What I do when I am bored

My husband does not care for the times when boredom clutches me in its nasty grasp.  Usually, when I can find nothing else to do, I go hunting for power tools.  If you have read any of my previous posts about me, power tools and ladders.  Those two, plus me, is not always the best combination.  It seems that men have a natural instinct and ability ingrained in them that allows them to operate power tools with virtually little effort.  Me, on the other hand, I pick up, plug it in and expect to work magic.  I do have to say, that after four years of house remodeling, I have learned that, for different applications, you have to have your tools on the correct settings.  Coming this understanding has made my life a whole lot easier!  I might write Power Tools for Blondes some day.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand.  Yesterday, I dropped Steven off at a friend’s house at 4:50 a.m. because the ‘boys’ were going white water rafting.  I was home by 5:15, absolutely awake and decided to take advantage of the somewhat cool morning.  Out came the belt sander, rotary sander, drill, chain, boards, brackets and columns.  I wanted to make a shelf to go behind my sofa so I could store magazines, decorating books, Bibles, scrapbooks all within easy reach, but out of sight.  I looked high and low for one already made, but most of them were particle board and very expensive.  Besides, I could not find a short shelf that was five feet wide.  So, I made a plan in my head, got the materials and yesterday put it all together.  It was fun picking stuff out at Home Depot.  My husband was following me around while I puttered.  He could not see the design I had in my head, so he just followed and did the heavy lifting.  A clerk in Home Depot asked him if he could use some help, from the other end of the aisle I heard him mumbling something about his wife and her projects…lol.

Steven had already cut the boards in half for me before he left.  I sanded the boards down, sanded the edges and rounded the ends of the boards.  I then beat them up with a chain (to make the boards look older) and stained them.  Once they were dry and wiped them down, I used brackets to hold two boards together.  I could not find a board wide enough, so Steven suggested I buy a smaller board and strap the two together…GENIUS!  I kinda like the rustic mixed with industrial look.  So, I may leave the brackets up and showing.  I found columns at Hobby Lobby for $5.99 each.  I put the first finished board down, put non slip grip dots on the two columns, then placed the columns on each end, stacked the next board and repeated.  Hobby Lobby has their displays set up the same way, except they use glass shelves.  It is very sturdy and I like that it is stackable.  That means I can break it down and move it around easily in my house.  I am always rearranging and moving things.  I may make a couple more for other places in my house.  I was very proud of it.  I did it all by myself and no one got hurt! 

The boards

Brackets and non-slip grip dots

First set of boards down

Ta-da! The shelf

Looks like a lot of work for nothing, huh?

I think I like this picture on the shelf better

The total cost:

Boards  $16.97

Brackets and non slip dots  $8.00

Columns  $47.92

___________________________

Total:  $72.89

Not bad considering the least expensive shelf I found that I like cost $250.00.

Hope everyone is having a happy Saturday!

Andrea

Living Room Curtains

Well guys, after living here for 2 1/2 years, I have finally put some curtains up in the Living Room.  Yay for me!  I brought some fabric home from my missions trip to Manila, Philippines last year and finally got around to turning it into curtain panels.  It was quite humorous trying to convince the sales people that I really wanted 35-40 yards of fabric.  When I told the lady who was going to take me shopping what I wanted, she showed me scarves.  I told her that I wanted to make curtains out of the fabric so then she brought me to the mall and showed me ready made curtains.  The ready made curtains were very small.  It was hard to explain to her and for her to understand that I had 13 foot ceilings and needed a LOT of fabric.  So, I ended up calling off the shopping trip and my husband and I found out that in the basement of the mega mall, they have several fabric stores.  So, off we go and here is the result:

I hope you all have a great evening!

Andrea

Pictures from the “What Were They Thinking?” Archive #2

Before I sign off of the laptop for the night, I will post the Living Room realtor walk through pic, along with a most recent one from this past Christmas.

Before:

For the all of the before and after living room pics, click here.

Andrea

Projects – 2008 in Review

I was sitting around trying to think about what we did all year.  It seems like 2008 was a slow year for us as far as the DIY scene was concerned.  In the early part of the year, around March, we spent a lot of time getting construction bids and filling out mountains of paperwork for our construction loan, only for the subprime mortgage crisis to hit and, in the end, we ended up scratching the whole deal.  I had to go back through my pictures to see what exactly we DID accomplish this year.  I was glad to find proof that our year was not wasted.  Here is a pictorial review of our year:

January:

Finished the rent house (Hallelujah!) and took our three year old employee to Chuck-E-Cheese.  Hey, we had to pay her somehow for all that painting she did!

February:

We celebrated our five year anniversary

March:

My birthday!  Ahem….anyway.  In 8 hours, I cleaned, primed and put two coats of paint on the living room walls.  It wouldn’t have taken me 8 hours normally except that I: 1) painted alone; 2) pushed a very heavy 10 foot ladder around the room 8 times while I painted the middle and top of the room …twice! I have 13 feet ceilings.  [is it 13 foot, or 13 feet?]

April:

In April, I redid an ugly 80’s dresser for Vivian’s room and, for storage, we revamped an old shelf my brother made many years ago by adding crown moulding to it and painting it.

May:

We took down the ugly drop ceiling in the attic.   We also painted the Master Bedroom.

June:

I sanded, repainted and recovered an old chair I bought for $5.00 at a junk store.  I also managed to tick off the entire Ratcliff family and get called a potstirrer.   Hahaha….that’s definitely a new one for me!

July:

I started this blog. Yay!  I pulled a metal tray on wheels out of the garbage and remade it into a plant stand for my porch.  Click here for the details and pictures.  Even my husband could not believe I wanted something this ugly.  But it turned out well.

My new plant stand

August:

We went to the Philippines.  What a life changing experience!  Click here to see more photos of the trip.  In case you cannot figure out who I am, I am the very white girl in the middle!

handumanan

September:

Vivian’s Birthday.   Hurricane Gustav hit Cenla.  That was very interesting.  It took us about a month to recover and get all of the debris cleared and everything back to normal.  I can’t complain though, we did not endure anything like New Orleans did.  Click the link above to see pictures of that fun.

October:

Was definitely not a project month.  I was caught up watching the media and reading the news regarding  local and national politics.  I did get a call from the Louisiana Historic Preservation Office in Baton Rouge telling me that they want to put my street on the National Register.  Which reminds me…..I need to give her a call.  That nomination is supposed to be sent to Washington in April.  I am definitely going to help make sure that happens!

Precious!

November:

I repainted and reappointed the guest room and stripped a fireplace mantel.

December:

We worked on the attic/loft area so we can add another bathroom upstairs.  Steven put up two porch lights in the back.  Steven stripped a door and a transom down to the bare wood.  We also stripped some paint in the hall that was caked on to the wainscoting.  Click here for December’s project pictures.

I guess all in all it was not a bad year.  We did not get as much as we wanted accomplished.  We didn’t nearly come close to the amount of work we did in 2007.  Oh well, put it on the list!  It will get done eventually!

Andrea

Christmas Decorating

Ok, so I know I am behind the game this year.  Everyone (besides me that is) has had enough forethought to dig out the Christmas decorations and get them up in enough time to enjoy them.  Maybe one day, in a perfect world, that will happen in my house.  We put up our tree Monday night and last night we (or maybe I should say, I) decorated it.  I did not worry about having to get lights or decorations.  I remembered that I had tons of stuff from previous years.  However, this seemed to be the year that all of the lights wanted to die.  I plugged the first strand in, BINGO, it worked.  I plugged the second strand in, same thing.  I wound them on the tree.  When I was pulling out the third strand of lights, all of a sudden half of a strand of lights went out.  No amount of shaking, wiggling or jiggling made them come back on.  So, I unplugged it, and went for the third strand.  I had the third strand out of the box (this is the one that has the 10 different light flash functions) and noticed that the wiring was exposed like something chewed through it (which brings up another possible problem…mice in the attic?).  So….I guess my husband noticed the look of frustration on my face as I stood on top of the ladder with three strands of lights that were not working, because he grabbed his jacket, keys and our four year old daughter and headed out the door to buy more lights.  That gave me enough time to sit on the sofa and reflect on the REAL meaning of Christmas and why we do all of this anyway.  Jesus is the reason for the season.

Here are some pictures of my Christmas decorating efforts.    Maybe next year I will have curtains up…maybe….

Tis the Season!  Make it a memorable one! 

Andrea