DIY Perfect Baseboards

As promised, I'm back with more of our Entry Hall Makeover.  Today I'm going to attempt to tell/show you how to get your very own perfect baseboards with the perfectly finished off ends.

We are not pros by any means, total DIY people here.  Everything we do we look up on Pinterest and YouTube.  If you don't already know, those two sites are the best for the DIY types. *wink*

A few weeks ago my honey installed our nice new wood look tile floor and of course it was beautiful so we couldn't leave the bottom edge of the wall exposed like this for very long.  We wanted to add the baseboards back so it would look finished and gorgeous.  Check it out HERE for how we did the floor tile.

You will need to choose the type of baseboard look you're going for first.  We chose a very simple look.  The baseboard itself with a quarter round finish.  This is two separate pieces of wood.  You will also need a chop saw like you see above, or just a miter saw will work.  The reason being, you will need to be able to cut the wood pieces at an angle and it is much easier with the chop saw or a miter saw.

Here you can see the tall flat pieces (baseboard) up against the wall and then the skinnier rounded pieces (quarter round) touching the base board and the floor.  My honey's method was to make all the cuts first and lay everything out for what it would look like, then nail everything into place.

See the before picture above?  This is what we ended up with when he was all done cutting all the pieces to size.  He was NOT happy with that look and he wanted it to look more finished off.  We went straight to Pinterest for solution.  We found it HERE.  The after picture is what he ended up with after reading the very informative article.  So much better huh?

The trick is 45 degree angles.

You should always wear safety glasses when using power tools, but please wear safety glasses for this step because you will be cutting small pieces that could go airborne if they come in contact with the moving saw blade.

1. Turn your saw to the 45 degree cut on the left side like the picture above.  Take the ugly "end" of your 1/4 round and make a 45 degree cut on the very end.  Set it aside.

Make your end cap or return.

2. Take another piece of 1/4 round (this can be a scrap piece) and make a 45 degree cut using the opposite setting (to the right).  Now, return your saw to the center cut setting (middle) and make a straight cut right at the top tip of the right hand 45 you just cut.  You should now have a little tiny wedge or your end cap.

Here are the pieces before they are joined together.  You will need to add a bit of white caulk to the end cap before nailing it in to place, this will help secure it.  Next step is nailing it all in place.  We used our nail gun for a speedier process, but you can also use the old fashioned hammer and nails as well.

Look how nice and finished off those ends look now.  After these are painted, they will be perfect!

To finish off your baseboards completely, you will want to use a white paintable caulk.  Run a very small bead of caulk along all the open gaps.  With a damp finger, run your finger along the caulk bead to smooth it out.  Wipe excess into the nail holes and then if needed, have a damp cloth in your hand for any unneeded caulk.

Gorgeous!  All I have left to do is put a nice fresh coat of white paint on them and we'll be golden!

Hazel there under the little farm table, another one of our inspectors.  She's double checking Daddy's handy work. lol!

Fresh paint for everything coming up and some new decor too! Stay tuned!

Want to see what else we've done in our Entry Hall Makeover?

Porcelain Wood Look Tile Floor
Builder Grade Door Makeover

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

I'm Linking to:
These lovely and FUN parties!
Between Naps on the Porch
The Dedicated House  - (I was featured)

Builder Grade Door Makeover - Saving $$$

We've been steadily working on our Entry Hall Makeover.  Last week I shared how we installed the wood look tile ourselves.  You can find that post HERE.

This week I'll show you how to save a lot of money and make over your builder grade door and hardware to give it a more up to date look.

That lovely brown door up above is the one I wanted to make over so it would look more 2017 than 1982!  These doors are very cheap and flimsy, but we are on a tight budget and can't afford to swap them out right now, so paint it is!

We started by removing the door and all the hardware.  Oh, the hardware is getting a make over too because yall, the new stuff is so spendy!  We have champagne taste on a beer budget! lol!

I cleaned the door really well to get all the dust and whatnot off of it, then I used a roller and some Sherwin Williams HGTV HOME high Gloss paint in Extra White that we bought at Lowe's to give the door a nice new shine.

Next, while the door was drying, I was back inside the house and painting the orange toned trim around the door.  TIP: Use foil to line your paint tray for a faster clean up.  Be sure to tape off all the areas that you do not want white paint on...like your brand new wood look tile!  I also put down my painting drop cloth, because I am a messy painter.  I like using my small angle brush and a small roller, but you can use what you're comfortable with.

Tah Dah! Looks better already!!  I love a good paint make over.  Speaking of a paint make over, if you have any ideas on what color I should paint the inside of my front door, let me know.  It can't be white any longer, it needs a lovely shade of ____________?!?!?!!!

While I was painting, I went ahead and painted the trim on the entry into the hall, it was orange toned too.  There's big Zel doing his inspection of Mama's paint job.  I think he liked it!

Remember when I said the hardware got a makeover too?  I used Rust-Oleum for metal Paint and Primer in one in Oil Rubbed Bronze (ORB) spray paint to match the front door hardware.

Grab a piece of cardboard first.  A handy tip to paint your screw heads, just screw all the screws into a piece of wood so they are standing up and it makes for easy painting that way.  Lay out everything else far enough apart so you can get all the sides and edges.  Tape off the working parts of the door knob because you don't want paint on that.  I also use little blocks of scrap wood to prop up the small things so I can better spray them.  Use light, thin coats.  Let each coat dry really well, don't rush it.  I used about 3 coats on each side.

I love how fresh it looks now.  Amazing what a little paint does huh?  Please join us next week when we show you a sweet trick to get perfect baseboards.  You're gonna love this one, I did! My honey is the best!

Want to see what else we've done in our Entry Hall Makeover?

Porcelain Wood Look Tile Floor
Book Page Wreath 
DIY Perfect Baseboards

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!
I'm Linking to:
These lovely and FUN parties!
Between Naps on the Porch

Porcelain Wood Look Tile Floor

This project, literally was not planned, at all!  One morning we are sitting on the couch and my honey says, (pointing into the the entry hall) "let's rip out that floor".  Um, ok, then what? lol!  I wasn't going to argue with him though because we haven't done a DIY project in forever and I have hated this floor since we moved in 6 years ago!

The before and after is so huge!  I still just stop and stare into the hallway and think how much better it looks now.  I love it so  much!  Note: this picture makes the new tile look way lighter than it is, Instagram filters in action!

This old tile is a terracotta type tile and as you can see it was NOT properly installed to begin with.  I believe they must have had a limited amount of tile and just made the grout lines huge to make it all work out.  When you walked on it, it sounded hollow.  Yall, I just did not like it!

Let's just say I was not sad to see my honey rip this floor out.  I was his biggest cheerleader that day!

The first few tiles were very easy to remove because they practically had no mastic underneath them.  I guess they were short on a lot of things when they did this project.  Weird!

The floor near the living room had lots of whatever this is they used to place the tiles down, then it got thinner and thinner as it came closer to the front door.

Next, we ran to Lowe's and picked out some tile.  I knew I wanted the wood look tiles for sure.  I've been drooling over that type tile since it became popular.  We bought the tiles for the kitchen/dining room at Lowe's too, so we grabbed a few tiles of that style to compare.  You see, some day (soon I hope) we plan on tiling the living room in the same wood look tile, which meets right up to the kitchen/dining room floor, so it kinda needs to look good.  The light color tile on the right looked too much like our other tile (top right) so we went with the darker one on the left so there would be a bit of contrast and hopefully look better than blending in with the existing floors.

This is our tiles that we ended up with.  Kaden Walnut #0591545.  For this job we used 3 full boxes and 3/4 of another one.

I didn't really document the step my honey took after we returned from Lowe's because it was extremely messy and dusty and I was just trying to make sure the dust cloud didn't get too much into my house.

What he did was try and smooth down that "whatever it was" that they used to stick the old tiles down.  It was hard as my head and not budging at all!  He tried using a chisel and hammer to chip it away, that didn't work, so he tried sanding it down with the grinder, that didn't really work either but he worked for about an hour until he got it as smooth as possible so the new tiles would sit pretty level.

The first few tiles he laid down looked extremely dark and I immediately got nervous that we had chosen the wrong color tiles.  Our home is small and I didn't want it to look smaller by any means!

But as he laid down more tiles, it started to look lighter and I loved it!  Even with the spacers still sitting in it, I liked it 100% more than the old tiles that used to be there!

Now for grout,  what a messy step!  We chose a dark grout this time since the majority of the tiles were dark.  We used an un-sanded grout in the shade Mocha U42, also from Lowe's.

We waited the recommended 20 minutes, then started to do the clean up, that was my job and WOW!  For such a small space, it was so hard to get this darker grout up.  I don't remember it being such a chore  in the kitchen area and that was a big space!  We had two buckets of water going for quite a while.  I used the fan to make the drying process go faster.

This is not a good picture because it was late in the day, but believe me when I tell you its so nice and pretty and not hollow sounding when you walk on it! lol!

You may have already noticed that the picture above this one shows the closet door painted, that's another post because I not only painted the door, but all the trim and I totally made the old door hardware match the new front door hardware with a little ORB spray paint. Saving those $$$$ yall!

If you'd like to see how we did our other tiled floors, look here:

Tiling Our Kitchen Floor
Tiles and Tribulation of our Laundry Room 
DIY Perfect Baseboards

 It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!
I'm Linking to:
These lovely and FUN parties!
Between Naps on the Porch

My Pioneer Woman Collection

Do you have a collection?  I have several to be honest.  Other than collecting all the old vintage things I can get my hands on, my most recent collection started back at Christmas last year.  In case you don't know who the Pioneer Woman is, her name is Ree Drummond.  I first started following her blog many years ago.  She now has a food network show, a mercantile shop and now this collection of kitchen wares too.

My family gave me lots of the Pioneer Woman collection dishes and such.  I got a full set of dishes and a full set of pots and pans along with some little odds and ins too.  There are so many different print versions but they all seem to match somehow.  I don't have a lot compared to some, but my collection is growing little by little.

This picture shows almost all I got for Christmas, so its a pretty good start to a collection.  There are lots of pieces to collect and they (Walmart) are also ever changing and adding to the collection.

I took one of her tablecloths and turned it into a curtain for my kitchen.  See how HERE.

All of the pictures (except one) you see in this post are from my Instagram account.  I post on there frequently but most of all on Wednesdays so I can participate in the #PioneerWomanWednesday.  I have met so many ladies that collect these pieces too! Recipe for the above picture is HERE.

My Instagram user name is ddcamp170 if you want to follow me and join in on the fun.  You never know what you'll see each week and you will definitely get some awesome ideas on how to style your pieces as well.

I actually use all of the items I have almost on a daily basis.  Of course the pretty pieces always make a picture more colorful and interesting too, that never hurts!

This post was, and continues to be, a hit on Instagram.  My honey gave me this pitcher for Mother's Day and I've used it for several different applications, but mostly it holds my wooden utensils.

These small bowls are always helpful on salad night and they are gorgeous to boot! Makes for a colorful table setting.

See that measuring cup in the center there?  I use that thing so much.  I got it because it was so very pretty, but boy oh boy is it ever functional as well.  It has the cup measurements inside. I love it!

Can you spot all the Pioneer Woman collection pieces in this picture?  I love the pots and pans set, very nice to use.

You can pull a centerpiece together in a snap with her beautiful collection, just look at all that color!

I loved this combination so much, I decided to keep it over in the kitchen close to the stove so I could reach everything easily.

I even made little under the sink curtains with the leftover material I had after making the kitchen window curtain from the tablecloth.  So cute!

These two pieces are my most recent purchase and even though they don't match exactly, they go together.

The sweet little colander and dish towels are my very most recent addition to my collection and I received these from my partner in the #PioneerWomanGiftExchange that we recently had on Instagram.  It was so cool to see everyone's new pieces they received.  Rumor has it that we will do another exchange in the Fall this year. YAY!

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!
I'm Linking to:
These lovely and FUN parties!
Between Naps on the Porch

Baked Burrito Casserole

Our favorite type of food is Mexican food, we do live in Texas after all and there is plenty of it!  When I'm looking for new recipes, I tend to gravitate to the TexMex style.  I also like quick, easy and less mess recipes.  This one just fits that bill!

This is one more for the keepers list.  It's good yall!  Now let me just tell you right up front that this IS NOT a healthy type recipe and you probably won't want to have this too often, but every now and again won't hurt, right?

This is the cheesy goodness after its done and right out of the oven. Yep, comfort food for sure!

Baked Burrito Casserole

1 pound of lean ground hamburger (or turkey)
1 small onion, chopped
1 packet of taco seasoning or 2-3 tblsp of my DIY taco seasoning HERE
1 can re-fried beans
1 can cream of mushroom soup, undiluted (I like the low sodium type)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 pack flour tortillas (I used about (6) cut into strips)
2 1/2 cups of shredded Mexican blend cheese

Optional: 
1 small can of green chilies or sliced jalapenos. (I use green chilies because they are milder in the "hot" category)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a large skillet, cook the ground meat and onion until the meat is no longer pink and drain if needed.
Add the taco seasoning and re-fried beans and heat through.

In a separate bowl, blend the mushroom soup with the sour cream.  Spread half of the soup mixture in the bottom of your 9 x 13 baking dish.

Add a layer of 3 flour tortillas to the top of the soup mixture. I've found that if you cut the tortillas into strips, they are easier to place evenly over your mixture.

Spread a layer of the ground meat mixture and top with about one (1) cup of cheese.

Repeat all of these layers and top with the remaining cheese.

Bake for about 20 minutes until cheese is nice and melty.

I like to serve this with a side salad, some tortilla chips and some fresh cilantro.  So good!

Want more recipes using my DIY Taco Seasoning?

Turkey Taco Nachos
Skinny Taco Pie
Creamy Taco Sauce
Mexican Beef and Rice Skillet

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!
I'm Linking to:
These lovely and FUN parties!
Between Naps on the Porch