Eat your heart out, BHG!

I got irritated this afternoon, coming home with some extra toilet cleaner and light bulbs, with the state of disarray our 2'x3' hall closet was in. I am among what I believe is a significant portion of women who have almost the same reaction to a magazine-caliber organized closet as they would to someone offering them a week in Aruba. I'm 95% sure I'd take the closet over the trip. Sadly, this is what my little closet looked like:

I love the efficiency of this closet: putting an outlet in it was one of the few bright things the builders of our house did. It's also fairly centrally located, providing a nice space to stash bathroom cleaning supplies, a dust cloth (just to the right is the living room) and a broom. I had added hooks a while ago, just to get some stuff off the floor, but there was (and still is) a LOT of underutilized space.

After observing this, I did what any reasonable person would do. I got out the jigsaw and went to take stock of my building supplies in the garage. After coming up with some leftover casing (trim) and a piece of plywood, I measured, cut, painted and installed. An hour and fifteen minutes later, BAM!

Closet 2.0. I made a third shelf, but I haven't decided whether to install it yet or not. Probably yes, but we'll see.

Freeing myself from the tyrannical prices of corporate, mass-produced furniture

My latest project has been constructing an ottoman for my office, since I spend a fair amount of time working on the couch. The ones I like tend to be in the hundreds of dollars, like this one from the Pottery Barn ($399)...

which is so not in my budget right now, so I carefully studied the construction of some upholstered benches and ottomans at TJ Maxx, did a little research online, and concluded that I could build my own. I wanted something that had longer legs, rather than bun feet, to avoid taking up tons of visual space with a big upholstered block. I also wanted storage space, because I am constantly tripping over my cell charger, almost sitting on the laptop and pushing piles of magazines and documents around the floor. The PB ottoman above isn't a storage ottoman, so mine's even better!

I had to flip the picture around because the box is upside down on the table right now. First, I built a frame that's 30"x24"x5". This is a rather large ottoman, by the way. Somewhat larger than what I'd envisioned, but anyway... I used a piece of 1/2" plywood that was kicking around the garage as the box top and some cabinet hinges to make the top lift nicely. The kitchen was a disaster of epic proportions when I finally went about cleaning up last weekend. Almost every surface was covered in a fine layer of sawdust from all the cutting, trimming and sanding.

The legs were a real pain. As I was inspecting the only legs at Home Depot had (square with a bolt sticking out one end, for $3 each, plus hardware to attach them) it hit me--"Why can't I make my own!?" Duh. So I bought a three-foot-long piece of 2"x2" poplar and some screws and called my neighbor to offer him the opportunity to cut his fingers off working on my project, in exchange for a brownie. He agreed (he likes brownies) and shaved a bit off each leg (thankfully no fingers were lost or otherwise damaged during this part of the project). This is what one of the pieces of wood looked like, pre-cut. I tested some stain on it, hence the color at the top.

I then sanded, cleaned with mineral spirits, stained and applied two coats of polyurethane (sanding with a 00 steel wool between coats) to the legs. I am really pleased with how they came out.

Foam is pretty expensive and I was worried I was going to have to shell out $35+shipping for a custom-made cushion, but I got a tip about a guy in Medford who replaces couch cushions, and he gave me some used but good-condition cushions, which also had batting attached, so that took a good chunk out of my costs.

Lastly, I had to find the perfect upholstery. I spent hours searching for nautical fabric and found very little that wasn't cheesy or mind-bogglingly expensive before I came across this

on eBay, which was PERFECT. This is the one part of the project where I did bite the bullet and cough up the $40 (with shipping) for 4 1/4 yards (not a terrible price).

So, all in all, here's my list of materials and prices...

wood and hinges for frame: $12

wood and special screws for legs: $6

stain for legs: $6.50

cheap throwaway brushes for stain/poly: $1.25

fabric: $40

steel wool: $1.59

screws, polyurethane, foam, batting, plywood for top, mineral spirits, old rags: free, mostly leftover from other projects.

=67.34...which is a little more than I was expecting

but I'm going to love it when it's done (and Todd will love not stumbling over wires and having the kitchen smell like chemicals).

I also painted that cute little table black, and am formulating plans of copying the design and making some things like it. Jigsaws are great tools.

For the record, I am eagerly anticipating the day when I get to re-upholster the pink wing chair (pictured in the left corner). I have several pieces of navy blue and white corduroy, so the chair will be mostly navy with a white back, and possibly white wings. I learned my lesson about white furniture in our apartment...it's just not a good thing for someone as neurotic as me.

OOH....one more thing...I saw one of these canisters at TJ Maxx (yes, I do spend a lot of time there; it's among the only decent stores in this town) before Christmas, and neglected to follow my motto ("If in doubt, buy and return") and of course it was gone the next time I checked.

Well, they got another shipment and I snapped one up immediately. I think it's maybe for holding umbrellas, but it makes a nice plant stand too. I still have to paint the little platform I made for the top.

Wallpaper down!

Todd worked on removing the bulk of the rest of the wallpaper in the kitchen last weekend, and it looks SOOOO much better without those dark walls (and having only one kind of wallpaper is a definite improvement too). Seeing these little changes makes me really excited for when we redo the kitchen (still postponed indefinitely, sigh....) because I think it's going to turn out gorgeous.

In case you'd like to compare to what it looked like before, here's that...

Now the "only" problem is those hateful stripey red curtains. I honestly don't know what is wrong with me, buying curtains to quasi-match wallpaper I had plans of removing. BOY do I wish I'd bought blue ones.

Salvaging is saving, in a manner of speaking

Never one to pass up the opportunity for free stuff, I insisted we stop at a house we passed on the way back from the gym that looked vacant and had two mountains of stuff out front. (Transcript: Me: Look at all that stuff! Todd: That looks like a huge pile of trash. Me: FREE trash! Pull over!)

From the piles, I snagged a curtain rod and a nifty little table (with a broken leg, which someone had taped to the body for future repair). I wanted to go back for the shutters, but couldn't think of where to put them.Though it's a rather unworkable color of pistachio, I have a can of spray paint and I know how to use it. I glued the leg back on with my construction-grade adhesive, and it's currently drying in the kitchen. I'm pretty jazzed about it. Has a lot of character, with the cool metal feet and musical instrument-looking midsection. Also, you know, FREE.

We kicked off the new year on the right food, house-wise. I suggested painting the dining room ceiling, which you may remember from earlier posts was looking especially crappy due to the freshly painted trim. I'd also gotten dining room curtains that I was eager to put up, but that first required painting the curtain rod and finials, so we just went for it.

As usual, this turned out to be a much bigger pain than I anticipated. There were a few spots where the grayish paint was flaking off, and it was nearly a 1/16" thick, if not more, so I thought we'd just sand it down to match. Wrong. In addition to making a mess, I'm pretty sure it looked worse after than before (for those keeping track, that's the opposite of the desired effect). I then decided to spackle it, which kind of worked, except that the infernal gray paint was texturized, to the textures didn't match.

At this point, I was irritated, so I just painted the ceiling (using glossy paint, another mistake). As the ceiling dried, I could see another coat would be in order, and opted for flat paint this time, which helped a lot in hiding the texture issues. I only took one picture of the whole mess...and it looks a lot better in person. The funny section around the light fixture is the old color, then the bright white was the first coat. The final color is slightly creamier. It really helps brighten the dining room, though. and that's what the curtains look like. I'm going to dye them navy blue; you can see the tester swatch almost in the middle of the picture hanging from the top of the cabinet. Todd and I are both big fans of the curtains. It's great to not feel like you're being watched whenever you're in the kitchen or dining room.

Last few things to do in the dining room:
1. Put up crown molding
2. Re-upholster dining room chairs
3. Replace horrific light fixture