House Project-Palooza

We've been busy here at the homestead.

This one was actually from a couple weekends ago, but I forgot to post about it. In our shower there is the *%#*& ubiquitous tile 3/4 of the way up the wall, and worse, wallpaper above that. For the rest of the room it's fine, but why people do that in the shower is beyond me. Because of course if you use the shower, the water will get above the tile.

This is very good quality wallpaper - all the wallpaper in this house is - but one of the seams was coming lose, and I didn't want the wall behind getting damaged from the moisture. But I wasn't yet ready to start a major bathroom remodeling, like re-tiling the tub area.

So we had an idea. I wasn't sure it would work, but I figured it was worth a shot. This is what we did.



We bought a couple pieces of plexiglass and mounted them on the two back walls opposite the showerhead (the ones that get the most water, and where the seams were coming loose). We mounted them with screws with those neat little flower-shaped things that go between the screw and the thing you're mounting (like a washer) to make the screws look more decorative. (It looks nice in person; in the picture they just look like dark blobs) Then we caulked all the edges and the corner where the two sheets of plexiglass meet with clear caulk.

(added note: Greg made a good point in his comment, but since not everyone reads the comments, I'll mention it again - he put rubber washers behind the screws, to keep moisture from getting in that way, too)

It seems to be working fine. I really can't see any reason this won't protect the walls above the tile from moisture. I suppose we could have done all the way around, but I really didn't see any problems anywhere but that far corner.

The next bathroom project is to repaint the ceiling over the tub, as the paint there is actually peeling. We have the paint for it - moisture-resistant bathroom paint - so we'll get to it, one of these days.

Next project - Paddy got us some lobelia plants as a housewarming gift. I felt really bad that I hadn't gotten them planted yet, but I just hadn't decided where I wanted them. Today I chose to put them in a cluster by one of the front trees.



The plants require full to partial sun, and that's one of the few spots in the yard that gets a pretty good amount of sun. When they fill out, they'll be a great start to the next phase of the gardens, moving out from the dining room garden to under the trees.

I also finally got the azalea planted.




Yeah ... it looks kind of forlorn all by itself in this bed, but ... it'll all come together eventually.

Today's big project was finishing the mailbox. Here's the deal: the house has a mailslot in the dining room door, which I want to get rid of. Well, I plan to replace the whole door, and not to have a mailslot in the new one. So I wanted a regular box on a post.

We got the post a couple weekends ago and got that in, but hadn't figured out what to do about a mailbox yet. We wanted something nice, something unique, something special. But I could no way justify the prices they wanted for these things. Like this one ...

which was $44.00. Or this one ...
which was $99.00! We really liked this one ...



but it was $300! Give me a freaking break.


So ... we bought a plain white one for $15.00.


Then, Greg fixed it up with some spray paint and strips of copper, and we got ...


... for about $25.00.

Yay, creative frugality! By the way, that awesome cool trellis behind the mailbox was a find today - $10 at Marc's! I loved that the second I saw it, and knew I had to have it. I'm not sure this is where it'll stay, but it's a good spot for it, for now.

That's all the projects for today. It is a long weekend, so who knows what else we'll get into.