Floating Night Stands

Why is the master bedroom usually the last finished/decorated room?  Our bedroom was a mixed bag of old furniture, all functional, just not what we liked.

Master-Bedroom-Window-Trimmed

While inoffensive, the Ikea side tables just weren’t the best shape or size.  An off-center window left a little more space on one side of the room, too.  To play nicely with the planked wall, Ben built cedar night stands.

Master-Bedroom-Floating-Nightstands-at-Night

Originally, my plan was a simple double shelf, very similar to our entry console.

Halloween-Entry-ConsoleDecorations

After using the entry shelf, I decided I wanted a single shelf, as the lower would be another surface to fill.  I tossed out the idea of a basic shelf with black brackets, but Ben thought it would look off.  We agreed a floating shelf would look great and blend best with the plank wall.  There are many ways to make a floating shelf, but here’s what we did.  For the base, we bought four heavy-duty right angle brackets.  Look for something with a consistent width, as this will determine the shelf spacing.  Mount the brackets into studs with the 90 degree angles to the outsides.

Master-Bedroom-Floating-Nightstand-Shelf-Brackets

Using scrap cedar, Ben built a hollow, tight-fitting box using the brackets as spacers.

Master-Bedroom-Floating-Nightstands-Hollow-Inside

Then, the box frame slides over the brackets.

Master-Bedroom-Floating-Nightstand-Frame-Cover

As a bonus, cords tuck inside the shelf, hiding away the extra length.

Master-Bedroom-Floating-Nightstand-Detail

My nightstand is 24 inches wide and centered on the area between the bed and wall.  I hung a small square print to add interest to the grouping.

Master-Bedroom-My-Nightstand

To make up for the slightly wider space on Ben’s side, we built his at 30 inches wide.  It’s mounted the same distance from the bed as mine.  A wider print fills the space nicely.

Master-Bedroom-Floating-Nightstand-Bens-Side

Now to finish painting the room and get longer curtain panels.

Master-Bedroom-Floating-Nightstand-Overall

And we should get the outlet properly mounted and covered.  Ahh, there’s always something.

His and Hers Tasks

Good news, everyone.  The siding is 99 percent finished!  Ben took the last three days off work to get everything done before this weekend’s cold snap hits.  After starting with the most tedious part, everything went up smoothly and mostly without incident.  With much hemming and hawing, we decided to wrap the bathroom bump out in steel.  During install, Ben was on the scaffolding while I was at the bottom pounding each panel up.  While pounding a panel in place, a prybar fell off the scaffolding and on my arm.  A string of four lettered words spewed out of my mouth.  Other than that, no problems.

Lower portions were a breeze by comparison and Ben had most finished by day 2.

Steel-Siding-Lowe-Section-on-Front

We know this siding choice is different.  People seem to love it or hate it.  Fortunately, several neighbors have come over to tell us how much they like it.  They could love the steel, or just that it’s finished.

Steel-Siding-on-Garage

Regardless, we’re thrilled.  Both with the look and that we’re almost done.  To finish off the outside corners, we’re waiting on five pieces to cover the edges.  You can see one by the front door.

Steel-Siding-by-Front-Door

While Ben was siding (and didn’t need my help), I was inside painting trim and a few walls.  Here’s a peek at the first coat in our bedroom.  As the McDonald’s slogan goes, “I’m lovin’ it.”

Master-Bathroom-Wrought-Iron-Sneak-Peek

Hopefully tomorrow we’ll get our siding trim pieces to wrap things up.  Once that’s finished, we can take down the scaffolding and get working on kitchen plans.  Wishing you all a fun and productive weekend.

Halloween, We’re Ready

I’m not sure how it happens, but every year Halloween sneaks up on me.  For the past month, the boys have talked about their costumes.  E requested a cloud with rain.

Rain-Cloud-Halloween-Costume

I had every intention of sewing his costume, but didn’t have enough white fabric on hand.  In the spirit of Tim Gunn, I “made it work” by using a sheet of foam core to create two identical cloud shapes.  Fabric scraps connect the two sides, making it a sandwich board style.  Paper rain drops hang from thin fishing line below.  Before Halloween, I need to paint a rainbow to add, because that’s what the little man wants.

V, the crazy kid, wanted to be a battery. Seriously, this kid comes up with some of the most un-kid things.  Credit card at 3, then a stop light, and a Rubik’s cube.  A battery fit in perfectly.

9-Volt-Battery-Halloween-Costume

Ben saved me a box big enough for V to fit in.  I wrapped the bottom of the box with two sheets of black poster board (from the dollar store) to get the general idea.  Two sets of paper cut Duracell letters are attached with double-sided tape, and white out to write ‘alkaline battery’ below.  For the terminals, I pulled two different sized canning lids and hot glued them on top.  I suppose I should cut arm holes, but it was a fun costume to put together.

Decorating our entry was just as fun.  E helped me tape paper bats and rats to the walls.  Michael’s clearance several years ago, but we made a few more to fill in.

Halloween-Entry-Decorations-from-Door

He made a few custom creations, too.  Can you spy his bat in the picture above?  Later on, he added a witch on a broomstick:

Halloween-Witch-on-Broomstick-Decoration

Decorations pop against the white wood wall.

Halloween-Entry-Decorations

A few dollar store crows sit on the shelf along with rubber rats that the boys especially love.  We found the skull in the back while exploring, so I painted it gold and set it out.

Halloween-Entry-ConsoleDecorations

Somehow, a bird got trapped inside a lantern.

Halloween-Crows-in-Lantern

Decorating with kids is so funny.  The little things that excite them cracks me up.  Who knew rubber mice could be so hilarious?!  Little boys, that’s who.

A Weekend of Difference

Whew, I’m exhausted today.  Over the weekend we knocked out several projects.  First, I scraped the popcorn off our ceiling.  This is my second go round, so I knew what to expect and followed the same steps as before.  Being home alone, I couldn’t move our big bed out of the room completely.  So I pushed all the furniture to that end of the room.  A layer of plastic protected everything, then I covered the floors and doors.

Master-Bedroom-Ceiling-Scraping

Scraping went quickly.  With one half done, I cleaned up the floor and pushed the furniture to the other end.  Repeat same process.  I learned something from my last session: when you reach a seam, scrape with it, not against.  If you go against, you could catch the tape and cause unnecessary damage.

Speaking of unnecessary damage, someone patched an area near the light fixture.  Even with the popcorn, the patch was noticeable.

Master-Bedroom-Ceiling-Patch

I’ve got that spot, a crack, and small nail holes to fill and smooth before I can prime and paint.  I accidentally peeled the mesh tape off when the mud was wet, hence the hole.  So I have at least two more coats to go here.

Master-Bedroom-Light-Patch

It doesn’t seem like it’d make a big difference, but it’s nice to see a smooth ceiling.  Over the weekend, Ben spray textured the recently wallpaper free wall to match the other two.  With that dry, we trimmed out the rest of the room, windows, and doors.

Master-Bedroom-Ceiling-Texture-and-Trim

Clearly, I have plenty of priming and painting in my future.

Master-Bedroom-Door-Trimmed

Our other walls are heavily orange peel textured, unfortunately.  At least the three painted walls with match.

Master-Bedroom-Texture-and-Trim-Detail

While we had texture going, we finished the knock down in the dining room.  I’ll share more on that process soon.  I’m so close to having a painted bedroom I can taste it.  Or that’s sticky caulking on my thumb as I lick off chocolate.  Doesn’t matter, our bedroom is seeing real, noticeable progress.

Big Time Suck

More often than not, I enjoy having a project to work on.  Using my hands, working, creating something that I can (hopefully) be proud of once finished.  Then there are times that totally suck the life out of me.  Removing wall paper that has three coats of paint over is exactly one of those times.  Throughout my 10 hour removal process, I cursed the previous owners for a) putting up this dreaded wall paper and b) painting over it and not removing before.

Wall-Paper-Removal

Using a wide metal spatula, I was able to get most of the paint and paper off, leaving the glue behind.  See how lovely the pattern was?

Wall-Paper-Removal-Pattern

In a few areas, before painting over the paper, someone spackled over low spots.  Please, I beg you, never paint over wall paper.  Certainly don’t patch areas on top either.  It’s not good.

Wall-Paper-Removal-Patches

With hot tap water, I was able to scrape most of the glue backing off easily.   The process left the walls looking like this:

Master-Bedroom-Window-Trimmed-and-Wallpaper

More spots than a dalmatian.  Why did I torture myself?  Because I’ve decided I don’t want to add wood on this wall.  And we need to texture the walls with orange peel (unfortunately, to match the other two) before trimming out the door.  Hence the scraping marathon and my claw hands.  On a more positive note, every window in the house has been replaced.  Now we’re in the process of casing and trimming everything.  I’ve got three windows completely finished.

Master-Bedroom-Window-Trimmed

To match the other windows and doors, we painted the wood accent wall trim white.  I really love the contrast between the two.

Master-Bedroom-Window-Trimmed-Detail

Our bathroom window is done, now I have to go back and touch up the wall paint.  A walk in the park compared to the scraping.

Master-Bathroom-Window-Trim-Touch-up

After a summer of outside work, it’s nice to get some things done inside, too.  Now to clear out our bedroom so I can start scraping popcorn off the ceiling.

Because misery loves company, feel free to share your worst wall paper experience.