When it rains here, and it does often, the rain sometimes comes in sideways and gets all over our floor. This is because there was a nice 1 inch gap between the floor and door for all four doors downstairs. We have been placing towels next to the doors when a big rain comes in, but we can't catch all the storms and this has become a bit annoying at this point. It is time to build proper thresholds to keep out rain, bugs, and dirt. Finally!

Adding 1x3 boards to the inside was simple. But, this did not keep out all of the rain since the doors do not close flush against the wood. We needed to add flaps on the outside of the doors.

I wish this would have been an easy task, but like most everything at this house, it was not. The floor underneath the doors stuck out 1-3 inches and this meant that a flap would not be flush with the door and floor. 

So.... we needed to somehow cut the floor to the right size. How to cut a cement floor??? Speed run, jump, and bang the floor with a hammer? Add spikes to shoes and stomp around? As much as I wanted to try these ideas out, Aaron had a different idea. 

Knowing this would be a dirty job beforehand was a positive thing. Otherwise, I might have been upset about the dirt that got everywhere. First step was to draw a semi-straight line marking where we wanted to cut the floor. Then, Aaron used a circular saw with a wet blade to cut a straight line. I ran water on the floor near the blade while he made the cuts (you know, helping). We had to make a cut from the top and side to knock off a smooth piece. Lots of dust! He quickly put a handkerchief over his face after this shot. 

Since the circular saw couldn't make the cut all the way to the door frames, we used a grinder and hammer drill to cut the rest of the cement/mortar off. I was very glad we had all of these tools for this job :) 

We repeated this process for all three doors. This might look difficult, but because we had the tools, it wasn't that bad. Aaron cursed a bit, but nothing compared to some other projects. Like the floor refinishing.. That was a project with lots of cursing! 

Now that we have the floor cut correctly to allow a flap, it was time to make the flaps. We could just buy the pre made flaps from the store, but they are expensive and what I would call junk. What would DIY people like us do in this scenario? Make our own of course :) I had the great idea of cutting up some rubber outdoor rugs for the flaps. This would give us flaps that are durable and not some flimsy plastic junk from the store. Using the table saw, we were able to easily cut strips from a $20 rug from Home Depot. Then, we used a blow torch to singe the edges of each strip and attached them to the doors with a few screws. Easy! 

And, now we have flaps that are flush against the bottom of the floor when the doors are closed. This project turned out great and only cost us about $40. 

We painted the thresholds and outside portion of the floor we cut with the same color as the grout lines used for the interior of the house. 

Soon after finishing these thresholds, we received a ton of rain and none of it came in through the bottom of the doors. Success! This project has really made a difference in the amount of dust that comes in with the wind too. I am really glad we finished this project. 

This end table came with the house when we bought it two years ago, but was a dark wood color. There were lots of stains on the top from water stains and it really didn't look nice at all. So... I decided to give it a paint makeover. A coat of primer and a few costs of white and voilà! Looks brand new :)

We purchased bedroom furniture a few weeks ago, but didn't like the finish on it. There were scratches and the light wood color didn't really jive with our room. So, we painted the furniture. Paint really can make a tremendous difference!

Some black hammered spray paint for the iron and white paint for the wood and the bed looked completely different. I love it! Can't believe we waited 2 years to get furniture for our bedroom....

The elements of tropical climate have taken a toll on all of our door knobs in the house. They no longer look new, clean, and nice. For those who follow us, it could already be guessed that we would not take the easy route of just buying new door knobs. Nope... We will find a way to fix the problem instead :)

I roughly sanded the knobs and then sprayed with textured spray paint. Huge difference! It is definitely worth the effort to try and reclaim what you already have ;) we are firm believers!

Our dining table has become very scratched on the top because of all the tools we have been dragging around and because Buddy has decided the table should be his new lookout post during the day. I didn't really want to sand the top and stain it again, so we decided that tiling the top would be a good idea. A few hours of cutting tile and we were ready to put it together. I used liquid nails to glue the tile down and grouted the next day. It really looks great! What an easy way to refinish a scratched table :)