Screen Door

Have you ever been to that restaurant in Portland called Screen Door?  That is what this post title reminds me of.  You can get so much fried chicken there, it is nothing short of amazing!  That's not the kind of screen door I'm talking about right now though.  The one I'm talking about just made my apartment feel more like home.  I made a screen door!  Now my cat can't escape when I want to leave the door open!  I've been waiting for my screen door for months, and I finally had time to do it :)

Here is a quick picture tutorial on how to make one yourself.  You will definitely need at least two people to do it.

Here is what you need:

5 pieces of wood
A drill and drill bits
Measuring tape
Clamps
A Ruler
A razor blade
Long screws, depending on how thick your wood is (I think our screws were around 3")
Other regular screws
A hand saw
Screen material
at least 2 hinges
an eyelet latch
a handle
a friend

The very first thing you need to do is measure your door frame where your screen will go.  Ours measured something like 80.5" x 36"

Then you will need to measure the wood pieces

We measured two long pieces and two short pieces.  All together your frame will have 4 pieces of wood.  Later you will add 1 more piece somewhere in the middle as a support.  We'll get to that in a minute!

Then we clamped our wood down to our coffee table (limited work space here!!)

We used the razor blade to make a measuring mark on where we wanted to cut the wood.

Annnnd SAW!!  When sawing it is best to "let the saw do the work." Just  rock the saw back and forth gently and it will cut through the wood super easy.  Be sure to have a vacuum handy because there will be sawdust!

Fix your beard and continue...

Drill two holes (for extra support) where you want your screws to go.  This depends on the width of your wood.  Our width was pretty thick so we had to drill through the wood as much as possible so that the screw would actually attach to the smaller piece.  Make sure the drill bit that you use to drill holes in the wood is slightly larger than the head of the screw that you are using.

Clamp the two pieces together and get ready to screw them together!

We got super cute blue screws at the hardware store.  They aren't meant for wood but they still work and they were super long!

We got pretty excited about making the skeleton of the screen door and we decided to test it out in the door frame...

It fits!

After all the excitement we added the support piece in the middle.  Make sure to place the support piece  lower or higher than the door knob to your main door!

We then added screen material to what we considered to be "the back of the door"  and we used a staple gun to fix it to the wood.  I stood on the wood while Brian pulled it SUPER taut.  The long side took about 10 staples, while the short side took about 5.  We didn't staple gun the support piece.

When we were done staple gunning the screen material, we used a ruler and the razor blade to cut off the excess material.  Ow on your knees if you have a hard wood floor!  Oh well.  It took about 8 minutes to do this.

Finally you add the hinges, about 10-12 inches down from the top and bottom of the door.  The short side of the hinge is affixed to the wood, while the long side is affixed to the door frame outside.  Make sure you know which way you want your door to open!!

This is the hinge after we fastened it to the door.

We also wanted the screen to lock from the inside, so we bought this eyelet hook piece.  The hook screws into the door frame, and the eyelet screws into the screen.  We put the lock at the same length as our support beam.  I guess you could put the lock wherever you want, though...

Lastly we added the door handle.  I think the handle is meant for drawers and stuff.  I liked the flower pattern and it was on clearance.  Perfect!

Here is our little country screen door all finished...

****NOTE:  Be sure to subtract the space that the hinge will take up in the door frame when you are measuring the short side of your wood.  I'd say it takes up about 3/16".



P.S. Screen Door Portland.  I want it!

Moving :)

I'm moving!  Don't worry, it isn't far, just downstairs from where I live now.  Many of the people in this complex end up living here for years and years, but strangely in the past couple of months I have noticed about 6 units move.  I have lived in the complex for about three now years going on four.

The cool and exciting thing about this move is that the handyman crew hadn't started to work on my new unit yet, so Brian and I asked the complex manager if we could put some of our own finishing touches into the unit before we moved in.

 All of the units are carpeted, but we asked them leave the bare subfloor.  We were told it would be cement, but to our surprise, it happened to be plywood!

We kind of freaked out a little when we discovered it was plywood because we had our hearts set on staining and polishing cement. But after researching You Tube and the internet, we found out that refinishing plywood wasn't an uncommon endeavor, and it can even look downright awesome if done properly.


Here is a time lapse video of Brian and I polishing and staining our new apartment!  It took over two hours to sand, clean, puddy, tape off, and stain everything, but here is a portion of the work in
12 seconds!!!

 

Mini Party Hat, for You, Your Boyfriend, and Cat!

Once upon a time I posted a tutorial on how to make an owl ornament with a toilet paper roll,

and a long LONG ago on Twitter I said...

So it turned out that "More on this soon" happened to be a year later, but in any case, I'm presenting you today (better late than never), another crafty idea made from the humble cardboard of a toilet paper roll.


Step 1.  Cut the roll down the middle on one side.

Step 2.  "Unroll" the cardboard and draw the following shape on the the side that rolls up toward you.

Step 3.  Cut out the shape that you drew. (Keep the piece that is filled in like above).  Pinch the 90 degree corner a bit to make it easier to roll.  Now,  roll it like you would a blue crab hand roll (yum!).

Step 4.  Tape the edges with a non sticky tape (like Artist's Tape) to hold the cone shape in place.

Step 5.  Place a stronger tape like masking tape or duct tape on the inside seams.  Cut off the excess.  You can then take off the Artist's Tape on the outside and the shape will hold!  After that if you want, you can put some sticky tape on the outside for more support.

Step 6.  Take your hole puncher and punch a hole on two opposite sides of the bottom of the hat.  This is where you will put your string!

Step 7.   Paint!  You can use any kind of paint and any color.  I had a ginormous bucket of light pink paint that was supposed to be used to paint my bathroom walls, but I never got around to it.  Wall paint actually works quite well for this project!

Step 8.  Use GLUE (I used Mod Podge, but any glue would work) to add sparkles to the rim of the hat.  I painted the glue on with a brush, added the sparkles, and then used a q-tip to even out the lines.

Step 9.  I used half inch diameter styrofoam balltz to make the top of the hat even more cute.  I poked a hole in one of the balltz with the edge of my paintbrush. I put some glue inside the hole and stuck it on top of the hat.  I wiped away excess glue with a q-tip.

Step 10.  I didn't have any other paint beside my bathroom wall bucket,  and I didn't have a printer handy, so I traced circles from a round object I had lying around (a magnet, actually), and I colored them in with my PrismaColor markers.  

These circles are about a half inch in diameter, but you can make them bigger or smaller.  You can even do rectangles, stars, hearts, clovers or diamonds!  This party hat can be whatever you want it to be.  (It's your party).  I used the classic party hat shape of a circle.

Cut the circles out with your scissors.

Step 11.  GLUE (I used Mod Podge again) the circles onto the hat in whatever design you like.  

Step 12.  Glue on the string or rubberband.  It will take a couple of hours to dry.  Hold with adorable mini clothes pins.  

I used a rubber band because I made the hat to put on my cat, but for a human mini party hat you may want to use string so you can fit it under your chin.

ENJOY!

**No kitties were harmed in the making of this blog post.