Playing Catch Up

Last year Husband and I did a few projects that never got posted, due to my lack of posting.  Oops.  So I'll have a few posts from 2010 scattered with projects from this year.

Husband has a chest that once belonged to his late uncle.  He used it as a TV stand.  I had no qualms with the chest itself, but it didn't work as a TV stand.  It was too low and had no where near the storage we need.  So a few months ago, we purchased a new TV stand with lots of storage, and moved the chest into our bedroom.  And we gave the old chest some much needed love.

 

Here it is.  In desperate need of some TLC.

 

This is  what it looked like after we took out the drawers, sanded it down, and wiped it down.  We had to fill the holes from the old handles with wood putty.  I'm lacking photos on the process, sorry.

This was the next step: staining.  I didn't follow the directions.  I put the stain on and then we waited till it was dry enough to put another coat on.  It came out super dark, but I think it's beautiful.  Next, using spare wood, foam purchased with a 40% off coupon from Hobby Lobby, and other left over supplies from our headboard (including the fabric) we made a cushion to fit on the top of the chest to turn it into a bench.  We made the cushion the exact same way as our headboard last year.

 

And here is the final product.  Kinda.  I have drawer handles sitting on a shelf in the garage.  We have yet to put them on. 

The chest now sits in our bedroom in front of our window.  But it may not stay there--I'm trying to convince Husband that we should rearrange our room.  Stay tuned...and maybe soon I'll get those handles on.  (And yes, I know you aren't technically supposed to end a sentence with a preposition, but this is my blog...and Mom, you're not supposed to be grading this!)





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Lesson 56- Our Head Board Part II

Remember in this post, Husband and I built our very own headboard that I had been longing for, for oh so long?

You may also remember that I bought upholstery buttons and covered them, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to add them or not. They were super easy to make! They come with a pattern that you use on your desired fabric folded over so when you cut the semi-circle you end up with a full circle.

Doesn't the fabric just look beautiful next to the red table cloth--ick!!
Next you place the fabric in a bottle-cap looking thing that comes with the buttons, then the flat metal piece, followed by the part of the button with the loop. I'm so good with technical terms!!!

Hit it a few times and 'ta-da'! You have yourself a covered button!

I finished all six buttons that came in the package and they sat on my dresser for about three months. Then I decided there real home shouldn't be my dresser but our headboard as inteded. So I whipped out my staple gun and hot glue gun and got to work. To figure out the placement for the buttons I traced the buttons on to bright pink cardstock and cut them off. I then placed the pink circles on the headboard where I wanted the buttons to be and kept them in place with straight pins.

Again what a great color-combo! Aren't I super at putting colors together to look hideous?!

With my handy-dandy staple gun, I stapled the fabric and foam down to the board where each pink circle was. I had to re-inforce some with 4 or 5 staples and then removed the pink circles. Finally, I added the covered buttons. I was so pleased with the result I told Husband "I'm so glad I decided to do this". He laughed and I think he was more pleased with my comment than the actual headboard. Here's the finished product:

I love, love, love it even more than I did before! Now, if only I could keep Oliver from trying to chew the buttons off...

Lesson 25- Making a Grown-Up Bed

I have never had a headboard. I have always wanted a headboard. They make a bed look so refined and classy. But have you ever priced a headboard? Holy good grief!!!

When Husband and I first got engaged there were so many things to consider and work-out. But while he was wondering how we would work out our milk situation, I was wondering how I was finally going to get my long-desired headboard.

This last weekend my dreams finally became a reality. We built our headboard! And I love, love, love it!!!

We started with just a plain piece of plywood cut to the measurements of our CalKing bed.

I added 2" foam to the wood

And used batting to help keep the foam in place

We covered the whole thing with upholstery fabric.

So that our piece of plywood now looked like this:

Then to make it a little more sturdy and add some height to our head board Husband attached 2x4 and a spare piece of plywood across the bottom.

This was the finished product! Doesn't it look so purty!!! And it only cost us about $80! I have covered buttons to add to it, I'm just not sure whether I want to add 'em or not. What do you think?

P.S. The milk situation that Husband was so preoccupied with while I continued to dream of headboards, was he only drinks skim milk and I only drink 2%. He was worried that having 2 gallon-sized bottles of milk in the fridge at a time would be a bit extreme. So, far we haven't had too many issues with our milk differences. But, we have only been married about five months.

Lesson 23- A Cheap Expensive Art Project

Yes, I know I used antonyms to describe one object. But it was a cheap and expensive art project. Our guest bedroom is what I like to call 'antique travel'. And I promise to someday show you pictures of it, but for the time being maybe you can use your imagination. There's some cool stuff in there, but one wall was still completely blank. The original plan was to hang a large map of the world there, but that never happened and the blank wall was really starting to get to me.

I came across some foreign currency that I've accumulated over the past 20-ish years both from my own travels and other family members' travels. Then I came across some shadow boxes I had bought last year and never got around to their planned project. And then the idea came to me: use the shadow boxes to display the currency. One for the paper bills and one for the coins.





I just used straight pins for the paper bills to keep the damage at a minimum. The coins were glued using a hot glue gun. And the lovely thing about hot glue is it keeps the damage to the coins to a minimum as well.



I think it fills the blank wall quite nicely. What do you do with left over money from your travels?