Shabby Shower Glass

Our shower glass had lost its seal and was starting to harbor mold. I installed a beautiful bead of caulk and our troubles are now behind us.

Spiteful Spouts

Before/During

The tub spout in our guest bathroom was showing its age. In the photo above you can see how the metal was eroding from the outlet.

Unloved Light

Before 

Our kitchen had a light over the counter that Chrissy hated. I didn't mind it, so I resisted replacing it. We also couldn't find anything we liked to replace it, so until now, we did nothing.

Crappy Can Lights

Before

We have two recessed lights in our living room. I previously installed LED bulbs in them, but for some reason I left the ugly black and beige shades in them.

Faulty Drip Fitting

Before

One of the fittings in our front yard drip system had a bad habit of coming apart and gushing water for extended periods. I tolerated it for too long because I wasn't sure I could easily find the appropriate fitting, but a recent blowout was the last straw.

Tree + Tire = Fun

I determined some time ago that we needed a tire swing in our back yard, but I was waiting until Hope was old enough to ride it without dying. I'm happy to say, that time has finally come.

Preventing Door Damage

I bought and installed three doorstops because our house didn't have any on certain random doors. Unfortunately, I just found another door that needs one.

Luxurious Latch

Old Latch

I upgraded the latch on our side yard gate from a standard U-style (upon which a rivet previously failed and I had to repair with stainless steel hardware) to a fancy self latching unit, which was generously given to me by my dad.

Previous Paso Pekema Projects

I was kind of feeling like we were really slacking on projects since moving into our new house, but after completing this post, I realize we've been staying pretty busy. Anyway, here's a quick recap of all the projects I can remember completing in our new house in Paso.

Pekema Projects Returns(!!!) - Torrance Recap

As you may have noticed, this site has been pretty quiet for a while. It's actually been over a year since our last post, but we have a good excuse. Between raising a crazy baby, starting a business, moving, and settling into our new house/town, we've been pretty busy. However, things have started to settle down just a bit, so it's time for Pekema Projects to make its triumphant return. The posts will probably be a little more concise than before (we are still busy) but we'll do the best we can.

Stumbling Stool

Before

My beloved garage stool recently fell on hard times. It lost one caster quite a while ago, but I was still able to use it if I was careful. It recently lost a second wheel and I was thinking it was time for a new one until I happened upon a random comment online that talked about replacing casters just like these. I had considered that before, but I assumed the cost of new casters would be more than a new stool, so I didn't pursue it.

Concrete Crevice

When the wiring was run for our hot tub, they had to cut a channel in the sidewalk next to the house. Ideally, it was supposed to be the width of a brick for an easy repair, but it was just barely too narrow. We just filled it with dirt and moved on, but the time finally came to fix it correctly.

Bright Ideas and Clear Thinking

Before

Not everything from the 70s in our house was awful. There are a couple light fixtures in the hallway that are actually pretty cool. As you can see above, they are mostly clear with a crackled glass look. The only problem was the ugly CFLs inside. We lived with the lights like this for far too long.

Valance Victory

We have a very complicated relationship with the vertical blinds in our dining room. We recognize that vertical blinds are generally terrible, but we didn't have a better solution for blocking the glaring sun in the morning, so we kept them. Deep down we knew we should get a valance to cover the ugly rail for the blinds, but we could never decide exactly what it should be like, so we did nothing. That all changed when we found a giant valance sitting on the curb down the street from our house.

Front Door Facelift

This post has been a long time in the making. As you can see in the photos above, the front doors on our house were in pretty sad shape on the outside, and very golden on the inside. We wanted to do something about that for quite a while, but replacing them would be very expensive and refinishing them would be very unpleasant, so for a long time we did nothing. That changed in March of 2015 when I finally pulled the doors off the hinges and started sanding.

Kitchen Construction Conclusion (Part 9)

Before - This is the photo from the listing when we bought the house.

Our kitchen renovation is finally complete! This post will be a summary of everything we've done to the kitchen since buying the house, along with a cost breakdown of the recent major renovation.

Kitchen Construction, Part 8 - Coating Cabinets

Before

The final step in our kitchen renovation was revamping the cabinets. They were covered in the original 70's lacquer and were showing their age. It didn't help that the cabinets had no handles, so they've been touched by dirty hands for the past ~40 years.

Since the cabinets themselves were in relatively good shape, and we didn't want to spend a fortune, we decided to just paint them and add new hardware. It took quite a bit of doing, but they came out very nicely.

Kitchen Construction, Part 7 - One Wonderful Window

Before

Most of the windows in our house are the original black (why?) aluminum, single pane units from the late 70's, including the kitchen window. They also have no frames or real sills of any kind, making them look pretty sad. However, they still function acceptably as windows, so it's hard to justify replacing them, especially here in temperate SoCal where the insulating properties of double pane windows aren't so important.
Since we were updating everything else in the kitchen, we figured we should go ahead and replace that window now.

Kitchen Construction, Part 6 - Fabulous Flooring

Before

Our kitchen had terrible tile floors. It was a crappy design with a super glossy finish that showed every speck of dirt. It had to go.

Kitchen Construction, Part 5 - Backsplash Beautification

Before

The backsplash in our kitchen was the same awful tile as the countertops. It had to go. It was ripped out along with the counters, so we can jump right to the construction.