The Christmas I Sold My Soul to Bimart for $79.99

Christmas is, without a doubt, the most wonderful time of the year. Today, I got to use the leafblower indoors (more on that momentarily) and salvage fresh cypress greens (with berries!!) from a fallen tree across the street.

We had some wet, heavy snow last night and awoke to this festive scene...

The snow took out some branches across the street (only one at our house) and I put on my sweet waterproof Sorels to go splash through three inches of slush and drag a few armloads of wet branches back to the garage. Waterproof footwear makes me feel like I have superpowers. I should maybe shoot higher for my superpower abilities, but it's really pretty great walking through slush and puddles with dry feet.

Yesterday, I acquired not one but free two large birch logs from a Christmas tree lot that we didn't even buy a tree from! (Not pictured...yet.) Best time of the year.

This shall also forever be known as the year that I sold out and bought a fake tree, and then spent the last 24 hours since that purchase wondering why it took me so long to actually do it. I have pine cubes for my wax warmer and a fake tree, and it is fantastic. It's one of those "real feel" ones and looks pretty solid, even to my rather particular eye.

Ok, so, the freshly scavenged greens. I made this ...trough... from scrap wood a couple of years ago when we lived in Bend. Thought it'd look nice on the dining room table as a centerpiece, and (bonus) it smells good too. Which is perfect, because it helps sneak the fake tree by.

 LOOK at all these berries! So festive. If it was any more festive, nobody could handle it. It will not be residing on the kitchen counter all season. That was just to make sure it wasn't leaking.

But here at Casa McShoe, it's about to get EVEN MORE FESTIVE. You may recall me earlier in the post stating that I had occasion to use the leafblower inside. Technically it was sort of inside, with the blowy end pointed out the front door. We have a real tree sitting in a holder on the front porch, drying off so it could come in. It was a bit soggy from the weather last night. So it's been sitting there all day as it rains, which means the air is not conducive to evaporation.

I began to wonder, is there a better way to get the tree dry? Yes, yes, there is. It is sitting in my garage right now. And as I stood in my doorway at dusk as the neighbor walked by, staring at me as I blew dead needles and water everywhere, I thought to myself, is there a more fun way to get the tree dry? And we all know the answer to this: no, there definitely is not. So we will be decorating our dry Christmas tree in short order.

But wait, there's still more Christmas!

Normally I am not terribly into displaying random stuff on top of cabinets in kitchens. Or any stuff. But it's Christmas and I just bought a fake tree, so there are no rules anymore.

 There's even kitchy americana, which is normally strictly prohibited.

 Oh, look, more fragrant and festive fresh greens.

 Here's the rest of the kitchen, btw. Picture rail is finished and all but one piece of art is in place, though it's seasonally rearranged to accommodate the snowy pine swag thing on the right. I looove it.

 Here's a close-up on the arrangement on the table. I think it still needs a little work. Kind of heavy on the left and right, and it's reminding me a bit of Maleficent.

It's possible the resemblance is a little more in my head, but nonetheless, Maleficent is not very festive.

Wait, did another picture of my fake tree sneak in here? Oh, well...

A little cheer here...(minus the dead plant. That was an experiment that didn't go as I'd hoped.)

A LOT of cheer there, and there isn't even a tree in there yet!

And lastly, this flannel ribbon that I am pretty jazzed to use on gifts (and then surreptitiously steal and take home to use again for next year when the receiver of the gift isn't watching. I am coming to accept that I might actually be an old lady.)

MERRY CHRISTMAS, YOU FILTHY ANIMALS!!

Update...

Here's the Christmas tree (the night before we took it down). It was a grand fir and it smelled amazing. 

 

Miscellaneous project roundup

I made this a couple months ago as a wedding present for our friends who recently got married and hauled it up to Seattle one weekend in October in a suitcase. It's fairly large, 1x2 feet, and it only fit in my huge rolling duffle (which we call the body bag, it's pretty big). It felt ridiculous packing that for a weekend, but you gotta do what you gotta do. (This also allowed me to take four jackets and six pairs of shoes, so I guess it worked out ok. Indecisive much?)

I'm thinking about making another one for myself :)

And...I don't remember when we finished this up. Probably also in October. Planted tiny arbor vitae shrubs along the back driveway, which will form a nice screen when they grow. I missed the privacy we had before the neighbors' 15-foot-tall shrubs died; the 6-foot fence just isn't the same. Plus the hedge was prettier. This should have a similar effect and also screen whatever's parked back there.

Foiled

I'm going to guess it was back in March that I ordered some foil and glue with intentions of taking on this project. Every time I thought about it, I just couldn't muster the interest in trying it. Craftier pursuits don't exactly intimidate me, but it's not really my game the way building stuff is.

So I put it off until this quiet Sunday, and the result was almost exactly what I was hoping for. That never happens. I'd like to take one more crack at them and see if I can get them more heavily foiled, since they look a little more distressed than I wanted. Overall though, pretty awesome.

And now when I see things like this in stores, I think to myself, I know how to do that.

The Kitchen Picture Ledge

For the last two weekends, I've been working on the first project in forever that I have actually been excited about.

Here's what the kitchen looked like before, a few months ago.

Part of my fun came from paying hardly anything for the project (maybe like $25 in various wood and a few bucks in getting some prints made) and finally finding homes for art that I'd had for a long time and never could quite place. It also solved the issue of art in the kitchen, which I've been struggling with.

I knew whatever went up needed to unify the four wall spaces, because any way I diced it in my head, hanging a picture on each wall didn't really work, but it also seemed awkward to leave one wall blank (or only have a piece of art on one wall and leave the others blank). I toyed with the idea of gallery walls that wrapped all the way around, but while I and every other design junkie on Pinterest love a good gallery wall, it seemed like a chore to try to put one together and worried me that it might clutter the space.

Then one day, inspiration struck with this ledge. No unnecessary holes in the walls, adds a nice bit of contrast, unifies the space and is super easy to build. Bingo. I love it just as much as I'd hoped, and it'll be incredibly easy to swap out art when I run across something fun and new. Here's the one on the right side of the kitchen...

And on the left. The clock is probably going to get relocated, because it's hung too low for me to put anything underneath without it looking weird.

This afternoon, I successfully completed a subproject of this project: building a large frame with mitered corners for a 12"x18" of this picture I took, in this very kitchen. (Is this what people call "meta"? Not sure. Maybe.)

I accomplished this feat using this AMAZING ratchet corner clamp. This thing is brilliant and it's only $6 (which I didn't realize until just now...what a STEAL). I don't actually recall the last time I was so jazzed about a tool, though I do tend to get pretty darn enthusiastic about a good clamp. There's just nothing else that solves problems as effectively as a clamp doing what it was designed to do. 

 

I decided to go clamp shopping today after having an attempt at a mitered corner frame go seriously sideways on me yesterday evening. Literally and figuratively. There was a lot of muttering and prying and poorly placed glue and tacks from my staple gun (including almost one in my finger...don't tell Todd or I'll lose my air compressor privileges). It took forever and I ended up with three out of four neat-fitting sides, which, for those keeping track at home, is one fewer than the standard picture frame features. 

This afternoon, I cut and assembled two functional frames less time than it took me to screw up one frame yesterday. Right tool for the job makes all the difference :)

I'm about to become a picture-frame-making fool. I can get glass cut to size from Lowe's for pretty cheap and this clamp actually makes mitered corners fun. Something I never thought I'd say. 

The rest of the projects

Just another batch of projects from a few weeks ago that I never posted...

This is what every homeowner wants to see when she removes the cover plate of a light fixture that's been in place since 1959. How do I know it's been there since 1959? Because that's the date on the Chicago Daily Tribune in the above picture. This was in a very crispy wad, presumably insulating against drafts. Right up next to a bunch of wiring, on a fixture that got regular use. Apparently, Eisenhower was heckled at London Heathrow Airport, among other top stories. Stevens Budget Shops had a big sale, featuring some rather svelte-looking illustrated women.

This is the dining room window, with a sill and casing reinstalled. Samesies in the living room, though the paint is all touched up in there. Wall treatment till TBD.

A bit hard to see without a comparison (wait, check this, you'll have to zoom in on the picture to see the missing trim) but the dormer is now all trimmed out! Nice to get that checked off.

Admittedly we are still missing grass and the fence still isn't finished, but hey, we have lots of blackeyed susans!

Here is the pool shack, now with new and improved structural integrity! Not surprisingly, all kinds of issues were discovered during the shoring-up of our beloved lobstah shack, but it's all all ship-shape now. Er, mostly. Still needs a bit of paint. But it's not going to fall over if there's a strong breeze anymore.

Upstairs bathroom now has towel bars. Towel bars are expensive. Even my planned DIY-pipe solution was going to cost as much as a cheapish pair of bars, so I got the second-cheapest towel bars Lowe's carried. At $12 each, I have no regard for form here, but they do their job. Plus, I was even responsible and painted the door (but not the trim; let's not be rash) before installing them.

Here's me with Cara and Kristan (two of my former colleagues) at Kristan's beautiful wedding two weekends ago in Jackson, WY. Bride requests cowboy boots, I buy used boots on eBay. :D <3 br="">

Lastly, this is just too awesome not to share. Sunset over Edenvale Winery in Medford last week. Sometimes the sunsets here are just unbelievable. And you can't even see the sun sneaking through the hills in golden beams in this shot. It's really just too much.

So many updates!

I can't believe it's been two months since my last post. You'd think things had been quiet around here, but...hardly. Last week, my contractor brother-in-law and his sidekick came and knocked out a ton of projects, several of which are detailed below. In the previous two months, we (Todd) battled moles, first with bait and then with little gas bombs, which seems to be more effective and more fun.

I also discovered the cleaning magic of Barkeeper's Friend for removing hard water buildup on the shower tile (and subsequently discovered that if you use it for a long time without gloves, your hands will peel like little snakes...disgusting). We swam a bit, sulked and stayed inside for most of August because of the smoke from horrible fires near Crater Lake, became suburban-official with green grassy front, back and side yards and a fully functional sprinkler system and...sheesh, I don't remember what else. This is why I don't go two months without posting.

Anyway. Here's one of the VERY exciting projects Trevor and Eric completed last week.

This fixture was purchased two years ago on clearance as a floor model at Lowe's and was intended to be the dining room chandelier. It was originally in the neighborhood of $200, and I snagged it for $56. It made a very nice dust collector, first in the corner of the dining room for about a year, and then upstairs in the guest room, where it also collected cobwebs.

I decided it was going to be too big for the dining room, so naturally this hulking, heavy fixture should probably instead be installed somewhere trickier to get to. To be fair, I had also read that it put of a TON of light, so much so that most reviewers said you really had to use it with a dimmer switch. Our upstairs landing is like a cave with no windows, so plenty of wattage was a perfect fit.

And it is! It's totally perfect. It does take up a lot of visual space, but the ceiling is high and I think it works. Plus, lots of light. SUPER worth paying the guys to do, too.

Next, I built this bed for the guest room over the last couple of weeks. We replaced our mattress (long story), gave our former queen guest room mattress to some friends and put our four-year-old king memory foam mattress in the guest room.

Since all we had was a queen hollywood frame and I am not really a mattress-on-the-floor sort, we needed a bedframe. You don't use boxsprings with memory foam, so I wanted just a platform that was high enough to hold the mattress. I've been plotting about building an upholstered bed for a while and decided that if I really thought it wasn't going to be that hard, then I should just go for it. So I spent a couple weekends rounding up my materials and then puttered on it during the week.

As usual, it took longer than anticipated to complete, but I LOVE it. It's also extremely sturdy, being constructed from 2x10s, 2x6s and 2x4s. I upholstered it with a very large wool blanket from the Army Navy Surplus Store, which I've been wanting to visit for a long time.

It didn't exactly turn out to be a cheap project. Even though I ended up acquiring some of my materials for free, which shaved about $40 off, and used some scrap wood I already had, it was still around $120. But it's exactly what I wanted, fits the mattress perfectly and will come apart whenever we move someday so it can go with us. Plus, most importantly, I can now SEE the guest room. This gives some structure to it, so now I know what odds and ends are getting kicked out of furniture purgatory, and soon this will be a finished space.

Speaking of finished spaces, Trevor and Eric also trimmed out Todd's office window and paneling. Sorry about the terrible picture; you can barely see all their nice work.

There's the paneling trim. They used a table saw to rout out a little channel for the drywall. Such a smart solution. This is why I am not a good finish carpenter (plus lack of patience, and I don't have a table saw. Maybe there is more than one reason.)

We've been debating whether to paint the paneling white, and your vote is welcome in the comments. In the meantime, all the trim and doors are going white. We'll see if having them differently finished looks super weird. Foaming and finishing the window made a huge difference in how much road noise comes through, so that's awesome too.

And last on the list, at least for this post, is the casing around Todd's office door and the two attic access doors off the upstairs landing. This was one of those things that I kept saying "I can do that." And I could have. It wouldn't have looked as nice, and it definitely wouldn't be finished right now it we were still waiting on me and my latent ability to cut and install casing. But I coulda done it. Luckily we didn't wait for me, and now it's up and looks great. I painted it this afternoon and reminded myself for the umpteenth time how very much I despise painting and can't wait until there is nothing left to be painted.

So, things keep clipping along and looking better all the time. I have a bunch more updates to post about other stuff we checked off the list. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Kitchen Chairs!

This house has been the catalyst for me developing a number of character traits over the years. Patience is chief among them. I found these chairs in early April at World Market and (patiently) waited a few weeks for a 25% off coupon to show up. Then our friends Thom and Joni went and picked them up for us (thanks, guys!) and I waited (patiently) until last weekend until they could drive the chairs down from Portland.

It's been over two years since we started talking to the contractor about the kitchen remodel. About  a year and a half since it was completed. Five months since I finished my table. And now, FINE-AH-LEE the chairs are in place, furniture is all finished, and the only task left in this amazing space is some art. 

I like the chairs. They're a great deal for the money, especially with 25% off. The seat cushions are super firm and hopefully stay that way, and I think they're a perfect height for the table. Always a bit of a gamble if you can't try out how they fit together before deciding. They're not my forever goal of two perfectly weathered leather wingbacks, but hopefully they wear well for five years or so.

The functionality and comfy-ness they add to the kitchen is fantastic. As I write, I'm sitting in one of them. They make me want to hang out in the kitchen even more, which is totally what I was hoping for.

Lastly, we had a pool company come balance the water after the pool was full. Last Monday the guy knocked on my office door and said, "Don't freak out, I added some ...something... and the water clouded, but it'll clear in a few days." So I went to check it out and it looked like this (it did clear a few days later). In the meantime, it looked like some kind of enchanted blue lagoon.

Cool, huh? Temp's all the way up to 80 degrees due to the ridiculously hot weather we've been having, and I've been swimming four of the last five days it's been open.