Monday, February 7, 2011

Bathroom Redo-Part 1

I'm going to give my bathroom a face-lift. Want to follow along?

I started to call this The Crack Shack Bathroom Makeover, but that's a little extreme. My house isn't THAT bad. It is however, a double-wide trailer from the '70s so making this room into a silk purse ain't going to be easy.

Here is the grand tour:
Wall facing you as you first walk in:



I think I've mentioned before that we are renters and that my landlady loooves those stick-on borders. Each room has a different theme. And look! This room has a matching valance. yay

And yes, that's a random patch of wood-grain contact paper on the wall. I think someone had the idea to put that around the room with some trim to look like faux wainscoting and that's as far as they made it.

Sink area/vanity:
That medicine cabinet/mirror combo has got to go. When you slide open the flimsy little cupboard, Hello Kitty band-aids and Pepto start flying out at you.

A better look at the cabinet:


It used to have wood-grain contact paper on the drawers (and only the drawers, but not the door ??) and that was the first thing to go.

The other first step was the ceiling. The metal part of the light fixtures used to be brass. They got a shot of white spray paint along with the fan cover. And I painted the dingy ceiling with white paint.


Next step: tearing down the wallpaper (which is the driving force behind this project, it was peeling off in huge chunks) and it's going to be nasty.


I'll be tracking the budget too.
Tally so far: $0 (I already had the white paint and spray paint)

My New Baby

If you're expecting pictures of a precious newborn, you may be excused now. If a serger can make your heart go pitter-pat, read on.

Isn't she lovely?
Its an older model: Singer Ultralock 14U234

I found this on Craigslist for $30! It turned out not to be such a great deal when I found that the cord sent home with me was the wrong one. I sent the seller an email hoping that it was just a simple mix-up. Nope.
I did find a used cord at a shop so I'm out a little more, but still a good deal.
If you've acquired one of these too, the owner's manual is available for free download here.

So. Now armed with the proper cord and the manual I sat down to play. Aaargh! With the tension set to the manufacturer's recommendations it looked great on the front but all wonky and loopy on the back. All of my tinkering with the dials just made it wonkier.

A few Googles later I found a random comment in a post about someone having trouble with the tension on their identical machine. This saint recommended the following combination for the tension dials:

Success! It works fantastic. Now what should I sew?