Time sure passes slowly during a pandemic. With all the extra time, we finally started a project that we vowed to do many moons ago. We would hide the ugly, old (but very efficient and effective) radiators with radiator covers that we built ourselves. We finally tackled one of them back in April!
We started with the radiator cover by the dining table. I wrote about it in a post from 2015, but here is what it looks like up close. This one isn’t too bad but painting this to look great would have been pretty difficult, plus we want to be able to put plants on top of it:
First, we set up shop on the patio and our new cantilevered umbrella was very useful in keeping us cool:
Per usual, we looked to This Old House for guidance: How to Build Radiator Covers. Can’t go wrong when Tommy is your guide…or so we thought.
Interestly, the suggestion was to use MDF instead of wood. Mike thinks this is because it enables us to cut a window into a panel of MDF and then wouldn’t have any seams on the front. Here is what it looked like after we cut the window:
After cutting all the pieces to size, we glued and nailed it all together and checked that it would fit:
This is already making the corner look more polished!
Mike spray painted the metal lattice while I painted the MDF. Both types of paint are heat-tolerant. You can see our really janky radiator in the kitchen, which is also way more visible. I hope we make the radiator cover for this by the end of the year!
The (nearly) finished product
And here it is! It’s not quiitteeee finished. One of the problems with MDF is that the edges of the board are very absorbent unless you seal them first… which we didn’t know. We thought we could just do extra coats of paint, but even after 3 coats on the edges, it STILL absorbed. So we do need to properly seal the edges and then repaint them again before we are really done. But I’d bet we won’t get around to that for a few more years, given how slow we are! :)
Spring grass update
You may recall that back in November 2020, we tried to conquer the grass once and for all! It was an exhausting project that is documented here. The real test was whether it would look good by the spring time and… drum roll please……
IT WORKED!!! We’re so pleased with the results! The grass looks lush, the plants by the house look great. Even the alliums (the big goofy purple flowers) on the right came up! Since this photo was taken, we have weeded and mulched the right side too so it doesn’t have so many weeds popping up. We actually have gotten quite a number of positive compliments from people passing by on the street.
And now…a puppy picture.
While there are many things that suck about the pandemic, one of the minor benefits is how Washingtonians can enjoy the city’s spoils without too many tourists around. We took advantage of that by going to see the Cherry Blossoms this year, which normally are overrun with tourists and annoying hordes of people posing for Instagram with their selfie sticks. But we had relative quiet this time and even took Thambi. He enjoyed the fragrant blooms!
