Friday, September 28, 2012

Where do I even start?

    This new house has inspired me to start making (or refurbishing) things myself instead of looking for new pieces.  The house just needs to be filled with a certain type of furniture, I can feel it.  The problem is, buying something new that would feel right in the house is expensive.  Non particle board furniture is ridiculously overpriced!

    Luckily I read about 50 crafting blogs, and one day followed a link to Ana White's DIY website.  If you haven't been there, you should check it out.  Unless you want to avoid getting sucked into a never ending BUILD ALL THE THINGS vortex, then I would probably avoid her website at all costs.

    I'm really excited about building something and making it our own, instead of finding a piece of furniture that we sort of like and going with it just because it's the closest option.  We haven't actually started on any of these projects yet, as we're coming to a close on actually MOVING ourselves into the new house.  I am constantly hoping each day will be the day that D.Soup says "Okay, lets go get our supplies."  I'm ready, the list has been made (and made, and remade, and made again). 

     As I've already shown you, I have a ridiculous amount of projects that I would like to work on to make this house exactly what we want.
    1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
    2. Build bed frame.
    3. Build matching night stands.
    4. Refinish dining room table.
    5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
    6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
    7. Refinish wing back chair.
    8. Build floating shelves.
    9. Build outdoor planters.
    10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
    11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
    12. Paint foyer.
    13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom.
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    2.  Build bed frame. 

    I have been drooling over this bed for over a year.  I love almost everything about it.  I love the way it looks, and how functional it is.  I love that I won't lose things that I store under the bed anymore because they end up in the middle where I can't reach.  I love that I will know 100% that my cat's aren't hiding underneath the bed when I try to shut the door...
    The Stratton Bed from Pottery Barn
    With drawers
    I don't love 2 things:
    1. The fact that the way it is made in this picture, I would have to move the nightstand every time I want access to that first basket
    2. The price tag.
    In comes Ana White.  I was already in awe of all of her other plans, but when I found this I almost cried.  There it was.  The bed of my dreams.  And I can make it myself, for just the price of materials?!  I'm sold.

    This is totally not my bed (yet), or my dog.  I will post again when we finally get started.


    So then I proceeded to click through and snatch up every set of plans that I found for projects around our house...

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    3.  Build matching night stands.

    To match our bed, we're going to make these.

    It is based off this plan from Ana White's website.  I'm pretty sure these are going to be our first project.  It seems to be fairly easy, and it will help ease us into the whole process.


    My only dilemma with this (and the bed) is what color to paint them.  This is the comforter set that I've purchased for in the bedroom:
    So I'm still debating color options.  I originally wanted gray furniture, but now I'm thinking that might be too much.

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     6.  Build computer desk for D.Soup.

    This is a later project, after all the others are finished.  D.Soup's old computer desk got left behind for his brother at the old house.  It probably wouldn't have survived another move anyway.  He doesn't desperately need a desk at the moment, so he has time to pick out exactly what he wants before we move ahead.  We were discussing it the other day though.  I recommended that we look into building a desk that would span the entire long wall in the computer room (I may have also mentioned that it would be nice to have a little bit of that desk space for crafting).


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    8.  Build floating shelves.

    I love these shelves.
    I originally saw them on Shanty2Chic, and loved them.  Of course the plans were also from Ana White (how had I not heard of this website before this month!?)  I plan on making quite a few of these to go around the house, but they are probably going to be more like in between projects type things.

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    9.  Build outdoor planters.

    The last "build" project on the list is planters for the back yard.  I want to start growing some veggies, and now that I have a yard that's large enough to do something with, I want to build up some planters and get to it (well, in the spring). 
    Also not my dog.
    These are going to serve double duty in my back yard.  They are going to serve as planters, obviously.  But they are also going to serve as covers for the piping sticking out out of the ground sporadically throughout my yard.  We are on well water, so we have a inspection pipe for that, as well as an array of inspection and clean out pipes for the septic system.  They are kind of ugly, so I think these would be helpful in covering them up.  The only thing I'm worried about is the random placement around the yard, but I think we could figure something out.



    Well, that was an excessively long post.

    Thursday, September 27, 2012

    Overachieving List and Antique store finds

    Buying a house is a lot of work...

    It might just be because I am crazy have a ton of projects that I want to work on.

    The last few years I've purchased everything that we need from big box stores.  I could never justify purchasing anything made with real wood because it is so outrageously priced and the house we used to live in was not worthy of anything nice looking tiny.  So everything that we have owned has been made of particle board.  When we moved into the new house, I decided we needed a fresh start. 

    I'll go ahead and list everything out, and then take my time explaining each one:
    1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
    2. Build bed frame.
    3. Build matching night stands.
    4. Refinish dining room table.
    5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
    6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
    7. Refinish wing back chair.
    8. Build floating shelves.
    9. Build outdoor planters.
    10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
    11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
    12. Paint foyer.
    13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom.



    It all started with an entertainment center.  We had a few requirements for the piece -- it had to be short enough that our mischievous cat would not be able to reach the TV from the top of the furniture once the TV was on the wall, and it had to have enclosed storage space so we (I) didn't have to look at the gaming equipment all the time.  The feel of the main floor of our new home is very vintage. Finding an entertainment center that matched our requirements and that style, but was in our price range proved to be an issue.  We decided to switch gears, and head off to search the antique stores in our area.

    I've always loved the idea of antiquing.  But never had anything I specifically needed, so I wouldn't bother going to the store.  I was so excited to be able to wander around some stores with an actual purpose!

    After a few stops and some near misses with pieces that *might* work but we weren't absolutely sure about... we found an amazing antique store/consignment shop.

    We spotted a coffee table that we loved, and thought would be perfect as an entertainment center after a few tweaks.


    Then, right next to it was a matching side table.

    As we were "oohing" and "ahhing" over our amazing two finds, my friend pointed behind us... to a matching TV stand!  It was meant to be!  The stand is a little bit taller than we had originally intended, but once the TV goes up on the wall I think it will work out just beautifully.



    So we ended up with three pieces for our living room when we originally went looking for one.  I believe they are pretty much brand new, they still have tags on them!  There's a little water damage and a few scratches.  So its even more justification as to why I need to refinish them.  And we got them for a great price!  They are an off white/yellow color, but in my head I see them as this steel gray/blue with a distressed finish. 

    While we were wandering around, I found the most beautiful china cabinet.  Someone had already distressed it, and it was GREEN.  I turned to D.Soup and said "I love this so much I can't stand it."  We decided to wait it out and see if it was still available when we came back to pick up the other pieces.

    A few days later, D.Soup, my mom and I went back to the store.  I immediately showed my mom our pieces, and then dragged her around the corner to get her opinion on the cabinet.  Much to my dismay, there was a sticker on the glass that said "SOLD."  I was so upset.

    As I was standing there, wallowing in my own self pity... D.Soup walks up behind me and says "Oh, that?  I bought it.  Happy Anniversary."  I didn't believe him for a solid five minutes.

    Stop screwing with me.

    No really, I bought it.

    Really?
    Isn't it beautiful?  I'm so happy with it.  And with my husband who so sweetly caught me off guard with it as a surprise gift.


    I can't wait for the next trip to the antique store.

    Friday, September 14, 2012

    She's Alive!

    So, I haven't posted here in basically forever.  That means the next few minutes is going to be a giant cluster of me trying to remember what's happened in the last uhm... YEAR.  Ugh.

    1. First and most importantly:  I made a baby.  Well, D.Soup and I made a baby.  She's kind of precious.  I think we'll keep her.  I can't post any pictures from WORK (geez, way to ruin everything).  But I'll try to remember to add some later.  She's going to be 5 months old on Sunday.  I shall dub her - L.Soup.  Or I'll call her that for now and change it around later.  Who knows.


    2. In other news, we have moved!  YAY FINALLY.  We actually JUST moved last Friday, so we are still very much in limbo right now.  But we're getting there.  There isn't any internet or television at the new house right now, so that pretty much sucks.  But everything else is spectacular, wonderful, amazing, awesome.


    3. I originally started writing this BEFORE we had moved.  When we were tiptoeing around our old house, surrounded by box towers, worried that something was going to knock them over and we would suffocate under the pile.  Luckily we survived, and (almost) everything has moved over to the new house, where the boxes don't have to be stacked on top of each other with just a small pathway to get around.  I mean, how did we even live in that house?!  We went back over earlier this week - my first time back since the move - to grab a few straggler things (we still have MORE to get too, ugh) and I couldn't believe how small everything looked.  It was really eye opening.  


    4. We found a drunk man asleep in the yard behind our old house.  We've also since seen him wandering around the street outside our house, and cleaning up road debris and leaving that shit in a pile in my front yard.  Hence the move - well, that was part of the reason anyway.  It gave us a real push to get out of that area.  It wasn't like he tried to break into the house or anything, but it was definitely still scary.  And annoying.


    5. The name of the blog has changed, if you hadn't noticed.  I finally decided what should go here, other than ranting and whatnot.  D.Soup and I have all sorts of craft things planned for this new house.  As well as crafty things I've been working on while I was gone to help save us a bunch of money the planet.  So I plan on detailing all that information on here for your reading pleasure.  Hopefully.


    6. My camera is broken.  I need to get it fixed (obviously before I can start sharing the awesome things I'm doing with you).  It got stepped on during one of the many family get-togethers that we had this summer -- totally my fault, who leaves a camera in the middle of the floor when they know it's going to be crazy time in less than an hour?!  Now that we've moved, I can finally order the piece and work on fixing it.  As soon as I find it.  Awesome.


    7. We are cloth diapering.  Its been a learning process, but we are actually really enjoying it.  I need to invest in a few more diapers, and then I'll feel like we are set.  Right now we sometimes have to delve into our disposable stash, which makes me sad.  More on that later.


    8. .....................I can't think of anything else.  That's really embarassing.  An entire year gone and I have 7 bullets to show for it.  And most of them revolve around moving, which JUST happened.  Le sigh.  


    I'm so glad to be back.