I was done I only had 3 tiles left. So I didn't have enough to do it anyway. I have decided I am going to add a piece of trim under the sill. It will still look great and is way less of a headache!

I love how reflective it is. It bounces light around like crazy. I took these last photos this morning at about 9:30 am and there was quite a bit of light coming in the window over the sink. It really brightened up the working area! Overall I am happy with it. I LEARNED A LOT in the process. A LOT!

You might like to check out this post to see what my kitchen looked like just 4 short months ago!

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