The Big Reveal! DIY Farmhouse Laundry Doors!

I posted a teaser on Facebook last week about my latest project, and it's finally done!  I found some really cool projects on Pinterest to re-do bi-fold and hollow-core type doors without costing an arm and a leg and without having to buy new doors.   The one that I liked the most was creating "farmhouse" style doors on bi-fold doors.   The place I wanted to change the most was at the entry, and the doors in front of our washer and dryer.    Here is a before picture, when I first decided to paint the doors.

They're pretty ugly, eh?  In case you're wondering, the darker door on the left is the newly painted one.   














The first thing I had to do was cut the strips out of 1/4" plywood.  Using anything thicker would have made the doors much too heavy.  I'm not a fan of saws, so Greg cut these for me on the table saw. I then had to paint them.  I decided on paint, instead of stain, because all of the other wood in our kitchen is painted.  Because these are not "perfect" there are sometimes a bit of a space between the boards.  























I lined it all up and decided that the dark paint underneath wouldn't work, so I basically painted "stripes" on the doors where the strips would be meeting. 

Then it was time to glue the boards to the doors.  I decided to use some small finish nails to help hold the boards down (and not need clamps), and to add a bit of authenticity to the doors. 

After adding the main boards, I added the rest of the "decorative" boards.   Abby was a big help, and made all of the more difficult cuts that needed to be done!  She is a totally awesome worker and will just keep going and going and going when she wants to get something done and done correctly!  

I think the hardest part was making the crossbucks for the bottom of the door.  Abby spent a good deal of time getting the angles just right and made lots of cuts on sample pieces.   We didn't have any exact plans, as the Pinterest post I based this on didn't have that sort of information.  Every door is different, so I'm not giving any measurements, either.  

We have to make a few more adjustments on the doors to have them line up properly, but for the most part, they are done!  I am SO pleased with this and could not have done this without the help of Greg and Abby!  I have two more doors in the kitchen that I plan to do in this style.    I'm thinking about painting the trim the same color as the door, but haven't come to a final decision on color for that just yet, but I'm not happy with the darker color. 

So, there you have it!  The doors are basically done and I'm thrilled with how they look!  So much better than the original doors.   Hope everyone else is enjoying their projects! 

Blessings to all! 

Julie

More Tests and Surgery in Greg's Future!

It seems to never end for Greg.  As usual, if it's not one thing, it's another.  We are now at the point of one thing AND another!   A few weeks ago, I went with Greg to see an immunologist.  He's had so many sinus infections, even after his sinus surgery that there has to be something going on.  He's had a compromised immune system ever since his bone marrow transplant (on April 12, 2000 -- 18 years ago!), which is completely normal.  His immune system was destroyed by the high dose chemotherapy and total body radiation he had back then.  That is what they have to do in order to give you a *new* immune system from your donor.  In Greg's case, that was his brother, Tommy.  A perfect match!  

So, because he kept getting sinus infections, even after the sinus surgery, we decided to visit the Immunologist to try and figure out if there was something going on with his immune system.  He had blood work done and eight vials were taken.  Some of the tests were specialized enough that they had to be sent to Utah!   

The immunologist advised that two out of the three things they look at with regard to his immune system were low (sorry, I can't remember what they were).  And not just a little low, or near normal, but kind of low, but VERY low.   The first thing he wanted to do was give Greg a pneumococcal pneumonia vaccine, because he's never had one.  He did have a pneumonia vaccine a while back, but never the pneumococcal vaccine.  

The doc said that that can potentially help with the sinus issues and chest congestion, etc.  In about five weeks, Greg will have more blood tests done, and, assuming the results are the same, he may be a candidate for what's called IVIG treatment.  Basically, it is an intravenous treatment that delivers immunoglobulin (found in plasma) donated from healthy people to Greg to boost his immune system.  It can take as many as 1,000 individual plasma donations to treat one patient for a year! (Holy crap!)   Treatment is generally every 3-4 weeks and is usually VERY expensive.  Nearest estimates I can find are anywhere from $5,000 to $30,000 per treatment!  I'm not sure how long a person needs to continue treatment, but that is something we will find out if this is what is recommended for Greg.  

Next, we saw the oncologist to get the results of the CT scan and Nuclear CT Scan that Greg had on Wednesday.  The scans were of his parathyroid glands.  There are four glands behind the thyroid -- they have nothing to do with the thyroid though.  Those glands are located in the neck and control the body's calcium levels.  They are about the size of a grain of rice.   When a person has hyperparathyroidism, one (or more) of the parathyroid glands is basically an overachiever.  They produce too much calcium.  The other glands should compensate by producing less calcium, but with hyperparathyroidism, the other glands continue to produce calcium, so the body has too much calcium. 

Some of the symptoms of hyperparathyroidism that are currently affecting Greg are:  

• Excessive urination
• Tiring easily or weakness
• Depression or forgetfulness
• Bone and joint pain
• Frequent complaints of illness with no apparent cause

The "cure" for this is to simply remove the overachieving parathyroid glands.  So, Greg will be having yet another surgery to have the two parathyroid glands on the left side removed.  Most patients report almost immediate results from the surgery, even going so far as to report feeling better while in recovery!  This could be a huge game changer for Greg and explains so many things that he is currently dealing with!   

So, that is what happened today.  I apologize for not getting this out sooner, but seeing as we were in town, we had to do some shopping, and then had to make dinner, etc.  

As far as other issues, Greg is now about three weeks sober and things are going well.  It's not been easy, but it's a lot harder when he's drinking.  So, all is well.  Prayers that he is able to continue with his sobriety are certainly appreciated!  

As always, I'll keep you updated on all the going's ons here at the Mik Homestead!    

Blessings to all! 

Julie

Craft Room Renovation!

Christmas exploded in my craft room this year, as it does every year.  And every year, I clean it up, but everything gets kind of shoved around and is never quite as organized as I would like.  I decided it was time to really get it organized, so I spent some time (way too much time) on Pinterest looking for craft room organization ideas.  Oh my, oh my, oh my!  I wish I had all the money I needed to really make it spectacular, like some of those on Pinterest, but I must say, I'm pretty darned happy with the way it turned out, and I spent less than $100!   

We'll start with the "before" picture -- as I said, Christmas exploded, and who has time to clean up their craft room when they're still doing stuff in there, and working and putting in 60 hour work weeks?  Certainly not I, so no judging, please!  

The first really cool thing I found on Pinterest was to add a sheet of pegboard to the wall.  HEY, we have pegboard from when we had our store!   I really like renovations that don't cost anything!  YAY!  We took a full sheet and cut it down to the size I wanted for my wall.  

I started adding some baskets and stuff to it, as I tried to figure out exactly how I was going to organize things.  I didn't have hooks for the baskets, so I ended up using wire.  Have you any idea how hard it is to feed a wire through a hole that you can't get to from behind?  Yea, it took a while! 

The next thing I added was the cube shelving below the window here.   You know how, when your reorganizing a room or closet, it always gets worse before it gets better?  Well, this is the worse!   Believe it or not, but this is actually progress!  

More mess! 

I did end up buying some hooks for the pegboard, because we didn't have the kind of hooks I wanted.  Along with the hooks, I bought some magnetic strips for holding tools.  I have one of them hanging on the wall next to the pegboard and have some of my tools hanging on it. 

I had a lot of these silk flowers in the closet, but then I would forget what I had, so it's better to have them out in the open and readily available.  

All my spray paint is in the shoe organizer on the back of the door.  I also rolled the ribbon and used stick pins to keep it all from just hanging down willy-nilly.   It looks much neater that way. 

In this picture, I also have new curtains hanging!  These are a really cute red with white polka dots.  I made them for Erica's apartment, and they won't work with her new place, so I cut them down and hemmed them to fit my window!  In between the cubes and the 3 drawer bin is a bag full of deco mesh for making wreaths and stuff.  I used one of those big zippered bags that a bedding set comes in.  Those bags are awesome and I never throw them away!  

Along with all the organization that you can see, what you can't really see is the clear plastic boxes on the white shelves and on the blue three drawer cart next to the wooden file cabinet.  Those are filled with scrapbooking papers and stickers.   I organized all the paper by color (tones) and combined things like Christmas paper with Christmas stickers and placed them in extra large zip lock bags that will fit 13x13 paper that I found on Amazon and then placed them in the plastic boxes that I also found on Amazon.  Now, when I want to scrap a Christmas page, I can just grab that pack from the box and I'm all set!  It took a few hours just to sort through all that, but everything is easy to find now, so it will save time in the future.  

I'm so happy with how my craft room turned out!  I didn't take any pics inside the closet, but that is all cleaned out, too.  All the wrapping paper is organized, and in my OCD state, I even rubber-banded every single role of wrapping paper!  Yea, sometimes, I surprise even myself!  HA!  

Oh, and just because I feel like whining, here is a picture of our neighbor plowing the foot of snow we got on Monday, April 2nd!  APRIL and we got a foot of snow!  A total of 17 inches in three days!  What the heck?!  

Hope all is well with everyone.  In case you're interested, Greg is now three weeks sober.  In between my last post and this one, he ended up having sinus surgery.  I will post about that another day.  Things are going better and I appreciate all the calls, emails, texts and other messages of support and love from everyone!  Let's continue to pray that he is able to stay sober.   

Peace to all! 

Julie