A trip into the closet.....

I don't like closets. I don't like the messes they contain. And no, I am not talking about my sexual orientation.... nothing quite so titillating, I'm afraid.

 I am talking the literal, dark, disastrous cupboards that we all have in our homes. The catch all. The place where we can cram our junk and close the door. Those closets. Well, I've had enough and  I decided to do something about a couple of mine.

My craft room, to start.....

It started out as one of those doors that one dared not to open for fear of immediate death by crushing. At some point it morphed into a undecipherable pile and the door could no longer even BE closed. Plus, the damn open door takes up too much room and blocks my bookcase......

Something HAD to be DONE........

Firstly, I pulled off the door and pulled out the organizer (read "organizer" with intense derision that such a contraption should dare to call itself so). Rather than paint, I decided to make the closet a bit of a focal point with a dramatic wallpaper. The result (although, further organization in the form of pretty baskets is required) is such an improvement that I can't wait to start on the next closet on my list......

I LOVE this wallpaper! Unfortunately, it has been discontinued

No skeletons here......

Even Better.....

My craft/studio room continues to evolve. I have now completed the other half of the room.

It looked like this last week:

I wasn't super happy with this side of the room. The other side of the room is so far beyond Awesome, that Awesome needs binoculars and night-vision to see it, but this side was rather blah in comparison. I fixed it though... now Awesome won't know which way to look because both sides are equally beyond Awesome's ken.

This side has:

2 Ikea Expedit 2x2 shelves mounted on the wall. The 2x2s come with mounting instructions, but I decided to put a rail below them for extra support, mainly because they were being mounted to look good and not on studs and a few drywall anchors are not strong enough for my complete comfort. We attached the rail on the studs and then set the cabinets on top of the rail and anchored them. I think they'll be more than strong enough for my needs now.

1 Ikea Expedit 2x4 against with wall with a desk attachment. Apparently, I'm not the only one who doesn't want leave this room and, as I don't like to share, I thought the kids needed their own desk.... Plus it'll be great for my future Drum Carder.... and as a cutting table.... and... OK, it's really more space for me, but I won't tell the kids if you don't. I also purchased some doors, drawers and purple baskets for the cubby holes. These now hold the rest of my yarn, my fibre and a few other bits that I didn't have proper space for. The room is so organized that I almost don't want to use it.

3 picture rails above the bookcase (which I already had).

The only problem I had with this whole redecorating scheme was that my 30 year old Singer sewing machine died when I tried to make some cushions to sit on (for TV watching).... You can't have a sewing room without a sewing machine.

So I fixed that to.

And now that my house is back in order from THAT mini-reno... must be time to rip apart something else..... Next week, maybe; I have some sewing to do first.

I'm never coming downstairs again....

IT IS DONE!!

My craft studio is complete (mostly) and it is so awesome that I have no words. OK, I have a lot of words, but they are farther down, so they don't count.... much.

Here is where the magic happened. I LOVE this wall. Love it with a deep, abiding passion. Let's just say that if Justin Timberlake or Colin Firth or the Hot Scientist dude from Eureka (Ed Quinn) dropped by and asked me to run away with them, I'd have to think really hard about leaving this room behind......

The basic plan is (mostly from Ikea, because they make great, cheap storage furniture... and I had most of it already):

2 Pax wardrobes from Ikea (used to be in Chey's Room)

1 Trofast frame (the one that looks like stairs) 

1 Helmer Drawer unit (the only Ikea item I had to buy)

1 Lack coffee table, top removed

1 4x8 panel of slot wall, painted (and accessories). Next time I want to paint slot wall, someone shoot me, OK?

My original plan was to buy two of the Helmer drawer units (or something like them) and stick the Lack coffee table  (used to be used as a play surface for the kids) on top as a desk, but when I was thinking about what to do with the furniture in the room already, it occurred to me that the Trofast unit might make a good base for a desk. I couldn't believe it when the Helmer and the middle step of the Trofast were within 1/4" of each other! It was perfect. The casters of the Helmer have sunk into the carpet enough that I don't even have to shim the desk to make it level. It's perfect. I only used the top of the Lack coffee table, it was way too tall with the entire coffee table on the "base".

Once the room was painted I shoved everything where I wanted it and it looks like it was made for the space. There are no gaps anywhere. The items fit perfectly (I planned that, actually and again, the Trofast saved the day, by being the perfect size to eat up the bit of space betwixt desk and tower). 

See all of my wonderful storage? (I plan to replace the plastic bins on the slot wall shelves with something else: eventually. The ones inside the tower are fine).

Inside the right tower

Drawers of yarn

These drawers will contain my fabric. Still to be organized.

This still needs to be organized.

My grandmother made me this

Sock yarn/lace yarn remnants in glass.  The deer fabric is covering a paint can, filled with yarn. The Blue glass is from Egypt and has my signature needles and some hand carved crochet hooks.

some colourful fibre, beautiful lace yarn... this space is heaven

The real problem with the room was the floor. Sewing on carpet is not much fun. The sewing part is fine, it's the CLEANING that's not fun. We aren't quite ready to do a full scale floor replacement though, so after much thought and a thorough scouring of the Internet, I decided to paint a floor cloth. This was probably the most painful part of the job as I wanted a large floor cloth (almost completely covering the floor) and I didn't really have space big enough to paint it and then let it cure. I painted in the basement (it took a gallon of primer and 3/4 of a gallon of paint, but only a quart of varnish and 6 days, including dry time) , but pulled apart my guest room to let it cure for a few days before wrestling (there is no better word, I fought that sucker into place!) it down today. It's not perfectly flat (it was most difficult to get it to lay flat without pulling apart the entire room), but I think it turned out great! And it's sweep-able and damp wipe-able... perfect for a craft room, no?



 The cloth is painted Ombre (dark centre and faded out to either end). I decided not to go for crisp lines, but blended the lines together as I painted. It's subtle and I love it.

I still want more storage on this side of the room, but I need to let some ideas ferment for a bit before I tackle them.

Subtle Ombre stripes.

Need to think on a chair solution as well.
Perhaps an Ottoman might work??

One of the best parts of this room, is that it is STILL Chey's play room. Her toys are still in the Trofast bins under my desk, her Calico Critters sit atop a cedar chest filled with fibre AND she might actually use it now. At least, she will most likely use it while I sew and futz around. She didn't like playing in that room by herself. Now we can both play; she with her toys, I with mine.


Next job (after I clean up the mess from this one) -BASEMENT. That's just painting, though: maybe.

One project down.

As I've mentioned in several posts, Dale and I (mostly I, but he does help when he's not working) are slowly giving our house a teeny facelift. Mainly paint and decorating, but I'm hoping, that over the next year, we will have the house refreshed and better organized.

With that goal in mind, one of the problems/DIY project on our list,  has been to figure out garden storage. We have a small, lean-to, style shed against the side of the house that plays the part of "catch all" for our gardening detritus. Lawnmower, wheelbarrow, shovels, rakes, bags of soil, buckets, small garden tools, fertilizer, hose pieces, etc. are all piled in the little shed and most of it has to be removed each time the lawn needs to be mowed. I thought that a nice dresser or small hutch, painted as a part of the backyard decor, might be a partial solution. At least we would get the little bits out of the shed......

I trolled Kijiji for about a month, looking for something cheap (like under $50 cheap), but solid and didn't really find what I was looking for (it had to fit in a certain spot against the house). One day I drove past a garage sale and found the perfect dresser... for $20. The gentleman selling it, said it was solid wood and it was hard to tell because he had painted it with some kind of super thick plastic deck paint, but I thought we'd give it a go.

I forgot to take a good picture of the before, this will have to do.

It sat in the garage all summer, until it finally rose to the top of the "honey do" list and Dale started the stripping process. He found out pretty quickly that it was NOT solid, but some kind of laminate over pine. The laminate didn't make it through the stripping process (nor did the drawer bottoms or bottom of the cabinet, but I'll fix that in the spring) and it turned out to be a much larger, more expensive job than I had anticipated. I was finally able to start staining on the weekend. My plan was to stain the body of the dresser one colour and all of the drawer fronts and doors different colours. I think it turned out looking fabulous, but the cost and effort of the redo, relative to the  quality of the initial (and ending) piece of furniture was not worth it. I think we'll have paid over $200 in stripper, stain, varnish, new drawer bases and pulls which would have been worth it had the dresser been of better quality.  Something for me to think about in the future, that is for certain.

Here it is after being stripped. Again, I need to learn to take better pictures, but you can see the inside, bottom of the cabinet is trashed. All of the drawers are the same.


It does look pretty though. The cabinet itself is stained dark red, the largest door was stained purple, but it looks dark brown, which is unfortunate. I LOVE the teal/turquoise doors! In retrospect, I wish I had stained the entire cabinet with that stain..... I couldn't wait to show you, even though I have yet to put on handles and pulls and fix the drawers. I don't plan to do that until Spring though.

I can totally picture it with a flower pot on the top. What do you think?

What just happened??

I've been a very busy girl, since last I wrote.....


When I walked into my house last Sunday, I was struck by all of the things that I've been ignoring. The disorganized mess of the mud/laundry room (room is a bit generous... it's more like a walk in closet leading from the garage to the rest of the house), the state of the carpeting upstairs (I'm pretty sure it is original to the house which was built in 1997 and it's gross), Chey's disused "playroom", Chey's crowded bedroom, the fact that, aside from some small changes, we have not painted since we moved in and the ENTIRE house needs a paint job..... in other words, I lost my marbles and went, for a lack of a better term....completely off the rails.... and Dale let me (not that he could stop me, mind.... when I get like that, the best thing you can do is smile and nod and hang on for the ride......). I immediately dropped my bags  and got to work.... my first goal.... making Chey's room a little less crowed.

My plan for Chey's room was to move the two tall Pax wardrobes from Ikea into her "playroom" which I would then convert into my studio (leaving her toy area intact). This would allow for more space in her room and more storage in mine. I then planned to buy her either a captain's bed or a loft bed. After a quick perusal of various sources of children's furniture I decided to check Kijiji and found a solid maple loft bed with an included dresser for super cheap and the plan was born......

Chey's room Before: (this is really before.... like way back when she moved from a crib to a bed... I've reorganized her room several times since; you can't really see how crowded her room was, so you'll have to trust me). It had the two Pax wardrobes, plus a desk and a bookcase and that ugly fan... I hate ceiling fans! There was only a narrow alley between the bed (which was against the wall at this point) and the rest of the furniture.

Chey's room Now:

Much better, eh??

In case you were wondering what I did UNDER The bed.... I made it a little library and attached some book slings, that I made, to the bed frame. I also made a book sling for beside her bed.

Under the bed

The end of the underbed area

Bedside Sling

I made the slings after being inspired by THIS tutorial, although I didn't follow it at all. I used a double curtain rod set (it was cheaper than buying all the parts separately like she recommends in the tutorial), but the downside of using a double curtain rod bracket is that the book sling can't carry as many books because the rods only sit an inch apart (a problem for fatter books). I'm not sure how this could be solved, but it's something to consider if you make your own book slings. Perhaps off-set, single brackets or extended arms or something..... The fabric was purchased at Ikea and I still have a bit of the bug material which I plan on using to make a body pillow to replace the flip chair that is currently under there (it takes up too much room).

The other big craft project that I did to make the room tidier and roomier, was to make a stuffy storage thing-a-ma-jig (it's a stuffy jail, there is no better way to describe it, I'm afraid). I was inspired 

by a stuffy Zoo that I found online, but decided to try to make one myself. I re-purposed a VHS storage cabinet that my Mom made for me in the late '90s that has sat empty since we converted, first to DVDs, and then to Digital movies. I didn't want to get rid of the cabinets though (they are solid pine and my Mommy made them) so I've been lugging them around for a years.

First I took off the doors and installed a dowel.

Then I stained the entire thing green (Chey's favourite colour)

Then I took a hammer and expressed some lingering frustration in a most satisfying manner...... this is known in DIY circles as "antiquing"

I then added hooks and bungie cords

And made this pile of stuffies (which were contained in TWO overflowing, pop-up laundry bins)

Look like this.....

Now that Chey's room is done... I can move onto my studio...... which currently looks like the place where our extra crap goes to die (it was tidy before Chey's room was demolished, but I have no photographic evidence to support this statement). I should paint first, but I can already feel the urge to skip that part setting in..... must resist?

Training them up right

It's the small things that makes one happy. I was happy to discover that it is, in fact, NOT against bylaws to have a clothesline in Calgary. I've missed having a line since we moved to Alberta, eight years ago. Lines are great for washing blankets and bedding (too large for the dryer) and there is nothing like crawling into a bed, freshly made, with sheets dried on the line. Besides, I can save the energy karma and use it to balance my use of a/c... right?

In order to ensure that my line is not an eyesore, I purchased a retractable one that can be hidden away when not in use and promptly taught Eli how to use it.

 

His future spouse had better thank me... a LOT.

 

 

 

Neat idea: Bathroom organization

I need some kind of storage in my bathroom. My makeup, hair and miscellaneous "beauty" products are breeding uncontrollably and taking over. I thought a medicine chest might contain some of the mess, but I have two problems:

1) I think they are ugly.
2) I think they are too expensive for what they are.

So how does one solve such a conundrum? Creatively...... I went to Winners a few weeks ago and found a bunch of wooden boxes made up to look like books. I thought they were neat and I bought one. I held onto it for a few day unsure of why I bothered, when an epiphany struck. The "books" could be a solution to my problem! They were cheap ($10-15 each) and pretty. So I bought a few more and had Dale insert some shelves in a couple of them using square dowel (I'm sure it's called something else) and baseboard molding.

Today I installed them and they look great! I spent around $70 for all five (including shelving). Much cheaper than any medicine chest I could find that I only moderately detested. The beast is contained and I am content, thrilled even.

Neat, eh?

Fait Accompli

It was rough, but I am done! Every negative in my house is scanned, sorted, dated and edited and TOSSED (there is no going back.. negatives and photos are Gonzo! Kaput! In the Great Photo Album in the Sky! Garbage City! Houdini-ed out of the house! You get my drift....)! Total number of negatives organized: approx. 5,000. Total negatives kept: roughly 4,000. Number of marbles left in brain... two.

Things I learned from this process, both practical and emotional:

1) Both the scanner surface and the negatives must be free of dust. Somewhat difficult when a person decides to spin Cashmere and silk while scanning negatives, but lesson learned rather quickly. Only a few negatives were so dusty they had to be rescanned.

2) Spray air is handier than heck, much better than a swiffer, although I do think that it may have altered the colour of some of the negatives, I'm not entirely sure.

3) Computers can make most pictures look decent. Not blurry ones or really bad ones (maybe they can, but I was doing the quick and dirty method of editing... "press button to fix".. Film cameras were, by no means a guarantee of a good shot, usually discovered at the moment of developing...... I managed to save a few pictures that would have been garbage without a computer and I'm sure if I spent the time editing in a proper editing program I could make them even nicer....

5) Scanning is a messy job. Photo Albums, negatives, packaging and storage containers were everywhere and were not to be touched by other residents of the household on threat of immediate dismemberment. I had a rather loose organization system and NOONE was messing it up.... It felt really good to clear all that up today.

6) I have some really great friends. Friends I've had for many, many years and I feel lucky to still have them in my life.

7) Eli was freakin' tiny.... Intellectually I knew that, but emotionally, I had forgotten and to SEE the pictures and have the memories brought back was a bit of a shock.... 3lbs 5oz is teeny weeny.... I also really like to take pictures of my children crying... Let's face it, toddler temper tantrums are hilarious (as long as you're in the right frame of mind.... after 3 days of constant crying/tantrums they are less cute)

8) Photos are a great way to remember. For the most part, I could remember approximately when, where and why each bunch of photos were taken..... even though I thought that I have forgotten..... I'm glad that I will have them in my regular circulation so that the memories stay fresh.

9) I have had a great life. Dale and I have been together for almost 19 years and most days it really feels like it, but looking back at the photos makes me realize that there is no one else I would rather have in my pictures and I am glad he'll be in the next 20 years worth.... (at least I feel that way today... we'll see next week/month/year... Marriage is tough!)

10) I look pretty good for nearly 40...... I haven't really changed that much in the last 20 years. That could be due to the fact that I need glasses, but I choose to think otherwise.....


So here are a few pictures that I thought I'd share and a link to a separate page with a slideshow. It is difficult to fit 10 years into 50 pics, but I tried.

	Honeymoon in Mexico
3 days old. The first time I got to hold him.

Look at how big that Preemie outfit is on him!

Eli holding the same outfit.. He couldn't believe it either.

Here is the link (in case you missed it above) if you'd like to see these and a few more in a slideshow. I apologize for the music. I disabled it, but the computer decided I needed music...