Five Easy Tips for Painting Your Cozy Home
The winter months are a good time to get some indoor work done on your small or tiny home. Painting your Cozy Home walls is one of those projects that can be done while you are stuck inside. The Cozy Home Plans blog has a post on the types of colors that work best in a small home, but here are a few tips on how to simplify your painting job and keep from making a mess or getting frustrated while working in a small space.
1. One of the worst things about painting is trying to get around awkward, permanent objects. This includes the toilet tank. A good tip is to cover the toilet tank with sealable plastic wrap (the kind you use for sandwiches) to keep the paint from getting on the porcelain tank.
2. When you are taping off your trim or other woodwork with painter’s tape, here’s a tip to keep the tape from peeling up and to prevent bleeding. Lay the tape onto the woodwork and press it down with the corner of a putty knife. Let the tape stick out perpendicular to the trim to act as a little protective roof to catch paint drips. A great way to then get that painter’s tape off is to soften it with the heat of a hair dryer. Use the dryer on the low setting until the tape is soft and then pull it off at a 90-degree angle.
3. Don’t you hate it when you scrape a little extra paint off your brush and it goes running down the side of the can? Take a screwdriver and a hammer and poke a few holes in the lid edge of the paint can. The leftover paint will drip back down into the can.
4. Soften and loosen up spilled latex paint with pimple pads. These pads (usually used for the faces of teenage boys) will soften up the paint, but won’t harm your wood or other surfaces. The pads work best on paint that’s been dry just a few hours.
5. Renew old painter’s or masking tape by putting it in the microwave for 10 seconds.
We have some Drywall Tips and Electrical ones if your project is a little bigger.
Photo by OlgerFallasPainting/Flickr
By Christina Nellemann for [Cozy Home Plans]
Build a Wall Niche for Extra Storage
Niche, alcove, recess, cubby. They go by different names, but they are useful for one thing: extra storage and additional design for your Cozy home. Installing a wall or shower niche is a simple project that any homeowner can do, and the best thing is that you can install or build them directly into the framing of an existing wall.
Any 2×4 framed home will have space in-between each of the studs where you can build in a small niche or cubby to hold shelving or a ledge for collectibles, a photo or painting or a vase with flowers. You can also install lighting in your niche. As long as there is no closet behind the area where you want the niche, you can strip any existing drywall, fir out the area between the studs and then install additional drywall in the niche. Recessed LED lights or puck lights with a standard 120 volt outlet can be placed into the niche to light up your items and throw extra light into a room or hallway.
Some hardware stores sell decorative wall niches that can be installed directly into a hole in your wall frame. These pre-made niches come in many different designs to match your house style and decor. You will just need to cut the hole in your drywall to match the niche. This Old House has a good tutorial on how to install a decorative wall niche.
Photos courtesy of Cozy Home Plans, No-Curb and This Old House
Simple Electrical Projects: 8 Tips
Don’t be afraid to attempt some of the electrical projects for your cozy home. Electricity should be properly respected, and when worked with safely and correctly it can be very rewarding. Adding accent and specific task lighting creates a unique and functional home that’s uniquely yours. Here are 8 steps for installing switch boxes and plugs in your tiny home:
1. To eliminate the possibility of shock, locate and shut off the correct breaker switches on the main electrical box. Granted, most of us guys think it’s no fun unless “It’s Alive”, and it’s going to be dark with no electricity, but it’s the safest thing to do.
2. When adding a remodel box to existing construction, having a torpedo level close by makes it perfect every time. Check your codes for proper heights or measure the distances of other outlets and switches close by to determine the proper height.
3. Use the correct tools. On the photo above you will see that the electrical outlet screws have a square tip rather than a Philips.
4. The best habit to get into is protecting the wires. Take a few extra seconds to tape around the sides of the outlet which secures and protects the wires. This is definitely the best thing to do when you working with metal boxes.
5. When attaching wires with a wirenut first make sure they are all the same length. Secondly, make sure that the exposed area of the wire is not too long, causing the exposed wire to be seen outside the wirenut. Thirdly, continue to twist the wirenut until it begins to twist the wire also. This guarantees a tight connection and protects the wire from pulling apart. You can also wrap the nut with some electrical tape to further guarantee a tight connection.
6. Leave plenty of wire coming out of the box. This might seem wasteful (especially with the cost of wire these days) but you will need the extra wire to work with. It’s much easier to take away wire than to add wire, and future repairs and modifications will require additional wire.
7. Use the right wire for the job. Typically 12/2 gauge wire “yellow” is for electrical outlets and 14/2 gauge wire “white” is for lighting. Make sure to check your local electrical code for breaker sizes and load limits per run. Yes, 12 gauge is more definitely more expensive and kind of a pain to mash into small boxes so be prepared for that.
8. Choose the proper wirenut for the job. They come in all shapes and sizes, but they are rated for the number of wires on the specific gauge being used.
BONUS TIP
Here’s a unique situation: sometimes hot and neutral are not always black and white. Note the black electrical tape on the orange wire in the above photo. This is to let the next person who works on the box know that it’s the hot wire. Test it anyway. I later discovered that the green grounds in this box were live, and that opened up a whole new set of challenges.
I guess it was a good thing that I didn’t take my own advice about turning off the breaker.
Cozy, Kevin B Harrington
How to Use Drywall Joint Compound or “Mud”
Watching a drywall finisher has taught me a lot. The art of finishing drywall definitely takes some experience to do it quickly and efficiently, but just about anyone can sculpt a masterpiece with a little time and patience. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you’re playing with mud:
1. A 48 lb box of mud will last about as long as a quart of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. So if you think five is enough…buy 10.
2. Avoid the all-purpose kind of mud. It sets up harder than concrete and is very difficult to sand and finish. The Topping is my first choice for everything. Lightweight is okay but it seems to have more air mixed in. This lightens it up but makes it go really fast.
3. Building up the mud in multiple thin layers helps to eliminate some sanding but doing this takes more time because you have to allow for some drying in between layers. This is a perfect strategy for beginners to work on their skills though.
4. Quick set or “Hot Mud”, the fast drying powder that comes in the sacks is mainly for professionals. Beware of its magic properties and never add it to anything you don’t plan on using right away, it will set up even when still wet. Quick set comes in 5, 20, 45 and 90 minute drying times and works great for patching holes.
5. Fill your corners with plenty of mud, especially at the elevations that can easily be bumped while moving furniture. This will reinforce the area and prevent them from being damaged easily. This technique is especially important with bullnose corners due to the way drywall needs to be installed leaving a gaps and open areas.
6. Vinyl corners seem to be easier and more forgiving to work with than metal corners. It’s possible to install them without nails. The nails tend to distort the shape and make them more difficult to finish.
7. Buy a good stainless steel pan, not the plastic one. The steel pan has no little cracks and crevices that mud will stick to while you’re putting it on the wall or ceiling. Cheaper knifes will work but having a good metal pan is very important
8. Using paper dust bags in your wet/dry vac will help contain the drywall dust that will inevitably get everywhere.
9. Buy the largest sanding sponges and cut them in half.
10. Drywall mud can be utilized as cheap and simple wood filler. Try filling in holes and large gaps with mud first, then finish it off with more expensive caulking, etc. later on.
11. Drywall mud has great bonding powers. I once covered a brick plastered wall that was beyond my skills to repair with 1/2 drywall. Simply place several globs of mud on the wall and securely place the sheet against it. When the mud dries the new sheet will be stuck for good, giving you a new fresh surface to texture without losing too much floor space.
12. The boxes of mud are the cheapest way to go. This is how you get it into the bucket without wasting any of the mud: Open the box and fold the plastic over the sides. Place on the edge of the bucket and slowly bounce it causing the material to slide out.
Add one or two cups of water and then mix it up.
13. Consider this technique when making a surface flat again to re-texture.
- Do long smooth rows, leaving a small gap in between them.
- After the rows dry, fill in the center with a smaller taping knife.
- Quickly sand any high spots and then smooth out any areas you missed.
14. Choose a texture that works best with a “not so” perfect subsurface. A light orange peel will require a near perfect surface before application. A hand finished “skip trowel” texture is much more forgiving with a less than perfect surface. It’s my personal favorite and easily provides a Tuscan hand finished look for the walls.
Anyone can take drywall, a few 2x4s, some screws, corners and some imagination to easily create something like this:
Cozy, Kevin B Harrington
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