ABCs

While I so wish that I could have been back in good old Glen Ellyn with my mom a couple weeks ago to celebrate her 60th, we were fortunate enough to be able to celebrate early with her when my parents visited over Easter.

Thanks to Sommer, who made a book for my birthday last year using this concept, I copied her idea and, along with the help of my brother, we created the 'ABC's of my mom and put them on the clipboards as a fun greeting for her when she arrived.

Since Sean's birthday was in early May, our clipboards are now sporting his 'ABCs' :)

Light Change

My dad helped hang a chandelier that I bought last summer in Highland Falls (of all places!) while he was here.  At first, when he got it connected, the new-to-me chandelier was not working.  He ended up taking it down, checking out all the wiring...which all looked great.  He then tried again...to no avail.  But...low and behold!  Somehow we had blown a fuse...so after flipping the circuit breaker a couple of times, we were in business.  The chandelier should be a little larger for the space...but I can't tell you how happy it makes me, regardless.

Next time, I hope to not have such a fear of this and tackle it myself!  Thanks, Dad :)

Before:

After - again, wish I was a good photographer...

Butter

I had never given a thought to making my own butter until I read Liz Stanley's post about it...

If you have some heavy cream and a stand mixer, you can be on your way.  I still haven't perfected it, but have now made a few batches of regular salted butter as well as some honey butter.

If you are looking for a fun project, you should give it a try.

Being that I am as impatient as I am, I skipped the shaking of the cream in the Ball jar.  I poured a large container of heavy cream into my mixer along with some salt (I am still trying to figure out the right amount of salt), started whipping it on high and just let it run.

Just whip it until it separates...you will have some chunks and some liquid.  The liquid is actually buttermilk.

Now, it gets a little messy...just reach in and start bringing all the solid bits of butter together, into a ball.  Squeeze out as much buttermilk as you can.  If buttermilk is left, the butter won't last as long.  Some sites recommend washing the butter under cold water until the water runs clear to ensure that the buttermilk is gone.

And, voila.  You have fresh butter.  Pop it in the fridge to let it firm up...and done!

Laundry Update

I made another large batch of detergent, this time I wanted to figure out the costs and how long it lasts me.  I mixed up '10' batches, and it took me no longer than 15 minutes as I used my food processor to grate the soap.

Finally, the jar looks more full :)

Soap - used 5 bars out of a package of 8
Borax - Used one box (approx. 10 cups in the box)
Washing Soda - Used 1.75 boxes (approx. 6 cups per box)

Soap Cost - $2.50
Borax - $2.39
Washing Soda - $3.59
Total - $8.48

I will update once I figure out how long, from April 7th, this will last!

Chair Update - Caned Chair

So, I guess I can sort of cross another chair off the list.  I decided that I would do the caned chair on my own to hopefully be a low cost project.  Maybe one day I will have it reupholstered, but the yellow will do for now....

Here is what I did to it...

1.  Took the seat off the chair which was much more difficult than expected...thanks to Krissy, Jean and Sean, it finally came off.

2.  Green Machined all the upholstery on the chair (should have done this AFTER the sanding, as I will now need to do it again!)
3.  Sanded all the wood
4.  Wiped the chair down
5.  Covered the upholstery on the back of the chair that I couldn't pop off using plastic, paper and masking tape

6.  Spray painted the chair glossy white (three coats)

7.  Reinforced the bottom of the chair with zip ties (those things fix EVERYTHING).

Here is the before of the $10 find:

Before:

After:

I still have yet to have Sean screw the seat back on as I feel like a few spots need some more paint.  I absolutely loved how the chair looked when I was spraying it outside, and now that I have it put back together, I am not quite as sold.

But, for the cost of a couple cans of spray paint and a few hours of work, I think it was worth it!  A less than $20 investment...

Transformation of a craigslist find...

Sommer was kind enough to share her amazing chair transformation with me.  She got these chairs for $12.50 each!  What a deal!!  She then sanded and painted them, and started to reupholster them herself, then decided to hire some of that work out (I would have too!).  The results are stunning!  She helped breathe so much fresh life into these chairs.  They have an upcoming move to sunny FL, and this fun geometric print will be perfect.  Thanks so much for sharing this inspiration, Sommer!

Before:

After:

Stitch Witch

So, in Mexico, Ryan and Jamie's place didn't have much storage in the bathroom.  There was a large, wide open space underneath the sinks.  Ryan built some custom shelves to give them space they needed to store toiletries.  They had hoped to conceal the contents of the shelves, so I hoped to help while we were there.  I bought some fabric...hoping it would go with their new duvet from West Elm.  They didn't have a sewing machine, but they did already have the rod to hang the fabric from, so I purchased....

--fabric
--drapery rings with clips
--stitch witchery - heavy duty

I had thought I would make a panel or two, just create a hem around the four edges, and then hang it from the clips.  Unfortunately, the clips hung down too low, so you could see the contents of the top shelf.  Just didn't really serve the purpose we were hoping for.

After I botched the first attempt with 'Stitch Witch' (I will spare you the embarrassing details), I finally figured out how much I love that stuff.  I am sure it wouldn't be great for many jobs, but for this, it was perfect. 

In the end, I ditched the curtain rod clips, cut two panels, made a large hem on the top of the panels (to allow enough room to slide the rod through the top hem), and hemmed the other three sides.

Before:

After:

Chair Challenge - Update

So, I finally finished one part of the chair challenge!  Krissy was a huge help.  We have been trying to have 'project night' to work on some/many of our random projects.  I had hoped to finish the bamboo chairs before the Plebe Parent weekend open house, so Krissy helped me staple/pull/staple/fold corners/and staple some more.  Sean helped me screw the seats back on the morning of the party...and they were done!

Before:

After:

Perfect husband quote after these were done...."What did you change again?  Don't these look the same as they used to?"  No, no and no.  There is no longer sticky vinyl on them, and they have been glued/repaired/sanded/primed/painted/clear coated...NO.  They don't look the same :)

I finished all of the following tasks...

a.  Determine which chairs need something on them fixed (some of the backs are loose, some of the seat braces are coming unglued, etc.)
     b.  Determine if I can fix, or if I need someone to help me.  Likely will need help. (UPDATE:  I was able to find this very honest and helpful handyman on CL, and he fixed all six chairs for me - he checked every joint/loose spot, fixed them all, sanded, primed, painted, and put two clear coats on them!)

     c.  Learn more about reupholstering chairs.
          i.  Price/buy new foam for seats (UPDATE: Still undecided on this...my foam is 1 inch thick, and I would upgrade to 1.5 inch foam - not sure that the 1/2 inch is really worth the cost and effort)
          ii.  Research/decide on stain protection, if any. (Thankfully, I already have the fabric)
     d.  Wash/iron fabric
     e.  Stain protect fabric
     d.  Recover seats

Now onto the next chairs....

Mine aren't nearly as cute as Jenny's...

So, I attempted Jenny's roman shades made from mini blinds with some of the $1 panels I recently acquired and some miniblinds from WalMart ($7.50 each).  I bought 4 matching gray panels, but we have three windows in the master bedroom, so I figured this would be a good way to use the panels and still cover all the windows.  Needless to say, mine aren't nearly as adorable as hers were :)

plain jane shade from Walmart!

snipping all the blind supports...

these are the only slats left on that whole blind!

The Fabritac that still looks wet, even though it is dry! UGH.

my unfinished top...

my unfinished bottom...

First of all, this was my first time using Fabric glue...so, I guess I used too much maybe because the glue came through the fabric.  I thought when it dried, you might not be able to notice, but it still has that 'wet glue' look.  BOO.

In typical Meghan DIY fashion, I want to be a perfectionist, but I can't really figure out every last little step to make it look polished and perfect, like Jenny's.  Because of my lack of patience,  I need to still finish off the tops as well as the bottoms.  I may resort to using safety pins to finish up the bottoms....yikes.  I was a bit unclear on that part of the directions...

I contemplated buying trim, but then I would probably quickly defeat this inexpensive DIY (3 windows for under $30). 

So, these will probably just need to be less than perfect roman shades!  I will post a better picture once I get them up in the room...

Much Better...

A few weeks ago, I added a towel rack to my Ikea cart.  After my brother saw my post, he suggested a different towel rack from the Container Store.  I liked his idea much better.  I went and picked one up yesterday, and it is much better!  I like the finish on this one too since it matches the stain!  Thanks for the suggestion, Ry!

Lampshade light fixture - DIY

After we broke one of the lamps in our bedroom, I wanted to figure out a way to use the lampshade as a light fixture for the small spot between our 'cruise ship' bathroom and our teeny closet. Our place is definitely not up to code from an electrical standpoint, so we have needed to rig up lots of lights around our place.  

We had our fair share of those Ikea Hemma cords, so I had rigged up an off-center attempt...do you see how the lightbulb is not in the middle of the shade? This drove me crazy!

I wrapped the cord around the lampshade supports, but couldn't successfully keep the lightbulb in the middle of the lampshade...argh!

Now I am seeing these fixtures popping up in lots of catalogs!  Fun. So, thanks to my brother's awesome tutorial, he helped me take my off-centered attempt at a cool new fixture to the real deal.  Our disclaimer...neither of us are electricians, so do this at your own risk ;).

I talked to Ryan because I thought if I could figure out how to splice the wire to allow it to feed through the small opening on a lampshade, I could start keeping an eye out for cool lampshades to serve as light fixtures around our next house. Ryan had a Hemma cord laying around as well, so he put together the following tutorial.

What you need:
--Ikea Hemma Cord
--Lampshade
--light bulb
--Knife (I used a Gerber)
--Wire Cutters (not necessary, but made things a bit easier)
--Electrical tape

Step 1 - Cut cord. I decided to do it near the plug cause it is probably less visible there.

Step 2 - Slice the main sheath back to expose the white and black wires.

Step 3 - Now strip the insulation off the actual wires. You likely cut a few pieces of the wire as well (as you can see that I did), but as long as you don’t cut a bunch of them, it will be fine.

Step 4 - Twist the wires.

Step 5 - Twist the two whites together and twist the two blacks together.

Step 6 - Tape each wire separately so the copper can't touch.

Step 7 - Clip a little bit of the outer sheathing off as the cord will now be a little shorter.

Step 8 - Tape back together tightly.  You could probably get some of those shrink wrap tubes in white and use those instead of tape if you want it to be a bit cleaner.

Here is my pic...I don't have white electrical tape...

And here is my brother's pic - you can tell he is much better at this than I am :)

So, it doesn't look all that much different, but to me, it does.  I am SO happy that the bulb is now properly set inside the shade!  Thanks so much to Ryan for the perfect tutorial.  I hope to be able to use this idea again!

Going BOLD feels good.

So, the desk...the red desk.  Red Delicious to be exact.  It's finally done.  Here are the steps I took to breath some new life into this old beauty.  For upcoming projects, I am going to try to make more of an effort to document the whole process with pics...

As a reminder, here is the 'before' picture:

1.  Removed the hardware and cleaned it using salt and vinegar - a suggestion that I learned about from Jenny's blog, Little Green Notebook.  Here is a before shot...this brass needed some serious TLC.

Before...

After...

2.  Sanded the desk down by hand.  I just used very fine paper b/c that was all I had.
3.  Used wood glue to fix a few spots on the top of the desk where the veneer was pulling up.
4.  Primed the desk - LESSON LEARNED:  Use tinted primer next time when painting something a bold color.

I made sure to get a pic of it primed so that I could remember what it looks like while it is white for the inevitable day when I decide going bold no longer feels good :).  (hopefully this is many years down the road!)

5.  Then I painted.  A lot.  It took 4.5 coats to make sure the primer was really covered and the red was truly Red Delicious.  Next time, tinted primer.

6.  We moved the desk into our bedroom before the girls' weekend.  Being a person of immediate gratification, I wanted it to look presentable when they got here.  I thought it was dry...or maybe I just made myself *think* that it was dry, so I put some stuff on top of the desk while it was clearly NOT dry.  Whoops.  You would think I would know better...since I don't though, I had to go back and do another coat of paint on the top.

7.  I wasn't sure of the best way to apply the Wipe On Poly.  I was worried that if I sanded the desk before applying, I might lose the glossy look.  But, I ended up sanding it with very fine (220) sandpaper.  I sanded too hard and got down to the white primer...boo.  So I had to repaint a few areas.  I then applied two coats of Wipe On Poly, and I did not sand in between coats.

8.  I made 12 color copies of a pretty Paper Source Japanese paper as I thought it would make good drawer liners.  I always want to have pretty drawer liners as I know they would make me so happy, but I am always too lazy/cheap to do it.  I really love the pop of light blue and pink, red and white flowering branches whenever opening a drawer!  Mental note:  Do this more often.

The finished product...

 

 

In an effort to not be as rushed this time, I made sure that nothing was on the desk before I left for Chicago, so it can dry for a full week!

Now, I just need a chair....