Simple fix: The disposal

Hello there! Thanks so much for all the love on the finished fireplace, I appreciate it more than you know! We’re so happy with how it turned out and I hope it inspires you someway in your home.

As you know, I like to do things myself if I can. I have mixed emotions when I have to call someone to fix something for me – if it’s something stupid and little I’m annoyed. If it’s a biggie I’m totally cool with it. ;)

This past weekend we had a stupid little something and I was determined to get it fixed myself. Long story short we got lots of little bits of stuff that shouldn’t be down a drain…down our drain. It involved an obnoxious cat. It always involves an obnoxious cat. Not knowing the little bits were down the drain, I turned on the disposal and the “rarrarrarrarrar” of death started up. Actually it’s more of a “grrrrrrr” when it’s not working.

If you know what I mean by “long time listener first time caller” right now than you are my favorite person. If you don’t look up “Mr. Obvious, the critter” for a laugh.

OK, back to the post. The little bits had gone down the disposal and it was stuck. There’s a few things you can do to fix this situation on your own. First things first, turn the disposal off at the breaker box.

If something gets stuck in the actual sink part you can usually get it out of there on your own. I’ve used the handle of a wooden spoon and kind of swirled it around in there and then you can put on rubber gloves and reach in and grab it if you get it loose. Or if it’s tons of little things like glass you can put your wet vac hose down in the sink and try to pull them up that way.

If it’s gone down into the disposal like ours did than you need to move to the next option. The bottom of your disposal will look like this:

There’s two areas that are important. The red button on the right is the reset button. Sometimes you can just push that in after clearing out the drain part and it may work. (The button will be out if it needs to be reset. If it’s already pushed in it doesn’t need reset.)

The area in the middle is how you’ll fix most issues with disposal. You’ll need the key that came with it -- it’s just an allen wrench basically:

If you don’t have the specific one that came with your disposal you can usually find one that works on an allen wrench set:

Although when I fixed ours the set did not work – I had to use the disposal key to do it. The allen wrench wouldn’t grab enough.

You stick the key inside and turn it – you may hear everything inside moving around. This is a good thing. I could hear ours grinding. Every few turns I would try the disposal again – if it doesn’t work on the first try or two keep turning. You’ll want to hit the reset button again if it’s sticking out and then things should be moving again. It took about three attempts to clear ours out but it worked!

It just takes a few minutes and you’ll usually be able to fix yours on your own. Have you ever tried this? It’s a GREAT feeling to save hundreds of bucks! Or at least $75-$150 for a service call so the repairman can do the same thing. 

Now go look up Mr. Obvious. :)

My problem areas

Hey hey!! How are you on this fine Thursday? I love Thursdays. :) I’m feeling GOOD because I’ve finally been tackling some my problems areas over the past couple of weeks. Not my hips and stomach – but the ones in the house. ;) I’ve let the house go just a little lately – I’ve been so focused on the reno that everything else kind of falls apart. Well, I mean, we aren’t living in filth or anything – but I don’t keep up with clutter well when I’m distracted by DIY projects.

There comes a point when I’m done with it though. Like D.O.N.E. You know it’s serious when the caps come out. So I’ve been working on small projects here and there just to make me feel better.

Our garage, along with my car and our kitchen island, are just spots I don’t keep up with. They are perpetual messes. I’ve tried to change my ways and have gotten a little better with age, but not much.

The garage is worst of them all – after a summer of working on projects it is an absolute disaster. Thing is, we always park in there – so no matter how bad it is we make room for the cars, so that’s something. We may have to jump over things to get to them, but we can park inside!

My work bench had become an absolute PIT:

I can’t believe I show you some of these pictures – but I always want to share the real stuff with the pretty. I’m normal. Well maybe not, but close.

But I had that spot looking GREAT after about an hour of concentrated clean up:

I’m gonna be honest here – a few of those things were chucked into the other side of the garage – that’s also a disaster. I really would have just put it away, but we can’t really walk through that part right now…cause it’s a disaster. Baby steps. (For the easy DIY instructions on how to make that work bench go here.)

I have talked for YEARS about trying to get a better handle on the paper that comes into our house. I’m just a piler – it’s me and I refuse to fight it any longer. I pile it up for a couple few weeks and then tackle it all at once:

The basket is now mostly empty again:

My goal is to sit down once a week to address everything in the basket – we’ll see if that happens. Snort.

My favorite organizational project of the past couple weeks is this one though. Listen carefully when you look at it – you’ll hear angels singing:

Do you hear them??

I picked up this little organizer from the hardware store about, oh I don’t know – six months ago? Yeah. 

My little bits of DIY things have been floating around everywhere up till now. I’ve kept some in tackle boxes:

Which is actually a great solution if you only need a nail or screw occasionally. They aren’t big enough to hold the number of pieces I have though.

Mama needed something bigger and better. This thing is amaaaaazing:

I sat down and sorted everything and was in absolute heaven. I’m not kidding, I kept saying “This is amazing” out loud every few minutes. I would worry I was running out of little drawers and then I’d realize I had a ton more and I’d say “This is amazing!” again. I’d find random little things that I just had a few of and there would be a spot just for them. It was a beautiful time.

It was made even better by my BFF the label maker:

I mean, this is a must. All that organization is worthless if you’re going to have to pull out eleventy billion drawers to find one little thing.

I rediscovered all kinds of little doodads that I love. Tons of my favorite anchors that I didn’t realize I had:

You just screw them in instead of drilling a hole in the wall first – so easy! And those jobbies on the right are great for corralling cords behind furniture. Cause you know how much I hate cords.

It was GLORIOUS! Whoo hoo! Now I just need to decide where I’m going to keep my little organizer – you can hang it so I’m thinking maybe in our utility closet. That way I don’t have to go out to the garage for every little thing.

I tell you what – a little decluttering and organization makes a girl feel good! I say it all the time but even focusing on small areas will make you feel so accomplished. If the clutter is overwhelming in your house set your sights on one problem area at a time. Set the timer if you need to and just go after it in little bits so you don’t get frustrated.

What’s your worst problem area? Areas? Overall our house stays clean and picked up…most of the time. But there are spots that I let get out of control way too often.

High heat paint (and other tips)

Hey there! How are you on this lovely fall day? I’m back with a few more quick tips on sprucing up fireplaces – I shared how to open one up and clean the glass last week and wanted to share this info with you as well. Are you tired of seeing our fireplace yet? :) I swear this is the last you’ll see it till I get it finished – I’m getting there! Follow along on Instagram for some more updates today and this week.

Because our fireplace was in the corner before (shakes fists in air!!) the surround was very small just because we had limited wall space to work with:

It was smaller than a standard sized one but way bigger than we had before so I was thrilled. So when I tiled the surround I kind of overlapped the firebox a bit. If I hadn’t then those skinny parts on the sides would have been super thin.

The metal sides of the fireplace were a mess from that thinset and the construction and there was nothing I could to get it off:

It was around the whole thing – it’s harder to see here but you can see the white around all the edges:

I tried scrubbing and scraping and nothing worked. I had a solution in mind but didn’t want do it until I was completely done with all the tiling and grouting.

This high heat paint comes in a can and in a spray paint version:

I went with a can because there was no way I was chancing getting any spray on the new tiles. If I had planned better I could have sprayed it outside before we even put it back in place. That would have been smart. :) But I would have had to be be really careful with it during the rest of the process so this was fine.

This paint is oil-based so it is stinky and it is not easy to remove if you get it where you don’t want it. I taped off around the metal, careful to cover every bit of the grout. If it got on the grout it would have soaked right in. That part made me sweat a bit. A lot.

I used a cheapy throw away brush to quickly paint over just the metal where all the residue was:

I didn’t take pics of that part because I was sweating. But you get the idea. Thankfully the painter’s tape did an excellent job and there was no bleed through at all. But can you believe how much better it looks? You can only tell there was anything there if you sit right in front of it and take a photo. ;)

Here’s another tip – you know the long panels along the top and bottom of the glass? If yours gets scratched up you can just pull them right off:

They’re held on by magnets on most models I’ve seen:

Years ago I spray painted mine with basic oil rubbed bronze spray paint – it wasn’t high heat and it’s held up just fine. Mine did have some scratches so I took them off to spray them again but then decided just to leave them off. I’m not sure why they are there anyway – you really can’t tell the difference if they’re there or not, at least with our fireplace.

Oh, and one more quick little nugget. If you have a gas fireplace and have the gas main switch like we do, you can paint it to match your wall if you’d like. It’s just metal and a few coats of paint will cover it:

Or if you’d like to spray paint it’s easily removed – you just unscrew it. That was helpful when I was tiling too! I didn’t realize that you could take it off till someone showed me.

This baby has gone through quite the transformation over the past few weeks! Here it is a couple months ago:

And here it is now:

The big wall above the fireplace is what I’m working on now. In my head it’s going to look fantastic – here’s hoping. I can’t wait to get this all done! After that I just have some smaller projects to finish up and I’m DONE with this renovation.

Have you used the high heat paint on anything? I’ve got a can of it if anyone needs some. ;)

P.S. To see how I tiled the surround go here.
To see how I installed the metal sheeting on the doors go here.

Cleaning gas fireplace glass

Hey hey! It’s another cool day here in Indiana! This weather is my jam. It’s about that time of year to turn on the fireplaces – in fact we’ve already had the family room going at night a couple times. Gas fireplaces are wonderful – we’ve had a wood burning one before (in an apartment if you can believe it!) and it was great but the convenience of gas can’t be beat.

So I learned this trick on how to clean the fireplace glass years ago and it comes in SO handy, especially this time of year. I always clean the glass in early fall before we light the fireplaces for the season. I’ve been meaning to show you this for years!

Of course this little tutorial is how you clean the inside of the glass on a gas fireplace – not the outside. I figure that’s pretty self explanatory. :) It’s not hard to do at all and just takes a few steps:

I don’t know how the inside gets so yucky over the summer but every year it needs to be cleaned. The family room fireplace especially needed it after all the construction dust recently: 

Seriously, it was a mess.

OK, first step is to make sure the pilot light is off! I don’t think it’s a big deal to open it up with it on but since you’ll be cleaning the glass and all, I recommend you just have it off.

To start you’ll tilt down the bottom grate like so:

This one I can’t remove unless I unscrew it, but it does give me access to the back side so I can clean the grates easier.

Inside and underneath on both sides of the firebox are two clamps. You’ll need to bend down and find them and then you just release the clamp:

Do this on both sides. This releases the glass front of the fireplace. It will tilt out from the bottom:

And then you can pull up on the whole piece of glass and just pull it off. The whole thing has a cleat at the top that sits under the upper grates:

So if you just pull up on the glass it should come off very easily. Be careful, it’s heavier than you think it will be but totally manageable.

You can also unhook the top grate if you want too:

You can do that with or without the glass installed – it makes it easy to clean in the sink or at the hose outside.

You’ll want to lay the glass front side down so you can clean it. I try to use something without a ton of chemicals – I’m sure anything would probably be OK but I just worry about the chemicals with the gas/fire. You know, explosions and stuff. No biggie:

 

I use my Shaklee cleaner and it works great!

While I’m at it with everything opened up I’ll clean out underneath the fireplace a little and then replace the embers inside. Those are the fluffy stuff at the bottom -- you can see that after time they get kind of brown and yucky: 

I found this bag of the embers at Lowe’s or Home Depot years ago and it’s lasted me a long time. I don’t replace all of them, just the ones on top:

It makes a big difference when lit – lots of glow:

When you’re done cleaning the glass just hook that top cleat back on to the firebox, then you’ll need to clamp everything back in:

You’ll have to push hard to them secured but again, it’s not hard at all.

When you’re done you’ll have a clean, sparkling fireplace!:

Ours was a mess – the glass, the grates, everything was dirty from all the dust we’ve had around here. It’s nice to have it all finished up and looking good now!:

If you missed how I installed that herringbone tile you can catch up here.

If you have a gas fireplace did you know how to clean this glass? I had no idea till a friend showed us how to do it. It’s SUPER easy to do and it will take you about 10-15 minutes start to finish. I don’t know if these steps will work for every gas fireplace, but I’m betting they are all fairly similar.

I’ll show you a couple other quick tips to get your fireplace looking brand new again next week!

Built ins for the electronics

Hello there! Hope you had a wonderful weekend! We had a blast celebrating our 20 year high school reunion – I came from a large class of 600+ so we had a few events throughout the weekend. It was SO much fun.

I took a break from everything DIY until yesterday when I installed the herringbone tile on the fireplace surround (check out Instagram to see the progress!) – it went so much easier than I thought it would and I LOVE IT. I can’t wait to show you! But first I need to grout, seal and caulk everything.

Last week I worked on the doors to the cabinets quite a bit. If you remember we had the guys install these next to the fireplace to hold the TV electronics and other goodies:

Yet again I used kitchen cabinets to do this. :) OF COURSE I DID. They’re cheap and so easily customizable – can you blame me? I needed them to to be deeper than 12 inches (they come in 12 and 24 inches deep at the store and 24 was too deep) so the guys made some tweaks (built in the shelves, extended the sides) that turned out SO good. They are now about 18 inches deep and you would never know they are kitchen cabinets!

Because we were putting the electronics in there I knew we couldn’t keep the doors as they were. They need to have air circulation to breathe – keeping them too hot will wear out the electronics much faster.

I asked numerous experts about this before I went ahead by the way – all said this solution would work fine. Since all the TV stuff was moved over we have had the doors completely off so last week I started the process of opening up the middle part:

These are cheaper doors so this process is much easier than say, with our kitchen cabinets where there really isn’t an “insert” – those are a lot nicer. The process will still be the same but on our kitchen cabinets I’d have to be a lot more careful with the jigsaw.

The first step was to drill some big holes for my jigsaw to get into. I did it in a few spots on the door:

Here’s a closer look:

And then I took the jigsaw and cut the whole piece out. This was my fourth door and by this one I had figured out a good method – I would cut close to the sides but not all the way up against them:

That way I just had some thin slivers of wood to pull out. The thinner pieces were much easier to pull out and break if necessary. Does that make sense? If you cut further away from the edges you can’t get good leverage to pull them out:

I just used a wrench and grabbed the wood till it broke and came out. On a few spots I’d have to use the jigsaw and cut up the edge as far as I could and then pull again so it would break. But once you get one piece out the rest come out fairly easily.

On a couple doors I had some stubborn spots that just wouldn’t budge:

So I just pushed them back in and sanded them down. You don’t see them later anyway (I’ll show that in a bit).

Again, a nicer cabinet door won’t have the piece that you can just pull out like this, but if you’re using unfinished cabinets like this it will work fine. Nicer doors will need to be cut right up to the edge – say if you’re adding glass to a door.

Because I needed something that would circulate air flow I knew I wanted to use the radiator metal sheeting – I LOVE this stuff. It’s not cheap, but I was able to get two doors out of one sheet and only had four doors.

It’s easily cut – I used my plastic scissor things from Bed Bath and Beyond (I use these for everything) and it cut it really well:

This stuff isn’t super sharp but you probably want to wear some gloves if you’ve never cut metal.

I cut out each piece so that it was a bit bigger than the opening – making sure I had enough overlap to secure it to the back of the door:

I cut out around the hinges:

And then I grabbed these small nails I already had – they just happened to be perfect for securing it to the back:

It took some trial and error to find a sweet spot to nail them in – if I went too close to the opening you could see the tip of the nail on the other side. So I would move out just a bit and nail every few inches or so:

It worked great!

You can see that I had already painted the door frames before I installed this – it would be a major pain with it already on there.

From the front it looked fine but I knew I wanted to cover the area where the insert used to be:

Tiny little molding to the rescue! :) This is really itty bitty stuff I got at Lowe’s:

I used my nail gun to install it over those open areas:

I used wood glue as well – some of my nails were coming out the back of the door so that was another trial and error thing to figure out exactly where to nail.

But they turned out SO good! I love the look!:

I considered spray painting the metal a warmer color but when I tried it it looked weird so they’ll stay – I like how they are as is.

I love the design and it definitely helps keep things cool inside the cabinet. The other side has the same sheeting even though nothing is plugged in there – but they do offer enough privacy that you don’t see every little thing:

The inside of that cabinet still needs to be painted and the whole built in needs some more spackle and one more coat of paint – so it’s not totally done just yet. But it’s CLOSER! :)

The brushed nickel can start to feel a little modern but I have plans to warm it all up – and then accessories will help as well. I’m hoping to get the tile grouted tonight and then sealed tomorrow – and then I’ll start on the upper wall above the fireplace. I have high hopes of getting this whole thing done this week.

Have you ever installed your own glass or insert into a cabinet? For glass the process would be similar – you’d just need to glue the glass down to the back and then cover the edges with small trim.