Our Trunk Project {DIY}

We might have gotten a little over our heads with this project but learned a lot. 

1. We are as they say, real newbs in this whole DIY realm ( I learned something about stain that I should have known before I did any of my other project. sheesh.)

2. I am not allowed to pick a paint color before I've really thought about EVERYTHING

3. It takes forever in a hardware store and you will spend more than you thought

4. We love our bookcase

When we moved, we got rid of our junky bookcases. While that was nice when we were carrying stuff to and fro it wasn't so nice when we went to put our books away and had nothing to store them in. This sent us on a mission to find a bookcase. 

While we were exploring our new neighborhood one weekend, Adam saw this fantastic trunk in an antique store and had the brilliant idea to turn it into a bookcase. (When your husband has an idea to help you with your hobby, you jump at it and jump at it immediately before he can rethink it.)

So there we were paying more than we've paid for other pieces that we've redone but taking advantage of a really unique and fun idea. (I wish I had a picture of it sitting like a trunk but just imagine what it would have looked like if I had taken a picture…. okay good, you're with me.)

I knew I wanted to repaint it. The paint was chipped (not in a good way) and really dirty with scratches and marks. While I do like yellow, it would have been too much yellow with our chairs and table so I was just going to use the dark stain and white paint from some previous projects. (desk and dresser). I had already put one coat of paint on the trunk when I saw a picture of a beautiful piece of mint furniture. I changed my plan mid-game. THIS.IS.A. BAD. IDEA. A very bad idea. This led to me painting the trunk 4 different times to get the "right" color and going to the hardware store 3 times in one weekend not to mention the other times throughout this project. This also led me to stain the front with the stain we had (jacobean) and then strip that off and stain it again with a cherry stain… which is fine but the stain is just a hinge on the red side and still very dark so not much changed there except the loss of time on my part. All in all, I like the finished product but I don't suggest going about it my way.

The process:

I spent a lot time scraping off the paint on the front with chemicals (stripping gel and mineral spirits), a scraper, and sand paper. I really wanted to stain the front and then repaint the rest of it. Then we got to work on getting the rest of the supplies as our vision came together.

Shelves (just made of stained plywood)

new hinges- The old ones were way too rusty (tetanus anyone?) so I spray painted new ones

a cute knob to go on our door

and even cute little legs that I spray painted my new favorite color

brackets so the legs had leverage to stay on the trunk (the screws that come with the legs are really short).

Adam helped me a ton with this project by putting it all together at the end. I did all the painting and staining and then he sawed, sanded, and screwed everything in. Seriously, he was awesome from the get-go with this thing.

Here is another before and after.

Wish I had some better before and after's but it's hard to move that thing with all the books in it haha so I didn't try that hard. (also our floor is slanted, not the actually trunk but because of that we got a magnetic clasp to keep the door closed when we weren't using it)

Happy Thursday!

Apartment Projects

We're hard at work over here trying to finish all the little things up around our place. We still have quite a bit left to do but we got some things done over the last few days.

Like a solution for hanging my necklaces. I used to hang them with 3m hooks but got sick of how 

college-ish that looked

So I seriously thought about getting this guy for my wall and my obsession with gold almost won me over. Then I thought about it and didn't think it was worth the $50 in case I didn't like it in a couple years (or even months).

So I went outside and while cleaning the yard, I found this stick and saw the possibility and loved that it was free. So Adam spray painted it gold while I untangled all my necklaces and it was done. Bam.

 Then over the weekend we got supplies to hang all our patio lights up. We're so excited to hang out with friends on our patio on a summer night ;)

Hoping to finish even more this week before we have guest this weekend 

Happy Map Day

This day has been 2 years in the making. Back when I lived in Indiana, Adam found a picture of the old electric line that used to run from Chicago into the western suburbs. It was ripped up in 1957 and is now used as a prairie path for people to exercise on. It has so many of the landmarks and cities that Adam grew up around so he really wanted to blow it up big and put it in our house. The first file he found me was super small so he did some research and called a local museum to find a file that was big enough to blow up to 2' x 4'.



The problem with blowing it up is that, you have to have a frame big enough to house it. Also ideally you don't want it to cost an arm and a leg (which they all do! and we don't have the skills to build one). It took us a year and a half to find one such frame at goodwill for $9.

We got rid of the old picture and let my obsession with gold win this one with a coat of spray paint.

The 2nd problem was to clean up the file (it had been in a brochure so it had some lines from being folded, stapled and had page numbers. This took some time but my media communications degree came in handy.

The third problem was getting it blown up at a reasonable price. Luckily, I knew an awesome vendor from working at Wheaton who was willing to work with us. The day the vendor dropped it off, Adam was so happy.  I mean we were both excited after working to make all the piece fall into place but it was really fun for me to bring it home after he had wanted it for so long.

Now we have it hanging in our living room and it's one of my favorite pieces in our apartment

Hotel de Wards is coming together

This weekend was so productive it is almost impossible to believe how much we got done.

We went to Home Depot 3 times. (Yeah, you heard me right.) I have already painted that trunk three different colors and am even considering painting it yet another shade of mint… I can't seem to find the color that I was looking for. But on that last trip, we ended up finding those globe lights that I have been looking for for our patio. I love them. Can't wait to put them up.

the curtains still need ironed but at least it hides the mess a little

We went to Ikea and wandered around and found curtains on the cheap ($10 for the pair) to cover our messy closet without a door in our guest bedroom and found patio furniture that was super reasonable. Now, we just need to put it together.

We got a bed frame for the first time in our married life and were able to use the bed lifts that my sister, Amy, got us for our wedding. Now our bed is so high, I feel like we need a step stool to get in it…. We'll see if we keep it that high but for now, it's an extra place to store things.

We got plywood cut down to be shelves in our bookcase and I stained them and put polyurethane on them to protect the shelves.

We got brackets and I spray painted them with leftover gold spray paint I had. Love them.

Adam got a bike and some stuff done for work that was needing to get done.

I got a zucchini plant from one neighbor and our car got a scratch from the other neighbor who backed into it. Honestly the scratch isn't too bad especially if you look at the front of our car. That's bad…

now it's my favorite wall in the house ;)

 Repainted the top of my dresser and polyurethaned that as well. Since the top isn't wood, the paint seems to chip easily when something is left on there for a while. I had to clean off the top of my dresser to paint it, so I took time to only put things back that really need to be there. It had been a drop zone for all of my things and looked pretty bad.

We even had time to hang out with some friends on Friday night and with each other the 2 other nights. Whew, just thinking about all we did makes me tired. Hopefully this week will be a little more low key.

Furniture Projects

Sorry, we've been so quiet on the blog this week. We've been up to our ears in projects while we have the time. We have this weekend before our apt becomes Hotel de Ward for the summer and we really want it to be ready for all the loved ones we'll see this summer ;)

Turning this trunk into a bookcase. Can't wait to get it done and show you guys ;)

The Table Reveal!

All the original chair pieces before we worked on them

I told Adam I really wanted to re-do furniture so about a month ago, when he helping his buddy move he saw this table that our friend's mom was getting rid of and swooped it up for me.  

I never saw what it looked like put together but I imagine it looked something like this.

This was one big learning project since we both don't have much experience with furniture. We did lots of sanding, stripping (the furniture kind, not anything else), staining, painting, and using polyurethane to protect the stain. We also were led astray by a nice man in Home Depot who told us to use steel wool and Comet to strip off the existing polyurethane. If you are going for that kind of distressed look, that method is very affective but if not, it kind of roughs the wood up more than sand paper and therefore affects the color of the stain. All just a learning process.

Adam and I both had ideas for the table and were able to mesh them together to make a really unique item. We're such a good team. He helps our ideas come to life. I am not very good with straight lines or measuring and of course, he is really good at these things. Very convenient for me.

We had a lot of work to do with all the staining and painting. I decided I wanted to stain the table and then using four different shades of a yellow to paint a couple of inches on each leg a coordinating yellow. Then I wanted to paint the chairs except a a couple inches on the legs that we would stain to coordinate with the table. This was a long process but by the end, we got very good at it.

The legs drying after we stained them

Here is how the chair seat looked... um, yuck. So I decided to re-dos those too.

Here is our table. It's hard to get a good picture of it.

And here are three of the four chairs. The last chair needs to be repaired before we can paint it the brightest yellow we've got.

 I love the ombre colors

I think I like the fabric I used, but was also considering using the fabric on the left

with the blue fabric or just using all blue fabric. I"m not sure how I feel about my fabric choices. Any advice? Is the bold fabric too much for the table that already has some stuff going on? It's also hard because all the chairs are different yellows so it's hard to plan what will look good on all of them.

 All in all, I'm really excited. I think the table turned out how we wanted and we can say that we did it ;) I'm also excited to have people over for dinner and not make them stand, share the two stools we have, or eat on our new couch... just saying that thing was expensive.

The Desk Reveal

Guys, I am soooo excited about this one. I cannot believe this cutie is all mine.

Okay remember this gem we found at the habitat for humanity thrift store?

Well, I actually really liked how it was because I just thought it was so cute. It has so much character and potential but in the end, I decided to spruce it up. After a lot of hardwork and some rookie mistakes... (drum roll please) Here is where we are at.

 Before

 After

So cute, right? I absolutely love it! I cannot wait to get a chair so I can work there consistently for freelance work.

From the beginning, I knew I wanted to stain the top darker and to get one fun knob vs the bracket handle that was on it before. It looked very nautical before, which I have no problem with but I wanted it to look fresh and fun.

So I picked out my stain, sanded everything, filled in the holes on the drawers and drilled a new hole for the knob (we got help on this part), went with white paint for now (the jury is still out on that one... I'm still considering a pale yellow), went to anthro (anthropologie for you-grammatical correct people that have joined the majority of this english speaking society), looked through all their fun knobs and narrowed it down to two. (Hobby Lobby also has fun and significantly cheaper knobs but it's not as close-- so c'est la vie)

I mean how cute is the winning knob? Can you tell I love this desk?

 We sanded the top and stained over the existing the stain which made the color a dark brown with a hint of cherry. I luhovve it.

So this is it and probably where it will live for now. I'll hook up my laptop to the other screen and have a dual screen. Now to find a chair ;)

and that's it ;)

 Sidenote: I got this adorable outfit over the weekend with coupons and sales for less than $30. I love it. I also love the weather. I have been sitting outside for lunch the past few days and I am actually starting to look tan. It's like the adult version of a spring break. Kohl's has this cute little pond with picnic tables around it so you can enjoy the outdoors but have somewhere to sit. It's really nice. They also have a walking path around the building and entire parking lot (imagine a mall-sized building with accompanying parking lot). It's really nice. I always see people walking on their lunch break.

Happy Thursday and 4 days of blogging this week! Whoot! Whoot! Thanks to those readers that have faithfully checked my blog even when I don't blog consistently. Yay!

Projects

I don't have much to write about because all weekend long, Adam and I worked on projects. I felt like I was in college again. I went to the mall, chick-fil-A and got a movie from redbox before starting my projects. Some of our projects were fun, like our desk (almost done!) and table (going to take forever but so worth it!) but some of them not so fun, like applying for jobs (no thanks) or him working on his class project (in between hanging out with me, helping me with stuff, enjoying the beautiful weather!, and movies. Projects are hard to do when you have a wife). Anyways, all of that to say, this weekend was beautiful but we didn't get to enjoy it to it's fullest because of these projects. It however, didn't stop me from wearing shorts and sandals. Also it looks like winter took the weekend off. No rain, just sun and warm weather. It looks like it comes back on Wednesday but until then, I'll enjoy the refreshing change in weather.

Anyone else have a good weekend? (I know your weekend, Leighann, was eventful!)

Random

I just wanted to blog to let you know I'm alive hehe I'm been so bad about blogging lately. Here are some super random things from the last week just as an update.

On Saturday, Adam and I met up with another couple for a Living Social deal at a local creamery. It was for a cheese "factory" tour. This was quite a hilarity because it was just a store with some bigger rooms in the back. Not really what I was expecting at all. Oh and the tour comprised of this guy first taking us outside (OUTSIDE?!?) and pointing in through the dirty windows at various machines and then taking us into this other room and pointing out some other machines that were hard to see from the our vantage point. It was quite comical that we paid for it but I think we sort of learned how cheese was made so that was interesting. We also got 2 bags of cheese curds and some ice cream samples that were oh so yummy. So I can't be mad.

 Ali and Joe (Living Social and Groupon Gurus)

 Then we went to this eclectic cafe that was in a really cool building. I had a B.E.L.T (Bacon, Egg, Lettuce, and Tomato sandwich). It was good and fun to say hehe

 Adam and I went for a walk downtown to get pictures of buildings that he wants to paint.  He is going to do a painting like the Chicago skyline but of Milwaukee instead. The blue sky was so refreshing since it's been raining here almost everyday for 2 weeks.

 There is a park right across from this Cathedral where they have Jazz in the Park every Thursday during the Summer.

This weekend, we did a lot of work on our furniture projects. Stripping varnish/stain/paint, sanding, staining, and painting. There is still more to do but it's really exciting and fun ;) Can't wait to finish our projects.

I finally bough Woman's World that has Leighann's article featured in it. So fun!

So my wrist pain that I wrote about a couple weeks ago has progress and involves both arms from my elbows down. I went to a hand specialist who thinks I have carpal tunnel (fancy words that basically means a pinched nerve). I think the doctor is full of it after WebMD-ing myself but nonetheless I have a test this coming Thursday to help determine where the pain is coming from and what is causing it. Hopefully, I can get some answers, The pain came out of no where and is starting to affect day-to-day things.


I don't have many plans for this weekend but that makes me excited. I'm ready to relax and get some stuff done around the apartment ;)

Happy Weekend!