Tip #2 - Looking Behind Walls

This is probably obvious but I didn't think of it until I had my eyeball and flashlight sharing a small hole I cut in the wall to see if there were pipes or wires behind the wall. I wanted to put in a deep built-in medicine cabinet.

I made the hole big enough to put my digital camera through it and snap pictures from all directions. I almost dropped the camera when I was trying to press the button with one of my fingers. (there wasn't room to use the other hand.) Put the strap around your wrist or you may be tearing down the whole wall to retrieve it.

Anyway, after reviewing the pictures I could see I had nothing in the way at all so I was able to cut out the area to the size of the medicine cabinet and then build it according to the space available. I made mine 24 inches high by 12 inches wide by 8 inches deep. Now we have a his and hers mirrored built-in medicine cabinets. I love it!

Tip for Removing Paint From Metal Hardware

Somewhere (I want to give credit due but I don't remember) maybe it was on a TV show like HGTV or in a magazine I read that an easy and non toxic way to remove paint from hardware was to soak it in hot vinegar. They used a pot with simmering vinegar and added their antique doorknobs and hinges to get the paint off.

I'm painting my bathroom right now and I painted the sliding door lock to match the door. Latex on metal just didn't look good. So I decided to remove the latex and use a metal spray paint like Rustoleum.

The latch is small so I took a small bowl of white vinegar and heated it to a simmer in the microwave and dropped the latch in it. I came back about 5 minutes later and there was some kind of action going on as there were minute bubbles forming on the surface of the paint. I took a spoon and moved the latch around and the latex fell right off. No scrubbing!

I'm always a skeptic, though. I don't know if this only works with latex but it sure is nicer than having to use stripper or steel wool to get it off. I guess I should have tried it in just hot water first to see if that is the reason it came off or if the vinegar is the thing that made it come off so easy.

I'll have to test further.