Humidity Woes

New built-in cabinets in the bathroom:

Nothing gets done when it rains all the time. The humidity in the house is at 73% according to my meter. So what was suppose to be an easy fun painting day turned into a waiting-for-the-spackle-to-dry day. I sanded the first coat of spackle from yesterday and put on a second coat to make sure I would get a smooth transition from the old cabinets and the new ones. I turned the fan on it do help but all it did was circulate wet air. I hate humid days.

So, instead, I worked on updating some of the pages of my website. I'm learning to use video, which is fun and I'll be using it a lot on this website. I hope to stop stammering as I get used to talking in the videos.

I learned to really like the spackle called Fast 'n Final. The first time I used it I just scooped some out of the tub. I didn't stir it. It crumbled and was hard to use. I almost threw it out. But I tried it again and this time I stirred it. There was a lot of liquid on the bottom that I didn't know about he first time. It works great! It is the best thing for the final coat, I think.

Bathroom built-ins update aug 28, 2006

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I have built-in drawers in the bedroom that are behind the wall in the bathroom.? There was some unused space so I tore out the plaster and lathe and added additional built-in cabinets in the bathroom.? This video shows where I'm at in the project.

Painting Radiators (Before/After)

I took on the project of painting our bathroom radiator. It had some chipping paint and the color was more of a cream than a white. We just recently painted our bathroom walls white and the cream looked dirty.

I cleaned the radiator really good with a vacuum and a radiator brush. The radiator brush was hanging in the stairwell of our basement when we moved in. I never knew what it was for, it looked like an extra long bottle brush with black bristles. I thought maybe it was to clean out a wood stove that perhaps the house had at one time. I never lived in a house with radiators before this one so I was clueless.

It wasn't until recently when I was cleaning the radiator with a Swiffer (I have 3 cats that like the radiator in the winter and the hair, oh my!) that I had a light bulb go on. I was thinking, "If only they made something that would fit between those little horizontal pipes and had bristles on it, or something of the sort, it would make cleaning these radiators much easier." Then I remembered that brush in the stairwell. Yep, fits perfectly and obviously is what it was made for.


After the good cleaning, I took a cloth soaked in denatured alcohol and cleaned the surfaces really, really good. Then I took a wire brush and a scratchy pad and made sure I got all the loose paint off. I slid paper under the feet of the radiator and cardboard behind it and used Rustoleum white spray paint. I have a few more places to touch up when it dries. I think I'll also coat it with the same white paint (acylic) that I used on the walls as the white doesn't match exactly.

So far it looks so much cleaner and nicer being white.

An additional bonus of this project is the date I found stamped on the radiator inside. Niagara 2-17. I had been wondering if the radiators were original or if they were added later. The house was built late in 1917 so now I know they were probably installed when the house was built.