I own the Hoover S1361 Portable Canister Vacuum and from some searching it appeared other people were having the same issues as I was. Apparently this is quite common. Thanks to Joe on the thread over at FixYa, I discovered there was a 5th screw holding everything together.  Unfortunately he had destroyed his vacuum tearing it apart. Good thing I did a search, I was about to do the same thing.

I thought I’d post up some photos of the process to help along anyone else who might be going through this same problem.

After getting the cord stuck I tried to open up the housing in attempts to unwind the stuck cord, there are 4 screws when you open up the panel that covers the filter that are easy enough to get at. However, there is a hidden 5th screw just underneath the cord retract button.

The button has to be pried off and you’ll need to be careful not to snap the tabs that hold the button down. The screw is down a long hole, so you’ll need a nice long screwdriver to get at it.

After the fifth screw is removed from the vacuum, the cover itself comes off rather easily. You’ll want to be careful still as there are wires attached to both pieces and a delicate circuit board on the inside. Now all you need to do is just unwind the cord from where it is snagged. Knowing how this all works now I’ll probably be careful with how it retracts the cord.

I wanted to add some extra shelving to my room without utilizing another book case or anything that would take up precious floor space. The answer? Wall mounted shelves. For cool factor I had to get myself some of those uber cool floating shelves. Where the mounting hardware is competely hidden.

On top of that they also added to the airy zen/oriental feel, especially in this rich dark brown colour.

Tools Required: Level, Drill, Screwdriver, Measuring Tape
First you’ll need to find a suitable wall. I was initially going to put these shelves over top my bed. However a) I’d probably at some point in time (most likely multiple times) bump my head on them somehow and b) I will most likely be putting up a large scale art piece and the wall above my bed is perfect for it.

As such I decided to use this bare wall opposite my bed and above the existing desk which means it is out of head butting range.

Most important thing with putting up these shelves is you definitely want to plan everything out in advance. Have a vision for how you’d like your entire room to look before just slapping these things up here and there. Unless you enjoy patching holes these shelves put quite a few in your wall. Once you’re set mark out where the bracket should go.

The most important thing when putting anything on your walls whether it is as simple as a picture frame or floating shelves – MAKE SURE IT’S LEVEL! Make sure you trust your level as well. For example when I was putting up these shelves the shadows made it appear that even though the level showed the bubble dead centre, my shelf to the human eye looked unlevel.

Once you have all your screw locations marked out then it’s time to drill your holes. Depending on the material your wall is constructed from you may need to predrill or you may simply be able to screw the screws in and mount the bracket immediately.

If your wall is like mine and is drywall, make sure you drill out the screw hole and insert a drywall anchor before mounting your shelf. Unless you happened to align your hole with a stud in the wall. Either way make sure your shelf is fastened properly to the wall so that it won’t pull out.

Once you’ve got that all set then you’re good to go. Mount the hardware and slide the shelf onto the bracket. Make sure your shelf is properly fastened to the mounting bracket so that it doesn’t slide off accidentally. Also make sure the things you place on your shelves don’t exceed the maximum weight rating. Unless you really enjoy patching large holes in your drywall.

Floating shelves are definitely a wonderful addition to any room I think. Both decorative and functional at the same time compared to traditional shelving solutions.

There was still one problem I hated, the poor the lighting in my room.

The poor lighting was driving me nuts. Not to mention these energy efficient bulbs. I mean they’re great for saving power, but they seriously cast of funky light compared to incandescent lights. They take forever to warm up to full capacity too.

No worries, I still decided to use them, just two bulbs instead of one.

Tools used: Screwdriver
Materials: Direct wire Lighting Fixture ($13.99)

Thanks to my most recent visit to Rona (which has replaced Home Depot as my new fave home store since it’s proudly Canadian owned and can actually compete with a mammoth retailer like Home Depot), I found a great direct wire light fixture to replace this thing.

I thought this was pretty hideous. Not only does it only use a single bulb the glass was heavily frosted white which further diffused the light. I suppose it’s suppose to create a calming darker environment for which to fall asleep in, but it seriously was dark in my room.

Replacing the light was fairly straight foreword. You just have to be very careful the electricity is turned off before you proceed. It’s all just held together with a couple of screws and the new light fixture came with basic instructions.

The new light’s brand is…get ready to laugh “Express Installation”. Guess where it’s made? China. It certainly explains the brand and the price tag. I was surprised that it was actually pretty decent quality. It’s a pewter finish along with a spiraling glass design. The glass is frosted as well but noticeably less than the previous one.

Well the bed arrived as well so that’s now in the room and I’m pretty much done except to find some more decorations. I’m thinking of getting a big floor plant of some sort. Perhaps a cactus since it’s minimal maintainence. Perhaps I should just go with a fake plant.

Still pretty bare on the walls right now and still deciding where to mount a mirror. It’s slowly coming together. I’ll update this as it comes along further.

Tools used: Paint Roller, Brushes, Paint Pan, Step Ladder
Materials: Primer, Paint, Drop cloth / plastic, Masking Tape

It all starts off as more prep work before I even touched the paint cans. First removing anything that could be. Which meant the plates that cover the power sockets and light switch. Removing the intercom, hooks in the ceiling, the blinds, mounting brackets, the door stop, and obviously all the furniture. Whatever furniture you can’t move put it in the middle of your room.

After removing everything I taped everything off that I didn’t want paint on, the window sills, light switch, power socket, baseboard heater, etc. Then comes covering the floor up as well as the furniture I couldn’t get out of my room.

Once everything is covered up the order I was going to paint in was: ceiling, light colour walls, dark colour walls, window sills, door frame, closet doors, and room door.

When I finished painting the ceiling and letting it dry, I taped that off as well to prevent getting paint on it from doing the walls (I still managed to get paint on the ceiling by the way).

For the walls I had to lay down a coat of primer first. The ceiling since it was previously painted white didn’t require it. After putting primer on the wall, it was literally watching paint dry. It was supposed to be quick drying 20 minute paint, but with the weather I think it took much longer. I left it for 24 hours.

So after letting the primer dry over night, I then painted the light coloured walls. Using the roller for the large sections and the brush for the edges and around sockets and small details.

I painted around the edges first as recommended by various sources, and whilst the paint is wet you want to finish painting that section. After letting the paint dry for the light colour I did all the dark coloured walls.

So after painting the walls and letting it all dry I was able to remove the tape and admire the work. There were a few sections I had to go back over and touch up little blemishes here and there.

Next was painting the door frames, window sills and closet. So it was time to whip out the tape again. This time preventing paint from getting onto the newly painted walls. I also removed the closet door as well as the room door and all hinges and hardware that I could.

While paint dried on the sills and frames I was able to paint the closet doors and room door. I did all the painting by hand, since a roller is pretty much useless along all these slats.

After that all dried, I remounted all the doors and hardware. Put back the intercom and plates that covered all the electrical items and finally removing all the tape.

Anyways patching is fun when you’re applying the stuff, but not fun when you’re sanding. Partially because I’m a total amateur and globbed too much of the stuff on in some areas.

Tools used: Scraper, Sander, Sanding Block, Putty Knives
Materials: Aluminum Oxide Sandpaper, Surface Filler

So I started out with some Polyfix multipurpose surce filler. It’s basically a white goopy material that you smother into small holes and defects in your wall. It’s quick drying which is also nice.

Taking a small amount at a time I basically went around the room applying the putty into the holes that were left behind by various nails, screws and fasteners.

I was thinking I would fill the hole in with as much putty as possible and then I could just sand it off later. However this actually panned out to be far more time consuming. You want to make it as smooth as possible right from the get go. Don’t worry if there’s no putty overlapping from the hole onto the surrounding wall. I thought the dried putty might pop out like a cork so that’s why I put extra. This is completely unnecessary.

After getting all the holes and various defects all patched up, you have to sand it smooth. I had some old sandpaper lying around that I was using to sand and it took forever. Not because of the grit of the paper but because of the type. I was using garnet paper initially and only realized partially through the process that it is not well suited to sanding filler and drywall. You need to use aluminum oxide paper. You can rough sand with a lower grit first to smooth down the wall and then progress to a higher grit for the finer sanding. The smoother you get the wall the better the paint will look.

Here’s a quicktime 360 view of my stripped and patched room.

Click Here to View the QuickTime Movie

Like the closet, my wallpaper was ugly and done pretty poorly by the previous owners. As a result I had covered it up with a collection of movie posters. I wanted to paint the room, so it was time to take that all down.

Tools used: Plastic scraper, Wallpaper steamer, Exacto Knife or Scoring Device
Materials: Water

So this is what my room started out with. Literally plastered with clippings on top of dingy wallpaper on top of a poorly painted wall. So tearing down the wallpaper wasn’t exactly too easy.

First I had to remove anything mounted to the wall, picture frames, nails, screws, etc. After which I proceeded to remove the movie posters (although messy I realized I could just leave them on whilst I removed the wallpaper).

With the posters removed, I decided to have a little fun. How often do you get to draw on your walls? I doubt anyone has done so since their crayon incident involving a white wall and the parents. So I took the liberty to scrawl on the wall.

Since the previous owners did such a poor job of putting up the wallpaper in the first place, there were certain sections that just came right off with very minimal efforts. The paper was obviously not evenly dipped in the wallpaper adhesive when applied.

For other sections of the wall that are more stubborn I used the steamer. Honestly, I should have just used it from the start everywhere since it was much faster. The steamer was great at loosening and removing the wallpaper. I had to score the wallpaper first, so I just went cut crazy with the knife all over the walls. You just have to be careful not to cut into the drywall underneath. This helps the steam penetrate.

Once the paper is steamed enough (typically took about 10-20 seconds per section), it simply peels right off the wall. This part does get a little messy since it’s steamed paper, but certainly less messy than using the chemical removers.

After everything is removed I ended up with a nice bare wall to work with.� The next part is patching up holes and sanding and removing gunk.

So last ::wikipedia(Canada Day, Canada Day):: I decided to embark on redoing the closet. My closet simply sucked as you’ll see.

First of all my closet initially started out with the common wire-mesh type shelves. On top of that the previous owners did a pretty bad job of installing it, with it being unlevel and not using drywall anchors for the screws. I wanted a closet that made use of the space better as well as had more lighting, since my room light didn’t illuminate it too well. So here it is a post with all the details.

Tools used: screwdriver, pencil, drill, level, tape measure, stud finder (optional), rotary tool (optional)
Materials: Rubbermaid 7-piece closet kit ($39), Home Depot Laminate Shelf ($9.99), Ikea NON Spotlights ($14.99)

So initially this is what my closet looked like. A wimpy wire frame closet with a horrible layout. There wasn’t much room for anything. The only thing that was useful about it was the shelf running the entire length of the closet. The way the shelving unit was set up the closet was split in half. On the left hand side there was room to hang a row of shirts above and pants below. The middle shelf could only accomodate one layer of folded clothes if you hung your shirts above. The right hand side basically ran from the floor to the ceiling to accomodate longer clothing items. Being a guy I don’t really have much clothing that runs that length. However, I do possess quite a few items that are 3/4 length.

So the first thing to do is to remove all the clothing from the closet along with unscrewing the old shelving units. Now there’s a clean slate to work with.

So in my case the previous owners didn’t use any drywall anchors and as a result it appears that they attempted a few times to attach the same shelf. You’ll want to make sure you use anchors so your shelves don’t pull out of the wall with all the weight of your clothing. If you want at this point in time you might want to fill in or patch the holes. For me and the layout of my new shelving it’ll be covered up by the new hardware.

So in my case I was going for budget and functional space. So when I saw this Rubbermaid set on sale for $39 CAD I decided it would be perfect. Problem was when I got to the store it was sold out. There was also another couple there looking for the same set and they were already engaged in a conversation with the sales guy about checking other locations. I being a punk, sneakily listened in on the convo. Apparently there was 1 more left at another location, however being a sale item could not be held. So I quickly departed before this couple in order to snatch it

So once you have your closet layout figured out, you’ll want to measure, plan, and mark out exactly where you’ll need to fasten and mount things. If you have a stud finder it makes it handy to find good places to fasten screws, otherwise that’s what the drywall anchors are for (so you can place your screws anywhere). For my layout it just so happens that a few of the locations match up with studs. For those interested this Rubbermaid set includes everything you need including the drywall anchors.

The next part was to assemble the centre shelving unit. This “7-piece” set, essentially consisted of 3 rods, 3 blocks of wood that the rods get mounted to first before being mounted to the wall, and the centre unit. So assembly is fairly straight foreward. I’ll end up with a little more room since the shelf extends higher than my prior top shelf.

Using white plastic L-brackets the centre unit gets secured to the wall. In this case I was able to place screws directly into the stud for the left side and I utilized anchors for the right. Next you’ll want to measure out the placement of the rods. The instructions that came with this organizer gave all the typical measurements. So making sure my markings were level, I first mounted the wood blocks to the walls, which helps distribute the pressure and weight evenly from the rod. Once that was taken care of, it was easy to just snap the rods in place.

I had initially thought of using the spot lights to illuminate a compartment of the centre unit, however that would not provide the most efficient use of the light. I found that my room light cast a mediocre amount of light on the contents of my closet. However with me standing in front of the closet only the bottom would be lit well enough for me to discern dark colours. So I decided to mount the lights on either side of the centre unit. The top shelf was put in place and rests upon the centre shelf and the two blocks of wood that the rods are attached to. I first temporarily affixed them to the shelf and brought back some clothes to make sure the lights didn’t interfere.

I had positioned my centre unit off to the left side of the closet to provide more two tiered hanging room. So instead of having the lights evenly spaced out between the entire length of the closet, I centred them between the edge of the shelving unit and the wall. The wiring I ran along the underside of the top shelf and upon reaching the wall I snaked it up behind the shelf so that they ended up on top of the shelf.

Since these lights are not direct wire lights, I had to run the wires along the top shelf to hide the wires. The wires then run to the side wall where I then snaked them across and down the inside frame of the closet door. After plugging the lights into their special transformer (They’re actually 12v lights), I plugged them in to test them out. Now normally to provide more general lighting you would probably use flood instead of spot lights. However in my case, combined with the small amount of room light it was sufficient (not to mention I already had these lights lying around from before).

I also had these wire baskets lying around from before. Which I had accounted for when laying out my closet. So for these baskets they just stack on top of each other and are not mounted to anything. This provides further room for me to toss various items like socks and pajamas into.

Thus far this is how the closet is startng to look. I replaced some of the clothing just to make sure everything lines up properly before going farther. Now for the wire baskets just sitting there was a little ugly. So I added a few more (4 total) which brought it up to a reasonable height. After which to help secure it in place I utilized the support rod from the wire frame closet set and threaded it through the wires of the basket.

After which I used my rotary tool with a cut-off disc to cut in half the wire shelf I had previously. Make sure if you’re doing something similar to cut on the side that will be placed up against the wall to avoid any metal burs from knicking your clothes. After the shelf was cut I attached the mounting brackets for the wire shelf and used the shelf to cap off the top of the baskets and to keep the support rod in place.

The top shelf before provided far more room at the top of the closet than was necessary. Since I mainly store boxes at the top this higher shelf utilizes more of the space in the closet, whilst I still have plenty of room for my boxes. The centre unit now provides ample space for various folded clothing, my knick knacks and accessories.

Now this is how it all looks with everything replaced in the closet. A definite improvement over how it previously was that’s for sure. Although I still have some clothes occupying another closet in the house, I don’t think it’s all that bad considering the physical size of my closet. Now the next thing on the list is to figure out how to organize my ties better so that they’re easier to pick.

Well that was a fun little project, it took me the long weekend to put together but I’m sure it can be done in a solid day or less if you’re better prepared.