Failing Miserably

Im still evaluating my relationship with this whole blogging thing - its not really behaving like a proper give-take relationship should. Although I would have to say that Im solely to blame for its unbalanced behavior. Im not giving to my blog - yet Im constantly taking - from others.
Im taking A LOT from the new generation of online magazines.

I love this one:
Rue

And this one is my new favorite:
High Gloss

Not only is it my new favorite online time waster, but it also confirmed my design lust for a cowhide rug-over-rug look, not once, not twice, BUT 3 times!!

And the kicker is that the last image has a grey single cushioned down filled sofa - just like me!

Were Moving!

Hallelujah! We're heading back down to 'The Pearl'. Portlanders, you know what Im talking about - non Portlanders, you may not. Its about as opposite as you can get from where we currently are. Now = 1948, traditional sectioned off no closet space house. Move = modern open loft style with concrete pillars and ceiling in a 10 story building with an REI on the lower level.  Now = Suburbia with no place to eat or grocery shop within walking distance, have to get on the freeway to get downtown, and there is a Target within a hop, skip and a jump - a sure sign your in the burbs. Move = The Pearl - specifically within walking distance of EVERYTHING. Yes, every single thing in Portland. Maybe that was an exaggeration...but seriously, there is not one thing that I cant walk to from this new place - grocery store, restaurants, dog park, hardware store, public transportation to get husband to work. Wait, crap, there is no Target! We may need to reconsider....

I'll have to carve out special Target travel time, but it will be worth the extra gas. The goal we have with the move is to simplify, simplify, simplify. Smaller; by about 300ish square feet. But the 1700 were getting is much more usable than the 2000 we have now. I also have delusional thoughts that I will be compelled to cook more since the kitchen is open and included in the main room, rather than a galley walkthrough with no social connection to any of the rooms we actually use. This may or may not actually happen. What is a definite possibility is sending Husband down to REI to pick up some dehydrated meals when we have nothing left in the freezer and the 3 blocks to Safeway is just too far away.

We will be missing a yard with the move. I REALLY doubt that we will actually MISS it since we both loathed all the work to keep it from looking like the most neglected yard on the block - but we will no longer have one. That does require getting dressed and actually going down the elevator and outside to let the dogs out to go to the bathroom. This can be Husbands job while Im slaving away in the open kitchen making proper meals.

This move is going to require some purging. I can't wait. I LOVE purging. Although this level of purging is going to require Craigslist and I loath selling things on Craigslist. Oh well, its for the greater good.

Off to pack and purge!

Tufting is Tough

All over the place I was seeing tufted headboards and I wanted one. I also covet this linen headboard from Crate and Barrel to the tune of $1700.00. I have animals and will therefore never have one:

So what is a girl to do when she wants that but has this?

Build one…on the cheap.

Building the platform bed was out from the get-go; too much wood, too many nails, too much fabric, too much time. But I built the too short padded headboard that is there now so I just needed to up my game and make the back taller, the padding thicker and add some buttons…and get it done before husband comes home from a business trip.

So, I got a $20 piece of ply wood, used a 40% off coupon at Joanns to get the batting and buttons, went to Fred Meyer to get the foam (for whatever reason, 3in foam is cheaper when you buy it in the camping section rather than the craft store. Exact same thing, but maybe they figure crafters have more money than campers). And the cherry on top? I had a table cloth that was WAY too big for my table that was the exact color I wanted…no fabric purchase needed, which would have probably cost $75. Cheap.

Done and Done. The taller size fits way better and my head doesn’t hit the wall when Im sitting in bed. Bonus.

And lucky for me I finished it before husband came home and he was thoroughly impressed. The 1st question (as always) was How much did it cost? And not because I was in any sort of crafting-bender induced debt (it happens to the best of us) but because he could not believe how good it looks!

What I Will Never Have in My Home

Some people covet distinct pieces of furniture, or art work, or great collections of ‘things’. There is always the most amazing sofa, or incredible artist, or that rare hard to find piece that will make your collection complete. Its not to say its unattainable; you may have to pinch pennies, or move to a new space to accommodate the 12x10 painting, but the hope you have for that most coveted ‘thing’ never dies. Once you have laid eyes on this item, it is hard to let go, and accept that you may never have ‘it’. Well you know what my most coveted ‘thing’ is? Hairless floors. Yes, HAIRLESS floors. And I have accepted that I will never have it.

Currently my floors look like this:

Mind you this is about 6 HOURS, not days, HOURS after sweeping, Swifting, and vacuuming! I swear!

What I covet is this:

Sometimes I kid myself into thinking that if I take them outside and brush them with the Furminator then all the hair will be gone and I will get at least a few days reprieve from hairy floors. Last time I did that I almost brushed the lab bald (seriously, her skin was a little red) and the husky hates being brushed so I only got a few good swipes on his back. That too only helped for an afternoon, er an hour.

So alas, I have resigned that I will never have gleaming-hair-free-hardwoods…at least for about 8 more years. Maybe Ill go look for a piece of art...maybe that will make me feel better. Then I can stare at the wall instead of the floor.

Laminating is Tedious.

I Have these great visions in my head about what I would like to be able to do with wood. Except then I remember that pretty much everything you do with wood, stain and urethane takes FOREVER! to finish because there is the stripping, and sanding and staining and waiting and sanding and waiting and sanding and cleaning and spraying and waiting and spraying again and waiting even longer and spraying again then THEN, MAYBE being satisfied with the finish you get. And thats IF you were able to keep the stray dog hair from sticking to your last coat.

I started with this, my late great grandmothers tri-fold table that she clearly used to hold plants from the evidence of water rings galore:


So I started scrapin' and stripin' all the laminate off the top that was pealing up.
The whole top layer had to come off. After I scraped and sanded, I laminated the top again. Cutting laminate to anything other than a square is difficult, and getting it to fit the original curve of the design was pushing my skill set. My limited laminate abilities could only handle doing the large center part. In my need for speed I got a little aggressive with the scraper and put some nicks on the edge that I wasn't able to recover with laminate but, hey, it still looks better now.

I stained the top edge the same color to match the legs and did a couple layers of lighter and darker stain with a stencil to create the patterns on the top. It fits perfectly at the end of our kitchen, and every time I walk by I pray that the laminate doesn't curl up. The chairs that are there now are being borrowed from the dining room table and are wayyyy to big. I purchased a couple bent wood chairs that I am going recover soon. And I like knowing that it was my Great grandmothers. I think she would be happy to see what I have done with it...and maybe I too can leave it to my great granddaughter with water rings and see what she comes up with...

If You Mess Something Up on Accident, You Can Make Something Better.

I like to paint things just for the heck of it. Sometimes my patience keeps me from painting things properly, resulting in a poorly executed $5, 2 hour craft project that because of its failure, turns into a $100, plans-needed, 1 week build fest.

I cant say that I was entirely crushed when the silver paint job that I did on our black shelves scraped off with the 1st attempt to move them back against the wall. Clearly my prep job was less than stellar (no patience, I just want to paint. Who wants to sand?) and the silver paint didn't stick. Why would I want to paint perfectly fine black shelves with silver paint? Because it seemed quicker than the silver leafing process that would have looked (in my dreams) like this piece from carsonandco.com

Granted, the above is a properly proportioned cocktail table and I was starting with a shelf that had a thick coat of black paint covering up all of its ugly bits and pieces. See what happened:

Strange shiny silver proportions with black scratches (that actually don't look too awful in this picture). This was definitely not going back against the wall. So on to plan b: BUILD a bigger console cabinet with the clover leaf pattern radiator sheet metal as the cabinet doors. Specifically the clover leaf patter for 2 reasons: 1. I had it in my head, once something is there it will come to fruition. 2. Because I wanted to put the stereo in the cabinet and be able to hear the music with the door closed. One of the reasons I wasn't ever too fond of the black shelves was because the stereo stuck out about 1.5 inches.

So, I built this:

I still need to put a back on it so you can't see through the center shelves, and it needs feet. Its currently sitting on 2x4s that are collecting dust bunnies. That may take me a month or two since its pretty much 'done' in my book and can sit on 2x4s until we move. I stained 3/4 inch birch plywood with a dark gray stain then rubbed it with silver paint and wiped it off before it dried. This way it has a slight shimmer, but the wood grain still showed through. 3 coats of urethane, some coral colored knobs from Anthropology and bam, done. Clearly I need to organize the books better on the bottom shelf...

*and I have no idea why the type font is different and the pictures are misaligned.

If You Make a List it Will Get Done

As like many many people, I have more ideas than I have time…and money to do them all. So, I need to prioritize. Things that NEED be done (like projects that have been started but not finished), things that SHOULD be done (yard projects, closet organization and the like), and then things I WANT to do (furniture pieces, decorating projects, crafty stuff).

The first thing on my list is the bathroom ‘update’ downstairs. It has been started and is in the throws of the re-mudding process to cover up the horrible texture left there by the ‘flipper’. It seriously looked like a topographical map of the French Alps; walk to close to the wall and your arm would be cut open by a sharp peak of poorly applied texture. So, were sanding it down, putting dry wall mud over the entire wall and ceiling, sanding again and painting. Easy enough, just not ‘fun’.

Then there is the trim in the basement windows. When we remodeled the basement (2 years ago!) we never got around to COMPLETELY finishing the trim. We cut the pieces and placed them, but didn’t finish nailing them in, caulking them and painting. Again, not hard, but not fun either. This project will probably take another 2 years to finish.

Then there is the deck railing. This is a rather important one, as it is the railing on the 2nd story deck. Two of the support posts need to be replaced since they have split and summer bbq season is coming. This one is reallllllly low on my fun meter, and there IS a railing on the deck so take this as a warning…the railing is loose, don’t lean on it!

Then there is the Should Do projects. We really should get dirt in those planter boxes we made. This is a time sensitive Should Do, since last I checked the earth is still rotating around the sun, slightly shifting its access, and changing the seasons from grow-stuff-spring to too-late-to-grow-stuff-summer. Gotta get on that.

I also REALLY want to put one of those closet systems in our office. Our house was built in 1948 when people must have either run around naked, or only wore one outfit because thats all the closets would hold. Literally they are the width of one standard door. Their size leaves little for fashion re-discovery. There is no “Oh wow, I dont remember getting this” or “Ah ha, I found it!” because the closet is so small its impossible to lose anything in its deep pockets of darkness. Because of the super small space, we had to get one of those gigantic IKEA corner closets to hold husbands things. That, along with an 8 drawer dresser which takes up the entire wall in our bedroom and it becomes an overdose of Maple laminate. I want both gone, replaced with maybe a 5 drawer tall dresser and a small chair. Both of those items I could turn into ‘fun’ projects if I can get all of husbands things into the office closet…