Babysitting!

Tonight my hubs and I babysat my classmate's 4 week old baby. He was precious, and we had a lot of fun. He alternated sleeping and fussing; mostly he just wanted to be bounced on this giant ball.



Doing it 24/7 seems pretty exhausting and scary! I salute you, parents of the internet!

Door Project Day 3

Two good friends came up to visit yesterday, one of whom really knows wood. He told me to stop spazzing about using a circular electric sander because I'll be working my way up the sandpaper gradients anyway, so I'll be hand-sanding everything after the initial varnish/stain removal stage is over (in other words, there won't be any circular marks in the wood if I do my job right).

That made good sense to me, so today I cranked up the electric sander and made light work of something that had previously been arm-paralyzing work.

Remember my somewhat frustrating attempts with chemical remover? I only used it on that one part. About 45 minutes to an hour of messing with chemical remover yielded okay results. About 5 minutes with the electric sander yielded this:

Before

After


Yeah, that's the same end piece.

So I used the electric sander mostly just on the ends, since most of the major sanding work is done.



All the heavy areas of varnish/stain are off the door. All that's left are some odd grayish/bluish areas, which seem to be areas where I just need to hand sand a little harder. In the next week I'll be carefully sanding these spots off so that I'm just left with fresh, blonde wood. Then I can finally start moving up the sand paper gradients and getting a beautifully smooth finish.



Sanding is definitely the most difficult and time-consuming part, but I know it's also the part that will make all the difference. If I don't do a thorough, meticulous job sanding, then no matter what stain color I use it's just not going to look good... at all! So I'm putting in some serious time now, but I know the rest will go much easier, smoother and faster.

Knitting?

I have only a few hours to reteach myself how to knit before a knitting group meeting tonight (yes, socializing!). Let it be known that my previous knitting experiences took place several years ago and resulted only in one scarf.. which, after inadvertently adding on several stitches and then running out of yarn, turned into a cat blanket.

Door Project Day 2

So I was starting to run into some road blocks with my door/table. You'll notice that there is basically a frame that runs around the perimeter of the door - it might be a different kind of wood, or maybe it was refinished more recently, but the varnish was proving much more difficult to sand off.



I decided to deploy some chemical paint remover. I didn't really want to do this for my project from the beginning because a) it seemed like things were coming along fine without it and b) chemicals are sort of scary. So after several questioning calls to my dad, I trotted over to Lowe's.

My dad suggested that I NOT use a water-based stripper, but my chemical skittishness won out, and I picked up a bottle of Mötsenböcker's Lift-Off: Paint & Varnish Remover. It's a water-based remover that is "green cross certified, low-VOC, biodegradable" and apparently "safe for the environment and the user." I wasn't sure it would do the trick, but the big letters on the front of the bottle say "Removes wood stains!" Off we go.



After letting the product sit on one edge of my door frame for about 10 minutes, I saw zero results. The hot-headed part of my brain started firing off a million thoughts like, "I knew this wouldn't work" and "Now I've ruined everything!" I looked at the back of the bottle again for some nuggets of wisdom, and I decided to reapply and give it some more time.



In about another 10 minutes I came back to find that there was still nothing peeling away - the back of the bottle seemed to imply that the paint would basically slough off on its own and I'd just have to brush it away. I decided to pick up my trusty sandpaper and see if, at least, the remover made sanding any easier; luckily, it did.

It wasn't a cakewalk, but the remover did make it a little easier for me to sand. Tomorrow I'll try the other sides, but I'll be sure to leave it on for a long, long time first.

Door Project Day 1

I had to stop sanding because a) my arms stopped working eventually and b) I ran out of daylight. All in all I think it was a good first day.



I decided to manually sand; maybe I'll regret this tomorrow when I wake up and can't move my arms.



I'm not exactly sure how far to take things, but I have a feeling I still have a very long way to go - including the perimeter, sides, top part and bottom part. The middle portions also need detail work, but I'm trying to just do a sweeping job before getting bogged down in the details. I also have several grains of sandpaper to move through, going from coarse to fine.



But for right now I'll just be happy with what I've done so far!

Sanding

Today I've started the long, hard process of sanding my door (soon to be table). Actually it's coming along a lot better than I feared; the door is distressed enough that the stain/paint is coming right off.

Excitement Explosion!

This morning my hubs and I trotted over to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. We'd never been to the store before, and we were curious to see what type of things they have.

Guess what?

They have DOORS! Lots and lots of doors (in addition to a lot of other very nice and reasonably priced things. 75% of the stock is from donations)!



They had FIVE "Five Panel Ladder Doors" like the one in the DIY Dining Room Table project that I was oogling. These tables were about 80x30.

But it was actually a different door that caught our eye - this door was a little wider (75x35) and there would be no need for a glass top to cover the paneling.. because.. there is no paneling! It's just solid wood through and through.



It's a very heavy door. I have no idea what type of space this door was used to enclose, but I can't imagine having to swing it open every day. Our guess is castle door, and we're sticking to it.

Right now it has a nice distressed look about it. Parts of the wood are chipped and peeling, so it needs to be cleaned off and have the more jagged parts sanded down. I don't know yet if I want to clean it, sand the jagged parts and lacquer it to maintain the distressed look OR clean it, sand the whole thing down and stain it a nice sophisticated mahogany or cherry stain.



What do you think?

I'm also thinking about metal legs from Ikea so that it's not just wood galore.

It's going to be a big table and a big job. I think if it turns out too big for the next place we live I could sell it and make a little bit of profit.

Either way, I'm extraordinarily excited. Hello, winter break project!

Let me know if you have ideas!

My husband thinks I'm crazy... am I?

I'm in the middle of my exam period, and I'm also going through another home furnishing/style renovation craze. I use the term renovation loosely because all I'm really doing is oogling photos of stylish apartments online that I will never have.

Among the things I'm oogling:

Design Sponge's DIY Dining Table

Using a found door (a five panel ladder door), a large piece of glass from an auto repair stoor, table legs from Ikea and neat decorative paper that can be swapped out, this person created a unique, relatively inexpensive table with plenty of room. She claims the glass was about $75, the door $50 and the legs $20. After exams, I am on a mission to find this door. I have no idea where to start and I'm sure I won't find anything cheap in Charlottesville. I guess I haven't learned my lesson yet that DIY projects actually don't save me any money.



Etsy Pillows, pillows and more pillows


I had success with the pillows I made a few months ago, and it was a lot of fun. But I learned a few things - linen is a very wrinkly fabric that sucks up all the dog hair in the room. It's also a bit itchy, not like an inviting soft plush pillow. I'd try again but the sewing machine was borrowed, and I have no idea how to make interesting designs yet anyway.


Silly animal things
I saw this listed as a new item on a blog for a Charlottesville store that I think is fantastic - O'Suzannah. They have adorable, quirky things and great gifts. I showed my husband these teacups when he got home from a business trip, thinking they would make a cute Christmas gift for a friend... he laughed and laughed and then laughed some more. I told him how I saw the teacups on the blog, then found them on Amazon, then went to the store to compare prices. He thought this extraordinary effort for strange little animals inside a teacup was the most hilarious thing he'd ever heard. "That would be annoying almost immediately," said husband. At least I made someone laugh? I guess I'll skip the teacups as a gift idea...

The Family Pumpkin(s)

Now what should we do with the big one?

Chop, chop 2

Okay, let's try the mirror thing.



Honestly, how do people do it!?

Chop, chop

Today I got my hair chopped off!



A little change for fall and a lot of flat ironing. I swear I'm not angry, though I definitely look it. :-)

New Life for Old Dressers

If you had a little bit of money to spend on your home, what would you do with it?

For a renter, options are pretty limited in terms of making permanent changes. After considering our space and furniture, I realized we don't really have anything in the way of a "bedroom set" ... and some googling showed that nightstands and new dressers apparently cost several hundred dollars! So... tweaks and renovations of old stuff it is!



The yellow dresser used to be white, and it was my childhood dresser. It was painted when I moved in to my first apartment during college, and now it's going to be painted again. The brown dresser is my husband's. It's old, but I really don't know how old. Neither dresser is particularly classy or adult-like - the benefit of this being that the only place I have to go with renovations is up, right?



I bought 10 Stone Mill Bellevue Satin Nickel cabinet knobs on Overstock.com. I thought I was getting a good deal and saving some money, but after a trip to Lowe's they actually seem to be almost the same price. But, the quality is pretty impressive and they have some good weight to them.



Phase one is to repaint the dressers a more mild and classy color. Phase two is to replace all the knobs with the Satin Nickel knobs. For colors I'm considering Olympic's Charcoal Heather (a gray/purple) and Silverberry (a little darker than lilac).

Inspired by by Martha, I'm looking for "sophisticated neutrals,"

"soft grays, putty tones, or even a diluted violet for a serene and versatile palette."

Fingers crossed!

Homemade Pillows, Part 2 - All Done!

This project was definitely a learning experience, and I kind of surprised myself by figuring it out on my own without breaking something or causing bodily injury to myself or others!

This morning I finished the last of my three pillows. I'm very pleased with how they look!



The first one I made was the teal pillow. I didn't thread the bobbin with the teal thread for that one, I just used what was already in the machine because it seemed so confusing to change it. On the back where the flaps fold over to secure the pillow you can see the contrasting thread, but maybe I can just pretend that I meant to do that for style purposes? I did get a little more courage after the first one, and I figured out how to thread the bobbin for the other two.



I was going to sew in a zipper at first, but I'm really happy I opted for just overlaping flaps of fabric to stuff the pillow inside. It made my life a lot easier!



The flaps secure the pillow inside very well.



I tried to make rounded corners instead of points - I think that worked well enough. Linen is a really cool fabric, and I think this color and fabric combination will look great for fall. Linen does unfortunately wrinkle very easily, but we're just going to have to learn to live with that - at least until the next time I decide I need new colors and go pillow crazy.



When I got on a roll, I finished cutting all the fabric, hemming, sewing and stuffing a pillow in the time it took my husband to walk Biscuit (about 45 minutes). I couldn't have done it without this blog post, though I opted out of hemming all the edges before sewing them together (step 4 in the post) - time will tell if that was just a professional touch the blogger added or a necessary evil. I look forward to experimenting with different fabrics and design styles in the future!

Homemade Pillows

Several hours
2 different fabric stores
3 shades of linen (plum, teal and rust)
1 borrowed Singer sewing machine from the 1970's
1 archaic and confusing Singer sewing manual
1 excellent web description of sewing throw pillows

Yields 2 handmade throw pillows!

I hope to finish the rust colored one tomorrow.

In Search of Pillows, Part 2

That's right, I'm still obsessing about throw pillows!

I dropped by Pier1, and some of the louder styles seemed a little too manic for me. I'm thinking about shades of fall now.

The solid pillows are all from Pier1 Imports, and they're very plush and sleep-inducing. The textured pillows are from an awesome-seeming etsy seller, The HomeCentric.

First, texture...




Now plush comfort...



Hmm...??

In Search of Pillows

My husband isn't a big fan (or even a little fan) of decorative pillows... but the fact remains that our living room is growing browner and browner (couch, storage ottomans, tv stand...), and the pup has chewed the corners of our current pillows, the only splash of color in the room (Note our current pillows and sea of brown here).

I'm looking to add some seasonally appropriate color to the room in the form of throw pillows and probably curtain panels as well. I'm not a decorator; I'm more of a buy-random-stuff-you-like-that-doesn't-go-together sort of person. Perhaps you can help?

What do you think?


Ruffles Pillow from Pier1 Imports. Great texture and lovely bright color (I also like rust), but I'm not sure what husbands and dogs would make of it.


Sunset Chevron Pillow from Pier1 Imports. Love the rich shades of color - makes me think of fall. But is is too much?


Multi-Color Taffeta Dots Pillow from Pier1 Imports. Good fall color, a little bit of texture.. I feel sort of apathetic towards the "dotty" design.


Gentel Leaf Decorative Pillow from Kohls. Definitely my style - I'm a sucker for anything leafy. But is it too brown? Does it just blend with everything else instead of standing out a little?


Big Sur Pillow Cover from West Elm. I guess that buying this pillow cover means I need to buy a separate pillow to fit it.. so this is probably more than I want to spend. But I like the simple, more modern take on my usual leafy theme lovin'.


Thai Silk Decorative Pillow - Wallpaper Purple from Target. Bold design. Not really my style but I liked it.