DIY Help – Stained Glass Design And Easy Mosaics
In the past we have visited Little Goose LakeHaus, a bed and breakfast on Canyon Lake, TX. They have the most beautiful stained glass designs. In this video, you are going to get ideas for artwork decorations you can do, both simply and inexpensively.
The owner did stained glass art design in the past. She incorporated it in the decorating of the room and accessories in the following pictures and video.
You are going to see many beautiful stained glass designs, a stained glass window panel and suncatcher, stained glass pictures, easy mosaics, pebble mosaics, mosaic tile patterns, and concrete art.
Enjoy the video and let your mind ponder all of those creative projects that you can do…
Install the rocks, glass beads, and the wall accessories with mortar. Install tile backer board on the wall (the kind that goes behind the tile in the bathroom). Support the items you place on the wall with small screws, while the mortar dries. Here is some mortar you can get at Home Depot:
VERSABOND® FORTIFIED THIN-SET MORTAR
If you need to change the color of the mortar, use a mortar dye (from a brickyard), or a grout color that you can mix into the mortar. Mix the colored grout or color dye into the dry mortar, not wet. It’s easier to mix while it’s dry.
Here is a great mortar, how to link:
http://www.essortment.com/home/mortarsandceme_szvs.htm
A great stained glass book to learn the incredible art of stained glass design is Amazon book
Need more ideas for your concrete sculpting? You need to get this book:
Feel free to offer comments or questions on the below in the comments section.
Erik Loebl
PS:
Would Like To Get Instant Access To 14,000 Woodworking Plans & Projects? Then click here now.
DIY Help – Tile Floor Installation
Kitchen or bathroom floor tile will revitalize and renew the room. Tile floor installation in your preferred room will change its look and “freshen” it up.
A ceramic tile floor installation is very easy to clean and maintain. To clean it, just run a mop over it. A ceramic tile floor installation is a great idea for those rental houses where you don’t want to change the rug after the renter leaves, or houses with frequent foot traffic, like living rooms.
Also a ceramic tile floor installation is great for bathrooms. In this video, you’ll see how carpet was replaced by laying ceramic tile. In my opinion, a bathroom is no place for carpet, and a tile floor installation was a perfect solution. If you step with wet feet on carpet, the carpet will act like a sponge and grow mold and other health hazardous items. Ceramic tile, on the other hand, will dry up in short time.
A ceramic tile installation is very tedious and time consuming, but the process is very easy and the results are very rewarding.
You need to make sure that the entire tile floor installation has the adhesive on it. If you don’t, you will hear hollow places under the tiles when they dry, and when you walk on them. Smear the mortar (butter the tile) on the back of the tile and on the floor where you will place it.
In the following video, I show you how to lay bathroom ceramic tiles.
For laying ceramic tiles you are going to need:
Tip: This process is going to go a little quicker when you get the premixed mortar and grout instead of the dry.
-Ceramic tiles
-Floor leveler
-Ceramic tile thinset mortar
-Tile grout
-Tile spacers
-Tile cutter or saw (for cutting ceramic tile)
-Tile nippers
-Tile mortar trowel
-Tile notched trowel “mortar rake”
-Sponge
-Mortar Stirrer
-Latex gloves (otherwise the mortar will eventually “eat them up”)
-Tile grout sealer
1. Remove any old carpet.
2. If there is any remaining tile flooring, I used a sledgehammer as the process for removing ceramic tile. Bust them to pieces with a sledge hammer and remove them.
3. Level the floor (removing high and low places) using the floor leveler before placing the floor tiles.
4. The terrazo tile was too difficult to bust up, so I tiled over it, since there was not much height difference.
5. My 2 older children volunteered in the removing of the remaining ceramic tile with sledge hammers. (If you don’t have children, you have to do it yourself)
6. Sweep and vacuum the floor to remove dust and dirt.
7. When you’re done with the clean up. Draw straight lines on the floor using a colored pencil and a straight edge (like a straight piece of metal). You want your tile lines to be straight, so your tile floor installation is the same. Find the longest point in the center of the room you are tiling and lay the tile end to end in a straight line. Laying floor tile should first be dry, WITHOUT putting down any adhesive.
8. To keep the proper spacing between the tiles equal, use tile spacers, you can get at Home Depot or Lowes in their tile section. This little space is going to be filled with grout. These spacers also keep the tiles straight.
9. Where the tile is going to come up against the carpet, use a little metal strip you can butt the tiles up against. This metal strip will connect to the ground with the tile mortar.
10. Label the tiles according to their placement with a little masking tape so you can save some time when placing the tiles properly. Also the masking tape removes easy.
11. Try cutting ceramic tiles as little as possible. The process of laying ceramic tile involves placing whole tiles starting at the middle and only cut in inconspicuous (unnoticeable) areas.
12. Mix the mortar in a bucket with some water and the mortar stirrer hooked to a drill. The mortar should be mixed until it’s a “peanut butter” consistency.
Tip: The mortar is going to be grey when it is mixed with water, no matter if it’s white or grey. If you are going to have darker grout, use the grey mortar, but it you are going to have a lighter color of grout, go with the lighter color of mortar. The reason is, the possibility that the mortar shows through.
13. Use the mortar trowel to scoop some mortar on the floor.
14. Use the notched trowel, the “mortar rake”, to “draw” notches in the mortar on the floor
15. The most challenging tile is the first one. This will serve as a guide for the other tiles.
16. “Butter” (like buttering bread) both the tile bottom and the floor. Then place the tile on the floor using the spacers to maintain the correct spacing between the tiles. Clean excess mortar from the tile using the wet sponge (clean the tile while the mortar is wet, and not after it dries, this will save time.)
17. After laying ceramic tiles keep them level by extending a straight edge from one tile to the placed one.
18. Continue the process until all the full tiles are placed into position.
19. Use a tile cutter for cutting ceramic tile or use the tile nippers for cutting ceramic tile.
20. Wait 24 hours before walking on the newly tiled floor.
21. Use the purchased colored grout to fill in the line spaces between the tiles.
Tip: Use a darker color grout for an area that is higher in traffic. This makes the tile easier to keep clean.
22. Wait around 3 days before sealing the grout. “Paint” the sealer on the floor lines. The idea behind sealing, is to keep water and other fluids from staining your newly tiled floor.
Again, you can use the same concepts in this tile floor installation for kitchen floor tile.
Now enjoy your new, beautiful, easy to clean, tile floor installation.
PS:
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I hope this DIY help was beneficial to you.
Feel free to offer comments or questions on the below in the comments section.
Erik Loebl
PSS:
Would Like To Get Instant Access To 14,000 Woodworking Plans & Projects? Then click here now.
DIY Help – Bathroom Closet Remodel
This video serves as DIY help for the preparation for the remodeling of an older bathroom and closet area. This includes soffitt removal to add extra space to areas.
This is the process to closet and bathroom remodeling:
1. Study the task at hand. You should draw out the end result on paper.
2. Remove the drywall down to the 2×4 studs. Also remove extra wall accessories.
3. Remove the drywall from the closet area as well.
4. Remove the 2×4 framework for the soffit in the bathroom. Remove the old wall mounted medicine cabinet and ight fixtures from over the sink.
5. Remove the drywall from the soffit in the closet. Also, remove the mirror and any lighting fixtures.
6. When the area to be remodelled is properly “gutted”, the structure should look like a skeleton.
Make sure you don’t remove the walls which help support load bearing walls.
You can then proceed to model your end result as per your paper plan.
Once the structure is in place, proceed the replace the drywall, texture, then paint.
I hope this DIY help was beneficial to you.
Erik
Feel free to offer comments or questions on the below in the comments section.
Erik Loebl
PS:
Would Like To Get Instant Access To 14,000 Woodworking Plans & Projects? Then click here now.
DIY help – Bad fan or bad wall switch?
Due to the fact that Tropical Storm Edouard brought a lot of rain, I was able to do a much needed fix on the inside of the house.
In my sons’ room, there is a ceiling fan and a light on the fan. The problem was that it did not work. It didn’t turn on at all. So I checked the breaker to see if it was off and that would solve the issue quickly. Trouble was, I had a hunch about which circuit breaker may be off.
That led me to hunt down the correct circuit breaker that may be off. I recommend to anyone who reads this to make a diagram similar to the following of which circuit breaker controls which lights or outlets.
See this:
This makes things easier in times of emergencies. I had to update mine. It’s not too pretty, but it tells me what I need to know.
Anyway, if you can’t find the circuit breaker, don’t touch the hot wires or you’ll be a “crispy critter”.
I took the cover to the fan off, tested the wires for power with my multimeter and there was none.
Huh? there should be something (I thought). Unless the switch could be bad.
Here is a picture of the fan:
“Ok, if the fan isn’t bad and there is no power going to the fan, then maybe the switch is bad.” I thought.
So I took the switch off and found another switch I had in the garage and I replaced it. It worked! It was a bad switch.
So it wasn’t a bad fan, or a bad connection, but a bad wall switch. Here is a picture of the bad switch for you information, (it doesn’t look that bad to me, but you never know until you test it.)
Let me know if you have any questions.
Also, let me know if you like this, or if it’s informative and I will put more information out about this topic as well. Comments like “Like it”, or “I don’t like it”, or anything with more words will work. Just keep it “PG” (clean)
Erik Loebl
PS:
Would Like To Get Instant Access To 14,000 Woodworking Plans & Projects? Then click here now.
