Ham and Cheese on Wry

This is Coffee Table - he’s been a member of our family for 3 years. In our first apartment, he was The Only Table We Had for at least 6 months, suffering through wedding craft parties, breakfasts/lunches/dinners, spilt beverages, get-togethers, and screenprinting adventures. Through all of this, Coffee Table’s held up admirably, considering he’s just particle board and acrylic.

Still, he was beginning to show his age.

Paint, puckering, scratches, breakthrough to the particle board - not terrible, but starting to look a little shabby. We figured we had one of two options: buy a new table or find a way to give Coffee Table a new lease on life. I’m pretty attached to Coffee Table, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give him a face-lift. Even if I accidentally destroyed him in the process, it’d only force us to adopt the other option.

Given the warm earth tones of the living room, I started off planning a traditional Southwestern pattern using leftover Behr paint. As I was working, however, I locked eyes with our lovely Art Deco bar, a piece that I’ve been wanting to incorporate more fully into the living room, and the geometric pattern of glass in the front door. No, traditional Southwestern was not the way to go - while I could use the colors, I needed something a little different.

And that’s when it hit me - I could do a mock Mondrian. I had already lain down some rectangles of color: from there it was just a series of measuring, drawing straight lines, consummate taping, painting, and (naturally) touching up the areas that had smeared or bled. Once that was done, 2 coats of clear latex and 3 coats of spray-on clear coat finished things off.

There he is! You may notice that some of my lines are a little wobbly - the painter’s tape wasn’t sticking to the latex, so my straight edge and I had to freehand it. Still, though, I’m pretty pleased - Coffee Table’s looking sharp and new.

In the ongoing attempt to find space wherever we can, Dave and I found ourselves quite inspired when we stumbled upon this lovely on The Brick House: http://www.the-brick-house.com/2009/09/shelving-unit/

We loved the look of it, waiting with bated breath for the first chance we had to take this project head-on. Knowing it would take some precision, we planned like crazy - how many shelved should we make? What heights would they need to be? We measured our favorite soup cans to make sure we could stack two high, figured out how high off the ground the lowest shelf should be, and counted down to Spring Break. To get an idea of what we were going for, I mocked this guy up:

Pardon the bad Photoshopping (and the messy desk/table area). Ordinarily, you’d find an armoire full of dishes on the wall, and a makeshift pantry WAAAY over to the right (IKEA GORM). The plan: to move the armoire to where the desk is (middle right of photo), move the desk to where the GORM is, and move all the goods on the pantry to the new shelves. (Unfortunately, we found out that the armoire didn’t fit where the desk was, so we’ve had to put it in front of the window for now. We’ll see how it sits.)

Dave and I went to Home Depot to source our parts - mostly 1/2” galvanized pipe and 1”x10”-10 boards. Here’s what we walked out with:

• 1 66” pipe
• 5 18” pipes
• 3 14” pipes
• 4 12” pipes
• 4 10” pipes
• 14 8” nipples (yep, really what they’re called)
• 4 1”x10”-10 common boards
• 14 T-joints
• 13 elbows
• 7 flanges

Much love to Steve, the pipe guy at Home Depot, who cut pipe for us for at least an hour. He’s pretty much the best.

Once we got home, we set to work cutting down the boards…

…and spray painting the pipes a uniform black.

We also bored holes in the boards where we wanted the pipes to come through, then stained and sealed them with some leftover supplies (Light Oak from Ace Hardware, I think). After everything was the appropriate color, we left it all to dry and cure for the night.

The next morning, we hit the ground running, screwing pipes together and laying on the first board. Unfortunately, we noticed a problem right away. Do you see it?

Yep - the elbows - which the boards were supposed to rest on for support - stuck out WAY past the board, leaving it wobbly. When we picked up the 8” nipples, we hadn’t taken into account the extra length the t-joint and the elbow would add. So it was back to Home Depot for more nipples, this time 5” (and yes, we did snicker every time we made a shopping list).

When we got back home, we jumped back in. Everything was going great…

…until we noticed that a) the shelves were longer than the wall and b) the pipe we had cut for the top was too long. We had measured and remeasured, but had still come out wrong. So it was back to the backyard for me to recut and rebore the boards, and back to Home Depot for Dave to recut and rethread the 18” pipes to become 15” pipes (luckily for him, Steve was working again and he took care of it, no problem).

Putting it back together went faster than ever.

For the top shelf, we made a slight change from the original plan - the 66” pole stuck out far enough that we knew we would be tripping over it all the time, so we shortened it up to the doorway.

We were worried at first that it might not be strong enough to hold, but it held well on its own. We added an extra flange for some just-in-case support, then secured the top flanges to the ceiling for stability. Of course, the next thing to do was to fill the shelves:

We were able to empty the GORM, as well as our counter and parts of a couple cabinets, onto this thing. Plus - so darn pretty.

As a bonus pic, here’s where we moved the desk:

We added a shelf and moved the printer over to the desk (FINALLY) - it still needs to be organized, but it’s nice and cozy.

Next up: the bathroom.

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I’m already good enough at a)making exceptions to my own rules and b)self-flagellating when I don’t do something I promised I would (or something I promised I wouldn’t), so I stay away from the things. However, after spending the better part of an hour going through my Google Reader articles because I couldn’t decide what necessary thing should receive attention first, I’m going to try to make a continuous positive change in my life: I will stop being paralyzed into impotence by my own to-do list.

Just one, tiny flaw in this plan - I’m not quite sure where to start.

I’m the Queen of Lists; in fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve made a list of to-do lists. If I didn’t make lists, I would spend my life in a blind panic of paying bills three months late and getting the wrong groceries. As I have learned this lesson the hard way, however, I’m obsessive and paranoid about lists. What did I forget this time? There’s always something I forget. It’s something really important and I can’t remember what it is and OH GOD I’M GOING TO RUIN MY OWN LIFE.

Worse, for every thing I manage to complete on my lists, I somehow find two more. Cleaned the cat boxes? Great, but now we’re out of litter and I need to sweep the alcove by the stairs. Answered a work e-mail? Well, I can check that off, but now I remembered that I have follow up with this other person and work on that other project. I’m never going to have a list of zero, and sometimes that fact shuts me down to the point where I decide, “Sudoku. That’s my life goal now. I will do every sudoku puzzle in this book and watch every episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers as I do it.”

So, internets, it’s your turn. How do you face your to-do lists?

Alternate title: “Lungs, Brain Cells and The Environment, I Never Liked You That Much Anyway.”

I may have mentioned this before, but there aren’t many closets in our house, so we’ve had to get creative with storage space (read: our basement is a maze of crap. Okay, that’s a little pessimistic - getting a bedframe with drawers built into it was a huge help, and we’ve found some nice storage solutions in “FREE” piles and at the Sal-V). Two pieces that have been on my wish list: 1) a filing cabinet for our important papers, and 2) some kind of bookshelf or dresser that would fit on the short wall of the upstairs (you may recall from previous pictures of our bedroom that the roof hits the wall of our house in such a way that it creates a short, mostly useless wall). I’ve searched for the right thing for the right price for months, to no avail.

Until today, when I found these two items at a garage sale:

Check and check. Contestant #1 was free (it was missing the rails for hanging folders and had some water damage), and Contestant #2 was $5 (back not pictured). I wanted to spruce up #1 in some way, and #2 needed to be some kind of dark brown to fit in with the bedroom colors. After painting the whole house and a bunch of stuff for Clockwork, I was over the whole “paint can, paint brush” thing, so I decided it was time for spray paint.

For the filing cabinet, I wanted it to match a set of file folders I bought years ago, but of course I only thought of this after I had arrived at Home Depot. The only colors I could remember were bright green, bright orange, and magenta, and of those, I liked my options for green the best. One can of Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch in Key Lime (Gloss) and a little Brasso later… 

Hello, gorgeous! Here it is, posing with one of the file folders:

Perfect match on the green. Sweet. Still need to make the interior rails, but I’ve got some doweling that ought to do the trick.

The shelves were a little harder - it took two and a half cans to complete, and I had to switch colors at the beginning because the type I had bought suddenly stopped working. There were also more nooks and crannies, making it harder to spray completely without getting some overlapping drips. Still, I think it came out pretty well:

Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch in Dark Walnut (Satin). Yum. It still needs some work - I neglected to paint the edges of the back and the back needs to be attached to the shelves. Since it’s meant to hang flush with the ceiling and on a wall, it has a recessed top, so I have lots of ideas as to how to add a countertop. There’s also evidence that it once had cabinet doors, so adding those is always an option, too. I have a feeling this isn’t the last time I’ll post pictures of this guy.

Since I was covered in paint anyway, I decided to touch up the railings with a little black gloss paint we already had in the basement:

Ta-da! From drab to…well, less drab. We might want to replace them in a couple years anyway, so this should make them last a just a little longer.

Next project: curtains for the living room and kitchen. Keep your eyes peeled for sales on home decor fabric!

As per my previous couple posts, the backyard was the pretty much the last thing we were looking at when we bought our house - it had one, and we were happy with that. However, as winter changed to summer and things started to come to life, we found it was not exactly pretty:

Full of weeds and old pavers. The backyard was mostly dandelions in April. We decided to pull up a bunch of the pavers in order to plant a garden:

(Bottom left: tomatoes and basil, top left: chard, right: sweet peppers and Hungarian wax peppers - not sure which are which)

Here’s what it looks like now:

Nice and cozy! I now have the fire pit I’ve always wanted. Also, check out the bench that Dave made and I stained, and our sweet solar lights. A little piece of heaven, right outside our back door.

Yep…we sure do have a well on our property. A well that, as far as I know, was mentioned by neither the realtor nor the City of Evanston. Even the contractors missed it.

I guess I’m not too surprised, considering the house was built before 1900. And check out that craftsmanship on the brick work - heck, it looks better than our basement.

So…yay?

When we were first shown what would eventually become our house, it was pretty snowy. One of the few things we could see in the backyard was a stump in the back corner, and some old-looking tree trunk parts near the front of the fence. “No problem,” we thought. “We’ll just dig out that stump and put whatever we want there. Whatever we want!”

The next few times we were at the house was shortly after Snowpocalypse 2011, and then there was a lot of work being done all over the house, so we really didn’t have a chance to hang out in the backyard until April. Dave had just bought an axe (who doesn’t need an axe?), and decided to take a couple swings at the stump, just to see how easily it would splinter.

It didn’t. Instead, it chipped like green wood.

See, here’s the thing about Stumpy: he doesn’t know he’s dead. We found his taproot, and it is both MASSIVE and still actively sucking up water. The water doesn’t go anywhere, and he can’t photosynthesize, but he’s going to keep on being there. Eventually he’ll realize he’s dead and dry up, but until then he’s going to EAT PLANT BRAINS.

Well, maybe not that. I am a little worried that Stumpy’s going to steal the water from the soil (we planted some vegetables around him), but since we have a smallish backyard, he’s mostly just inconvenient. We could burn him out, but that would take a lot of time and energy and might bother the neighbors. So in the meantime, I think we’ll use him as a table or something, and maybe make some chairs out of the trunk pieces that are left.

Any recommendations for life with a zombie tree?

There’s a girl in Panera right now, probably about 12 or 13. She’s fairly homely, overweight with frizzy hair under a Harry Potter baseball cap. She’s also wearing a Legend of Zelda t-shirt and reading a Star Wars novel.

She’s singing quietly as she waits for her family to collect their order. Her voice is beautiful; it has remarkable warmth and resonance for someone her age.

The next five years will be hard for this girl, and that knowledge makes me sad. I hope she has fiercely loyal friends, and that they will all look out for each other.

Seriously, I want to be done. Just plain ol’, dang ol’ done. Right now we’re at the point where pretty much everything is in the house, which means it’s now time to find homes for all those things.

Sigh. If the cats would help - even just a little - I might be less exhausted.

I know I didn’t include any more pictures of the repaint, but once everything is in place, I plan on doing a photo tour of the house. Y’know, because the internet totally cares about this stuff.

Oh, what the heck - just one:

Bedroom before

Bedroom after

If you’re wondering, yep - I totally made those curtains.

The bedroom was one of the rooms where the ceiling was the same color as the walls (probably because the previous owners were too lazy to tape - and, having taped everything, I don’t blame them), but given the generally trapezoidal shape of the room, definitely made it feel like some sort of terrarium. We were really surprised how huge the room felt just by making the ceiling a slightly lighter shade than the walls. The dark brown accents also give the illusion of width.

The view when I wake up. Yeah, it’s all right. (Seriously, I’ve been getting the best sleep ever, and I think it’s because of the skylight. As the sun rises, the gradual change in light wakes me up naturally, so it’s not a total shock when the alarm clock goes off.)

Of course, you know which two residents have been enjoying the bedroom the most:

Note: Three different days are depicted here. Hard life, being a cat.

So the Great Painting came to pass about two weeks ago - we painted every wall of every room in the house, save for two (rooms, that is). I’ve painted rooms before, sure, but usually it’s a one-day thing with about nine other people. Painting nearly all of a house interior, it turns out, is a little more labor-intensive. Part of what added to the challenge was the fact that the previous owners, in their infinite wisdom, decided they were too lazy to tape things off and painted nearly every ceiling the same color as the walls in that room. Now, that can be quite a striking look, but given some of the weird-shaped rooms in the house (it’s a 100+ year-old farmhouse with various additions), every room looked a) smaller and b) like we were living in a submarine.

Seriously, the last time I took off my painting clothes that week, I was this close to setting them on fire.

But now comes the best part - before and after photos! I didn’t get shots of every room, as some still need touch-ups, but here are some of the rooms we are proud to call done.

Living Room Before:

This is the living room as it appeared when the contractors were done. You may notice the patching on the wall, or that the walls don’t match (the wall on the right is original horsehair - yes, horsehair - plaster; the wall on the left is new drywall). You may also notice it is DEAD BORING.

Living Room After:

We warmed up the room with Behr Ultra Premium in Wild Porcini on the walls, and Iced Tea on the trim.

The walls still don’t match texture-wise, but they at least sort of complement each other now. Here’s the view into the kitchen (and a little teaser for the kitchen paint job):

We may eventually paint the moulding and doorways to match, but I’m pretty pleased with the look for now.

2nd Floor Bathroom Before:

Beyond the patches, the original paint color was a bit dull. We liked the general shade, but wanted something with a little more pep.

2nd Floor Bathroom After:

POW! Now that’s a refreshing green (Behr Ultra Premium in Bahia Grass). This is one of the rooms where we repainted the ceiling - previously, the slanted wall made it feel small, but the addition of a white ceiling gives back the illusion of height and depth.

So, what’s left?

NEARLY FINISHED: Kitchen, entryway, hallway, master bedroom

NEED WORK: Office, 1st floor bathroom, 2nd bedroom

We’re getting there!