Painting a toilet seat

Our toilet seat (white painted wood) was badly stained and worn. I followed the procedure here, using similar products from the same manufacturer (cost for spray primer and paint under $10 altogether), and repainted it.

I used a separate primer, and did two coats of that first, followed by three coats of paint. I missed the part where she said she used gloss paint; I used semi-gloss.

Lessons learned:

1.  Beware of modern innovations; I had to look online to find out how to even get our particular model of toilet seat off the toilet. One you know the magic secret, it is very easy. Without the magic secret, you can't do it without breaking pieces of the hinges. (We have windows like that too, here.)

2.  Once the seat is off, expect some fun cleaning, especially if you have multiple boys.

3.  Pulling off the bumper pads on the seat was no problem (with a small flat screwdriver); they have plastic pegs on the back side that slide into holes.

4.  I was hoping to be able to remove the hinges so I could lay both seat and lid flat for painting at the same time, but the screws were too corroded for me to feel confident about doing that. I ended up putting the whole thing on its side, alternating the sides from one coat to the next.

5.  Primer and paint will not really fill in any rough spots; better sand these well beforehand.

6.  Don't overcoat the area around the hinges trying to get every last bit covered. Don't worry if the white plastic hinges get painted; they will still work.

7.  Thin coats dry a lot faster.

8.  The paint is very white, and it is a cooler white. My bathroom, between toilet, seat, tub, baseboards, counter, and toilet paper, has six different whites going on in one small area, and now this new white sticks out a bit. I think I can live with that, but I'm sure that some people cannot.


EDITED TO ADD:  In use, the new paint job was pristine for about three weeks, and then started wearing away in the same way the original paint had.  I gave the underside of the seat new coats of  spray paint in October, which went quite quickly and easily compared to the work I did above.  Paint isn't the most durable, but it is relatively easy to refresh.

Sharpening scrapers

Cabinet scrapers aren't usually included in the modern toolbox, but they work very well for smoothing surfaces--better than sandpaper--and I highly recommend them.

A simple thin, flat piece of steel will work for scraping, but if the edges are sharpened and burnished correctly, it is much more effective. Some woodworkers have developed specialized scraper sharpenings for different work, but just the basics will get you pretty far along.

New cabinet scrapers usually come unsharpened, and should be sharpened before the first use.

There is a good article here on how to sharpen and shape a scraper.  (And an even better one here, with pictures.) The basic idea is that you make the edge of the scraper perpendicular (or square) to the sides, and then put pressure on the edge of each side (using a burnisher--a piece of smooth steel that is of harder steel than the scraper, such as a tool made of tool steel) to make the steel overhang the scraper's edge by a tiny bit:  "raising a burr". Then use the burnisher again to bend the burr back toward the side. The end result should be that there is a tiny, continuous blade of sharpened steel all around the scraper (and perpendicular to its surface). This is what does the cutting when the scraper is used.

When I sharpened my scrapers, I didn't use blocks or jigs, but did it all freehand. It took some fiddling to figure out how to position my hands and the scraper and the burnisher to make the metal go how I wanted, but eventually I got there.

The first article also pointed out some interesting things about how burnishing actually hardens the steel of the scraper and makes the cutting edge last longer.

Strawberry glob update

The lady who made this dessert for us was kind enough to share the recipe with me. My guess on the ingredients was far off. Also, the actual name is "Strawberry Glop", not "Strawberry Glob".

The recipe is as follows:

Strawberry Glop

2 10-ounce packages of quick-thaw strawberries
6 ounce strawberry gelatin
3 Cups whipped topping

Put gelatin into 2 Cups of boiling water.
Add strawberries.
Stir until berries separate and gelatin thickens.
Stir in whipped topping.

Homemade socks

I retired a few pairs of my socks recently, and for some reason I don't feel that buying new socks at this time is the right answer. So this is what I have been doing instead:

1.  Repairing holes in socks by darning. Way back when, I tried darning cotton socks with wool yarn, and didn't like how the results felt on my feet. This time around, I have been using wool yarn on wool socks, and crochet cotton on cotton socks. The basic idea of darning is simple:  replace the missing material with a woven-in-place mesh that is anchored all around to non-deteriorated material.

I don't much like weaving, but weaving on a scale as small as this is tolerable.

2.  Knitting new socks. We had almost a pound of fine, matching wool yarn in our stash, which apparently cost my husband 50 cents altogether at a garage sale or something. I have started knitting a pair of socks from this yarn, but it will take a while, probably until fall (at least).

3.  Sewing socklike leggings or tights. It occurred to me, out of the blue, that perhaps some of the excess kids' clothes that are sitting in our garage waiting to be donated would work for making longer stockings. I looked and found a sweatshirt that had enough fabric. From past experience I knew how to cut and sew stockings quickly:  I don't bother doing anything fancy at the heel, I just make a long, tapered tube that has the right circumference at the right points (and that is closed at the small end. the toe), and finish it with some elastic at the top.

The heels do wear out first, but that would have happened anyway. With my feet, the circumferences at the ankle, heel, and widest part of the foot are all about the same, so I just get the width right and let it sort itself out in the wearing. (It does leave a wrinkle at the front ankle, which I am not fussy about.)

I have also used T-shirt fabrics, including some with spandex, for these before. Their lifespan, I would say, is "slightly better than pantyhose."

4.  Learning from experience. The socks I knitted from the nice wool yarn, last time around, ended up accidentally being shrunk into kid-size socks (very thick and warm ones). The socks I made out of recycled wool blanket yarn did not felt at all, and also stretched out a fair amount, and they have needed darning at various times.  The latest yarn I am using now will felt, I know, so I am knitting them slightly large.

Read the fine print

I was reading the Terms and Conditions for a regional bank that recently bought up a local bank, and I was struck by the blatantly hostile tone throughout the whole mess of legalese. Their terms, needless to say, are extremely unfavorable, from a potential customer's point of view.

The tone of their big pictures-low text sales piece was completely the opposite:  "Happy Happy Friendly Bank, Happy Happy Sunshine You:  Happy."

It took me a bit to figure out that both of these tones were completely intentional. The Terms and Conditions are hostile on purpose; they are meant to drive away potential banking customers:  the ones who can read, and do math, and plan ahead for any length of time longer than two minutes.

The customers that they want are the people who will only glance at the fluff sales literature, and never read the Terms and Conditions of how their accounts can and will be pillaged.  "Pillaged" is not too strong a word here...it was that bad.  This bank is going to take their hard-earned money and use it to gobble up some more small banks...then rinse and repeat.

Jesus, remember me in your Kingdom.

While thinking about this, I randomly found Isaiah chapter 17, where God promises that plunderers will themselves be plundered. Immediately after reading that, I randomly opened my Bible to Jeremiah chapter 30, where God says basically the same thing (but to a different prophet at a different time in history). The message here seems clear:  Justice is coming.

 

Book review: Wary Meyers' Tossed and Found

The full title is Wary Meyers' Tossed and Found:  Unconventional Design from Castoffs. The book is a few years old now, but still good.

Authors Linda and John Meyers present a wide range of items for the home, made or remade, mostly using salvaged materials. (There were a couple of jobs that they sent out to professional fabricators.) Together they are "Wary Meyers". John formerly worked for Anthropologie designing window displays; I've been told these displays are extremely creative, but I've never seen any for myself.

Anyway I found this book wildly inspiring, as well as informative, although annoying at a couple of points.

I'll start with the elements that make this book one that I can highly recommend:

1.  Their examples of creatively using and re-using materials, from brand-new plexiglass and fabric all the way down to pool noodles and a piece of wood pried from an old sofa's weathered skeleton.

2.  The sketchbook drawings showing all the brainstorming that takes place before they choose an idea to pick up and carry through with.

Seriously, these are well worth seeing, but if you can't, you can easily do something similar yourself:  Take a sheet of plain paper, turn it sideways, and make a bunch of little sketches at first while you play with different ideas for a material (turn off the internal critic for a while); then make larger and more detailed sketches as you close in on what you actually like and want to build. Having the paper be wider horizontally than vertically does a lot more than you might think for broadening your thinking.

3.  At a couple of points, they give hints for knowing when to stop working on a project; how to avoid overworking it. For me, this usually isn't a problem, as my children ensure that I can barely get anything done, let alone overdone, but it is still good to know what to watch out for. Their examples were a chair, where they painted the seat but later regretted also painting the rusty legs, and a (faux) mantel made out of scrap wood, which they regretted painting white, liking the mix of wood tones better.

The points that were annoying to me mostly are a matter of envy on my part:  they were able to go all over the place (childfree), buying and scrounging all sorts of things, and then to spend hours and hours and hours putting them together in new, creative ways, and eventually they were even getting paid to do that and write about it. They have a great deal of design knowledge; there are allusions in the book that are going right over my head.

Experimental pleated paper lampshade

I've been playing with the idea of changing out the fabric sleeve (which is cylindrical) over the frame for the shade of the hanging light I made a while back. I tried just plain white fabric, which was okay, but not that great against the whiter ceiling.

The other thing I've tried so far is plain white paper, pleated. The idea came from something one of the kids did with a piece of paper and some tape:  folding it in pleats and then running a couple of strips of "invisible" tape across it, holding the pleats in place. It looked (to me) modern and manufactured; like something much more sophisticated than mere paper and tape.

So I made a quick lampshade along those lines. It is currently being held up by a couple of clothespins. It, too, is not quite right for the place where it is, but it will do until I find something better.

Practicing coziness

Our family is being clobbered by a nasty cold virus and a big snowstorm at the same time. My latest big project has been stalled at Almost Done for several days, and I have no energy to finish it.

But I have kept up with the most essential housework, we have plenty of good things to eat, and we are nice and warm, with interesting things to do while the snow flies.

Size 3 knitting needles from bamboo skewers

I needed some knitting needles small enough (in diameter) to handle fine yarn.

At first I worked on making some from a piece of heavy steel wire that we had; cut to length with a hacksaw, shape the ends with a metalworking file, and sand smooth. But they are weightier than I want to deal with while knitting thinner yarn.

Then I went looking through our bucket-of-dowels-and-such, to see if we had any very thin dowels left; no luck.

So I ended up in the kitchen, raiding my husband's supply of bamboo skewers. They just needed a little sanding (220 grit) to smooth them and blunt the tips a little. They appear to be about a size three.

Cheap round chopsticks are around a size 8 knitting needle, and 1/4 inch dowels are size 10.

Research: Cost per 1000 calories

I've been doing some investigation into grocery costs, and settled on cost per 1000 calories as one measure to look into.  (Not all calories are nutritionally equal, of course!!!)

The idea came from a comment I read online, someone saying that cakes from store-bought mixes were the cheapest calories that his mom could get for their family.

I don't buy cake mixes, and haven't checked into what they cost yet, but it is true that the cheapest calories I've figured so far have been for white flour and sugar, at about $0.25 to $0.30 per 1000 calories, and then canola oil at $0.33. 

I want to gather a bit more data before I post the whole list; there are some things that we buy in bulk, rather than at the grocery store.

I did notice, though, that one of the most expensive foods that we buy for our family is plain yogurt (not low-fat). I have at times made yogurt at home, using store-bought yogurt only for starter cultures; the only hard thing with that is maintaining the right temperature for long enough. I used to use a little electric mug warmer, with a stack of metal juice cans ends for spacers, as the mug warmer alone would keep a quart jar of yogurt rather too warm.

But I have an idea now for a different way to maintain a moderate temperature, so I will try it out and report on my results.

Flat diapers experiment

I had a couple of used flannel sheets to work with a while back, and decided to experiment by making flat diapers out of them, instead of prefolds. (A set of prefold instructions, not by me, are here; I use a similar method--a center pad sandwiched between two outer layers--but I cut the outside layers as one piece, if possible.)

For flat diapers, all you do is cut large rectangles and hem them. To use one on a baby, you fold the diaper into a smaller rectangle, or a triangle, trying to put the greatness thickness where it will be needed the most. Then pin at the sides with diaper pins, and put on a water-resistant diaper cover, which could be PUL, or wool, or nylon "plastic pants", or an empty pocket diaper (any of which may need to be handwashed, depending on your washer; read the manual).

(Diaper pins are not so easy to find anymore, except online; the last time we bought them was by special order.)

The main advantage of flat diapers is that they are easier (and faster) to wash and dry than prefolds.

I did notice, though, that they seemed to be shedding more lint in the dryer than my prefold diapers ever did. I think this is because the entirety of both sides of the fabric is exposed; with a prefold diaper, the inner layers are more protected from abrasion, and any lint they shed might be trapped inside the diaper.

So I expect that the flat diapers will have a somewhat shorter lifespan than the prefolds. A prefold might take me 45 minutes or so to cut and sew; a flat diaper under ten minutes.

I think I got about ten flat diapers out of a single full/double flannel sheet, but that was probably from the sheet that was very worn in the middle.

I will also add that I was reminded recently about the old practice of "turning" an old (flat) sheet to extend its lifespan:  cut it down the middle the long way, and make the old middle into the new edges, and the old edges into the new middle. This leaves a seam down the center, but that is tolerable. I have a sheet (made by L.L. Bean) that has been going strong for over a decade, which I plan to use this technique on, when the time comes.

A new line of sight

I discovered only recently that if you sit in exactly the right place in my house, at the right time of day and the right time of year, you can just see a local landmark through the trees.

Serendipity:  finding something that you weren't even looking for.


(My second book:  The Serendipitous Sabbatical:  Rest in Unexpected Places)

Sabbatical observation: Hair refractions

One day during my sabbatical, I was looking at how strands of my hair refracted direct sunlight.  (Being careful to not look directly at the sun, of course, as everyone should have learned by last summer.) Refraction means that the rays of white daylight were bent slightly by the strands of hair, and so the hair acted like a miniature prism and smeared the light out into little rainbows. 

I am very nearsighted, and for me small or narrow light sources blur out quite widely, so I had no problem seeing the colors in them.

What I noticed is that the most direct sunlight gave me purer rainbow colors, but light that was not quite so direct gave me rainbow colors that were blended with my hair color (brown), and these resulting colors were ones that were familiar to me....

...Because they are exactly the same colors that were recommended for women of my coloring by the Color Me Beautiful method (a "dress by your color season" book from the 1980's).

I don't know how well this can be seen with other people's eyes, or other people's hair, but for me it was quite interesting.

If you want more on the science of hair refraction, here is an older paper from Stanford on modeling the optical effects of hair.

Decoupaged wastebasket

I missed the opportunity to buy a plastic wastebasket in the color I wanted, while that color was still in style.  But there is more than one way to skin a horse....

I had a sheet of paper from one of my marbling-with-shaving-cream experiments (method described briefly here), marbled in the color that I wanted. I used decoupage medium to glue it to one side of our black wastebasket, and then sealed it with another coat of decoupage medium.

I don't know how to do this without the paper wrinkling to some extent, but the marbled pattern hides the wrinkles fairly well.

This wastebasket lives under our bathroom sink; now it is a welcome burst of color when I open the cabinet door.

There is room for improvement, though, in that the wastebasket still shows a strip of black at the bottom; I should have papered it from the bottom up rather than from the top down, since the top edge is usually covered by a plastic bag.