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A Pretty Happy Home

Life, DIY and Random Things That Make Me Smile

  • Home
  • About
    • About
    • Contact
  • Shop
  • Projects
    • Cleaning
    • Clothing
    • Colonial Farmhouse
    • Crafts
    • Decorating
    • DIY Projects
    • Holidays
  • Adventure
    • Moving to Ireland
    • Living in Ireland
    • Visiting Ireland
    • Travel
    • Family and Parenting
    • Humor
    • Learning
  • Privacy Policy
  • Home
  • About
    • About
    • Contact
  • Shop
  • Projects
    • Cleaning
    • Clothing
    • Colonial Farmhouse
    • Crafts
    • Decorating
    • DIY Projects
    • Holidays
  • Adventure
    • Moving to Ireland
    • Living in Ireland
    • Visiting Ireland
    • Travel
    • Family and Parenting
    • Humor
    • Learning
  • Privacy Policy

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  • how to add trim to a metal door using PVC trim
    DIY

    $6 Update! How To Add Trim To A Metal Door

    June 21, 2023 /

    Do you have a boring, plain metal door that you’d like to jazz up? You can do that with trim and it’s easier than you think. No power tools are required. Let’s talk about how to add trim to a metal door. Here’s our door in need of a facelift. It’s not the plainest door since it does have a window but it’s not the most exciting door you’ve ever opened. It also had some peeling paint that needed to be fixed. Not to worry! Some elbow grease, leftover paint, and about $6 of trim will transform this door. Supplies Needed To Add Trim To A Metal Door: PVC Trim…

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    annisa 0 Comments

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    Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 12, Reveal 2nd Wall Section

    October 22, 2025
  • 10 tips for building an outdoor ping pong table using cement board for the top
    DIY

    10 Tips For Building An Outdoor Ping Pong Table Using Cement Board

    June 12, 2023 /

    If you’re thinking about building an outdoor ping pong table using cement board for the top to keep it weather resistant then I have some tips for you! We recently built an outdoor ping pong table and learned a thing or ten along the way that, so far, the collective genius of the internet has not addressed. We hope that our experience building an outdoor ping pong table using cement board will help your build go a little bit easier so that you can get to the fun part – playing ping pong – a little bit faster! By the way, if you’re wondering if the ball bounces well on…

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    A Crate For My Crate – Because Why Not? ScrapMaster Project #2

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  • diy pool equipment tool holder wood rack for holding leaf skimmer and telescoping poles near pool
    DIY

    DIY Pool Maintenance Tool Holder For Leaf Skimmers and Poles

    June 7, 2023 /

    Today, I’m sharing the DIY pool maintenance tool holder we made to store our leaf skimmers and telescoping poles during pool season. Pools are awesome but they also come with a lot of stuff to maintain them. All of those pool maintenance tools need a place to go that’s out of the way but also easily accessible. There are storage options you can buy to hold your leaf skimmer and other telescoping poles, but when you have a problem to solve and loads of scrap wood in your garage, a DIY solution is definitely happening. We made a rack out of wood that attaches to the pool fence that can…

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    DIY Pottery Barn Inspired Farmhouse Bed

    July 21, 2014
  • red flowers with black and white striped towels on a concrete pool deck
    DIY,  gardening and landscape

    Adding To Our Concrete Pool Deck Ourselves

    June 5, 2023 /

    Patience is not one of my virtues but I did wait almost 4 years for us to add a 5-ft x7-ft section to our concrete pool deck. Yes, we poured that concrete ourselves. I should rename this blog “Gluttons For Punishment.” Another suitable blog name would be “We Like To Save A Buck But Dang That Concrete Is Heavy.” Thankfully, Handy Husband has experience pouring concrete and I’m a decent assistant as long as I’m not required to lift more than a handful of 80-lb. bags of concrete. After that, it is possible that whining occurs. It’s ironic that Handy Husband ran a concrete line pump when we first got…

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    annisa 0 Comments

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    Update: Making the Switch to Linen Bath Towels

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    Stone Windowsills and Wooden Doorsills

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  • sunroom door hardware after removing paint from door hardware with a slow cooker
    DIY

    Old House Essential: Slower Cooker For Paint Removal

    May 1, 2023 /

    There are house essentials and then there are old house essentials. The essentials might look the same on each list but their purpose can differ vastly. On my list of old house essentials is a slow cooker – not for cooking but for removing paint from door hardware. If you own an old house or any home where someone became overzealous with a paintbrush then a slow cooker will be the MVP when it comes to restoring your door hardware back to its original shine. To make this very clear, I own two slow cookers and I do not confuse the two. One is for making tasty dinners and the…

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    June 10, 2024
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    Stone Carriage House Gym: Part 2, Demo

    April 28, 2025

    The Gift of Handmade

    July 17, 2017
  • when to use a brown paint wash to mimic the look of stain
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    When To Use A Paint Wash To Mimic The Look Of Stain

    April 24, 2023 /

    Let’s talk about when to use a paint wash (aka diluted paint) instead of stain to finish wood. Under the right circumstances, a brown paint wash can mimic the look of stain. There comes a time in every DIY project when things are not going well and you begin to regret the choices that led you to this point. It’s in this moment of profound clarity when you’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time and money on something that does not look good that you realize you could have bought it on Amazon for a tenth of the price and zero of the headaches. Now you have to decide whether…

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    Basement Workshop Stone Repointing: Part 4, Floor Joists

    March 11, 2026
  • modern country laundry room in a colonial farmhouse with wainscoting stained glass horse art basket wall and inset wall shelves
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    A Modern Country Laundry Room For Our Colonial Farmhouse

    March 29, 2023 /

    If a modern country laundry room can be a thing, that’s what we created for our Colonial Farmhouse. The transformation of this modern country laundry room only took us 3 months, 13 days, and, oh fine…a while. It took us a good long while to finish. Either this project was more tedious than we originally anticipated or we actually found a life and hobbies outside of working on this house. Yeah…you’re not going to believe we have actual hobbies, so this project was probably just tedious…as all good projects are. Almost four years ago our laundry room looked like this. Sexy, wasn’t it? That photo was taken on the day…

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    annisa 1 Comment

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  • stones in between studs of old house 3 reasons why old houses have stones in between the studs
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    3 Reasons Old Houses May Have Stones Between The Studs

    March 20, 2023 /

    If you own a really old house you might have discovered stones or bricks instead of insulation in between the studs in your walls. It begs the question why do old houses have stones between the studs? Someone went to an awful lot of trouble to install those stones or bricks there. They had to have had a decent reason to undertake that back-breaking work. There are 3 possible reasons that really old houses, particularly those built in the 1700s and 1800s, may have stones or bricks in between the studs in the walls. First, let me say that I am the owner of a home built in the eastern…

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    annisa 2 Comments

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  • DIY wood cube cord holder charging cord holder
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    DIY Wood Cube Cord Holder

    February 27, 2023 /

    Today I’m going to show you my latest creation, a DIY Wood Cube Cord Holder, and how you can make one yourself. Cord management for all of our electronic devices seems like a universal problem we can all get behind. That’s a rarity in our world! I’ve been on a kick to contain, manage, and wrangle all the charging cords in our house. It’s a thankless job but someone has to do it. My laptop charging cord is particularly wily. If that cord wasn’t plugged into my laptop, it would slide right off the back of my desk. There are adhesive clips you can purchase to solve that problem but…

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  • refinished wood mirror how to label diy furniture
    decorating,  DIY

    3 Ways To Label DIY Furniture

    January 23, 2023 /

    Have you ever thought about how to label DIY furniture? Or even if or why you should label DIY furniture? We’ve made DIY furniture for years but didn’t think about labeling it until a couple of years ago when we had an “oh no” moment. We own a wood-framed mirror that, according to family lore, was made by my husband’s grandpa. Everyone in the family knew it was made by him but no one in the family could remember when he made it, why he made it, who he made it for, etc. The story of this mirror is now lost and that’s sad from a family history perspective. If…

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Hi! I'm Annisa.

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