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bathroom, DIY, Fix It, Home & Auto Maintenance, Home Maintenance, pliers, Plumbing, repair, Tutorial

How to Easily Install a New Shower Head

Raise your hand if you have a sad excuse for a shower head! Is it drippy, rusty or clogged? If you answered yes to any of those questions, I’m about to show you why there is no excuse for you being able to install a new shower head yourself! It’s super easy.

Materials:

(I’ve included affiliate links for your convenience. I earn a small percentage from a purchase using these links. There is no additional cost to you. You can read more about affiliate links here.)

New shower head
Vise Grip Pliers (or other wide mouth pliers)
Plumber’s tape

Optional: Shower arm & flange, rag to protect new shower arm

Instructions:

1. Remove the old shower head by unscrewing it from the pipe arm. Use pliers to help get it started.

2. Unscrew the old shower arm if it is rusty or won’t match the new shower head. Remove that rusty flange (now is the time to do it! Don’t put it off any longer.)

3. Replace the old shower arm with new one by screwing it into the plumbing pipe in the wall. Then slide the new flange over the arm.

Wrap the end of the shower arm with plumber’s tape (wrap it clockwise to keep it from bunching up when you attach the new shower head.)

4. Screw the new shower head onto the end of the shower arm. Hand tighten the head. Then put the rag over the spot base of the shower head and use the pliers to tighten it 1/4 turn.

5. If your shower head has an extension hose, attach that at this time by screwing it onto the shower head and attaching the other end to the body sprayer.

Turn on the water and test the spray! Beautiful! No drips or clogs? If you have some leaks anywhere, give an extra 1/4 to 1/2 turn to tighten it the shower head or hose.

I installed the Delta In2ition shower head in the Topsail Beach Condo we renovated. I’ve been intrigued by this shower head and after trying it out, I love it!!!

Because who wouldn’t love a shower head that sprays from the top even when you want a body spray too?

The interior head is fully removable and nests back into the outer ring when done body spraying.

The only initial drawback I found was getting used to setting the body sprayer back into the ring. Once I realized you have to push it in and down firmly, there was no problem.

Wasn’t that easy? Go on and replace your shower head today if you’ve been putting it off!

Disclosure: No disclosure necessary. I wasn’t paid or provided with the Delta In2ition shower head. My stepmom paid for it to be installed in the beach condo. I chose this shower head because I wanted to try it out.

Pin for later!

March 21, 2014/7 Comments/by Brittany Bailey

Before and After, chair re-upholster, fabric, Goodwill, Home Decor, Kids Room, re-upholster, re-upholster seat cushion, ReNew, Seat Cushion, Sewing, Stashbusting, Trash to Treasure, Tutorial, Upcycling, Upholster Chair

How to Recover a Butterfly Chair

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Do you have a butterfly chair that is sun-faded or has hideous fabric on it? I bet you thought it was a lost cause, right? Nope! With a sewing machine, some new fabric and a little spare time you can recover that ugly butterfly chair and have a new one. Okay, so I didn’t recover it with green fabric in honor of St. Patrick, but what could be greener than a good old upcycling project! Believe it or not, this was a much easier project than I had anticipated, so don’t get scared by the curves. You can “sew” do this! 😉

I stumbled upon this chair at Goodwill for $9.99. Normally I wouldn’t spend this much for a sun-faded chair, but because I was working on the school library makeover project — and we needed more comfortable seating — I bought it. After all, we would have had to pay at least double for another comfy chair.

Luckily, I had some soft leftover fleece fabric that I could use to recover the chair. I wish I had measured how much I used, I think it was a little less than 2 yards.

Materials:

2 yards of fabric
Coordinating thread
Pins
Scissors
Old butterfly chair + old cover

Instructions:

1. Remove the old cover from the butterfly chair frame. Lay it on top of your fabric (both right sides up.) Read more

March 17, 2014/6 Comments/by Brittany Bailey

Build It, chalk paint, Decor Adventures, DIY, Furniture, Painting & Antiquing Techniques, Tutorial, Upcycling

DIY Unique Wine Rack

Hi everyone! It’s Jessica from Décor Adventures, back again and ready to show you a furniture makeover project I’m just in love with. This isn’t just any furniture makeover. This is how to turn an old dresser into a rack to hold your favorite reds and whites – wine that is!

One of my favorite things to do is redo furniture. Chairs, mirrors, tables, dressers, you name it. A while back I found this dresser at a thrift shop for only $10 and took it home only to find the drawers didn’t work well at all. I had an idea to ditch the two large drawers and turn this piece into a wine rack. If it doesn’t work for clothes, why not make it work for wine! Here is how to make your own unique wine rack from a dresser.

Materials
Many of these materials are based on how I painted the dresser and how we cut the shelves. We cut them ourselves with a table saw, but if you don’t have one, you can have them cut at the home improvement store or use a circular saw.

Dresser with a few drawers removed

Paint:

primer, paint, stain, paint brush and roller;
Furniture wax or sealant/polycrylic (or whatever you might want to use to finish the dresser)

Racks/Shelves:

Two 2’x4’ sheets of ½” MDF
Two pieces of quarter round to finish fronts of shelves;
Several feet of ½” square wood dowels {they come in 36” pieces}

Tools:

Table saw {unless you have the shelves cut to size at the home improvement store};
Nail gun
nails
air compressor
Random orbital sander {Optional if you distress the dresser}
Miter saw or hand saw

Supplies:

Wood glue;
220-300 Sand block or sand paper.

Instructions
These instructions will be in a three sections, so you can easily see how this project comes together. First you will paint or stain your dresser, {or maybe you love it as is and will leave it}, second you will prepare the shelves and put them together to create the wine racks, and last you’ll put the whole dresser together.

Preparing the Dresser
This was a piece I bought at a thrift store and it was already painted but I had to fix it up. The back was not painted and didn’t look very pretty so I ended up painting that too. You can see in this picture how wonky the bottom large drawers were.

Perpetual Menu Board

We were recently in North Carolina visiting with Matt’s family. While we were there I took the time to visit an old dear friend of mine. This girl has known me for years! In fact I just realized it’s been 21 years since I first met her. Needless to say it’s important to catch up with friends like this whenever you get a chance. While visiting her, I noticed she had an adorable menu board in her kitchen where she keeps track of all of her meals for the month. Since “What’s for dinner?” is one of Matt’s favorite things to ask me, I knew I had to make one of these menu boards.

Materials:

12×12 Frame
Clear Plastic Calendar Page
Scrapbook Paper
Magnets
Dry Erase Marker(s)
Printer Paper or Card Stock
Printer
Laminator or contact paper
Sheet Metal
Magnetic Paint
Tin Snips
Safety Glasses
Gloves

Instructions:

Start by measuring the inside of the frame. (In my case that measurement was 12″ by 12″.) Using a marker, mark a dot 12″ down from the edge onto your sheet metal. Repeat this on the opposite side.

Use a straight edge (or carpenters square) lined up on the dots and draw a line. This will be where you make your cut.

Valentine’s Day Garden Flag from a Placemat

I love making unique garden flags. My go-to material for these outdoor accessories are Dollar Tree placemats! You read that right. $1 fabric placemats! But, if you don’t live near a Dollar Tree and you have old placemats, you could upcycle them into a Valentine’s Day garden flag!

A few years ago, I made this Let it Snow flag:

Although it doesn’t seam to convince Mother Nature to bring us some white powder, it has held up nicely in the cold and rain. I’ve since set out to create a garden flag for each season. I have a Fall themed flag and a Summer flag. So, why not a Valentine’s Day flag?!

Start by collecting some supplies. Feel free to substitute what you have on hand.

Materials:

Dollar Store placemat
Ruler
Soap sliver (pencil or disappearing fabric marker)
Letter stencils (I chose a set by Martha Stewart Plaid)
Round paint brush
Tulip Fabric paint (white and black)
Tulip glitter fabric paint
Tulip glitter transfer sheets
Fabric scraps (red, pink and white)
Polyester stuffing
Scrap fabric, towel or rag (for ironing the glitter iron-ons)
White thread
Scissors

Begin by ironing the fabric you will be using (including the placemat). Use caution when ironing the placemat, the DollarTree ones I bought are polyester and needed a cooler iron. Read more

February 10, 2014/12 Comments/by Brittany Bailey