Entryway Bench

Our plain entryway was missing something. I put a little table there to throw my purse on, and that was nice, but still bare. Maybe a bigger table?

Since buying this house I have become a bit OCD with cleaning. We decided to put in darker laminate floors as it's the thing to do these days, but my goodness do they show dust! Mopping is a bi-weekly chore. It dawned on me as I was mopping for the umpteenth time that I am always coming across puppy prints, which makes me smile; and boot prints, which infuriates me. Size 13 boot prints everywhere, every day. Husband is the love of my life, but does he have to trounce across the floor with dirty boots on twice a day? That's when it dawned on me! A little bench would do just fine to spruce (or pine in this case) up our entryway.

I used the plans from Ms. Ana White, with whom I've become obsessed! She makes all of this wonderful furniture and puts up free plans online. This bench is a beginner piece, and since I've never built anything, I figured this was the place to start! http://ana-white.com/2009/11/modern-farm-benches


One trip to Home Depot where the young man in the lumber department cut all of the pine boards for me. What a wonderful thing, when you're a new DIYer and you don't own a bunch of power saws! Some wood filler and 2.5" screws and I was ready to start my bench. I whipped it up in about 30 minutes, the plans were so easy to follow.

 

A couple of times across with the sander and 2 coats of stain later and this bench is complete!

 



Now Husband can plop his booty down right when he walks through the door and take those giant boots off!

 

 

Thanks again to http://ana-white.com/ for providing these free plans for the "modern farm bench".

 

 

 



 

Loveseat Makeover

This is my first, and last, re-upholstery project EVER. It wasn't hard, just very time consuming.

Here she is, our ugly floral $60 loveseat from Goodwill. Her stuffing is good, not much wear and tear, she's just outdated. Husband and I like to imagine that she lived in a nice old lady's sitting room.

The first step was easy, just start pulling out staples. 1,000,000 staples later and you have this:

As I pulled off pieces I labeled where they came from. Center, side left or right, as well as top or bottom. I used my floral pieces to cut out my gray pieces.

The dog helped me. After I cut out all my pieces then I started stapling the new material back on, the same way that I took it off.

 

 

 This went along fine and dandy, until it came time to do the cushions. I procrastinated on these for awhile. Once I finally mustered up the courage, I started sewing through the gray fabric, and broke 3 needles in 15 minutes. Then I used my brain and went to the store and bought heavier needles actually suited for sewing upholstery fabrics. Halfway through the first cushion the sewing machine went all wonky. There my project sat for months until a friend lent me her sewing machine.

 

Taa-daa! This project took almost the entire box of 1,250 staples. $120 of upholstery fabric, and waaay too may hours of my time. I started this on January 11th and just finished today, March 23rd.

 

I love how it looks, but next time I need a furniture update, I will be at Ikea.

 

This may be the only time I get to post a photo of our house with SNOW!

We're in hot water now!

We limped along for 3 months on our crusty water heater, but when it started smelling funny and it became black with char, it was time to go!
 We put in a service request on our home warranty for a plumber to come out. They were out the next day and he was amazed that it was still producing hot water! As we figured, he said there was no saving it. Unfortunately our warranty wouldn't cover anything besides the tank and labor (of course), and our water heater would not pass code, which is a requirement for gas water heaters. The price tag on the whole lot was around $1500. Our portion was $861 + $60 service fee. That means we just broke even on our warranty which we paid $499 for. Oh well! I'm sure something else will break down in the next 9 months!

Crusty

Before: Black char of DOOM!

After: Shiny and up to code!

 

 

Barstool Upgrade

Our barstools from Target needed a little upgrade! They become a little butt-numbing if you sit on them too long, so we wanted to add padding. Of course someone on Pinterest has already done it, so I followed along from their blog: a Lo and behold life. Here's how our stools transformed!

Stool: Before

 

 We bought one package of 2"x22"x22" foam which was enough to cover both stools. Using a utility knife we cut out two pieces 9"x17.5".

 

We covered the foam with quilt batting (the package contained 36"x45" and was enough for both stools) and flipped it upside down. Using a staple gun (ours is the PowerShot, love it!) with 5/16" staples we tacked down the batting, starting with the long sides.

 

After securing all sides we trimmed the batting.

 

Next we took the duck cloth fabric (wash & iron it first!) and made sure we had the pattern we wanted squarely on top, tacked it to the foam with a few pins and flipped it upside down again.

 

 We tucked in the raw edges and used the staple gun to secure it, starting with the long sides first. On the short sides, we used a kind of gift wrapping tuck in order to make it look tidy and cover all the raw edges.

 

Finished!

 Much more comfy! Maybe next we can upgrade our ill-colored counter!

 

 

 

Burlap Wreath

 

After taking down my holiday wreath the front door looked sad, so I made a new wreath. It's a total pinterest cliché with burlap, chevron, and a letter- but I think it's cute!

Another lesson of home owning: Furry Invaders

After a 2 week respite in the great white north, we were happy to come back home. I left our house spotless so that we could come back from Christmas and just chill out before heading back to work/ life. Our drive south took an extra 4 hours because of a blizzard and Husband, Dog and I were happy to get home safely. Upon entering our house it was pungent apparent that we had some guests while we were gone. Furry little invaders took over our kitchen. Mouse poo and pee everywhere! It took hours to take everything out of drawers, cupboards, and counters and wash/bleach it all. Not what I wanted to come home to but we learned a valuable lesson: when the temperature drops mice WILL find a way in. Next year we will leave a 1000 mouse traps out to kill the suckers be prepared.

Oh, and we got a new rug. Now Dog has a warm place to set her booty while she keeps an eye on the neighborhood :)