Pulling the Plug

By Tuesday evening, I had had enough.  It wasn't a terrible day, but it certainly didn't feel like a happy, productive day.  Will begged to watch TV the moment he came downstairs, and I gave in, hoping to get something accomplished.  It seemed like that had become the norm: Will whining at the television until he was greeted by Woody & Buzz, Lightning McQueen, or Curious George.

And I just couldn't take it anymore.  So when Grant got home, he kindly complied with my wishes and removed the TV from the wall.  Hah.  After all the work of installing the floating stand and the Wall Blade, (which we love), I've gotta give Grant mad props for not complaining about taking it all down so soon.

Don't be too quick to pin us as television haters.  We love to watch movies, and a handful of good shows, and of course, HGTV, (Property Brothers is the current fave).  Not to mention, I'm a big fan of sitting Will down in front of a show so that I can make dinner, work out, or take a shower.   But it just seemed like Will was missing opportunities to play because the television was always right in front of him.  It was easier to watch TV than to play with cars or dinosaurs or read his books.  And it was easier for me to turn on the TV than to sit down and play with my sweet baby cakes.

So we've unplugged.  And it feels good.  Will was a little shocked when he first saw the wall yesterday morning.

He reached toward the TV like he normally does, as if I could magically make Wreck-It Ralph appear on the wall...  And when I told him it was broken he said, "No," as clear as crystal (a rarity at this stage of his development.)  Mr. Grumpy Gills...

And then, he realized that a show wouldn't be coming, and he moved on with his life.  Oh, and he gave me this cheesy grin.  Cutest.

Now, we're not going totally cold turkey on electronics.  He still gets to play with the iPad and watches a few videos on the computer, but hopefully we've eliminated the zombie-stare-at-the-TV-syndrome for a while.

And hopefully, we'll find a few more moments to reconnect with the importance of true play.

We Built This City on Wheat and Ore...

We've had a few chances to break in our new, awesome, ginormous farmhouse table.  The first occasion (of course) was a game of Settlers.  No better way to christen a table than with my new favorite song "We Built This City on Wheat & Ore," (sung to the tune of Jefferson Starship's classic 80's hit, "We Built This City.")

Since then, we've updated the table a bit.  I found the gold bowl in the Ikea As-Is section for $4.  It is supposed to be a sort of table, and came with a big metal stand that was broken.  I knew I just wanted the bowl, so the broken stand didn't phase me.  (If you haven't shopped in the as-is section at Ikea, you need to!  They sell floor models, extra random things, and broken/returned items there for cheap, cheap, cheap.)

We've also dropped the chandelier so that it hangs right over the table.  You can't tell in this picture, but it's not centered over the table... A little annoying, but not a big deal at this point.  We'll definitely be updating that chandelier eventually.  Whether we'll replace it or just paint it is still up in the air.

And then we've added these cherry-esque stained chairs.  They're loaners from one of our friends who doesn't have room for them at his place.  We have yet to finish the Ikea chairs we've halfway-stained... and we still plan to build a bench for one side.

Now would someone remind dear old Mother Nature that it is May 1st?!  It should not be snowing... especially because my car has been kicked out of the garage by the great cabinet takeover...

Laundry Cabinet Progress

We're about halfway through the cabinet painting process.  We cleaned up all the cabinets, removed the doors, drawers, and hardware, and filled all the holes with wood filler.  We covered one side of the garage with cheap, plastic drop cloths, and got to work.

Oh, and of we also invested in this sweet, Darth Vader-esque respirator mask.  We're using an oil-based primer, and although it will adhere to the cabinets better, it's super estinky (Nacho Libre, anyone?  We've replaced stinky with estinky at our house, as well as replacing sleeping with esleeping.)

Our new paint sprayer works great, especially for the insides of the cabinets.  I can't imagine how long it would take to paint all of those corners and tight spaces with a brush and roller.

It's not powerful enough or big enough to be worth using on walls, but it is perfect for this project.

The end finish was a little speckle-y, but I easily knocked it down with a fine-grit sandpaper.

We still have a little priming left to do and then we're on to the top coat.  We decided on Benjamin Moore's Cloud Cover, the color that Young House Love used on their kitchen cabinets.  (I'm sort of a Young House Love groupie... go Burger!)

I also purchased the knobs and pulls for the finished cabinets at Ikea.  See here and here.

Now onto paint colors for the walls- any suggestions?

Laundry Room Planning

We have a great sized laundry room, but it has zero storage.  We've brought in a plastic shelving unit to help out, but the Willister can reach the bottom two shelves, which significantly limits the type of items we can put there... (we're talking unopened tissue boxes, toilet paper, and shoes... that's it).

We've been dreaming and pinning (look here for our laundry pins so far...) and although the mental picture of our finished room is by no means finished, we started in on the plans anyway.

I measured the the height and width of the room and drew up various layout ideas.

There is already plumbing for a utility sink on the far left of the room so we're planning for that.  The hook-ups for the washer & dryer are just right of center in the room, so we're sticking with the easiest plan and putting them as close to the hook-ups as possible.

We've decided to stack the washer & dryer to allow for maximum storage space.  We rarely fold clothes in the actual laundry room, so counter space wasn't too big of a deal to us.  We've also decided to add a pantry-like cabinet to store the vacuum, broom, mop, etc.

After all the rough sketches, I drew up a scaled version of the whole room.  (Feeling pretty proud of myself at this point...)  The right side will be the pantry, then the washer-dryer with a cabinet above, and two sets of cabinets on the side, with the far left cabinet holding the utility sink.  The skinny bar on the left was where we originally planned a rod to hang clothes, but we decided against it.  We tend to hang our clothes upstairs anyway, and we decided we'd rather have extra cabinet storage in that spot.

Then I priced out the cabinets at a few stores.  Any home improvement store will provide pricing and planning guides for cabinetry- easy cheesy.  

Pricing estimates for the five cabinet sets pictured above:

Home Depot: $609 (for basic, unfinished cabinets; toe kick, crown moulding not included)

Ikea: $1037 (for finished STAT cabinets; legs, toe kicks, crown moulding not including)

Those were the prices even before we nixed the hanger bar and decided to add another cabinet. Not terrible, but not what we were hoping to spend.  

We toyed with the idea of building the cabinets from scratch... but decided it wasn't worth the time and stress.  So we headed to one of our very favorite stores in hope of a steal: Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

The ReStore is basically a thrift store for home improvement that benefits the Habitat for Humanity organization.  They stock sinks, light fixtures, furniture, doors, trim, tiles, paint, hardware, and of course, cabinets!  They have rows and rows of cabinets, some individual, but many that are whole sets of old cabinets taken from kitchens and laundry rooms under renovation.  We scoured the lot of cabinets looking for a set that we could make work in our space.  We found the perfect set; it even had a pantry cabinet.   We had to rearrange a few of the measurements so that it would all fit correctly, and we ended up purchasing an individual unit to round out the set, but we made it work. 

And most importantly, the price tag was awesome.  We got all of the cabinets for just over $250.  Score score score....  We piled them into the trailer, (and the trunk... and the back seat...) and took them home.  

Right now we're in the process of paint prep.  Some of the cabinets were pretty greasy, but with some goof-off and a bit of elbow grease, we've cleaned them up.  We'll be replacing the drawer and cabinet pulls, but keeping and painting the hinges to save money.

I'm so excited to see how it will all turn out.  There are still a lot of decisions to be made: paint colors for the walls, hardware for the cabinets and drawers, and how to organize all the new storage that we'll have!  Hoo-hoo-hooray!

Any brilliant ideas we should include in our design?!

Gallery Wall

We finally got around to hanging a few picture frames, and decided to do a gallery wall.  Gallery walls are all the rage right now, (see here, here, and here), and we're not ashamed to jump on the bandwagon.  The wall we chose is only a few feet across and connects the kitchen to the family room as well as the small hallway to the front of the house.  

 We went the newspaper rough draft route to avoid extra holes (or drama).  

We folded or cut out newspaper to the size of all the frames we wanted to use and then played around with different formations on the wall, keeping in mind which frames were white, gold, silver, etc.

Got your tickets?.... to the gun show?.... the Tanner gun show?!

We labeled all of the papers so we could remember which frames they belonged to.  Eternal Bliss, Tres Felicidades (that's definitely correct grammar...), you get the idea.

Then we measured where the nails would sit on the frames, hammered those puppies right through the newspaper, ripped off the paper, and hung the frames.  Bam and done.  We've yet to find the right pictures for a few frames, but we like the organization despite the emptiness.  My favorite is the top right frame displaying three of our homemade cards.  (A bike from Mother's Day, a Nacho Libre from V-day, and a Teen Girl Squad "Cancered!" from my birthday.

We still have a lot of empty walls in our home, but it's nice to have at least one more wall decorated.  I love how the frames camouflage the light switch, doorbell, and air conditioner.

Project: Dining Room Table

It's done!  Grant worked long and hard on this table (with very little assistance from yours truly) and it's finally done!  We used the plans found at ana-white and used fir boards from Home Depot to build the table.

We love the size of it.  It's 8 feet long and about 4 feet wide.  We're going to build a matching bench for one side and finish oxidizing our ikea chairs for the other side.

The table turned out darker than we originally planned, but we love it anyway! I especially love that certain parts that didn't take the oxidation as well as others, making it looks natural and uneven.

A view from above.  I think the dark wood really warms up the space since almost all of the color in there is light and/or neutral.

Sir likes it.  He's been placing random objects on top of it for the last few days.

Here's an example of the uneven parts of the table.  Love.

And the knots on the top made for some interesting unique spots as well.

Cutest.

A few weeks ago, we also bought these upholstered chairs for the ends of the table.  The legs are black but I don't mind.  Either that, or I'm just too lazy to change them...  Does the reason matter...? They'll probably stay black :)

So that's the scoop!  With chairs finished, a bench built, and a little decoration, it's going to look awesome.

February 4th: Progress Report

No big projects to report today.  Instead, just a few pictures of projects along their way.  

First, hanging pictures... not my favorite.  All these frames have been stashed away in various locations around the house so we laid them out to take inventory.  I've gotta be honest... haven't hung any yet...  It's hard to hang art/pictures/etc.  when there's not much furniture to base them around...

Next, table progress.  After a failed attempt to straighten out some warped boards, Grant decided to just nail them down and sand it flat.  It's taking quite a while so we may go out and buy a cheap planer.  T.B.D.  We also learned that wood filler does not oxidize... so we've been sanding off excess filler so we can re-oxidize and even everything out.

Sander-face.

It's going to be awesome.  Oh, we also bought some upholstered chairs for the ends of the table.  On sale- woohoo.

And last of all, we just got this baby in the mail.  Found it on sale, of course, and I've got some fun projects planned for it.  (Both are not Grant's favorite projects... but this is a give and take partnership, right honey?!)