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Author Archives: Chris from Picardy Project

Chris from Picardy Project

About Chris from Picardy Project

Meryl and Chris are DIY and renovation enthusiasts at PicardyProject.com. When they're not tiling, refinishing floors, rebuilding a terrible addition made on the back of their house, replumbing their bathroom, ripping up and installing a 950 sq. ft. patio or any other project they decide to sink their teeth into in their Storybook home in Oakland, CA, they're most likely off at some sporting event or in a movie theater.

Renovation Road Trip: Framing a Switch Box in Oregon

DIY

For our final stop on the Renovation Road Trip, we made the long trek from Racine, WI to Portland, OR, where we met Heather from Just a girl with a hammer.

Yes, it was our final stop, but the very first time on our journey that we were tripped up by a project. Heather had a couple electrical questions, one of which involved a ceiling-box-shaped patch in her living room ceiling. She was hoping it could be used for a light.

Uncovering the box was simple enough. First I scored a line around the perimeter of the patch. Then I used the claw end of a hammer to gently break away the drywall.

Framing a Switch Box - Ceiling Box

Photo: Meryl Rose Phillips

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Renovation Road Trip: Installing Shelves with Russet St. Reno

DIY
Kitchen

Photo: Meryl Rose Philips

On the penultimate stop of our Renovation Road Trip we met up with Sara and Shaun, the fun and funny couple behind Russet Street Reno. They have such a great house, especially the kitchen, where they had one upgrade in mind, which they feared could result in disaster. So they enlisted our help to install a pair of oak shelves beside their refrigerator.

The challenge was to install the oak brackets so that each would be spaced evenly from the adjacent wall. At the same time, the shelves would need sufficient strength to be useful as storage. The added challenge? Going through drywall to install the top shelf, then through tile to put up the bottom.

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Renovation Road Trip: Soldering Copper Pipe Fittings with DIYdiva

DIY

The third stop in our Renovation Road Trip brought us to Michigan, where we met the wonderful Kit from DIYdiva. Since she DIYs solo most days, Kit had lined up a few different projects for us that would have been tough, if not impossible, for anyone to handle on her own. In the end, however, it was a project requiring know-how, not manpower, that we were able to help out most with.

Two 1/2″ copper supply lines needed to be capped after removing the Jacuzzi tub from her bath.

Soldering Copper Pipe Fittings - Jacuzzi

Photo: Meryl Rose Philips

Soldering Copper Pipe Fittings - Copper Pipes

Photo: Meryl Rose Philips

Soldering Copper Pipe Fittings - Pipes

Photo: Meryl Rose Philips

The existing gate valves were leaking a drop of water every few seconds. Sometimes this happens during the soldering process if the washer deforms. Other times the washer simply degrades with age. This wasn’t an emergency, but it wasn’t good either.

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Renovation Road Trip: A New Backsplash at Turtle House

DIY

In our second stop on the Renovation Road Trip we met up with Katy and Brandon from Turtle House in Ypsilanti, MI. They’re a fun couple of teachers with a mostly finished home, who felt they needed a backsplash to really set off the area behind their stove. So we helped them.

Renovation Road Trip - Turtle House

Photo: Meryl Rose Philips

After clearing the area of all obstacles and removing the outlet covers, we gave the painted surface a quick sanding with 100-grit sandpaper.

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Renovation Road Trip: First Stop, 86′n It

DIY

For the first stop on our renovation road trip, we were asked to help install wood paneling on the wall of a closed-in porch for Nikki and Marc at 86’n It.

As always in DIY, the plans changed a bit before we arrived, then changed a bit more as we got into the weeds. In the end Nikki and Marc decided to go with the original German siding that would match the rest of the home’s exterior.

RenovationRoadTrip-86nit-unfinishedexteriorwall-Photo1

Before

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Renovation Road Trip: Here We Go!

DIY
Renovation Road Trip - Meryl and Chris

Meryl and Chris of Picardy Project

Over the three and a half years that we’ve been working on our house—and blogging about it at Picardy Project—we’ve been able to virtually meet and make friends with a bunch of other crazy people renovating their houses. Some think it’s weird to refer to people you’ve never actually met as “friends”, but there is a bond that other renovators and bloggers share.

There will always be drywall stacked against the wall waiting to be used in the living room, plumbing fixtures sitting in the hallway, Romex coiled up behind the bathroom cabinet and a bunch of other half-finished projects all over the house that might drive other people insane, but for us, the insanity is addicting, fun, and oh so rewarding.

One evening several months ago, Chris and I were sitting on the couch (most likely watching Renovation Realities), and we started talking about how cool… and fun… and crazy it would be to visit other renovators. We laughed about it and dismissed it at first, but then the talk got serious.

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