The Fall One Room Challenge (ORC) went by incredibly fast. I thought I would finish my mini project and have to wait to share the reveal. Ha! Joke’s on me. The fall challenge ended and I didn’t make the deadline. I am now 0 for 4 *weeps* . I am close to finishing, but life is colorful so who knows what will pop in to become my new priority. I’m not going to beat up myself about it though.

Here is where I am:

The closet has been decluttered. It doesn’t have the perfect aesthetic, so there are no beautifully matching baskets and storage containers, because…the economy! My goal was to make this transformation as inexpensive as possible. I love being able to see what’s in the closet. I’m sure it can be improved upon but perfection will have to wait.

For the doors. The door was broken and was actually stuck.

So to take the doors off I had to loosen the screws connecting the track to the door frame. This step freed the door up enough for me to take them off. I then continued to remove the screws fastening the track to the door opening. 

I laid the doors down on the saw horse to remove the remaining items from the bifold track system. I also filled any damage, knicks and holes with wood filler. I filled the original door knob hole, but I later regretted that because I could have used it for one of the holes for the new door handle. Don’t get too ahead of yourself to renew everything like I did. Try to assess if previous holes could be reused first or consider using the same handle. You could give it a new look by spray painting it.

After the wood filler dried, I sanded the entire door lightly with the power sander. This step is important to help the paint adhere to the door. I used 120 grit for this step. I then dusted it off with a tacky cloth and primed the door. 

After the primer dried, I lightly sanded it with 220 grit. I painted it with a Behr color match to Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams. The poor light in the garage made the paint look like it had no color to it. Color me nervous and reserved. I determined that a second coat was necessary if it was showing up white. 

It’s hard to tell, but the painted door is at the top. After sanding it again with 220 grit, I applied a second coat. 

While the doors were drying, I decided to spray paint the silver door hinges to match the door handle. This was an on the whim decision that I made in the hardware store. I bought the Rustoleum primer spray paint and their gold finish.

Door hinges. I did 2 layers. The directions said the second layer should be applied after 2 minutes of the first one. Make sure you keep the can at the right distance because it can affect how thick the layers are (ask me how I know). I loved the outcome and will be using it again. However, I needed to give it more time to dry. I was rushing to get the doors on so I could show it off to my in-laws. It was cold that day, which usually means it will need some more time than what’s estimated on the can as normal dry time. 

The door trim. The way the trim around our closets is installed is strange to me. There is an intentional overhang and the trim isn’t flush to the doorway. In order for the repurposed doors to open up properly, I had to remove the trim. First I used a utility knife to remove the caulk. Then I use a crowbar and hammer to pry it away the wall.

I then reattached them with a brad nailer, so that it would be flush to the doorway. I did this step after I attached the doors to the wall. If we didn’t remove the trim, it would impede the door from swinging open. It does mean that we now have a gap in the trim that we will need to fill.

To hang the doors. I attached the hinges to the door first. For this I was reminded that I am a CHRONIC overthinker. So what should have been a simple step I morphed into an algebra, calculus, statistics exercise. Please skip that overthinking step and lemme do the math for you.

Fold the hinge so that the 2 sides are touching. The round part should be on the outside of the door jamb. Like so: 

The hinge side that is closest to the door should be attached to the door. Then screw the other flap to the wall. Don’t overthink it.

I used a random item (I’ve seen people use books) to get the door to the height that I wanted it to and to steady it. Then I attached it to the wall with screws.

This is pretty much wha it looks like right now. You may have noticed that the hinges are not on the same level. When I tried adding the second hinge, it couldn’t drive through the screw through. So I moved it up. On my finish list are:

• Move up the hinge on the left side
• Get trim to fill in the missing pieces, add wood filler and paint
• Attach the door handles
• Add the magnetic latch
• Give you an update and some closure!

Stay tuned for an update. To sweeten the pot and get you to come back, I will redo the closet on the opposite wall and give a 2 for 1 reveal.

For the fall 2025 ORC, I will be decluttering my hallway closet and transforming the bifold doors into double doors. Every…and I do mean every bifold door in this house has a functional issue or it’s completely off the rails.
This is where we are now—->

I know it looks like I opened the closet to show you our wonderful clutter but the door is actually stuck in this position. It came off the rails and did a Michael Jackson lean on the tile floor. So we can’t even close the door and pretend the clutter doesn’t exist like normal people do. I hate bifold doors. So I am going to turn these ones into double doors, add trim, paint them and add new handles. Hopefully this will allow it to, idk CLOSE again I bought the supplies for this DIY project over a year ago and they’ve been collecting dust since. That’s normal in this house. Don’t panic for me. So, luckily the only thing I need to buy for this project is the trim.

So, here’s the plan: I’ll declutter and organize one shelf a day so I don’t overwhelm myself. I’ll turn these doors into double doors, add trim, paint it and add new gold handles. Hopefully this will allow it to, idk CLOSE again I bought the supplies for this DIY project over a year ago and they’ve been collecting dust since. That’s normal in this house though, so don’t worry that anything is wrong. Luckily, the only thing I need to buy for this project is the trim.

Here’s to finishing this ORC on time and getting functional doors. If it goes well, I may fix the remaining doors

Pray.for.meeeee. And stay tuned for updates. You can also check out the other participants’ progress on the ORC page

I’ve been wanting to paint and update all our 1970’s hollow core doors to a modern style for years. Unfortunately, it just kept getting deprioritized. It is one of the projects that will make a big impact on the look and the feel of a house. It would certainly de-escalate the Arnold and Helga love/hate tussle me and this house have been in since we bought it lol. Updating the door to our powder room confirmed that for me. 

It came out beautifully and the thought of this being throughout the house made me feel warm and lovey dovey about this house. Funny story: the plan was to update the interior side of the door so I could do a big reveal of the bathroom update for the One Room Challenge. But as we say in Jamaica ‘when man a plan, God a wipe’. Translation: sometimes your plans won’t work out the way you wanted, because God has something else in store. Keep reading if you want to know what had Joel and I both shocked, laughing and disappointed and proud all in one go. 

Needed:

• Brad Nailer. I bought one for this project. A cheaper alternative: some persons use liquid nails
• Decarom trim. I used a total of 5 for both sides. Cheaper alternative: I will be stalking Habitat for Humanity Restores for trim moving forward because they add up!$$ 
• Miter shears and a miter box (These are inexpensive and can do the job, but a miter saw is better. More on that later)
• Power sander
• Wood filler
• Acrylic caulk
• Primer
• Semi-gloss paint

Here’s how I tackled it:

• We used a drill and a hammer to remove the door and hinge from the frame. A genius once existed and decided to paint the hinge, nails etc. It made it difficult to remove the screws. Don’t be like that genius. Don’t paint nails while it’s screwed into a hinge. 
• If you’re like us and some jobs sit longer than you’d like to admit, make sure you mark with a pencil the interior/exterior and top of the door ** Skipping this step caused a major mishap for us. More on that later
• I laid the doors flat on our saw horse and used a pencil to trace where the trim would go. We decided on the design and the measurements we wanted to go with (3inches down from the top, 6 inches up from the bottom of the door, 3 inches from the sides and 2.5 inches from the middle of the door knob to the bottom of the first box and same distance to the top of the second box) – see below:

• Here’s where things got frustrating for us. We cut the trim with the miter box & miter shears. It was not easy. I held the trim steady then my husband started sawing it. It took a lot of effort to cut through it. There were times when we had to follow up with the miter shear. Miter saws are expensive, so if you can’t afford one you can try this method, but just know it can be frustrating and will take longer. I personally am manifesting a miter saw in the near future. Please share this blog, so your girl can get a saw!
  
  We also found that we could never get the corners right. There were to meet at 45 degree angles to form 90, but it was always a little off for us. There was always a gap. Do save yourself the trouble and questioning of your formal education and just accept that you can caulk the corners and it will be fine. For really bad gaps, wood filler!
• We then attached the trims with the brad nailer. That was a learning curve. If it’s your first time, I would pay attention to the depth of the nails and the door. Then test 1 nail to make sure it doesn’t go to the other end of the door or doesn’t stick up too much. You want a tiny gap between the nail’s head and the trim, so that it can be filled with wood filler and have a flat and clean finish. No bumps. 
• I sanded the door and trims with the power sander, then wiped it down with a tack cloth. Sanding is an important step to ensure the paint adheres to the door
• Caulked the 90 degree corners with acrylic caulk and wherever the trim met the door. Do this on the inside & outside the trim
• After the caulk cured (read the instructions for best curing time), we primed the door and trim. Don’t skip this step.
• Lightly sanded everything again. I read that this helps the paint to adhere better. I did it just in case because I wanted the best outcome
• Painted with semi-gloss paint. We did 2 coats

We love how it turned out! Except for that big mishap I mentioned….

**Here’s where it got fun for us. The door was off for months (maybe a year) and we didn’t mark the bathroom vs foyer side of the door. We checked which side we were painting the door according to where the knob was. Sounds simple, right? Weeelllll. When we went to reattach the door, we realized what we also forgot to check….where the hinge lines up with the door. Because we didn’t do that, we painted the Blue Jeans color on the wrong side AND the door was upside down. Phew. We just went with the punches and decided it was a design choice that we won’t be changing. We had to flip the door around and over, so now our renovated bathroom has an unfinished door to go with it. The foyer did get an unexpected update. Ha! DIY is not for the weak. It will test you. So be easy on yourself.

Could you tell that the trim layout wasn’t quite right? Drop a comment below and let me know!

We tiled our half bathroom and it was our first time. It was overwhelming. Why? First of all, I am an OVERTHINKER! I don’t like estimates/guesstimates or schemstimates. I need EXACT numbers. And there is a level of guesstimating that goes into mixing thinset for tiles. The water measurements are exact but if you’re not mixing the whole bag (and I wouldn’t advise this from my experience) then you have to estimate the thinset that should be added. As a result, this particular project freaked me out. So much so that it took me over a year to muster up the courage to do it. That and I realized that the HardieBacker (a type of waterproofing material that is laid under tiles) that was installed by the previous owners was not done properly, but that’s another blog post.

Here’s what I learned/wish I knew: 

• You’re going to mess up anyways, so might as well mess it up sooner rather than later
• Be easy on yourself! It doesn’t need to be perfect and chances are it won’t be because you’re new to this.
• It is better to start with a wall tile project for your first time and if possible, go with smaller tiles. Large tiles will be quicker but they’re so much harder to handle and work with

• Consider breaking up the tile job i.e. tile half of the space and finish the next day. Tiling when you’re tired and aching from being on your knees is not fun and you’ll make more mistakes.
• You CAN amend your thinset. Just do it during the mixing time period laid out on your thinset bag and you’ll be fine. If after the first mix you see that it is too dry or too runny, add more thinset (or water depending on what it needs) THIS is one reason I don’t think you should mix the whole bag of thinset if you’re a novice
• Another reason I don’t think it’s a good idea is that the thinset fills up the bucket when you mix the whole bag. So it does make it harder to mix it up and the water mixed in properly
• Use your laser level to dry fit and to lay the tiles. I promise you that this is not the time to eyeball it
• Having my husband there was a huge help. He buttered the tiles while I laid them. He also kept me from giving up and crying bc damn this was hard! So have a helper on hand. This isn’t the time to Kelly Clarkson/Neyo it aka be Ms. Independent

This is where our old knees and first time selves should have stopped

Two issues that we ran into is that our thinset started to dry up a bit sooner than we had planned for. As a result, 2 of our tiles were not level with the neighboring tiles. It made it harder to get it out of the bucket and spread it as thin as we did the previous row. This is another reason it’s important not to let fear paralysis/procrastination hold you back. When you “fail” later rather than sooner, you’re so darn tired and over it that you don’t have any will left to live fix and re-do what you did. You just want the darn bathroom to be functional again so you’ll accept anything. So start early and tackle that project that is haunting you. If you can, call on help from a more experienced person to help. You’ll be able to learn and practice with them in real time and probably make less mistakes. Or have a friend on standby for a phone call to ask questions. Either option will help ease your anxiety and give you the support you need to just CIY it!

I was SO proud of us for finally battling this beast, but the problem tiles really bothered me.  This house has taught me that I’m a perfectionist and an annoying critic of everything. I went in to look at the tiles at random times to see if it was as bad as I thought it was. I didn’t have the tools nor the patience at that point to redo them, but they irked me. Thankfully my brother-in-law was in town and he offered to help. So he took up the problem tiles and re-laid them. I swear my sleep instantly became peaceful again. He also grouted and this is where we ended up:

Funny story/another lesson this house taught me: It’s not until my tiling ordeal that I started noticing that the tiles in our hallway (which I assume were laid in the 1970s or whatever year we weren’t the owners) were also not perfectly flat! So some professionals did as good of a job that we did and I was beating myself up over it. Did I notice until now that my feet didn’t perfectly glide over several tiles? Nope! I didn’t notice and didn’t mind. Reminder: It’s not necessary to get your projects to a perfect state. Give yourself grace. Especially when it’s your first time doing something.

Tiling made us feel like we are capable of doing anything to our house now. But it also made us seriously aware that we don’t WANT to. And that’s OK. If we can help it, we hope to never tile again. (From my fingertips to God’s eyes!)

I’ve seen tutorials and Instagram reels  about painting vanities, but none I came across had the exact one that I had. I doubted whether I could paint it and had resigned to putting it back in as is. Two guys at the hardware store told me it wasn’t worth the effort to stain this material. So I decided at the last minute to give paint a try and see what happens. The original “wood” stain didn’t go with my vision for the bathroom, so I really didn’t want to leave it as is. I wanted a darker stain and for it to match the shelf that I plan to DIY and install. 

How I painted it.

I sanded it with 120 grit. I made sure to mask up and do this outside, because this is not the material you want to inhale. Sanding it with the correct grit made a big difference for me.

I sanded it previously and the primer did NOT stick. It almost immediately started to part at random points like Moses parted the red sea. I was close to crashing out as my gen Zers say, because if this didn’t work I had ruined the vanity by sanding and priming it and would need to purchase another one. I didn’t want to spend any more money. 

This is the panicked picture I took to get advice from the hardware employees (taking a good picture for y’all was the last thing on my mind. So sorry!). I headed out to the hardware store to get a different primer or just cry in front of strangers. Whichever came first. The very knowledgeable employee in the paint department told me I could use BIN Killner or Zinnser…I had the latter at home, so we went back home and decided to try again. I used the correct grit this time and went back over the vanity with the sander. 

I primed it again after re-sanding using the correct grit. This time it worked! I primed it with a roller and used a brush for the tight spaces. Then I went over it again as much as I could with the roller to erase the brush strokes. Example of this in the video:

After the primer dried, I did 2 coats of semi-gloss paint. We used Good Jeans by Clare Paint. It looked fantastic! I applied it with the roller and the brush just as I did the primer:

This is my fav project to date because it came out beautifully after a near disaster. I was dubious at the possibility of being successful with it. I still went for it and though things didn’t start out in my favor, with a little help, the correct grit and some anxiety, it turned out better than I hoped for. This was the first DIY project where I felt very accomplished and like I DID THAT! 

Next time I would like to try a deglosser first as I have already had to touch up 2 spots. Everything else is in great shape. 9/10 would do it again. And will! Because we have another one just like it waiting for its moment to shine. Stay tuned for that as I’ll test out some new things.

We moved into our 1970s house in 2021 and one of the rooms that was NOT one of the reasons we put in an offer, was our half bathroom. The fixtures were all builder grade and the 1970’s wallpaper was old, had obvious water damage to it and it had a granny feel that wasn’t the granny chic vibe that I LOVE. It had to go. This proved to be harder than we expected. So my fit of “I must do it now at 1 am” didn’t do anything but leave half ripped paper on the wall.

Lesson 1 of DIY: Don’t start a project with a fit of rage at 1 am with no plan. This ripped section stayed like that for months. Haunting me. Smh.

I was born cheap because my father is cheap. Biology 101. Genetics. So when we began the process of removing our wallpaper, I wanted to utilize hacks on the internet that did not require us buying a new tool or product. I also didn’t want to use chemicals because I’m crunchy-lite. If I can avoid chemicals in my home, I will.

Here are methods that I tried and how well they worked:

Removing it by hand:
See previous picture. Rolls eyes. This method appears to work well for newer peel and stick wallpapers. However, the backing (which is the hardest part to remove) stayed intact for this old paper. However, doing this step was necessary even though it didn’t remove the whole thing.
It is a necessary step 1 for all the other methods as well. 

Spraying warm water & soap:
This required a lot of water to soak it into the paper. When it did, I tried scraping it off but it would just crumble into smaller pieces. I soon realized I would lose my hand trying to tackle the whole bathroom this way. I abandoned it. This could work for a smaller space.

Spraying warm water & fabric softener
This had a similar effect (or lack thereof) as the soapy water. I abandoned this one even quicker.

Wallpaper Steamer
This was the one! This did it! I reluctantly rented a wallpaper steamer from my local hardware store and it gave me hope that I could get this wretched paper off. I put on a good Afrobeats playlist and got to work. It was hard on my wrists but I enjoyed it and found it satisfying to FINALLY get the wallpaper off.

Here’s what I would suggest if you’re getting ready to remove an old wallpaper

• Rent the steamer at a time when you can start the job right away. There’s a slight learning curve and you’ll need a fair amount of time. You don’t want to have to pay for extra time. 
• If you have a wallpaper filled house that you’d like to tackle, do the math and decide if it makes more sense to buy a steamer. Depending on how long you’ll take to tackle the rooms, a purchase might make more sense for you
• Protect your floors and fixtures with a tarp or protective paper. I didn’t do this and pulled bits of wallpaper out for dayyyys. 
• Test out how long it takes to penetrate the walls for the wallpaper to come off easily. If it doesn’t come off easily when you scrape it, put the steamer back into place and try again for a few more seconds. You don’t want to have it steaming up the wall for too long either. You still need to protect the walls from water damage
• You’ll need a putty knife to scrape the backing off after steaming. I used a plastic one. 
• The room will get HOT, so stay hydrated and take short breaks. This is imperative for your hands as well because holding up the steamer and putty knife while scraping is hard on your wrists
• Give the wall a day to fully dry.

I can’t recommend using a power sander enough. I bought one for this project and it was a lot of fun for me and sped up the process tremendously. I recommend hooking up your sander to your shop vac to reduce your exposure to dust from the wallpaper and the walls. Don’t overdo it, because again the walls are to be protected. Once you’ve gotten the paper residue off, you can patch up any necessary areas, sand again, and repeat, if necessary and then get ready to paint. 

I had to do a fair amount of sanding because some parts of the backing were left behind. I honestly started doubting that these walls would ever look normal and started willing myself into accepting textured walls via wallpaper backing. Priming the walls is a must. I recommend 2 coats.

Look at the difference that one coat of primer did! I was still nervous though.

I’ve never been prouder of my work because I didn’t think we could get it looking normal. Patches of wallpaper backing were still peaking out even after we sanded it, but I knew I couldn’t keep sanding it down to oblivion, so I trusted the process and primed it. Thankfully, priming alone did the trick. We loved it so much we thought about keeping the primer as the paint lol, but we decided to go full steam ahead in our Good Jeans color. It was my first time trying Clare Paint and baybeeee. Yes! Highly recommend.