It’s my favorite holiday. Maybe it’s because it’s also my best friend’s birthday (aka my mom’s – who was also born in Bethlehem!) but I just love the holiday. It makes me happy… well at least when I avoid shopping during this time. Nothing will get rid of my Christmas spirit faster than going to Wal-Mart, I tell ya.

Anyway, this year, I decided to do some stuff to get the Christmas spirit going in this house. I made my first advent ... read on, Fisherboy »]]> I love Christmas.

It’s my favorite holiday. Maybe it’s because it’s also my best friend’s birthday (aka my mom’s – who was also born in Bethlehem!) but I just love the holiday. It makes me happy… well at least when I avoid shopping during this time. Nothing will get rid of my Christmas spirit faster than going to Wal-Mart, I tell ya.

Anyway, this year, I decided to do some stuff to get the Christmas spirit going in this house. I made my first advent calendar. It was almost free. I won’t go into a huge, in-depth tutorial, because there’s so many ways to make these, and this is my meager contribution. All I did was wrap a piece of scrap wood with some felt I had on hand, and hot-glued handmade cards to it for the kids to pull out every day. I will say if I do this next year, I’ll use colored construction paper, and I’ll print the darn things off instead of hand-lettering them! (I will say – so I remember later – that the font I used was Mardi Gras!) The card template I used (with a few edits) was the “4 and 3/4″ square envelope template” from here. I could get one card and one envelope from a single sheet of 8 1/2 x 11″ card stock paper that I have lying around.

The kids are already excited for tomorrow, so they can finally start pulling out cards and see what they say. They’ve never done an advent calendar before (heck, neither have I!) so they’re wondering what will happen. I’d explained that usually, it’s “open a door, eat a piece pf candy” sort of thing, but I wanted this to be more interesting. So instead, I made a list of one Christmas-y thing per day we can do. if you’re interested, my list looks like this:

1. Write a letter to Santa.
2. Pick 10 toys (each) to give to Goodwill.
3. Decorate the house for Christmas.
4. Make Christmas cards.
5. Make and hang up paper snowflakes.
6. Play a board game.
7. Make snow globes.
8. Shop for Fred and Fezzik. This is our goldfish and our new puppy!
9. Read a Christmas story. This one will also introduce Christopher Popinkins to the house – so that’ll be ongoing fun!
10. Go ice skating.
11. Make presents for teachers.
12. Put up the Christmas tree.
13. Roast marshmallows in the fireplace.
14. Visit Light Fanstasia.
15. Play “Christmas Pictionary.”
16. Watch “Polar Express.”
17. Camp out under the tree.
18. Make gingerbread house and cookies! I think I’ll provide a tutorial for the house, too – we make it every year!
19. Go visit Santa.
20. Drive around and look at Christmas lights.
21. Wrap Christmas presents.
22. Do a Christmas “word search” game. I think this will be more of a scavenger hunt, but we’ll see!
23. Listen to Christmas songs.
24. Prepare and set out cookies for Santa and yummies for his reindeer!

It took me a while to make up this list – hubs wasn’t much of a help at all. He couldn’t think of anything! I also had to carefully arrange what was chosen on what nights – stuff like “Camping out under the tree” and “make a gingerbread house” were relegated to weekend projects. My husband is also out of town for a week in December, so I had to carefully arrange things that I could do on my own with the kids while he was gone. And the 22nd and 23rd, we’ll be on our way to my mom’s in West Virginia, so we had to do something we could bring along in the car.

Anyway, I thought I’d share. Maybe it’ll give inspiration to others!

Now, for months, I’ve had a layout idea for the living room that required “going with it” in the “long and narrow” department. If it helps to understand, you can see and old, messy “before” shot ... read on, Fisherboy »]]> So, our house is small. And kind of laid out weird. Everything is all long and narrow, and we’re always trying to find the best furniture configurations to make things nice and maximize space. The living room is the bane of my existence… we have tons of crap and not enough room for it all.

Now, for months, I’ve had a layout idea for the living room that required “going with it” in the “long and narrow” department. If it helps to understand, you can see and old, messy “before” shot of the living room here, that I took back in the spring, before I started this insane adventure of trying to make the house look nice.

For the record, it looks different now. A lot of stuff has since been removed, a few new things added, and we’ve sort of returned to this configuration. The furniture configuration in this photo isn’t our norm, but I think it is now.

Most Googling I’ve done for layout ideas (for rooms similar to mine in the “long and narrow” department) always have differences than what we have. For instance, where our TV is now, most have a window (if we had a window there, you’d see the picturesque view of the garage)… And where our big window is, they have a fireplace an put a TV. I still have yet to find any that have it set up like ours, with the window on the long wall. Our front door is also on the long wall, and there’s an odd “what do we do with this space?” area across from the door, which also has the half-stairway to upstairs.

Seriously, have you ever seen such a weird split-level configuration?

Anyway, I finally came up with a configuration that I think works, but it’s totally different from what I was thinking before. Which kind of sucks, because I bought a lot of stuff to go with the original configuration idea, and now I phase more stuff I have to try and figure out!

One of the things I bought were some old metal pulleys from farms. The idea was to make one of those Lineberry cart coffee table knock offs (the inspiration came from this living room, which I would die for! She even has a similar partition between the living room and the kitchen, which gives me hope!)

My husband HATES them, as it turns out.

Wouldn’t you know it, he has no opinion on pretty much anything (save he wants a hideous recliner) and the one thing I REALLY want, it turns out he can’t stand. He loves me, and was willing to build it for me, but he doesn’t like them at all.

So I started thinking about the recliner thing (which I hate…) and decided to compromise. Instead, I had my husband go out on the garage and get some scrap wood together and build me a couple of boxes with lids.

They were simple boxes: just 4 sides (made of 1/2″ scrap wood we have lying around) with a bottom, held together at the corners with 1×2′s which were cut 1/2″ from the top. He made a “lid” by gluing and screwing 2 pieces of 1/2″ scrap wood together (the bottom piece a mere 1/2″ inset from the top to create a lip edge, so they would drop in and rest on the 1×2′s and be flush with the sides). The “lid” is strong and 1″ thick, so it can hold a lot of weight.

He built two of these, and was surprised when I told him they didn’t need sanded or anything. I went to Lowe’s and picked up some hanger bolts and bun feet (for the grand total of about $24), which he measured up and screwed into place for me.

I didn’t tell him what I was doing. After he built the boxes (which only took him about 2 hours), I stained the feet a nice dark color, and then gave them 2 coats of polyurethane, and let them dry overnight. I made a mess too… didn’t even try to be neat about it! When they were dry, I got some of those stick-on felt pads and put them on (we have hardwood floors, and everything scratches them up!).

As an aside, I obtained the measurements for said boxes by measuring the height of our couch from the floor to the top of the seat cushion, which is 15″. A long time ago, we had this couch and chair set that got old and had to be tossed, but before we did that, I’d removed the seat cushion foam and the batting and saved them. I knew they’d come in handy! They were 5″ tall, and 22×24. The bun feet are 1-1/2″ tall, which (after taking out measurements for the thickness of stuff) left us with a box whose sides needed to be roughly 7″ tall.

While the polyurethane dried, I washed a great big drop cloth I picked up at Ace Hardware for $24. Washed it twice, dried it thoroughly. The next morning, I went out and used some spray fabric glue (which I had on hand from a previous project) and lined the boxes with some black felt (which I also already have on hand). I used a box cutter to clean up the edges and make them nice, making sure the felt didn’t overlap the 1×2 tops. Then I glued the cushions to the lid tops.

The batting I had from the old couch was really thick, so I pulled it apart in the middle to halve the thickness (it was actually really easy, it seemed to be layered). Then I cut it to size, sprayed and glued it around the cushion and around the sides of the box. Once that was done, I just cut 2 squares from the drop cloth that were roughly 40″, and cut out 6″ squares from the corners. I unscrewed the feet, centered the drop cloth over the bottom of the box, and pulled it tight up the sides, and staple-gunned the cloth on at the edge. Then I screwed the feet back in.

I pretty much did the same thing with the “lid”, just folding and tucking the corners and stapling under the lip. Then I used needle and thread to sew the folded corners closed (just a simple basting stitch, hand-sewn. It was more to tack them shut so the folds didn’t pop out than for strength.) When I was done, this is the end result (please excuse the undie-clad girl, it’s amazing she’s wearing that much clothing!):

I still have the second one to upholster, but hubs tried out this one last night, and is happy with the result. With the two of them together, we have a coffee table. He can recline with his feet up which watching TV, the inside is big enough that we can store a couple of blankets and pillows in there (or whatever else we’d like to store); he also likes that he can set drinks (or whatever) on them, or work on his laptop. He also likes (as do the kids) that they can also be used as extra seating, if needed.

So maybe I had to give up my Lineberry knock-off idea (anyone need the wheels for that? ‘Cause now I have to figure out what to do with those…), but by doing this, we got a nice coffee table/recliner/extra seats/extra storage in our living room, for about $50 out-of-pocket. He can forego the coffee table idea he hated, AND I get to keep my living room recliner-less!

Really, for no pattern or plans, and about 4 hours of work (not counting stain-and-polyurethane drying time) they came out REALLY well, I think.

Now off to finish the second one!

For the record, I’ve had this blog since 1999, and it’s been through many iterations and versions. Holy cow – that’s 12 years! You think I’d do better than this with it! However, my excuse is that I have another website ... read on, Fisherboy »]]> So over the past few weeks, I’ve had another “epiphany” (if you will.) I doubt anyone who reads this (if there is anyone) is actually anyone who’s read me since the beginning. If so, I applaud you – you are Ghandi-like in your patience.

For the record, I’ve had this blog since 1999, and it’s been through many iterations and versions. Holy cow – that’s 12 years! You think I’d do better than this with it! However, my excuse is that I have another website that I’ve updated with a lot more frequency, and it has a lot bigger audience. Over the past few months, I’ve let it go a bit stagnant – because I’ve actually been posting here. That “other” blog is for my business – and it’s not just a “business website”, it started as a simple foundry for links and code snippets that I didn’t want to lose – but then people started reading it, much to my amazement

It’s hard doing two blogs at the same time. If I’m paying attention to one, then I’m not paying attention to the other. However, I feel it’s necessary because I want to keep my personal life and my business life separated. I don’t feel that strange people (who may want to be future clients) really need to have access to my personal issues. In the same vein, I don’t feel that people who have an interest in my personal life need to be exposed to being “sold to” all the time – even though my other site doesn’t “sell” at all. I still use it as a foundry of code for myself – it just so happens to help others as well.

Anywhoo…

I don’t plan on combining the two sites. I don’t think I ever will – they have the be separate and defined for their respective audiences. BUT. I’ve also discovered – over this past year – that there is some overlap. I’ve also discovered that the more organized I become, the better I am at keeping my audiences happy.

I do want this site to be as successful as my other – and what defines that success is not how many sponsors I have to send me checks (believe me, I have none for this one for good reason – but I have none on the other one because I refuse to place ads on my site that are there solely for the purpose of receiving a check. I MUST believe in the products I put on the site. So it’s not for lack of offers – it’s for lack of quality.) What defines success, for me, is helping others find their way.

Now, I’ve said before that I’m sort of a scatterbrain. I get into a LOT of things. I love learning and doing (and mastering) new things, and then moving on to the next thing. My husband insists that this is what defines me as a genius (his argument is that Leonardo da Vinci was the same way – and he never finished anything, so I must be a genius) – which I take as a nice compliment. But to me, it means I’ll never be a real master of anything. This has been sort of a… bummer?… to me of late. I feel it’s in me to do something great – to be known for one awesome thing that I do, and do well. Others will name several things that they think of when they think of me, but I, myself, can’t name one – except being a disorganized Jill-of-all-trades.

Which is mostly why I’m so scattered on blogging here. Forget the fact that I took this site down a few years ago because someone wanted to use its contents against me in court (which totally blew up in their face, a fact that I smile about when I think of it); but I just feel like, most times, the stuff I have to say that I think is interesting, I dont’ feel anyone else will.

Well screw that. It’s my site.

I’m returning it to me. I don’t know why I ever thought I needed to write for someone else. The reason I started this blog was as a personal journal. Granted, I could just get a notebook and have at it in that, but the kids keep taking it as drawing paper, and many times I forget it somewhere when something cool happens. At least this way, I won’t lose it, and the kids won’t steal it. (And don’t tell me I could just hide it. Ha! I don’t want it hidden anyway. I don’t do this to keep secrets.)

Anyway, I’ve been really into “home decor” lately, because we’ve lived in this house for almost 7 years now, and it’s never been home. I think that’s partly my fault. When my husband and I got married, we bought a house together, and I saw i as our “forever” home. I went all big on making it nice, and just how I wanted it to be. After initial stuff, I began my first major project: I redid the bathroom. I mean I took down walls, got new sinks… you name it. MAJOR reno. When it was done, it was beautiful.

2 weeks later, my husband’s place of work shut down, and we got relocated.

So I’ve been reluctant to “make this house my own,” because I really think that traumatized me a bit. But over the past year, the way this house looks drives me insane. It looks like we’re renting the place. Its always so messy and disorganized, partly because my brain is, but partly because I’ve been too afraid to commit to anything for fear of losing it. but it has to stop.

This house is small, and it has it’s weird issues. But I love it.

With all this “fixing up the house” comes organization, and with the organization and house-fixing (and now budgeting, and coming up with ways to save money) I’ve realized I need to apply this to myself. I dont’ plan to turn this into a huge weight-loss blog, but I do plan on giving that part of this site a little more focus.

And I’m working on a redesign. (when am I not? LOL)

Anyway, just warning you.

I’ve awakened a monster.

You might recall that what started it was my youngest daughter (who was four years old when the request first came, but has since turned five) wanted to get rid ... read on, Fisherboy »]]> So, a while back, I posted nasty pics of my house. Yes, I was prepared for my mother to see them and have a heart attack from the horridness of my house. My plan was to start working on rooms and make my house look like a home someone cared about, rather than just a place to stay.

I’ve awakened a monster.

You might recall that what started it was my youngest daughter (who was four years old when the request first came, but has since turned five) wanted to get rid of her older sister’s room decor and have something more to her taste, since she took over her older sister’s room. As I began cleaning out her drawers in preparation, I wondered if I could do something with the dresser (besides tossing it out) and it took me to the hall closet.

And so it began.

You also might recall that the closet looked like this:

Inside of linen closet, way back in the corner where we could never reach or find anything.

Other side, with the overstuffed, really deep, shelving.

Shelf above the crawlspace that also had a rod for hanging stuff...I'm guessing to hide the ugly crawlspace door.

Now, at this point, I didn’t actually take a picture of the floor (gross), or the crawlspace door. It didn’t dawn on me at the time to do so.

I’ve also covered how we removed the molding around the ugly bifold doors (after removal), added in a wall to enclose it more, and how Mike built a custom-made “dresser” to fit in there.

And how surprised I was that we made the closet smaller and removed nearly half the storage space, and we still had plenty of room to store all the crap we had.

But the crawlspace “door” (if you can call it that) was the bane of my existence. New, beautiful hallway with beautiful storage space that we could actually show off, instead of hide behind ugly bifold doors…and this ugly… thing in the wall.

I did take a direct picture of it for you. This is how our hallway has been looking for the last month and a half:

The crawlspace. Note the little planter hook we use on the side to keep it closed, otherwise the whole thing falls out and you see the inside of the attic.

This is the point where I wish I had taken more photos for you, because this is a terrific tutorial. Now, we want more photos in our house. We have a lot of pictures, but none are really hanging up. And although you can go it the Dollar Tree or Ikea and get cheapie frames, none are very big. 8×10 at the most.

Mike took a picture of the kids that we both loved, and after a bit of photoshopping, I sent it to a company to have it blown up to poster size (20×30″). I can’t recall the name of the company, though…I’ll have to look that up and put it here later. But pretty much any place will do it for you, and I think even Wal-Mart will do it cheaper. But I hate Wal-Mart, so I avoid them when I can.

A big problem though: getting a frame for a 20×30″ photo is expensive. The cheapest I could find was $80. And in all honesty, I needed a minimum of 30×40″ to cover the crawlspace, and I couldn’t find one that size ANYWHERE, except custom-made, and those started at $200.

What we ended up doing was getting a piece of 1/2″ plywood and cut it to size. I painted the inner 4″ solid black. Then I taped off 3″ all the way around and painted the rest white. I let it dry overnight. Then I sprayed the “frame” with spray adhesive, as well as the back of the photo. Then I placed the picture in the “frame” – my husband helped me, because once the photo touches, it’s hard to peel it off to re-center – and smoothed out the photo gently. My husband cut a piece of acrylic to match the frame, then I placed washers every 8″, laid the acrylic on it and pre-drilled holes. I placed another washer over each hole and drilled screws through all of them. Peeled the backing off the acrylic and BAM! Instant beauteous photo. Total cost: $65. The acrylic was the most expensive part of it, a huge sheet coming in at $40. But I have enough left over to do more smaller ones.

Again, I wish I’d taken photos of the process. The longest part was the drying time for the paint.

Now, normally, you’d want to use 1×1′s or 1×2′s across the back to both act as hangers and give the back support so it doesn’t warp, but we were doing double-duty with this project, and also using it to replace that ugly crawlspace door. So Mike measured the inside of it, and found that if we used 3/4″ thick pieces, he could make a frame that would just fit inside the hole to the attic. So that’s what he did. I had an old desk that we took apart a long time ago, and it had these magnets to hold all the doors closed. So while he hung the magnets on the inside of the crawlspace hole, I took the old metal plates and popped them into the frame he made (that we glued and brad-nailed to the back of the picture). All we had to do then was remove the old, ugly “door” and pop the new pretty picture in it’s place. The magnets hold it there so it doesn’t fall out. If we ever need to access the crawlspace in the attic, we just pull the picture off the wall, and there you go.

Wanna see what the finished product looks like?

The finished linen closet.

Close up of the custom photo frame door!

I can’t stop looking at it. It just came out so much better than I ever expected.

And of course, now I want to attack something else in the house and make it pretty!

She’s only 5, and likes to sleep with a nightlight on, still. My husband got some light switches that had a built-in nightlight, but it’s not bright enough for her liking. After seeing some tutorials this summer for a candle lantern made out of small photo frames, I thought it would be neat to do something similar for her using Christmas lights.

There’s an issue though – Christmas lights mean you have to plug them in to turn them on, and unplug them ... read on, Fisherboy »]]> So, still on my daughter’s room here…

She’s only 5, and likes to sleep with a nightlight on, still. My husband got some light switches that had a built-in nightlight, but it’s not bright enough for her liking. After seeing some tutorials this summer for a candle lantern made out of small photo frames, I thought it would be neat to do something similar for her using Christmas lights.

There’s an issue though – Christmas lights mean you have to plug them in to turn them on, and unplug them to turn them off. I wasn’t sure how to get around that.

Then I heard of an “ornament” for a Christmas tree – you hang it on the tree and plug the lights into it (instead of into the outlet) and when you want to turn the lights off and on, you touch the ornament. How awesome is that? They weren’t easy to find though – and in the end, I decided on a “dimmer switch” that ::ahem:: “older folks” like to use because it’s easier to reach and manage their table lamps.

When I was at Michael’s looking for some stuff (not for this project) I came upon some really cool frames that cost only $4.50 each. Quick math in my head told me that using these frames were 1) the perfect size and 2) cheaper than going to the dollar store (well, mostly anyway. I mean, I probably could have gotten them at the dollar store for $4 each. But it’s further away, so I’m including gas prices!), and 3) well, I can’t remember what 3 was. It came in and went out. “Must’ve been a lie!” is what my mom would say!

Now, these things were meant to hold little pictures on each side – they came with these cheapie plastic squares (badly cut, by the way) to cover the small photos, but they would suffice for my purpose. They also had this little sort of “lazy susan” thing going on on the bottom – I suppose so you could spin it around and look at all the pictures.

Well, I didn’t need that, so the first thing I did was take them off (I saved them in a baggie – they may come in handy later on!) it was just a single screw, so it was really easy.

Then I took them out and painted them white – mainly because my daughter’s room is pink, silver and white. While they dried, I set to work on the plastic squares that acted as the “glass” for the frames.

Now, I will note here that I probably should have sanded them or roughed them up. I didn’t, but I’m thinking if I had, this would have worked a little bit better. So learn from my mistake.

I took a brush and spread a dab of Mod Podge (first time I’ve ver used this stuff!) over the surface of the plastic, and set it down on a bit of parchment paper (baking paper – no wax). Then I Mod Podged the other side and folded the paper over so both sides were covered. (In all actuality, I did all of them on one side, on one sheet of parchment paper, then folded it over and did all of the other side. So all eight of them at one time, on a single sheet of parchment paper.) Then I set a ginormous cookbook on it to add some pressure. I let it dry for about an hour. The paper got all wrinkly and cool looking. After they were all dry, I took two of them and cut a 1″ square hole in one of the sides – this was so the cord could come through. (I think the paper helped it not to snap into a bunch of small piece all over the place – so that worked out well.)

Finally, I brought in my boxes, slid all the parchment-covered “glass” into the sections. I stuffed them with a string of 50 Christmas lights (I would not recommend more than this – they were pretty full with this short strand) and lifted the back panel (the one with the hole in it – hole at the bottom) and pulled the plug and a bit of cord through it. Then I plugged the dimmer switch into the wall, and the lights into the dimmer switch.

The cool thing was, you can connect the lights – so I got to use 1 dimmer switch for lights on 2 tables!

Light, shut off.

Now, when my little one gets into bed, she can use the dimmer switch next to her head to turn her new “lamps” on high, or take them down to really low to act as nightlights. (Yes, you can turn them off, too.)

So the entire cost of this project was about $20. (I had to spend a little on the Christmas lights because we don’t have white ones) it’s really cool. Fun project too – you can use any kind of light for this – colored ones would be neat. I’d imagine if you wanted to use them for some kind of tabletop thing, you could get battery-powered LEDs to pull that off. But it’s pretty sweet and she loves them!

The light, turned on, dimmer switch at half power.

Linked up at Thrifty Decor Chick

Anyway, I was assuming the power was going to go out, so I stocked up on some projects ... read on, Fisherboy »]]> Well, Irene passed over us during the weekend. We were lucky, no damage per se, save the power went out around noon on Sunday, and it’s still out now. Mike (my husband) usually leaves work between 5 and 5:30 and is home half an hour later, but today it took him almost 2 hours to get home because almost every road was closed, so everyone was taking the one road that was open.

Anyway, I was assuming the power was going to go out, so I stocked up on some projects to work on. The one I’m going to tell you about today is a way to eat your ice cream, and have it too.

Well, not really. But it’ll make you feel better because to do this, you have to eat your Ben & Jerry’s and wash out the container.

So yes, I know that this isn’t technically Ben & Jerry’s, but if you live in the Simsbury/Granby CT area, you’ll recognize it at a Tulmeadow Farms container, which is better than Ben & Jerry’s. (seriously. Ben & Jerry’s got NOTHING on this stuff.) But basically, it’s a pint container that formerly held delicious ice cream. Washed, dry, and ready to go.

Now, before my power was gloriously removed by Irene, I had picked up a huge ball of jute twine from Ace hardware for the whopping amount of $4.50. (I seriously underestimated the amount of twine on this sucker. It doesn’t even look like I used any of it.). I plugged in my hot glue gun, and started wrapping the container with the twine, gluing at each row, and pushing the rows up tight against the previous one.

When I was done, I ended up with a nice, twine-wrapped (a la Pottery Barn or whatever) container. (It struck me as interesting/surprising that the container seemed a lot stronger after this little treatment! I wasn’t expecting that.)

After I pondered stopping there and just popping a candle in it and maybe tying a ribbon around it and stopping there (yes, I’m lazy… I also considered using a lamp kit on them, ’cause they’re pretty cool-looking), I decided to proceed. But from this point on, I waited until the power went out. Because the point was to have something to do when there was nothing to do.

So I’d bought a few supplies from Michael’s… You’ll see stuff like moss, river rocks, small rocks, ribbon, etc.

The interesting choices are the rocks and the willow balls I bought. I actually splurged on them… 6″ Willow Spheres for $4 each. The reason I made these choices were because I want these to be reusable. Now, as anyone who does crafty stuff knows, you can use a styrofoam ball, or that floral spongy stuff, but the more you insert and remove stuff, the more it falls apart, and it quickly needs replacing. I wanted these to be easily changed out, so the holes in the willow balls seemed perfect for that.

I was also remembering a neat little knife holder I once saw when I was in culinary school: instead of your regular knife block, it was a hollow square of wood, filled with metal beads. You could insert your knife any way you wanted, and it would hold it nicely, because the beads would re-form around the knife without damage. So I used the same concept here. I first put in the river rocks, and then added the smaller rocks on top of it. Then I gave the containers a shake and a tap, to get the rocks re-situated so the small rocks filled the gaps between the larger ones (large: strength; small: stability).

The cool thing about Michael’s is that they have some nice already-arranged floral…thingies. (Yes, we are up on all the crafty terminology here.) So you don’t need to think a whole lot. So I let the kids pick out four of their favorite arrangements, and clipped them apart with wire cutters as close to the base as I could:

Then I proceeded to shove the “leaves” as far up the “stem” as I could, without popping everything off the end. (It still happened a couple of times, but they slid right back on.) Then I wove the long stems through the willow balls, trying to keep the ends coming through the same hole (or as close as I could get) at the bottom.

I kept doing that over and over again, until the arrangement was how I liked it. Then I trimmed the bottom of the wires so they were as even as I could get, and shoved them into the rocks. I then covered over the rocks with some of the moss. Then I tied orange ribbon either around the container or around the base. These are the 4 topiaries I ended up with, at a total cost of (on average) $17.50 each. Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware both sells a simple one for $59, while Ballard Designs sells ‘em for almost $80. So I think it was a pretty good deal.

What’s great about these is how interchangeable they are. For instance, say I want to swap out the “fall” for “Christmas.” The idea is, I’d change the ribbon colors (to, say, red and white, or silver and gold), and remove the flowers and replace with pine cones, snowflakes and bits of pine twigs. I could even fill in the entire willow with just pine branches all trimmed at the same length (for a true topiary effect) and weave some Christmas lights through them. You don’t even need fake flowers: you could easily find some string twigs or branches in your yard, wash the dirt off and use those for the “stem” part. Really, the possibilities are endless here.

And it all started with a pint of ice cream. (and a hurricane.)

Then I discovered these.

Now, in this photo, they looked pretty banged up, but ... read on, Fisherboy »]]> So I scored another craigslist find. Hubs was going to build two nightstands for my daughter’s room, but he’s been building SO much stuff lately that I was trying to see if I could find something acceptable on craigslist. I’ve been watching for over a month, but nothing popped out as THE item, so it looked like I was either going to have to force the hubster’s hand, or re-learn how to use power tools.

Then I discovered these.

Now, in this photo, they looked pretty banged up, but that’s because I didn’t think to take a picture of them before I roughed up the outer layer. I don’t know if the outer layer was veneer, or just really highly polished, but I’m willing to put my money on veneer. They’re both REALLY heavy, and they are both made of solid wood (not particleboard or anything), so it could be just highly polished, but since the drawers weren’t dovetailed, I’m going with veneer. So I decided to just scruff up the surface before applying primer, and isn’t realize until after I’d done so that I hadn’t taken a picture. They were already really nice tables, they were just the wrong color for the room I was putting them in.

It actually went pretty quickly. I did a coat of primer, and three coats of white paint. Spray-painted the hardware (which was so pretty, I didn’t want to change it out) silver, and decided it would be cool to also paint the two front legs silver as well. After I got it all together, I decided against my original idea of distressing and applying antiquing glaze. They just looked so pretty at this point. I couldn’t help but think of something one of my instructors used to tell me: “Don’t mess with a good thing. You’ll end up adding too much of something and ruin it.” So I decided to let it alone. (For now, anyway.)

So I picked up the tables at 10am, and by dinnertime, they were in my daughter’s room. We both love them! And now were that much closer to having 100% completed her room redo.

The tables also gave me an idea for an interesting lamp project. I’m discussing it with my husband to see if I can pull it off. If I can, it’s gonna be REALLY cool…I’m excited to give it a try

the Hallway:

The Linen Closet:

…and my daughter’s room (from before):

So, there ... read on, Fisherboy »]]> Wow – so we’ve been busy. As you recall, I was getting ready to redo my daughter’s room (the youngest, who is 5 and thinks she’s a pretty princess, and her favorite color is rainbow unicorn pink sparkle) and the idea of fixing our linen closet kicked into gear – which set off the need to repaint our hallway. (Funny how these things cascade into each other.) I’ll give you a couple of reminders of how they used to look.

the Hallway:

Taken facing our bedroom door. This hallway has never been painted - this is the color it was when we moved in.

Taken facing the bathroom - you can see the bifold doors which hid the linen closet. I hated those doors.

The Linen Closet:

When we moved in, this was just a closet with shelves to the left side, and a shelf across the top. I put in these wire shelves as a temporary measure - which has lasted us 6 years. We hated them. We could never find anything.

These are the shelves to the left side. They run all the way up to the ceiling, and are stuffed with junk.

This is the shelf above the crawlspace (you can see the top left corner of the piece of painted plywood covering the hole) - again, stuffed with junk.

…and my daughter’s room (from before):

Taken from the back corner, facing her bedroom door. That dresser is what set off the linen closet redo (I was trying to see if it would fit in there, and make a more usable/pretty space.) You can also see the bifold doors for the closet, and the wire shelving in there.

As taken from the doorway. The paint job was my oldest daughter's request when this was her room.

So, there are the reminders. As seen above, the dresser in my daughter’s room is what set off the chain of events. I was taking it apart (it’s a cheap Wal-Mart POS made of particleboard and plastic – the matching tall dresser is in the second picture, and there’s a matching nightstand in my son’s room) and was trying to figure out what I could do with it, rather than tossing it out. I did save and redo the mirror, and while I was trying to think of what to do with the dresser, my eyes fell upon our linen closet, which is just outside my daughter’s bedroom door. So I went to see if the dresser would fit in there (it didn’t – it was too long), but when I discussed what I was thinking with my husband he liked my idea, and we started forward with it.

We removed the trim from the linen closet, and instead of putting it back, we just decided to finish off the edges – which meant we had to repaint the hallway. Which I liked the idea of doing – since the hallway was gross. So while hubs was putting up drywall in the linen closet (yes, we actually made it smaller – I’ll explain why in a moment) and building the dresser out of wood scraps, I painted the hallway. This was the end result:

Facing the bathroom - linen closet on the left end.

Facing the bedroom. You can see the mess of the unfinished linen closet there on the right.

The change in color seemed to brighten it up for us. I don’t know if you can tell in the photos, but it seems a lot bigger and brighter.

Oh, I should also mention why we chose the color. Neither Mike or I are fans of the beach. However, we do love beachy colors. All of our rooms kind of open up into one another, and we were looking for some cohesive colors that would convey these “beachy” colors when you walked around the house and saw the palettes together. We’ve chosen all the colors: this greeny-blue was the hallway (which ties it all together); the bathroom will eventually be blue; the living room a pale sand-gray color, and our kitchen will be green. (I’d tell you the exact color names, but the paint chips are upstairs, and I’m lazy.)

What’s not finished about the hallway: I want to redo that ugly-ass doorbell somehow (haven’t figured that out yet), and I want to turn the hallway into a gallery of family photos. We’re still working on what photos we want to use (and trying to sort out how to get a bunch of picture frames without spending an arm and a leg.) But so far, the cost of the hallway redo? $17 for a can of paint (with primer built in).

So, the linen closet. It turned out better than I imagined. I drew up how I wanted the “Dresser” to look, and my husband had a bunch of scrap wood he wanted to clear out of the garage. Since we were painting it white, I didn’t care what it was made of – so it’s made of a lot of various parts and different types of wood. The only caveat: I wanted the top to be a pretty, dark-stained wood. We had a shelf we built for my oldest several years ago, out of really nice maple, and she never used it. My husband cut it apart, glued pieces together to make it the right size, and sanded it down, and stained it a dark reddish brown. It was perfect. I painted it all white – save for the notches he cut into the columns: I taped them off and painted them with silver metallic paint.

He made doors out of more scraps (I don’t have pics of them yet – I will put them up soon though), and we got the beadboard look to the doors by using this paintable wallpaper they sell at Lowe’s for $19.00 a roll. The door hardware? We scored a free dresser (sitting on the corner of the road about a block up from our house) – had a mirror and everything. It was also a cheap POS, but the parts were worth more than the whole, and we took it. I spray painted the knobs to match the dresser, and bam – gorgeousness.

What’s funny is, even though the linen closet is actually smaller (we blocked off the right side and made it even with the edge of the opening – we’re going to open it up from the bathroom side later on and use it for storage), putting in this dresser has actually made more space available. I was amazed at how much we could fit into this dresser (in fact, I need to make some baskets so I can pull them out and get at the stuff in the back) – and we’re using a lot less space than we were before.

So far, the cost of the dresser: about $20 for I can of primer and 3 cans of spray paint.

You can’t see it finished here, because we still need to go get hinges so we can attach the doors (I’m estimating those’ll be around $6 – $10) and I still need to make the baskets to put all the linens in (I already have the stuff for it, so no additional cost) – right now everything’s just stuffed in there. I also need to get a large photo of my kids printed off – we’re going to blow it up so it’ll be in a 40″x30″ frame, and we’ll use that to cover up the crawlspace access in a nice way. But here’s the quasi-after:

Still need to reorganize the linens, but it's ALL in there, with room to spare. A new photo will cover up that nasty plywood crawlspace cover.

And finally, the room that started it all: my daughter’s bedroom. My inspiration for her redo was this room (at Pottery Barn):

Now, when I added up how much this room would cost if we perfectly re-created it, it was an insane amount: something close to $2,000. So far, we’ve spent roughly $400. Instead of ‘splaining what we did, I’ll just let the pictures speak.

Taken from the bedroom door. You can see the finials we added to the ends of the curtain rods, and the tie-backs. Also the kid's desk I redid.

Again, from the bedroom door - and Kate, sitting happily on her new bed.

From the back corner, you can see the mirror I redid from the old. I placed it there to reflect the light from the window.

Her closet: we moved the tall dresser into it, and redid the wire shelving around it.

Straight shot of her bed. I love these linens - and they were lots cheaper than the Pottery Barn version!

I got the bed linens from Kohl’s (sheets and quilt set) and Overstock.com (foam mattress topper – which has helped a LOT – pink ruffled duvet cover and matching pillow covers) and Amazon.com (four new pillows) for a total of something like $200. Mike bought pine boards from Lowe’s – they were 8 feet long and 10″ wide. He cut them into 4 strips each. They were selling 8′ x 2″ boards for something like $3 each, but the 10″ boards were only $6 (as I recall) so he just cut them into strips for lots cheaper. We paid $35 total for the paint and primer (I should note here that my daughter picked out the shade of pink. I really wanted to go lighter. But this was what she wanted!). Mike still wants to make two nightstands for either side of the bed. I have some small shelves I plan to put in (they’re currently in my son’s room – unused), and we’re going to frame up my daughter’s artwork and pop that on the walls. I also have a small bench seat I scored on craigslist (for $10) that I want to paint and put at the end of her bed, and I found two fluffy chenille rugs at Costco that I want to get ($12 each). The finial on the curtain rods were $8 for a pack of two (on sale) at Lowe’s – which was funny because they were selling the exact same ones in white for $14/pair. I bought the dark ones on sale and just painted them! The tie-backs were black, and $2.99 for a pack of two. Magic metallic silver spray-paint to the rescue!

Mike was going to make the Pottery Barn bed knockoff, but once we made up the bed with her old frame, I have to say the Pottery Barn version would be too tall for her, and I think too tall for the room. We both really like the simplicity of what’s currently here, so we’re not going to do the bed anymore.

So that’s where we are now. Of course, there’s still some finishing up to do. I’ll take photos when we completely finish the projects. I figured I’d want to stop doing this for a while, but I’m already getting ready to start on my son’s room, and I cannot wait to finish the living room and dive into the master bedroom. Oh, how I want to do the master bedroom. So bad.

I can’t help it.

If my honey actually ever reads this, please don’t think this is a negative reflection upon you. It is not.

See, my honey does the woodworking around here. He’s got all kinds of awesome tools out in the garage, and when I want something, I draw p the plans, and he makes it for me. It’s actually a pretty great system. Back when I was a kid, I use to take shop class, and I loved woodworking ... read on, Fisherboy »]]> I am feeling very frustrated right now.

I can’t help it.

If my honey actually ever reads this, please don’t think this is a negative reflection upon you. It is not.

See, my honey does the woodworking around here. He’s got all kinds of awesome tools out in the garage, and when I want something, I draw p the plans, and he makes it for me. It’s actually a pretty great system. Back when I was a kid, I use to take shop class, and I loved woodworking myself, but it’s been many years since I’ve attempted to use a miter saw or table saw on my own. And since Mike loves doing it so much, I’ve never bothered trying ot take it up again.

However, I’ve mentioned before that when we had our roof done, it seemed to awaken some “design monster” in me. We’ve lived in this house for almost 6 years, and haven’t done a damn thing to it. Part of the reason was lack of time and funds. The other part (which I should finally admit out loud) is because in our old house, I redid the bathroom to what I wanted it to be, and I’ll be damned if Mike didn’t have to get transferred up here to Yankee country almost immediately after we finished the project. So part of me (the crazy part) seems to hink that if I start on projects in this house, then it’ll trigger some grand universal gun that’ll make us have to move again.

But I love this house, and it’s time it actually became a home. I’m tired of looking at the uncontrolled messes in this house, of the mismatched…everything. (And Mike is sick of not having curtains.)

Don’t get me started on the kitchen. I may burst into tears.

So we’ve been doing stuff. I’ve been hoarding from craigslist and eBay, stalking Pinterest and decor blogs (see ‘em all in the sidebar there in the “Decor” section) for ideas and DIY projects. I’ve been using my iPad to lay out each room of the house.

Right now, I have my kids’ rooms designed and laid out, the living room and the kitchen. But I can’t work on any of them until other projects have been completed. And there are a couple of projects I REALLY want to have done – but they won’t be. I’m in that “move!” mode – ready to sprint off and GO, but I can’t.

It’s eternally frustrating.

I can’t think of anything else except what I can do to finally get this going.And until I can get it going, I feel like all I do is think, and I can’t concentrate on anything else. I’m now in that portion of this “Hurry up and wait” process where I’m itching to do something but I can’t figure out what.

::sigh::

I have to go do something before my head explodes.