My Suburban Kitchen

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Iron (Wo)Man – Part Deux

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5.30.11


Seeing the railings in the back with fresh paint made me want to freshen up the other railings around the house. So, this weekend, my project was to finish painting the railings at our house. This time the focus was the front porch railings which weren’t quite as rusty as the back ones but still could use some fresh paint.

Unlike the backyard, it is pretty impossible to employ the spray paint method used here for the backyard painting project. So, I settled in with my paint brush and little can of rustoleum (gloss black) and got to painting each rail by hand. Thankfully, our front porch doesn’t get full sun until late afternoon so I was in the shade almost the entire morning. H rode her bike around the driveway while I worked and Hubby played with Baby E.
I finished one entire side before stopping for the day to go have some fun at 
I picked up right where I left off when I woke up on Monday morning. On Monday, Mathlete Hubby was working on his own project so I had to work in between Baby E’s naps. I made pretty good progress prior to stopping to get ready for the cook-out we were headed to that evening.
I would love to say that I was really diligent and came back to finish the final section after our barbecue but, then, I’d be lying. I got lazy and left it for this evening. We’ll pretend this is the final “after” picture though since I’ll be painting in the dark tomorrow night making pictures pretty difficult.
And because I am not convinced you can really tell a difference in pictures…a comparison shot:

© 2012 Just Us Four.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

The Iron Fist

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5.22.11

Our to-do list has a lot of projects that are focused on decorating and personalizing our house. Of course, there are some items on there that are just “must-dos” to keep the house in tip-top shape. We started tackling one of them this weekend: repainting the basement egress railing and bricks.

The exit to our backyard from the basement has bricks on each side and black iron railing. Though the house is only a few years old, that whole area looks pretty terrible. The railing is rusty and the bricks have a lot of the rust residue on them marring the pretty white paint.


I finally made it to the store a few days ago to pick up the Rustoleum and masonry paint needed for the project. Quite surprised to have been asked for ID when buying spray paint but maybe that is just showing my home improvement naiveté. With supplies gathered, I set off to start this project figuring I could get the railing piece done in 2 evenings after work…famous last words of course.

The first step was to sand the railing to remove the rust and prepare it for the paint. Mathlete hubby supplied me with some sand paper and I set my muscles to working. When the sun went down, I had made a little bit of progress but was definitely nowhere near ready to paint.

After a week of monsoon like rain, we finally got back into the project yesterday. Wanting to speed things up a little so that we had even the slightest chance of finishing, I did a little bit of research and decided to buy a new tool:

The brush was just more efficient at cleaning off the rust so I was able to speed move along a little faster. I was no match for Mathlete Hubby with the wire brush tool though. He had one entire side done in the time it took me to unload the dishwasher (we were switching off time with Baby E).

Baby E was busying himself with his new pastime – straddling the air conditioner vent so the air will blow his hair around.

Baby E went down for his nap so I headed outside to start the painting on the sanded side. We chose the spray paint version versus the brush on version strictly in the interest of saving time. I was pretty efficient until I ran out of paint forcing me to go to Home Depot looking quite possibly the worst I have ever looked when out in public! I picked up some brush on Rustoleum while I was there too for touch-ups and the lower railings.

While Baby E took his second nap, I took H up for a little moon-bounce fun to stay out of Hubby’s hair so he could finish sanding and painting the railings.

Next up was painting the bricks with the masonry paint. I volunteered to start this part of the project so Hubby could take a break play with the kids. So, with my gigantic roller I set to work.

Rolling on the paint wasn’t quite as easy as I imagined as the roller quickly became filled with paint and got HEAVY! I was making good progress though when I switched off to cook dinner for our family Sunday dinner.

It took us until 9pm (including stops for lunch, a small rain shower and dinner) but we finally finished it.

© 2012 Just Us Four.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

My to-do list is so long…it doesn’t have an end

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5.9.11
The to-do list…

Everyone has one. Some are kept on paper, some in memory, and some are kept on list keeping websites. With 2 kids and husband who is great with a lot but not so much handy in the memory department, I have a lot of to-do lists. In fact, I am so obsessive compulsive vigilant about keeping my to-do items in order and on track (as much as humanly possibly) that I actually subscribe to all three methods for my to-do lists. Of course, since moving in to our new house, none is growing at a faster pace than my house to-do list though. Want to see read the grand plans?

Need to do now (thankfully, this is short!):
  • Repaint outside basement entry surfaces (railing and bricks)àamazingly, I finally got around to purchasing the supplies for this. Who knew I would need my ID to purchase Rustoleum though?!
  • Paint wood posts to deck
  • Seal driveway

On the horizon (12 month timeline):

  • Assemble the playset for the kids (waiting on the HOA approval!)
  • Finish entryway (more on that in-progress project later)
  • Finalize the family room mantle/pillow plans…maybe new lamps?
  • Buy or build a new kitchen table
  • Replace breakfast area light and island pendant lights
  • Hang remaining decorations in kid rooms
  • Build headboard for guest room
  • Refinish furniture in guest room
  • Finish decorating master bedroom
  • Change mirror in hall bathroom (bye bye builder mirror)
  • Paint or refinish kitchen cabinets

In the distance (a.k.a not enough funds to do at the moment):

  • Replace carpets on main level with hardwood flooring
  • Decorate the living room (requires furniture!)
  • Finish basement
  • Add tile backsplash in the kitchen
  • Add stone to the fireplace
  • Install in-ground sprinkler system
There are a whole lot of other little projects to do around the house that I just haven’t focused on enough to add them to the to-do list. I’m sure the list above will keep growing…
How do you keep track of your to-do list? Do you find it grows faster than you can keep up with or do you keep it under control?

© 2012 Just Us Four.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.