pretty paper

I haven't started composting yet, but there are some things about Austin that have inspired me over the past two years. Number one, Alex and I still share a car, and I'm starting to sort of brag about it when I tell people "We're a one car family." Number two, in the spirit of the season and renewing and recycling, I decided to do something different with our Christmas wrapping paper this year. Scout is always bringing home these bright, colorful paintings from school that I hate to just toss in the garbage, but you can't save everything. Last night as I was starting down a stack of her creations and bringing out the gifts for wrapping, I came up with this brilliant idea. Paper is paper...and how cool to tell the grandmas that their gifts are wrapped in paper by Scout. Right?

spring break revisited

Remember a couple of months ago when I was bragging about all of my spring break projects? I am happy to report that I have finally completed spring break project #3: the IKEA Malm Dresser in the girls' bedroom.

It took such a long time to complete that my enthusiasm for this project has waned--or that might have something to do with the crooked drawer pulls (see below)--but here's what went down in fifty words or less:

1. Bought IKEA dresser.
2. Painted IKEA dresser (Benjamin Moore, Elephant Tusk, Semi Gloss, three coats after one coat of primer).
3. Bought vintage, mid-century drawer pulls on eBay.
4. "Installed" drawer pulls.
5. Stepped back and looked at crooked drawer pull on top left drawer.
6. Decided not to care about crooked drawer pulls.

Behold the before and after:

hang your hat

It's no secret that I love a deal. To be fair, I probably enjoy the hunt for the deal more than the deal itself, but there's no denying the sense of accomplishment in finding a great deal. After working in retail for years, I find it virtually impossible to pay retail for anything. Unless, of course, I come across an incredible knockoff that costs less than $10 (as illustrated in the story below).

It all started when I saw these coatrack dots in the Design Within Reach catalog:

I wanted something to spruce up the blank walls in our little entryway--and honestly, a place to hang my bag--but I was not thrilled with the $149 price tag for a set of five wooden dots. Then the next day (literally) the CB2 catalog arrived in the mail, and I saw these...

a set of three dot coat hooks for $9.95. I couldn't believe it. I ordered two sets. The dots were backordered for two months, and I was sort of convinced they would never get here, but Saturday when we got home from the soccer game this box was waiting on our front porch:

Catcher couldn't wait to rip open the package to see what was inside. It doesn't matter what's inside. It's always exciting. Of course, more exciting than the coat dots was the bubble wrap:

This is what happened when Scout woke up from her nap on Saturday and thought there was no more bubble wrap left to pop. She cheered up after I brought out a piece I had saved for her, but we had to wait for Alex to get home on Monday to bring out the power tools and finish the project:

After selecting the right size bit, he handed the drill over to Scout. Two year-olds and power tools are a great combination. (Don't freak: Scout didn't really drill anything. She just looked cute holding it.)

And here's the end result. I like the look--kind of sculptural/artsy. I told Alex that although we technically have a place to hang "stuff" now, we (and I mean he) can't go junking it up with ESPN hats and dirty gym bags.

does this thing turn on?

It wasn't a spring break project per se, but a project that Alex and I had been thinking about for a while. The sconces over our mantle were horribly outdated, slightly tacky (even with the fancy black shades, haha) and pretty cheap [looking]. Take a look:

They weren't so offensive when viewed from across the room, but up close even the faceted bulb couldn't hide their poor quality. After searching for a few weeks, I finally settled on the style below, which I found at Restoration Hardware. I liked the simple look of the sconces, but I was really annoyed that they charged me $17 for shipping. And I'm clearly not over it yet since I'm writing about it.

They arrived last week while Alex was away, so installing them was high on his to-do list when he was home for three days this week. Here's a look at the process (which actually went a lot smoother and quicker than I had anticipated): 

This is what Alex found when he removed the old lights. I was kind of scared. I don't know much--and by much, I mean anything--about wires and electricity, so it seemed complicated to me.

Alex wasn't worried. Once upon a time he removed the ceiling fixture in Catcher's bedroom in our house in Charlotte and replaced it with his great-grandmother's antique chandelier. This was simple, he assured me.

Old lights off: check. Time to install the new ones.

Tillie looks on with anticipation/doubt. I think she's sizing up the new look of the mantle versus the old. Check out the before and after:

Better? Here's another look, close up:

Once the new lights were installed, however, we ran into a little snafu--there's no on/off switch. I was in the kitchen making lunch for Tillie when Alex called out to me, "Does this thing turn on?" I thought it was a silly question considering a) it's a light and b) he was the one standing there looking at it and not me, but then I thought about the $17 shipping charge and got angry all over again. "It better turn on," I replied, "if they're charging me $17 shipping." I don't know what the $17 shipping has to do with the lights functioning or not, but clearly it's a sore spot with me.

To answer the question, yes, the lights turn on. However, "turning on" means screwing the lightbulb in until the light flickers and then stabilizes, and "turning off" means grabbing an oven mit--or some other means of protecting your fingers from the burning bulb--until the light flickers out. Remember: righty tighty, lefty loosey.

spring break project #2

This was an easy one--painting Catcher's nightstand. It took forever, however, because I could never carve out the time to drive down to the Benjamin Moore paint store for the perfect red, which Catcher picked out himself, Million Dollar Red.

Once again I launched into a project without taking a proper "before" shot, but you can see the nightstand in the background behind Tillie.

Here it is after one coat of primer...

and the final after four coats of Million Dollar Red.

Actually, this isn't really the final final because apparently I put the handle on all wonky (Alex fixed it for me), but at least you can see the color. I have a quart of red paint that's about 7/8ths full, so there may be some more Million Dollar Red in my future...some day...when I'm bored.

spring break project #1

I like to do things...and then re-do them. Especially if paint is involved. One of my greatest treasures is my little elephant side table that is the perfect size for holding a glass of wine (and not much more). Before we moved into our house last summer, I finally got around to painting it white, but there was something about the white that was too white. You know? It was bugging me for a while, so I had to tone down the white. When I found the color Elephant Tusk from Benjamin Moore, which I'm actually using for another spring break project, I knew it was a sign. Unfortunately, I don't have a great solo pic of the elephant beforehand. But you can see it in all its shining, white glory behind Tillie in the photo below. The bottom two pictures are "after" shots. Can you tell the difference? I know you can (or else just trust me on this one).

the un-painting

When we were painting the bathroom several months ago, we (I mean I) forgot to paint the inside of the bathroom door the same color as the rest of the wood trim. It bothered me. But I didn't feel like hauling out the paint can, stirring it up and getting the paint brush messy after I had put everything away. At some point I solicited Alex to finish the job, and he did. The only problem is that he also painted the outside of the bathroom door (the side facing the hallway). This would have been fine except the trim in the hallway is a different color than the trim in the bathroom, so we had a random blue-grey door in our otherwise white hallway. It bothered me.

After staring at the door for months--wondering when I would be bored enough to paint it back to its original color--I noticed a tiny imperfection in the paint last Saturday morning. It was kind of a hole in the paint, so I pulled at it and to my surprise (and delight!) I peeled a long strip off the door. Just like that--no mess, no fuss, and no damage to the layer of paint below. Catcher was standing there as it happened, and suddenly I had a Saturday morning project that everyone was excited about. Check it out:

 

 

The story isn't quite over yet, however, because only about 90% of the paint has been peeled off. It turns out that the project works better when Tillie is napping because otherwise she tries to eat the paint scraps that have fallen to the floor. I'll finish it someday.

hanging lanterns

The girls' room, which we generally refer to as "Scout's room" around here, is an ongoing project for me. I've already re-arranged it four or five times, and last week I tried sprucing things up with a little $18 project that now hangs over Scout's bed.

This is how the nine paper lanterns that I ordered from some online oriental trading company arrived at my house. I didn't expect them to come assembled, but I did expect them to come with some sort of archaic assembly instructions. They didn't; I had to figure out how to get the wire thing-y in there myself.

After a couple of miscues, I figured out which way the wire thing-y was supposed to go. My next bit of magic involved keeping Scout away from the lanterns for fears of little hands ripping the delicate paper.

I had to bring out the (big) step ladder to screw the hooks into the ceiling. You wouldn't believe--or probably, you would--how many times I moved around my "random" placement of lanterns.

This is how it finally ended up...

...and here is a view from lying down (looking up) in Scout's bed.

a final (or not) re-arrange

Since I started the month by re-arranging the girls' bedroom, I figured there was no better way to end the month than by re-arranging my re-arrange. This is just a sneak peek at the room because I have another small project in the works, followed by a bigger small project, so I'll make you wait for the big reveal.

Oh, and I hung a picture by Scout's bed, too. She painted the frame herself.

first project of 2013

My first project of the new year was more of a 20-minute rearrange than an actual project, but it was a puzzle I've been trying to solve in my head for a while: arranging the girls' bedroom. I woke up this morning at 6:00am thinking about it. I guess because we had already taken down the Christmas tree and packed up a bunch of old stuff for Goodwill before the holidays, I had no real New Years-y type projects to tackle today. But it wouldn't feel like January 1st without doing something, so this is what I did.

This is the bedroom before. I couldn't get a good picture of it from this angle because, as you'll see in Exhibit A (below) the door didn't open all the way.

Exhibit A (I): This is as far as you could open the door. I didn't think it was a big deal at first, but after squeezing through the space between it and the foot of Scout's bed--especially while carrying things like the laundry or a baby--I eventually got over the body contortion thing.

Exhibit A (II): This is the reason you couldn't open the door all the way: the trunk. It was initially located across the room where the dresser is, but we had to switch things around when we got the dresser. The trunk ended up here by default.

Exhibit B: The other challenge to this space is the stairway that leads up to our bedroom. It basically renders the entire wall useless for storage/decorating purposes. I thought I could make the trunk work, but I finally surrendered.

Exhibit C: The room's new look. It still needs some work, but I feel like the switch has opened up the space (and now you can walk through the door). Oh, the "switch" I'm referring to is the bed and the crib. I just realized you couldn't see the crib in the before picture, because of the whole door thing, but it was where the bed is now.