Then & Now: Dresser Side

Ah, here we are, back to sipping from the bedroom well. I think it'll be worth it! But yeah, last time, promise.

For a frame of reference, here is the out-of-scale floor plan again:



We're talking right siiieeed today. That's where the dresser, rope shelves, TV, and most importantly, Fishy live. Here it is, pre-intervention:

Boooriiiing. The clothesline with mementos hanging from it was an attempt to bring down the height of the ceiling a bit because with all our furniture sitting so low, the room seemed empty and cold with such a high ceiling.

I have to say, I quite liked that idea, mostly because it allowed us to see all the ticket stubs, lift passes and love notes we've collected over the course of our relationship. Sappy? Nostalgic? Romantic? COUNT.ME. IN.  It was cool to just glance at that stuff and have all the good memories flood back. Ahhh, I remember our first brewery tour together like it was yesterday...

The only problem, however, is that it looked...unkempt? teeny bopper? Not sure, but I wasn't feelin it anymore. Not that I lost my sappy side. You can't get rid of it that easily.

Anyways, ta-da! Here is the after:

Booya. Ain't it fancy?! Along the way we got a new TV (thanks to my grandma's donated AMEX points!!), but the dresser, lamp, curtains and fishy are the same :).

Detailing in on a few small changes I made, here are some custom finials. (Please excuse the dust, didn't even notice it until it was uploaded. Observant, much?)

They are the same stock Ikea ones from before, but I hack sawed off the decorative part and used E-6000 glue to attach some beach-rounded quartz pebbles I found on Cape Cod way back. Up close you can see a little glue spillage, but from standing height, it's all good in the hood.

Here is another small update I made: that lamp seen on the left of the 'before' pic. It's a Christmas Tree Shop special, ('Oh my gawd, lighthouse plates for only a dollah!' Please tell me you've seen that commercial.) and was originally filled with periwinkle shells.

I emptied the glass of its contents leaving just the clear jar and updated the shade by trimming the edges with the same twine used to finish off the rope from the shelves. Looks like a whole new lamp!

The accessories on the shelves are kind of a mish-mash. (Again, I'm no whiz at accessorizing. Maybe another New Year's Resolution?) On the top shelf we have a jade plant and a series of photos that spell out our last name (an awesome wedding gift from our upstairs neighbors!). The photos are sitting in Tolsby frames from Ikea (can't beat 99 cents) and I think look pretty snazzy.

In the middle we have some frames filled with pics of us as kiddos. We love looking at our cute selves. (Really they were from the welcome table at the wedding and we still haven't changed the photos because, well, they are pretty cute. And I haven't thought about it that much.) There's also a brick I found on a Boston harbor island, some candlesticks salvaged from Mike's grandparent's old house, and a rock from a beach in Lima.

The bottom shelf is a bit more functional. Mostly because I can reach it.

We have three blue glass mason jars I found at our local flea market. One is filled to the brim with wine corks (what does that say about our wine drinking habits?), one is empty, and one is filled with mineral samples (what does that say about our rock collecting habits?). I think they make a nice trio, only it's a little too dark in that corner to see what's going on in the glass.

There are also some other rocks we've collected (the Folksy hubs is a geologist by day) sitting in front of a surprisingly very a-la-mode ceramic horn vase we found in the grandparent's old house.



When I saw that baby sitting in that old house, I finally felt like one of those holy grail thrifters who somehow find antique-road-show-worthy pieces at yard sales. 'Something fashionable! With personal meaning! For free! What did I do right?!?!'

On the right there's an oil can from M's grandparent's old farm, and a mason jar that holds all our loose change (how fun is going to the Coinstar and getting a fat Amazon gift card with just extra change?). In front is a ring tray we got as a gift from cousins that holds my earrings every night.

Finally, over the light switch is an ode to New England in the form of starfish. This little craft used to hang on our old front door when the entrance to our apartment was indoors and now it pops nicely against the new wall color in our bedroom.

Phew. How's that for a laundry list of what's going on in the bedroom? I'm pretty happy with the new digs and realize there's still work to be done, not the least of which is finding something grand for over the bed. Got any accessorizing suggestions?

**In other news, my dad is coming up from Florida this weekend. I'm SUPER excited! Woohoo for dads!

Roping in Some Shelves

So last time I left off with what I fancied as a cryptic photo of another bedroom project. CAN YOU HANDLE THE SUSPENSE??

A refresher:

Zoom out a little, and BOOM. Rope Shelves.

I decided we needed some shelving somewhere in the bedroom to display knick knacks, and after brainstorming with the husband and going through various options, such as floating shelves (too hard to build), and bracketed shelves (take up too much visual space) we settled on making this Pinterest inspiration our own:

[caption id="attachment_143" align="aligncenter" width="554" caption="The Nate Show via Pinterest via http://pinterest.com/jenbow5/"][/caption]

They were the perfect solution because 1) fewer holes in the wall, 2) easy peasy to make, and 3) cheap! How can you say no to that trifecta? We started with the proper lengths of 2x12 and I sanded them with the random orbital sander using 2 successively finer grits (hmm...probably 60 and 300? Again, this was PB - pre-blogging - so I wasn't the, ahem, journalist I am now). Then, M drilled four 1/2'' holes (using a spade bit) on each board, two on each side about 2 inches in from the end, kind of like this low-budget powerpoint mock-up of the plan view:



After staining with Minwax English Chestnut and sealing with Minwax Wipe-On Satin Poly, began the rope work. I estimated the space I wanted between each shelf (if I recall, about 18 inches) and started the trial and error of knotting and re-knotting and re-knotting again (x~53). I made sure the bottom shelf would hang high enough to allow our TV to sit on the dresser underneath and calculated upward from there. There was a lot of finagling and balancing the boards upright with my toesies as I measured rope lengths. I do my best DIY in sweatpants.

I threaded each length of natural jute rope (from Homey Deeps) up through a hole in the board, measured approximately and made a simple knot, then threaded it up through the next board. At the top, I tied a butterfly knot

and then repeated the process down the other hole on the same side of the board. Rinse and repeat for the other side of the boards.

Meanwhile, M had been devising an anchoring system for the rope shelves to hang on. Because we live in an ancient and piecemeal house, our studs are nowhere near the normal 16'' on center. Consequently, he decided to screw a 1x4 scrap to the studs we could find at the top of the wall. (Side note: Whenever it comes to hanging something load bearing, I always defer to Mike. I have no time for finding things like studs and have the broken artwork to prove it.) We then caulked the seams and painted the whole schmear with the wall color (Benjamin Moore Newburg Green) for a seamless enough finish. Then, we screwed in two large stainless hooks at the appropriate distances and we were in business for shelf hanging. You can see the pre-painted anchor board at the top of this stunningly bad pic:

And the painted version here:

Ugh, if you could only have seen the first go at hanging the shelves. (I can't wait to start blogging current projects. I am a pic maniac now!) The shelves would have looked perfectly at home in the carnival fun house. But with a little lifting and knot adjustment, we were in business!

The only issue left to take care of was the raw ends at the bottom of the shelves. Lucky for me, M has some knot know-how, he was On the Mayflower, after all. Click the link if you don't believe me ;)

[caption id="attachment_277" align="aligncenter" width="354" caption="Yes, that really is him"][/caption]

So he 'whipped the line' with some  yellow string we had left over from the wedding to prevent any fraying. Parfait!

Then all that was left was to accessorize those babies...it's still a work in progress, and accessorizing is not exactly my strong suit. Sometimes I feel weird just displaying things for display sake ("Why yes, that is a moss covered Styrofoam ball, doesn't it just make the most stunning vignette?"), so I try to use things that are at least marginally meaningful to us. Anyway, here is how the shelves look today:

And much to fishy's delight (on the bottom left), the shelves have hung tight. Anyone else made a Pinterest project their own?

From One Bed to Another

So back in September, after the dust had settled from wedding madness I got antsy to redo the bedroom. The bedroom was the first place I tackled when we moved into fh in October 2009 because it was painted a mold green color. Lovely. Here is the bed side of the room in its first iteration:

Then, last Christmas, M made me a bed. Let me say that again, HE MADE ME A BED FOR CHRISTMAS. It is incredible. Yes, I'm bragging. Cause it's AMAZING.

You (the good DIY blog reader that you are),  recognize it as the Ana White Farmhouse bed, and I couldn't have been more elated. I had stayed in Florida (where I'm from) with my family a week longer than he did, and he elfed around and made the bed on the hush hush so it was in situ when I got home. I almost died with excitement. We had been sleeping on an Ikea Malm before, and I was sick and tired of sleeping less than an Oats height off the ground.



The bed lived unfinished in our room for months while I made matching nightstands (also from Ana White), and planned the wedding. (The old bed is still sitting in the basement. Hello Spring yard sale. And the old nightstands have been converted into tool storage in the mud room. They look great with a vice bolted to them.) In October, it was finally time to tackle the bed and the bedroom. I picked the bedding and the wall color right from the West Elm catalog. Theirs:



Ours:

Yes, I took what they had and mimeographed it for our bedroom. So what? I love it. And there was no repainting 4 times over because I hated the paint color I chose, which was a plus. I sanded all surfaces of the bed with 3 grits (40,150 and 300 I think, and sorry there aren't more pics, it was PB i.e. pre-blogging). I used our random orbital sander attached to our shiny new shop vac we got from the in-laws for the wedding.

I cannot even tell you how well that worked. I honestly thought I was going to be dealing with a 1920s style dustbowl in the bedroom and I could nary find a dust particle in the room, even after 3 rounds of sanding! Craftsman for the win.

After sanding, I wiped down the bed and treated it with a pre-stain conditioner for softer woods to help the stain settle more evenly. Then, I wiped on two coats of Minwax English Chestnut, followed by two coats of Minwax Satin Finish Wipe-on Poly et viola! We have finished bed!

Now, let's be honest, this process is never that easy. And, SANDING IS BORING. YOU CANNOT EVEN LISTEN TO PODCASTS WHILE SANDING BECAUSE IT IS TOO LOUD. I did sand and stain while the bed was in the bedroom. Not exactly a back of the label indicated situation...however, I did have the window wide open and we let the place air out for 7 days before moving our stuff back in there. I also propped the bed up on some scrap wood so I could sand and stain the bottom edges without marring the carpet. Not the most foolproof method, but it beat taking the bed apart, lugging it outside, working on it, and then bringing it back in to reassemble. Sometimes convenience beats best practice. This is one of those times.



This was probably the biggest, and in the long run, most permanent change we made while redoing the bedroom (when we eventually move, the bed will go with us to our next bedroom while the rest of the projects may not land in the bedroom next time). We did tackle a couple more projects in there, including this:

Guesses??