A New Bed

Our bedroom has always been my least favorite room in the house. It was a total mishmash of stuff. Absolutely nothing coordinated. And it was dark. I actually like a dark bedroom...it is in fact where you go to sleep...so dark is good in my book. But it was dark in a blecky, dingy, I want to kill myself sort of way.

To top it off, we were sleeping on a horrendous fifteen year old hand-me-down mattress that made my body ache like no other. And we were using Tim's bachelor-days' queen sized headboard propped loosely - not attached - against that horrid king size mattress.

I wanted a new bed baaadly. Not just a new mattress but the whole thing. Something official.

A while back I discovered Ana White and all her fabulous building plans.  I do like to build things.  I surfed through her website one night until 4 o'clock in the morning drooling over all the things I could build...but particularly over her farmhouse bed...bingo.

My biggest obstacle was Tim's headboard. It has huge sentimental value for him.  His grandfather built it for him as a welcome home gift after his mission. I couldn't just tell him to ditch his headboard. So I started dropping subtle hints about how badly we need a new mattress for the sake of our bodies, and how I'd found a really good deal on a memory foam mattress and how a memory foam mattress really needs to go on a platform bed, but we don't have a platform bed, but heck I could build one for cheap, and that it would be so cool for him to pass down his grandpa's headboard to Andrew (even though his bedroom isn't big enough for it with all his toys and crap).

Finally, after several particularly uncomfortable nights on our mattress, Tim made me a deal...if I could find a safe place for his headboard, I could build us a new bed.

Needless to say, I got to work immediately.

Headboard and footboard...



Painted, sanded and stained...It was at this point Tim got cold feet and said he wasn't sure he wanted to move out his old headboard. Ummm...a little too late now buddy.


I basically just built a floor for the mattress.

Then I totally split the butt of my pants as I was straddling the 2x4's.

I laid peg board on top to keep the mattress from sagging between the joists and still allow the mattress to breath.

I was having so dang much fun that I got to work on an itty bitty nightstand for Tim...

And a nice big one for me...

Done

It's still my dark little sleeping cave but seriously freshened up.  I'm not a big fan of matchy matchy furniture but until I'm in the mood to rip up the nasty green carpet and repaint the walls so I have more color options, I can live with it.

Plus I love looking at it all and thinking, 'I built all of that with my bare freaking hands'.

New Floors - After

So, in reading back through my neglected blog, I was going to post some after pictures of the floor project. Not that interesting but I love them!

New Floors

Before

While Aaron and my mom were here in February, I got a major hankering to tear my nasty green carpet out. My mom was supposed to be on vacation and I think she started panting and hyperventilating when I mentioned my desires to her. Aaron is super mellow and just goes with the flow so I don't think he cared what we did. They were both super good sports though and helped me with the tearing out...sort of.



It was a bigger job than I had anticipated, even for a little house. So we got the carpet out, went on our ski trip and left it at that for a few days so they could enjoy the rest of their vacation.

After Aaron had gone back home, we got started on the new flooring. We got the dining room in pretty quick with the help of my brother in law, who just happened to be in town for some grocery shopping or something like that, and Tim was home so there were lots of extra hands. After that, it was pretty much up to me to finish the job...my mom headed back up to Plains to make the most beautiful prom dress you've ever seen...and Tim, well he works like 27 hours a day so he helped when he could...

Progress

I kind of prefer to work alone anyways. It's just really exhausting putting a floor in by yourself. Lots of up and down, up and down, down to measure, up to cut, down to lay, uuuggghhhhh. I don't think I will be doing this again anytime soon.

But seriously, who could bring sexy back better than me with this getup?

Notice the duct tape on the knuckles?



Next project...painting my kitchen cabinets. I can't wait!!!

PS. I still do not have any official 'after' pictures. Coming soon.

Crafty Crap cont.

I actually got my crappy camera working. Just needed to be opened up and jiggled around a little. So here's a sampling of a few things so far. I've already got several items up at the store which I didn't get pictures of because the camera was busted at the time. I guess things have been selling pretty well. We'll see how it goes! Welp, I need to go figure out what the heck to make for dinner.

Neglected

My poor little bloggy woggy has been so neglected since my camera bit the dust. I'm just so uninspired without pictures, even if they're terrible. Actually, I remembered that my video camera takes still pictures but I just haven't bothered with it yet. It's a bummer too. I've been hard at work on my crafty crap and have got a few things in a little store up where my sister lives. No pictures...so sad. My sisters got a friend who just opened up a store and she wanted some of my things so I thought I'd try it out. I don't think it's a great market up there for this kind of stuff but we'll see. It's looking like things aren't going to sell too well unless I mark everything down ridiculously low. I asked my niece and her friend what they would pay for a certain item and they were both like, "oh, 50 cents...a dollar." They were serious. They almost got slapped. My stuff doesn't come off a conveyor belt from China!!! For crying out loud, my once lovely long fingernails have almost all been shaved off by the belt sander. Oh pity.

I'm having FuN regardless. Kind of. I'm really tired and my back hurts. And I'm not only neglecting my blog but I feel like I haven't seen my family for a while. I don't think Andrew could care less. As long as I'm there for him when he gets hungry (which isn't very often), that's all he cares about. Other than that, he'd much rather be off riding his bike around the block with his buddy (speaking of which, Andrew recently got a bike with pegs, and watching him and his friend give each other rides on the pegs reminds me soooo much of Napoleon Dynamite - ie: "you've got shocks, pegs...lucky." It's very funny).

Where was I?

Oh yeah, neglecting my family. Beings that it's after one in the morning and I chose to catch up on my blog rather than go to bed with my neglected hubby - does that make me terrible? Probably. The poor guy. It's time to sign off and go snuggle.

Craft crap

This is my first vinyl project with my new cutter. I finally got some rolls of vinyl in the mail yesterday and whipped these blocks out. I'm not a big pastel person but it's been so dreary and cold here I wanted some cheery color. I thought the yellow was a bright enough shade for the white letters but the P and N are a little washed out. Oh well. I'm having A LoT of FuN figuring out what this little machine can do.

Irksomeness Finds Happiness

It's sad how plugged in we are these days. My computer pooped out on me and left me for a week with hardly a thing to do but mope around and sometimes spout a naughty word at my hard drive. Thanks go out to my computer savvy bro Aaron who put up with my annoying phone calls for help. Even he, the genius of the family, was stumped and I resorted to wiping out my operating system to start anew. Luckily I was able to get into safe mode and back everything up beforehand.

Anywho, I've been really bored this past week without my beloved internet. No offense to my sister and her fam damily, whom we visited on Monday. That was fun. Other than that short stint of happiness, I had no idea what to do with my spare time. How pathetic.

This past week has made me realize that I need a project badly! Fortunately, just before my computer went haywire I purchased a vinyl cutter online which is now in my hot little hands. I've been wanting one for several years. Now I will be in project mode from here on out. YiPpEe! Don't tell Tim. He still doesn't know I bought one. Even though it's been sitting right here on the desk for 4 days. I figure it'll take him at least two more weeks to notice it. And then he'll ask me the dreaded question of how much it cost. We normally discuss large purchases together before the purchase actually takes place but to be honest I got a little carried away on ebay one night with the adrenaline and all...and accidentally won it. Aaahhhh, it is what it is! My sister's got a friend who'd like me to sell my little crafty doo-dads in her store when they open up in a couple more months so hopefully I can bring in a little dough with my new gadget. I'm going to pick me up some wood today, put on my sexy protective goggles and fire up the miter saw and start making some lovely vinyl signs. I love working in the shop - actually it's an over-crowded garage with a smelly cat box in the corner but someday I'm going to have a beautiful shop. Someday...aaahhh. I'm totally rambling. The moral of the story is that I really missed my computer but now I'm happy. Later.

Jumping on the bandwagon

Everywhere you look across blogland, people are making their own chalkboards. So I decided to follow the crowd. They're great for putting up your dinner menu or birthday greetings, lovey dovey crap, or whatever. I love mine! Even Tim thinks it's pretty cool...which is saying something, coming from a man and all.

So, dig up a large, old, framed picture...I got this beauty for $2.50 at our local thrift store.


Get yourself a can of chalkboard spray paint - paint on a couple coats...

Let it dry for 24 hours...then rub all over with chalk...

...wipe off and it's ready to write on. Simple, cheap, and fun! I never thought I would have a big chalkboard in my dining room and actually think it was cool!

Projecting

I inherited this sometimes irritating trait from my parents of always needing to be projecting on something. I've had people ask me, when Andy's in school and me not working out of the home, don't I get bored? Are you kidding me!! There is always something to do. The reason this trait can be a little irritating is I tend to get sidetracked before one project is done and I get started on a new one. I was in the process of making new curtains for Andy's room (they are mostly done) and decided to build him a climbing wall. We actually decided last Christmas to do a wall and even got him some jug holds and t-nuts from Santa but they've sat in his closet ever since. (He begged us for this stuff!) One wall in his bedroom is 11 feet high so it's perfect. Don't worry, we plan on being safe with ropes and harnesses and all that stuff. I had Andy help me paint on some primer and then we'll paint it with some sand paint for extra grip. If I don't follow up this post with pictures of the finished product you can assume it turned out stupid. (I was also projecting on getting the garage cleaned up but you can see I haven't gotten far). Sorry the picture quality isn't great but I can blame that on Tim since he took it.