Re-Rug'd

Have you ever searched for something you weren't quite sure existed? And yet you can't settle for anything but what's in your mind's eye? I think we all have: That perfect dress, haircut, partner, whatever - In this case, the perfect rug.

You may remember way back when I scored a great deal on a beautiful rug through Overstock.com for our family room. As things in our house have evolved, it became clear pretty quickly that while the rug was great, it just wasn't quite right. A little too small, and, if I'm being honest, the colors were never quite what I expected when I ordered online. Fine, but not perfect.

And so began the hunt. Apparently, it's a rarity to find a non-white-based rug that incorporates gray, yellow, brown, and black.
...Which, okay, now that I see it listed out, I kind of understand.
But after years of periodic searching... Success! And not only color and size success, but an unbelievable sale price to boot (under $150 for 100% wool, marked down from over $600 via RugsUSA.com).

I think we'll keep this guy for the long haul.

And the peacock rug will be happily put to use in our living room - A space that I really enjoy, but needs a little more life and color. I think this switcheroo will be a good start. The covered ottoman will probably follow.

Side Note: I can't believe how different our family room looks from that peacock rug post! God bless the flooring.

Ikea Hack: Functional Filing, Finally!

There may be no Random Round Up this week (I've been seriously slacking in the photo taking department), but I do have something: My very own Ikea hack.

Ikea hacks (any hack, really) are always so fascinating to me. I love the idea of taking something you already have and turning it into something better, more useful, or prettier. The really great ones always give me a little pang of jealously too; Why couldn't I come up with that?!

Well, my time has come. Enter an old Ikea three-drawer cabinet on casters. I always referred to it as 'the file cabinet', but that's where the functionality stops. I've had it for about 10 years, and every time a piece of paper came through that was deemed important, in it went. In a pile. In a drawer.

Those ten years of crap had added up - evidenced by the archeological dig-like cleaning process - and it was time to make this guy actually useful. First, determining how to deal with the too-shallow-to-hold-files drawers (why?! why make a file cabinet that can't hold files?!).

Not even as tall as a standard Sharpie.

I easily popped out the bottom of the middle drawer, making it
a single drawer twice as deep when used in tandem with the bottom drawer.

Then an unplanned for problem: The files were too narrow for the drawers. News flash: If something requires me leaving my house, I'll pretty much try anything to make that not happen. So what's a girl to do? Why, bust out the handsaw on the kitchen floor and tear apart that old drawer bottom I knocked out.

Way too narrow for the drawer width - Nothing for the files to hang from!

I measured the space I needed to fill and sliced off two pieces of the drawer bottom.

A few small nails in each side, and my drawer was now the perfect file width.

What I didn't show was the last step: Affixing a small bracket (similar to this) on the inside of the two drawers so they both pull out simultaneously. The cabinet still looks exactly the same from the outside - A simple three-drawer cabinet. But inside, oh the functionality!

Presto! The files now hang down into the bottom drawer. Plenty of space!

Pre-bracket adding: Now the two drawer fronts line up with eachother
and pull out and push in with just a tug of the center drawer handle.

The entire project took under an hour, and the bulk of my time was spent wrangling that dang hand saw. If you had something electric or scrap wood that was the already right size (or, ahem, files that fit because you measured first like a smartypants), you could get this done in 20 minutes or less.

I never thought I'd use 'file cabinet' and 'magical' in the same context, but it really has been a pretty wonderful experience to be able to give some paper piles a home. I'm almost looking forward to next tax season so I can smugly go pull all our documents at once from their neat little stash. Almost.

Top 5 of 2014

Last year I rounded up the top five attention-getting posts of the year, and it was so interesting (probably only for me, but hey) that it's officially an annual event as of right now.

Sometimes I understand why a post is popular immediately, and sometimes... well sometimes I just end up thinking the world is a pretty weird and wonderful place. I'm happy people like the same things I do, and get even the tiniest kick of seeing those things in black and white here on this blog.

Drumroll please...

#1: Kitchen Switchin'

The top half of the kitchen cabinets was made over, grubby before photos and all. Funnily the whole-kitchen reveal didn't get quite as much attention. 

#2: Oil Pulling - The Basics

This is good stuff, guys, and I'm glad you were into it! It really does work wonders. I'm still a believer.

#3: Onesie, Twosie, Redsie, Bluesie

This fast, easy, and personalized baby gift is fun and do-able for anyone!

#4: RespecTABLE and Shelf Life

It's a tie for fourth place! Apparently people really dig a wooden furniture element (and watching me struggle).

#5: T1D Tuesday - My Reason

THANK YOU! This makes my day that it's a top five-er. And better yet, you can still get in on the feel-good fun by donating right here (she's over half way to her goal!).

Thanks for another wonderful year, all of you! Cheers to what's ahead, whatever it may be.

RespecTABLE

Exciting times, people.

We're grownups.
We finally purchased - get ready for it - a dining room table and chairs. For dining. And sitting. Didn't I tell you? Exciting.

I'm almost embarrassed to show you what we were working with, but everyone's gotta start from somewhere, and that place for us was Ikea. An Ikea trip so long ago, in fact, that I'm not even sure I'd met Nate yet.

The chairs don't even match. Ouch.

Looking in from the living room, kitchen on the left.

But a random Craisglist search led me to a local furniture shop and the table of our dreams. Solid acacia wood, the table has two leaves that make it look like a more traditional farm table (which I love):

When the leaves come off, the table is a great size for our everyday use, and still has enough inlaid detail and texture that it's still interesting and pretty.

You may have noticed the bench disappears and the four chairs take over when the leaves are off. There's an empty corner in the living room...

And it proved to be just the spot for that bench when it's off dining duty:

Can you believe the difference from move-in two years ago to now?

Sometimes it takes a little longer, but so far every test of patience has been worth the wait. So excited to have this table host meals for years and years to come!

Shelf Life

After much ado and maybe even more fanfare, I give you: Baby's first wood-based building project. Buckle up, this is gonna be a long one.

Never have I ever gone to a store where they sell wood lumber yard (see?), purchased wood*, and built something. I'm talking screws and measurements and 2x4's and the whole thing. Katie from Bower Power was my total inspiration for finally pulling the trigger on this project, and I followed her instructions you can see here. If a pregnant mom of two little boys can do it, dang it, so can I.

First, the focus:

Remember the 90's? They were all about low, lounge-y family rooms with giant, box-shaped, 300 pound televisions placed inches above the floor for your viewing pleasure. We're lucky enough to have a built-in all set up and ready for one of those dinosaurs... Too bad it's the age of lightweight flat screens. A little context of where this awkward collector of random objects lives:

Our tv rests above this area in a arched nook above the mantle.

I decided to start with the part I was least afraid of: Making the wood the right color.

Conditioner (so stinky!), stain, and satin-finish polyurethane.

Conditioned.

Stain coat #1

Stain coat #2

Poly'd

Next, I decided after all that work, I really only wanted one shelf instead of the materials for two I'd prepped. Sigh. Back on track, it was time to make my 'innards' that would be attached to the studs in the wall and the 'pretty parts' attached on top of.

I didn't say my set-up was attractive. Make it work.

Then, after quite a bit of sweat and maybe a few not-so-ladylike verbs... I broke the drill bit.

I broke steel. It was going well. After trying to do it by hand with a good ol' fashioned Phillips head, I knew that it was a two person job. You know you married the right guy when he doesn't rub your whole 'I am woman, hear me roar' bit in your face after you break his power tool. Onward!

After the innards were fully attached to the studs, we placed the pretties on top and screwed them down. Katie used glue in her plans, but we found some of the boards we chose weren't very true, and screwing the top down cranked them up to level.

My staining mistake - Fixed in a jiff with a small brush and extra stain.

Now that the hard work was done, I took over once again to add my extra flare: Tin tile. I found a fabulously affordable and attractive option of faux tin tile made of styrofoam (I'll tell you more about this awesome stuff next week), so an x-acto knife, double-stick tape, and a lot of measuring was all it took.

"Tin" tiled!

A terrible quality of photo, and yet the awesomeness shines through.

I grabbed whatever randomness was at hand to "stock" the new shelf for this photo, so even though you may think you've flashed back to 1996 with the basket of VHS tapes... no. To be styled for real (and for real use) later, I was just too excited to show you to wait for perfection!

And there you have it. A shelf, almost built by me. I may brush on some pewter paint to blend in the outlet covers, but other than that and the styling, this guy is complete. Love it like crazy, and so ready to take a break from building. A long one.


*That was a long way to scroll for this asterisk, I know. But did YOU know that places like Home Depot will cut your wood for you? We don't have a table saw, so brought in our measurements and amounts, chose our wood, and a worker cut every piece for free. For free!! Awesome.

Top 5 of 2013

First: Thank you!
Yep, you. The one reading this right now. Thanks for reading this - and numerous other ramblings - over the past 12 months. Feel free to be liberal with the back patting, you deserve it!

I thought it would be fun to take a glance backwards before we dive headlong into 2014, so here are my five posts from twenty-thirteen that garnered the most traffic. The posts that Y-O-U chose as the best!

#1: Mini-Makeover: White and Bright

I never know quite what will ring people's bells, but perhaps it's the what-to-buy list in this post. I must say, every product and technique used in this guy will be used a great deal more in the new year!

#2: Back Yard Yield

Yep, this one I get. Because the plum cake recipe included in this post is the bomb dot com.

#3: Mini-Celeb

Stop, I'm blushing. My Crowdtap blog shoutout landed the #3 most popular post of the year.

#4: JDRF and Walgreens

Warm my heart, why don't you! Any time my attempts to raise money for Type 1 Diabetes research garner attention I couldn't be happier. Here's hoping you all donated at Walgreens and - shameless plug - are about to hit up www2.jdrf.org right now to donate to Team Ella of Minnesota.

#5: Ottoman Reupholstering: Bottom and Lid/Results

Such a fun, easy, and totally transformative project. My 'new' ottoman is still happily installed in our family room collecting compliments and loving gazes.

Can't wait to see what you all choose to be the most popular of 2014!

It's Heeee-eeeere!

Nope, not a creepy Halloween reference - I'm talking about the new kitchen table! Remember? I told you about our little love story and the fact that we had to wait monthS for it to arrive has only made the reunion sweeter.

So here's what we were working with: Cobbled together Ikea-o-rama.

And now? Bam.

And those chairs? Well, ignore those for now. We'll talk Friday.