Small Reveal

We’re (finally) back with the reveal of the mystery project we mentioned here.

We made a lamp for the guest room using a vase and a lampshade from Target.

Has anyone else ever made a lamp out of something unconventional?  (Although I suppose comparatively speaking a vase isn’t that unconventional.)

Also, the full reveal of our guest room is coming soon, so check back for those details!

Bright Copper Kettles and Warm Woolen Mittens

Just a few things I wish would fall out of the sky, because they would improve my day tremendously (although I guess if the latte fell from the sky it’d burn me, and that certainly wouldn’t help things).

Note: Both sweaters are from Old Navy. And I may have had to stop myself from adding several other sweaters to this post.

Bedded Down

Yesterday evening after I got home from work, we ran a few errands and retrieved some Jo-Ann coupons from Emiley (thanks again for that!) and then Robert and I started working on the bed frame for the guest room.  We bought four 1″ x 8″ x 8′ boards, four  6″ Queen Anne legs and a pneumatic stapler (we like overkill) from Lowe’s.  Since our frame was going to be a faux frame that fit around the existing metal frame (at least to start with) we took two of the boards and marked how long they needed to be in order to fit around the basic metal frame rather than measuring the boards to roughly 60″ and 80″ like the standard queen sized bed frame.  We decided to lay the boards out in the following (not to scale) arrangement  with triangular pieces in the corners to stabilize and provide a place to attach the Queen Anne legs.

We used the brad nailer we bought for the pallet project to attach the boards together and add the corner pieces, and then Robert added a few staples from the top.

We used one of our many hammers (this one actually came free with purchase of our compressor and brad nailer) to hold the triangles in place while we nailed them so that the two inch brads didn’t go into our fingers.

We also elevated the triangle and nailer a bit with some scrap wood.

Later today (technically) we’ll drill holes in the triangles to screw the legs into, and wrap the frame with batting and fabric.

Also, is anyone surprised that after my meltdown we went with something other than the grey wool?

Being that we are (currently) a teeny, tiny blog we were not paid by Bostitch to use or mention their products (but if anyone from Bostitch happens up on our blog- we really like our 6 gallon compressor, brad nailer and stapler!)

Fall to Pieces

Do you ever completely lose it?  I’m not talking about physically losing something like your keys, I’m talking completely fall apart.  I’m sure it’s a faux pas to mention how you don’t always have things together on your blog (especially when your blog is only a wee baby blog), but I’m doing it anyway because I rarely do things the “right” way (come on, I’m the girl who rarely uses primer! on a home decor blog!)  So, I could whine about how Robert and I have had a hard day/week/month/year, or I could  tell you about how the saleswoman who I was about to buy the  absolutely perfect (and 24.99/yd!) grey wool I wanted for the guest room bed from was being the world’s biggest witch threw me over the edge.  I don’t really want to do either because I’m sure that I’ll look back on this and be horribly embarrassed for falling apart (especially when I’m already a little embarrassed now), but it wouldn’t be much of a blog post if I told you I had a bad day and then didn’t explain, would it?

Robert and I went to work yesterday instead of being with his grandmother because neither one of our jobs gives us time off for that kind of thing.  My day at work started when I told my boss what was going on and he asked how old Robert’s grandmother is. When I told him her age he gave me the face and said “My grandmother lived to be 104, but I wish she had only made it to 102 because the last few years were bad with the dementia”.  You know that face, the one that seems to say “well you should have expected that”.  I guess he was trying to be helpful by relating.  From there my work day only got worse and I won’t bore you with all those details.

When we got home Robert and I ate leftovers and planned to visit his grandmother after going to Jo-Ann where I was intending on buying grey felt to wrap the faux bed frame we’re making for the guest room.  I pretty much planned the whole room around this bedframe after seeing a picture of the bed Daniel made on Heidi’s blog.  (Yes, I know the West Elm bed below is covered in grey jute not grey felt but I thought the grey felt would be a nice magnet for our white dog hair we’re on a budget.)

Unfortunately when we got to the store I saw the grey wool. And it was $24.99 a yard. (And they put a giant 40% off sign over it that said in tiny letter that that the fabric I wanted was excluded, but my tired eyes with my really old glasses didn’t see that part.) We did some quick math to figure out how many yards we would need, took a number and got in line. After we waited through several “Jo-Ann will be closing in x minutes” announcements, nearly got skipped by a woman who refused to take a number a witchy saleswoman finally called our number and asked how many yards we needed. “Three please,” I said. The witchy sales woman took one look at my dirty hair and puffy face from getting home at midnight the night before and getting up at six and said “You know this is $24.99 a yard, right?” “Yes” I said, and my husband, God bless him, said “It’s 40% off!” She looked at us like I had green things coming out of my dirty hair we were complete idiots and said rudely “This brand isn’t included”.  I’m sure she had had a terrible day also and just wanted to go home, so I made it a lot better for her by thumping the bolt of fabric down on the counter in front of her and saying “Screw it then!” and stalking away.

I have no idea why that was the last straw (well, aside from the fact that I had a day of coworkers thinking that bagels are more important than family, and the fact that I hate the month of September aside from Carter’s birth), but for some reason when we got back in the truck I burst into tears and cried the entire way home.

And in other news that makes me want to cry my eyes out, we may be postponing the pallet project we’re working on for the guest post we’re working on for our guest room because Mother Nature is crying her eyes out too it’s forecasted to rain unti next Thursday, which may make deconstructing the rest of the pallets we need impossible.

Think Good Thoughts

First of all I want to say that I wouldn’t include the following frivolous (and not completely finished) post today except that it was already written and I don’t have any other pictures to post today. 

And secondly, please think good thoughts for my husband’s grandmother today (and if you are the praying type, which we aren’t as we aren’t religious, please include her in your prayers) as she was hospitalized last night with symptom’s of a possible stroke.  When we left last night at midnight she had improved enough to talk with us, tell stories, and laugh at Robert’s translation of what the nurse was saying, but they were not ruling out a stroke until she has further tests this morning.

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Anyone who follows us on Facebook knows that I was concerned that UPS would deliver to the wrong address again (find our why that is a concern here) yesterday, but thankfully I arrived home from work to find a box on our porch.

Please excuse the dirty porch, I literally opened the box with my keys and started taking pictures.

My husband (who has a propensity for turning his ankle) may hurt himself on our new doormat until it starts laying flat.

And though these are not quite the color I was expecting (since I hadn’t seen them in person because our World Market didn’t have them) I love the knobs for the liquor cabinet.

Is It Too Early for a Christmas Wish List?

While I am well aware that this is Florida and it hasn’t snowed here in forever, may I please decorate my house with these fabulous oversized mercury ornaments from Pottery Barn this year?

From Pottery Barn

And while we are on the subject of Christmas, my BFF Santa and his elves are magical, so I’m sure he’ll have no trouble finding one of these chairs.  I’ll take one for my guest room, please.  I hear shell chairs like to hang out on the street in Manhattan, Santa, so you never know.

(Slightly less than stellar pic) From eBay

And some of these Candelas that the evil wonderful Pottery Barn Outdoor Spaces book made me lust after would look lovely around our future pool.

From Amazon

If Santa if feeling especially generous he can get me this rug that I have been lusting after.  There are twelve of them at the Ikea closest to us, so Rudolph wouldn’t even have to carry it that far, I swear!  I’d have bought it for myself but I am much too busy with tailgating and football working dilegently on the guestroom to drive two hours to Ikea.  This is tragic, people!  There are tears!  (Ok, there aren’t tears, but there could be if it makes a more convincing case!)  You can ask Robert how many times I have rug-stalked this on Ikea’s website just to make sure it is still in stock.

From Ikea

And Santa, if you still need ideas you can find more of my wish list here.

 *This post is in no way suggesting what my sweet husband should buy me for Christmas, I swear.  Really.*

Tacking It Down

When we were at my parents house yesterday picking up the absinthe print we got into a conversation about our DIY Fail of a liquor cabinet and problem solving how to fix it.  Robert and I had decided to use Krylon Easy Tack because it promised to be repositionable (unlike its big brother, Krylon Spray Adhesive, which used to make me seriously sticky and seriously annoyed in high school art classes) and then my brilliant mom suggested putting the paper under glass.  Really, why don’t I think of these things?  We decided to do both, but with plexiglass (well, just as soon as we get the plexi cut).

The Easy Tack worked as promised (we even had a slight issue with the paper trying to stick to itself, but it was thankfully a non-issue), and with the second piece we repositioned it a lot.  That’s right, I said second piece because the only issue we has was that we cut the paper a little short the first time,we are apparently really great at measuring.  Thankfully it worked out because the screw up was just the right size for the top of the shoe cabinet- score!  We’ll probably be getting a piece of plexi for that, too.

Have you had any happy accidents recently?

Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Just a quick post to say that despite UPS mixing up my billing and shipping addresses again, the print that I mentioned in this post arrived!  Thanks for keeping it safe, Mom! It was nice to see your face, too!  And while it looked great in your guest room I think it also looks pretty good next to our liquor cabinet (which is pretending to be purple in this picture).

Maybe one day I’ll fix my billing address with the credit union and just make plans to see my parents for dinner (and at home football games) like most people…

Liquored Up

Ok, so contrary to what the title would lead you to believe we didn’t spend the day getting sloshed, we spend the day watching football and painting the liquor cabinet.  We last left off with the liquor cabinet with a DIY Fail at papering part of the inside, after picking a paint color for the inside.

So this time we started by putting down contractor paper, taking off the old “door knocker” hardware and spackling the screw holes with a tube of nail hole patch.

One football game later this is what we have.  We still have to paper the inside, do a little touch up, and get new knobs for it.  I want to get these knobs.

From World Market.

Is anyone else mildly obsessed with yellow and grey right now?

Fall Foliage Update

As I mentioned in the last post, I was kicking around the idea of doing more with out centerpiece, so with a little inspiration from Young House Love, our backyard and another trip to HomeGoods I changed things up with the centerpiece.

The seeded glass (we like seeded glass a lot) hurricane was $12.99 from HomeGoods, the corks were free from my mom, and the branches were free from our backyard.  We may add more cork or more branches later, or just use some to change up the mantle.

Has anyone else changed their mind on about design decisions recently?