Ryan's Room

nope, this one is not about the builder Ryan; rather, my son.
You build and have all these grand ideas on what you want to do.  Some you act on pretty quick while others slip away in time.  My better half and I have wanted to give Ryan a cool room.  Something a 12year old will enjoy and also something that a future 16-17 year old would be good with as well.  Think to the future here people!  It took us a 1.5years, but we did it.

Please excuse the blurry photos, what do you want from a crappy phone camera!?
I don't have before pictures.  But it's not hard to imagine.  a bed and dresser in a flat paint "whole wheat" color.  bleh.

The blue chair and desk legs are from Ikea.  The desk top I cut and edged myself.  The magnetic board, magnets, and "towel bar thingy" are from ikea.  The curtain rod is galvanized pipe.

The hex shelves I built with 3/4 ply.  They were glued and then I added 1" brackets for both assembly reasons, but also because I thought it looked cooler.

The skateboards are held up with skateboard brackets we found at Ikea.

I cut Ryan's nickname out of sentra and attached with 3M poster strips.  The bedspread, again, purchased from Ikea.

The room was painted with Behr "lunar surface" gray (in satin). 
My wife wanted an orange stripe around the room.  While I have mastered the ability to paint stripe with no bleed, I was not looking forward to measuring, marking, taping, painting the stripe.  I came up with another idea.  What if we ripped (11.5") strips of 1/8" hard board, paint those orange and nail to wall with finish nails.  Way easier and keeps with the theme of his room.

Needless to say, Ryan loves his new room.

The Driveway's SEAL of approval

I, at times, can procrastinate.

There, I said it.  whew, I feel better.

We moved in to the new house January 2012.  So it's been about 19 months!  wow.  My PM heavily encouraged us to seal the drive way as soon as possible.  Turns out "asap" was 19months.  Don't judge!

I bought the stuff I needed to seal the driveway late last year and then read the instructions that said the temps should not drop below 60degrees for 24 hours.  Did I say I bought it late?  yup, it was getting down to the 40's at night.  So I sat on the can.

Literally, we have sat on that huge 5 gallon bucket now for several months.  Sat on it, put drinks on it, books, phones, etc.....

Until this weekend!  This weekend I took back the driveway.  The snow, ice, and salt will not win this year.

I used this SealBest Concrete Sealer.  I bought it at Menard's, which by the way I believe is an awesome store!  I wish it was closer.


For those that want to seal your driveway (which should be everyone reading this), know that it was pretty easy.

First, I pressure washed.  It was rather therapeutic watching 19months of dirt get stripped away.
Second, I grabbed a 3" paint brush and brushed around the porch columns.
Third, I borrowed my neighbors pump sprayer.  This is a must!  Made the job go very fast 
With the nitty gritty paint brush work knocked out, I began to spray.  That 5 gallon bucket gave me enough to do two coats on my porch, walkway, driveway and sidewalk.

Now my concrete is pimp'n with a little sheen to it.