dump your girlfriend. not your extra tile.
It’s fun to be wasted. It’s not fun to be wasteful. Your extra building materials can give that push over the edge you’ve been Looking for.
Some of my favorite parts of my home remodels are the creative touches that I’ve come up with for the extra building materials, or scraps, that I’ve accumulated. It makes me feel good to give something a purpose because I’m all too familiar with having no idea what I’m supposed to be doing with my life. So I’ve included a few ideas I’ve had from my recent home remodel. Feel free to copy them or tell me how bad they suck.
Cover Ups Are Not Just For Cops
I remodeled a very outdated kitchen. This remodel included me making and painting new cabinet doors, installing a new sink and countertop, and installing a tile backsplash. I’ve been told by some people that my color scheme clashes, but these are the same people who I’m sure don’t wear underwear and therefore can’t be trusted anyways.
After this was done I found myself with some leftover cabinet paint and leftover tile. I did not have enough tile to do anything significant, but I paid good money for all that and I was not about to throw it away.
When I completed the cabinet doors, I was quickly reminded that I’ll never escape my fate of being a screw up. Looking at the area underneath the sink, I had a gap between the false front and the wide stile between the two doors. I also saw that my doors decided they would not identify as straight as they each had slight bows in them.
Instead of wasting my time and money to make new doors and a new stile, I decided I would use some of that extra tile to make an accent strip that would solve all my life’s problems and at the same time make me look like I’m a genius. So I took seven tiles, cut them to length with a tile cutter, and adhered them to that stile using adhesive caulk.
And it worked beautifully. It was like I was on a perfect date: it cost zero dollars and took less than an hour.
2. Bringing Some Class to the corner
When I finished my kitchen remodel I still had this outdated hutch sitting in the corner looking like it didn’t belong. So like all good cities do to their corners that matter, I gentrified the shit out of it.
I had just enough extra materials from my cabinet doors to make two lower doors for this hutch. I took out the top doors to leave the top open. I then put on a coat of primer and paint that was leftover from the cabinets.
For the main shelf, I was able to use the leftover tile from my backsplash. At the end of this project I had used every piece of tile I had. I put down some leftover thin set and leftover grout from my backsplash project as well. It wasn’t perfect and I had to finagle some of the grout line widths but nobody will notice.
I also had some leftover tongue and groove wood strips from an accent wall I made in my living room. I put on a coat of stain that I already had on hand and then nailed the boards to the cabinet.
3. no more free shows in the shower
When I bought my house it came with a wonderful window in the only shower. I knew that there was a reason for this, and it wasn’t just because someone was a pervert. The house was built in 1950 and at that time it was common for homes to not have vents in the bathroom. Instead a window over the tub could vent out moisture and allow people to watch you bathe. It was really a win-win. It was also more common for homes to not have showers installed at that time because people were filthy back then.
This window clearly did not belong in a shower. It not only had a ledge that protruded into the shower, but it also was anything but waterproof. The previous owner “solved” this issue by putting plastic over the window. It turns out that I had to remove rotted wood from inside the wall underneath the window from years of water damage.
Also in my home was a half master bath. This bath shared a wall with a really weird hallway. This wall was partially built out of glass block. I still don’t have an answer as to why that was. So when I knocked down this wall to install a shower in the bathroom, I salvaged the glass block. My plan was to take out the window in the shower and replace it with glass block to keep the pervs out and the water in.
I did have to purchase a glass block track system and sealant, which totaled about $50.00. While this project wasn’t free, it was another perfect date: cheap and easy.
4. There’s gold in these walls
When I took out a wall and two closets in my kitchen, I discovered that my house wasn’t framed with your usual 2x4’s. Instead they were sexy studs that weren’t perfectly planed down. With the rough edges, they were what all those reclaimed wood people were looking for, which means I was rich.
I could’ve sold them for some decent profit, but instead I said no to the money and I used all of the wood from inside those walls to make a hall tree with bench. It turned out pretty good, except for my experiment with a staining technique that failed miserably. But it was free so I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.
Those were a few ideas, and hopefully you can do something with them. Just remember that it’s OK to waste your life, but it’s not OK to waste everything else along with it.
