I've been fixing up the house as of late, getting it ready for the next thing. Which means that I finally got around to fixing the water damaged wall from the roof leak back in August. And that led to me patching and painting the whole room—which meant I had to move everything out of said room. Which let me clear away the clutter and see some possibilities. Anyway, it became a whole thing and now I'm cleaning and organizing and drawing up plans for closet organizers and desks and all sorts of things.
It Started with a Leak
Back in August we had a TON of rain. And as it was raining, I kept hearing a drip coming from inside the house. (Cut away to the scene in the horror movie when they realize the call is coming from inside the house—it was seriously that scary.) It turns out that one of the vent stack flanges on the roof had been nailed down (over the shingles). The nail had loosened itself and was the source of the leak.
After I could not find a roofer to come out (because apparently EVERYONE's roof was now leaking), I pulled out the ladder (in the rain), sucked up my fear of heights, and climbed up with a tube of roof patch—which I proceeded to completely unload all over (and under) the vent stack flange. It wasn't pretty, but by God the leak was fixed. Of course, the wall that was damaged still had to be dealt with.
(Pictures of the water damage from the roof leaking and after the wall and ceiling were repaired.)
Fixing the Wall
My initial plan was to tear out the drywall and put new drywall up. Which is why this project sat around for 6 months before I finally tackled it. I decided that before I started tearing things out, that I should just scrape away the loose paint and see how bad the damage was. It ended up being about a 2 foot wide by 8 inch section and a little ceiling staining, but the wall was sound.
The Plan
I went to Lowe's and got a gallon of Zinsser's Mold and Mildew eating paint (cost: $30). After having scraped away all the loose paint and drywall material, I coated the area with several layers of the Zinsser paint. When that dried, I started mudding over the areas that I'd scraped away—to even out the wall. It took several coats of mud (sanding between each coat), but the wall was finally smooth & you couldn't tell that there had been any damage there at all.
While at Lowe's, I'd scored a gallon of gray interior paint on the discard shelf (for $9). So that's what color we painted the room.
The cost to fix my wall ended up being something in the neighborhood of $50 (for the paint, a small tub of drywall patch, drywall tape, a new paint roller, and sandpaper).
After we did that, we decided that instead of just loading everything back into this small room, that we'd turn it back into a bedroom (from the room of requirement that it'd become). We culled some stuff and then did a little shopping. We bought a twin size platform bed (something I was going to build myself, but we were on a bit of a timeline & the last project I said I'd undertake, took me 6 months to get to, so...).
Scouring the Net for Deals
I shopped around online and found an 'it'll do for now' bed on Wayfair for $252 (plus 5% back via Ebates—woo hoo!). Then I started shopping around for mattresses. The last time I did this, I was able to get a decent Twin mattress for $100. Of course that was 10 years ago. No such luck this time around. Most non-sucky mattresses were in the $200-$400 range. Which, sort of made me choke. I dug around and managed to find a higher-end, plush mattress for $150—taxes and shipping all in (via Coleman Furniture).
Once the bed frame was built and the mattress arrived, then we needed find some twin-sized sheets. Again, I was a little shocked at how expensive sheets have gotten. $30 for a cheap-o set of (not even) 100 thread count cotton sheets. (sure, it's way cheaper than $300 for the coveted Land's End sheets that last forever, but still).
I started scouring the Target clearance end-caps with little luck, but I did find a close-out comforter set for $17 and a body pillow with sham for $10. But really, my big score was Kohl's. I stumbled onto the website at just the right time and found a 300 thread count (100% cotton) set for $12.
All in, for the bed & linens, I ended up spending about $500. And that was the entire re-do budget. So anything else had to come in at the whopping price of FREE. Not an easy task.
As for the rest of the "dressing," I found a wall mounted lamp hidden away in the back of the closet. Something I'd meant to either find a place for or get rid of a long time ago (& then I just forgot about it). And we have bins full of throw blankets, acquired throughout the years. (And I'm not sure how we have the billions of pillows that we have, but we do.)
One of the other projects I wanted to tackle was a blanket ladder to hang on the front of our linen closet door. I had this idea to use large, fallen branches from our yard to make something that looks like this:
I've gotten as far as collecting the branches. When it's nicer out, I'll strip and sand them, then cut them to size and assemble them. In the mean time...
And I'm Spent
So now the problem is, we can't afford to go out and get the materials to build all of this other stuff that I'm planning (and they're cool plans). What are you gonna' do? Well, I'll tell you. You're going to surf the net for ideas on how to make the stuff for way cheaper than it would cost to go buy at the big box store, and you're going to shop for materials at home.
Case in point. I was looking for ideas for a closet organizer over on Pinterest & found some beauts! Except, most of them cost something painfully near the $1,000 mark. I know! I totally choked when I saw the price tags. I mean, seriously? You want me to pay $1,000 for laminate covered particle board?
Sure, it looks nice. And there are drawers. And all the pieces are cut for you, so you just need to screw it together—but it's still $1,000... That's WAY over my budget of $0.
Then I found Anna White's free closet organizer plans that, basically, use one sheet of plywood:
Sure, it's not as pretty as the other system, but one sheet of plywood, on the high end, will cost $52 (for Maple laminated plywood), and on the low end $20 (for paint grade). WAY better than $1,000. And for a $948 discount, I can live with it. But, as stated before, my budget is now $0.
Necessity lead me to start looking around my house to see what I actually had, material-wise. Turns out, I have four 6-foot long by 12 inch deep laminate shelves. If cut down and repurposed, that could give me enough "wood" to build Ana White's closet system PLUS have shelves up top. AND, I can re-use the old wooden closet rod, cutting it down to size. HUZZAH! I just went from $1,000 to $52 to FREE. (Of course, I still have to build the thing.)
I still need to find a few more scraps of wood to complete the above design, but given how much stuff I've squirreled away, I have hope that I can complete the whole closet and stick to the $0 budget.
The cut list:
I also found 4 smaller white laminate shelves that had been sitting in the back of the closet. With these, I plan on making 4 of those cute ledge shelves:
Of course, these cost $10 / shelf at Ikea ($30 at Bed, Bath, & Beyond).
Then I found the Ana White plans for a $10 Ledge Shelf (which was 8 feet long—meaning, I could get four 2-foot shelves out of it). $2.50 per shelf, not bad.
But I can do the same thing by cutting down and repurposing my 4 forgotten laminate shelves. And if I do my cuts & assembly correctly, I won't need to worry about buying laminate edge tape to cover up raw, cut edges. So once again, the cost will be $0! (knock on wood / laminate.)
I'm on a roll!
The Guest Room Closet
Anyway, these are just the plans to transform the little bedroom that was once our office. I have other plans to transform the guest room, which includes turning the closet into a desk / office space, so we have a place to relocate some of the stuff that we took out of the small bedroom. Hopefully, if I'm organized enough, I'll post pictures of the ongoing progress, but no promises (because clearly, it takes me forever to get things done).
This is the progress I've made so far on the guest room closet project:
The closet, cleaned out, shelf removed, and walls being patched.
The closet with the doors and bi-fold track removed, and walls painted (with 3 sample pots of paint. Cost $12 vs. $18 for a quart of the same paint). Also, with a new outlet wired into the wall.
Eventually, the red walls will be painted light gray (because I have leftover paint from the other bedroom & I might as well use it).
This is the inspiration for the color choice:
And these are the plans for the desk and shelving unit:
For now they'll remain plans, until I can afford to buy a couple of sheets of the maple veneer plywood.
For those keeping score at home, the current list of projects:
Project 1: Fixing the water damaged wall (check)
Project 2: Painting the small bedroom & turning it back into a bedroom (check)
Project 3: Building a closet organizer for the small bedroom
Project 4: Building ledge shelves for the small bedroom
Project 5: Building a blanket ladder out of tree branches
Project 6: Turning the guest room closet into an office space
And all of this needs to be done on as small of a budget as I can manage.
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