After a Burglary, I DIY'd a Way to Reclaim My Home
When our home was broken into over Christmas break last year (a surprisingly common occurrence), I knew I didn’t want a more high-tech alarm system or bars on the window. Prison Chic is just not my style. Instead, I decided to do a little DIY and reclaim our space.
Luckily, when they broke into our home the intruders didn’t do a lot of damage to the house itself. They did however expose our weak points and let us know how vulnerable we really were. And those weak points turned out to be the things we loved best about our house — the sunroom off the back, the abundant windows, and the fenced in back yard.
Our house is on a well-manicured little cul-de-sac off a short street that leads to a much busier street. The burglary crew (we think there were at least two or three of them) took advantage of the lack of houses facing ours on the short street and broke in through the gate to our fenced in, private, backyard.
From there they pretty much just yanked the screen door to the sunroom open and then pulled the pins from the hinges on the door to our bedroom. At this point, the alarm started blaring and they panicked. They broke the glass window in that door and grabbed everything they could out of our bedroom and office before hitting the road. Not exactly the scene we were hoping to come back to after our short trip to my parent’s house for Christmas.
Nothing says Merry Christmas quite like fingerprinting powder. (Images: Courtesy of author)
Once a little bit of the shock wore off and my general inability to sit still kicked in, it was time to do a few projects to keep me busy until we started feeling normal again. I decided to do a little landscaping, cover a window, and threw in a couple “just for looks” projects. It took some time and effort but it really helped us make the space our own again.
My Craft Room
As I said, we have an abundance of windows. We live in LA where it is beautiful and sunny. Windows make a lot of sense. Luckily, most of the windows on our house have shades or shutters. I love that people can’t see in but I hate that there isn’t a lot of natural light. I decided to make a change. A couple changes in fact, or “$5 fixes” as I like to call them.
Previously, I used stained glass paint to cover one of the windows in our bedroom. I had a few bottles left over and went to town. I decided to go with an impressionist/fat brushstrokes feel. I did a base layer of frost and then built up layer after layer of green and blue letting each layer dry between applications.
Since I was already working in the craft room, or “the babe cave” as one friend calls it, I decided to paint an accent wall around the window just to make myself feel better. Blue is my favorite color and I knew it would go well with the window paint so that was a pretty easy decision. I have a great selection of paint samples (including about 5 blues) from the hardware store so I had everything I needed on hand. I think it all turned out pretty nicely.
A touch of blue paint, a newly opaque window, and a little homemade bunting to brighten the craft room.
Related story on Yahoo Makers: 6 DIY Wood Wall Treatments
The Sunroom
I love the sunroom in our house. At one point it was a patio, but a previous owner had expanded it into a mostly windowed-in room. The floor is a painted white concrete that I hate. It shows dirt badly and doesn’t really add to the aesthetic of the room. I have been contemplating what to do with that floor since the day we moved into the house but I was afraid of choosing wrong and messing it up. It’s amazing how much license having a stranger break into your home gives you. Suddenly mess ups are no big deal.
A view of the sunroom through the damaged door.
That’s when I started my penny floor project.
To be honest, this project is still not finished. However, it did accomplish its goal of keeping me busy for HOURS and even in its unfinished state it is still pretty cute.
I compared a few penny floor videos online and thought I could manage the process. I did the math on how much it would cost to cover the entire floor and decided to scale back my plans to a penny entryway with a tile border. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that all of the pennies I got from the bank were brand new, shiny and had the shield emblem on the back instead of the Lincoln Memorial. Since my husband is a comic book fan I quickly decided to orient the pennies so that they would be shield side up in the final product as a little homage to Captain America.
Its a good thing I had decided not to let mess ups get me down because I messed up A LOT.
I decided to go with a grout method as opposed to a glue-each-penny-individually method. I felt it would be quicker and less tedious. It took me a while to get the exact right thickness of grout going and the result is a not exactly uniform level for the pennies. Also, in the first corner I laid down I used a little too much pressure so those pennies are a bit submerged. It took a little bit to get my exact penny-laying process down, but even with my failures, I like the result.
The line of darker pennies at the bottom is where I decided to create a stripe of heads up pennies.
The Backyard
As I said, the burglars took full advantage of our very private backyard in order to access our sunroom and the rest of the house. When I suggested we replace the doors to the sunroom with heavier/more secure doors my husband’s response was “They’ll just break in the windows then.” Thus my biggest project was born - landscaping the rear of the house to make the windows a less convenient option. We also upped the security on the doors, of course.
My idea was to make it as annoying and loud as possible for burglars to get in. Even though the burglary happened while we were out, I was terrified they would try again when we were home. I wanted as much advance notice as possible.
I went on a “therapeutic” trip to the shopping center for some landscaping supplies. My general plan was to pot a few small trees in heavy ceramic pots and place them outside the windows to the sunroom. A) I thought they would be a pain to move and B) they would definitely make some noise if someone pushed them over. I didn’t want to actually plant trees so close to the foundation of our house.
My shopping list consisted of: ceramic pots, paving stones, sand, pea sized pebbles, soil, some edging materials and trees. My husband loves citrus so I was happy to use a few orange and lime trees as burglar deterrents. If we were going to be robbed of our peace of mind, among other things, then we were going to get a little something out of it.
The next morning I set about creating my “floor.” I used a shovel to break up and level the area I wanted to use. Once the small mounds and random divots had been smoothed out, I tamped the ground down. Over the newly flat ground I poured a thin layer of sand to help support the pavers I was about to lay down.
An early test of the idea before I prepped the ground
Next came a little trial and error as I laid out my pavers and adjusted them with the potted plants. I didn’t have to do too much readjusting and we were down to the last steps. I laid out my edging and poured the pebbles around the pavers.
I can speak from personal experience - the potted plants are definitely a pain to move. Exactly what I was going for.
Voila!
In the end, I really like that I was able to find a way to make our house OURS again while making it a better place to live.
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