Two Minute Garage Door Makeover - No Tools Needed!

A few years ago we built a detached garage on our property which we nicknamed “the barn.” We were on a tight budget when we had it built so we kept everything very basic - basic windows, basic doors, etc. Now that we’ve lived with it for a few years we’re slowly upgrading what we can with easy and cheap DIYs, like this two minute garage door makeover - no tools needed! | This post contains affiliate links |

The front of our barn just looked so plain and boring... it definitely needed "something" to give it more character and the basic builder-grade garage door just wasn't cutting it. One day while I was on Amazon I came across these magnetic faux hinges and handles with amazing reviews and thought that was perfect!

To install them I wiped down the garage door real quick first to remove any dirt and then just stuck the hinges to the door right from the box. There are several magnets on the back of each item so they’re easy to stick on and reposition as needed.

| Magnetic Faux Hinges and Handles for Garage Doors |

The faux hinges and handles are made from thick plastic so they won’t rust - but they certainly don’t look plastic! Even up close they have a lot of texture and really look like forged metal. The handles even fooled my kids and they totally thought they were real! And if you want to keep your doors more simple you could easily just put the hinges up or just the handles and leave it at that.

This quick addition to our plain garage door really has made a difference in making our “barn” look more finished and giving it better curb appeal. Hopefully next year we’ll get the driveway paved up to it and add some landscaping and then it really will be done.

Looking for more cheap and easy DIY’s? See our previous Blog Post on how I added “window panes” to our basic builder-grade windows and it’s made such a difference. They’re still up years later and look as good as the day I first put them up.

Sheet and Towel Stripping How-To

While home for Quarantine, I’ve seen a lot of people posting about “stripping” their towels and bedsheets and showing disgusting After photos of dirty water - I was intrigued! Stripping the linens is supposed to get rid of any kind of build-up on them (whether that’s laundry detergent, body oil/sweat, hard water mineral deposits, etc). So I decided to give it a try myself and share the easy process - and let me tell you, it was a disgusting and oddly satisfying Quarantine Project. | This post contains affiliate links |

Apparently one should consider stripping their linens when they aren’t as absorbent as they used to be, they look or feel dingy, or they start to smell musty.

Supplies:

Everyone seems to be using more or less the same supplies, which are:

• 1/4 cup Borax Powder
• 1/4 cup washing soda (or 1/4 cup baking soda if you're in a pinch and don't have washing soda.. I used baking soda)
• 1/2 cup laundry detergent

How-To:

Fill a bath tub with hot water and dissolve the Borax, washing soda or baking soda, and laundry detergent in it. Next add your towels and sheets (make sure to only do similar colors together… in some cases it can cause some colors to run. We only have done our white and light colored linens so far.)

Then leave them to soak for the next four or so hours, stirring occasionally. You should see the water turn from clear to a gross yellowish-dirty color.

Once the water cools, drain the tub and squeeze the water from the linens, rinsing them with some fresh water. Then put in the washing machine (with no detergent - your items will already have absorbed detergent and Borax and you want to rinse everything out, not add more soap at this point), and run through the “wash” cycle to rinse everything out thoroughly.

After that you can put them in the dryer, or re-run the washing machine with detergent like you normally would to give them a fresh wash before drying.

Draining the dirty water after stripping. Ew.

| Whale Bath Spout Cover |

Our Personal Results:

So it wasn’t the magical night-and-day change across the board that I was expecting, visually anyways - and some items definitely had better results than others. OVERALL - Our linens definitely felt cleaner, and looked a little brighter - however, our old white towels (which have turned very off-white over the years), did not magically turn luminous white again like I was hoping. But again, that’s probably too much to expect as they are 10+ years old and have had many years to get discolored in the regular laundry. Nevertheless, just SEEING the dirty water after we stripped the linens makes me feel a lot better about doing this process - visually not everything looks perfectly white again, but I KNOW it’s cleaner after removing all that invisible gunk and that makes me feel a lot better.

Okay, so the old white towels are still off-white, but I know they’re cleaner than before after seeing the dirty water after the stripping process.

It’s my understanding that you can repeat this process as needed, and I can see myself doing this maybe up to 2-4x per year going forward to try to keep build-up at bay.

Disclaimer: Try at your own risk. In some cases this process may make colored fabrics run and may not be suitable for all fabrics.

Want to see another satisfyingly gross example…?

Here’s a photo my sister sent me after she did her sheets - wow!

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Related Posts:

• The Easiest Way To Clean Your Shower Curtain Liner

• How “Clean Kitchen at Night” Changed My Life

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An Easy Makeover for Septic Vent Pipes

Okay, so I don’t know if “makeover” is the right word here because it’s not a huge change but it certainly helps! So in our area, most homes have septic tanks/leach fields with terribly ugly white or sea foam green PVC vent pipes that stick out like a sore thumb in their lawn. They can be tricky to hide because you don’t want to plant or build anything too heavy or substantial around them and risk damaging the leach field underground or diminish their venting capabilities… so we were limited on options on how to “make it over.”

In any case, I decided to pick up some outdoor rated matte black spray paint from our local hardware store and give our vent pipe a quick coat of black paint and it’s made a huge difference! The black definitely makes the pipe look more industrial and blends in with the grass and trees better than a bright white pipe. Like I said before, it’s certainly not a huge change but it’s a small one that’s made a big difference in my opinion.

SHOP: Matte Black Spray Paint (affiliate link)

AFTER: I forgot to take a “Before” photo but this is the After! The black definitely helps the pipe blend in with the trees and background much better than a white pipe.