Home Improvement

Rope and Ribbon Pendant

Published on March 21, 2013March 21, 2013 by Our Humble Abode12 Comments

Well, the guest room has a new light fixture. Surprise, it’s not on this list, though I was leaning toward numbers two and five. But I remembered I had a lamp shade I kept when our lamps broke. I unscrewed the glass cover and hung the shade from the old light, just to get an idea of how it looked.

Too small, and I didn’t like the slightly tapered shape. I took a drum shade off a lamp in the basement, replacing it with the tapered shade. Whaddya know, they were perfect for each other.

Knowing I liked the look and size, I started working on the wiring and hanging. Inspired by this cord cover up, I got out an Ikea cord kit (I had on hand) and cotton/poly rope from Home Depot (for 3 bucks).

A knot at the bottom, close to the socket to start. Then I wrapped the cord like a friendship bracelet. Behind the cord, then through the hole from the front. Not only does this wrap cover the cord, it makes a neat swirl knot design.

Ben hung the light last night using a basic ceiling canopy. The plain shade was boring, so I taped two pieces of wood veneer around the top and bottom.

Everything looked too monotone, so I stole pillows from other rooms to test accent colors. I loved the punch of green this one added. Imagine yellow walls with the dark blue headboard and shots of bright green. Yes, please!

Which prompted me to dig in my ribbon box, coming out with kelly green.

Exactly what I want. Fun, colorful, and lively. Green has a way of perking up any space. To evenly distribute the lively green I want to make another storage box. Luckily the navy set will work perfectly in the main bathroom.

Because I had most of the supplies already, the light cost me $3 for the rope. Score. And you know I can’t resist a DIY. Double score. What do you think of the changes?

Loaded & Headed

Published on March 20, 2013March 26, 2013 by Our Humble Abode25 Comments

Progress has been made in the guest/Handy Sammy’s room. The shelves have been reconfigured, curtains sewn, storage boxes made, storage needs assessed, and mini dresser refinished. Taking the room from dark:

To this brighter space:

Now to an almost finished room:

After clearing off the shelves, I edited the accessories, keeping only favorites and books. Last week the shelves fully dried and I loaded everything back on.

Organizing books into genres, then arranged by color (ROYGBIV with white, gray and black at the end) makes it easy to find what we’re looking for.

Magazines organized by month in files at the bottom.

On the other side, Handy Sammy has four shelves (the vase, frame, and plant can easily be cleared) to store school books and papers, chargers, and his laptop. A shelf at bed height also doubles as a night stand.

I’m guessing you noticed the blue headboard, too. We thought about upholstering with a fun fabric, but the books and accessories on the shelves are already kind of busy for the small room. And we didn’t want to lose precious space, even if it is only a few inches. In this room, every inch counts.

Solid color seemed the best fit for the room. I bought two yards of navy linen, brought it home and didn’t like it. Too blue. Then I heard our local Ace Hardware stores were giving free quarts of Clark + Kensington paint away one day only. I chose a dark blue-green color (King’s Canyon), not knowing what I’d use it for. Once I held the swatch up in the room, it seemed perfect for the headboard. 1/4 inch MDF is light weight and super thin, so I painted a few coats. Ben hung it last night, covering the edges with pre-painted quarter round trim.

And he installed the second sconce we had ordered.

Making this little nook inviting and useful.

Next up, hang a light fixture. Surprise, it’s a DIY creation I discovered yesterday. Soon we will install crown molding, baseboard, and door trim. Paint on the trim, ceiling, and walls (I’m STILL looking for the perfect color), we can call this room done. Wow, this room is actually going quickly.

12 More Inches

Published on March 13, 2013March 13, 2013 by Our Humble Abode35 Comments

Our guest bedroom (currently Handy Sammy’s room) is small. Not even 10 feet wide by 11 feet long, including the foot deep bookshelf. And it doesn’t get a ray of direct sun light, so it can be dark sometimes.

Add in furniture and fill the bookshelves and it’s one cluttered, dark little room lacking real storage and organization.

I found a pint-sized dresser, for more storage space. But it took up valuable floor real estate. And left a tiny walk way between it and the bed.

We had always planned to notch out the bookshelves, pushing the bed against the wall. Spurred by the new dresser, we started a few weekends ago. It took me an hour and five laundry baskets to clear off the shelves.

We drew a quick sketch and talked about our plan and options. And then Ben worked his magic and Sawzall. It worked best for us to cut out the vertical supports, leaving the tops.

This allowed us to keep the shelves above the bed the same width and reuse the cut pieces as side supports.

The old shelves cut down to fit the narrower sides.

A new piece at the top framed out the bed opening. To brighten up the room, we painted everything bright white.

For function, Ben added an outlet on either side of the bed, inside the bookshelf.

Sconces (these specifically, hung upside down, though I would have loved to have these if clearances weren’t an issue) replace the old table lamps, giving ample reading light while keeping clutter off shelves.

With the bed pushed against the wall, we gained 12 inches of floor space.

Obviously we’re not finished. Here’s what’s still on my to do list:

Let shelves dry before loading contents back on

Find the right paint color (hence the Technicolor walls) – jeesh, finding a warm gold that isn’t too green or orange is tough!

Install new baseboard, crown, and door trim

Sew a bed skirt

Hang the headboard

Pick out an overhead light and install it

Which Way, Which Gray?

Published on March 12, 2013March 12, 2013 by Our Humble Abode8 Comments

Hey friends! Sorry I wasn’t here yesterday. I started a few projects and wanted/needed to finish them up. One of those projects is for our master bedroom. You see, here’s our current bed set up.

We had a bed frame and headboard, but they squeaked every time we rolled over. So annoying, so we took it out. Now we’re living bachelor pad style, with the box spring on the floor. At least we have two box springs to get some height. Yes, so fancy.

Ben built a bed over the weekend. And I have some work to do to make it purty. But, I need to choose a paint color. Wanna help? Right now, the room is a blank slate. Only the painted doors will stay. Possibly the bedding, but we’ll probably stick with white if we change it out.

Regardless of the item, I’m consistently drawn to blue-greens. Either Blue Sage or something similar will go on the walls when we get to that point. What color should we paint the bed? We’ve ruled out white (too much) and black (because we’ve already had one and want something different). Of course we’ve got several dark gray colors going on (the doors and the entertainment center). Which brings us to… light gray.

I pulled out a bunch of swatches I already had and then plucked out the too green/purple/dark ones, which left me with six contenders. Left to right we’ve got Gray Owl, Harbor Gray, Wickham Gray, Classic Gray, (all Benjamin Moore) Oyster Pearl Clark + Kensington), and Ocean Pearl (Behr) on top. Do you have a favorite? Or a light gray I didn’t mention? I bought a test sample of Oyster Pearl yesterday. On its own, it looks almost white. Against something white, it looks perfect. At least to me. I need to get Ben’s opinion.

What do you think of the color combo?

Would you go with gray? Or something else entirely?

You Can Hang Your Hat On It

Published on March 4, 2013March 26, 2013 by Our Humble Abode26 Comments

Hello and happy Monday! Well, as happy as a Monday can be. How was your weekend? Saturday brought beautiful weather with temps in the low sixties. A touch of spring that I’m desperately clinging to. Yesterday started out nice, but ended with a snow storm complete with thunder and lightning. Never have I witnessed a snow/thunder storm combo. We took advantage of the nice weather and ran errands and grabbed lunch on Saturday. Which is always a treat. And we made a little tweak to the entertainment center. But let me back up, several weeks ago, Ben put in all the drawers. Then I primed and painted the inside and outsides.

Last weekend he attached the drawer fronts using this technique.

After some debate and opinion gathering, we chose handle option number 1, the simple (cheapest) square ended one.

My favorite and so pretty. After all, hardware is jewelry for a room.

As usual, our projects are never in the quick one week and done style. Oh no, we like to drag it out, because what else would we want to do? Pshh, that’s totally it. That means we still have a few things to do. Number one, cut pieces for the toe kick, prime, and paint. The only wood accent I want is the pretty top, not unfinished pine.

Annnnd I still want doors on the upper cabinets. We don’t have a lot of clutter there, but the bounty of speakers and electronics doesn’t look pretty. Doors would also help cut down the amount of dust.

For now, I grin like a fool when I see finished drawer fronts with functional storage behind. The boys now have a place to keep toys.

The top drawer closest to the stairs is super handy to store hats and gloves (and other randoms like plastic pea pods) that normally get lost in the closet.

And that brings us to this weekend’s little tweak.

We hung the tv to the back wall, making it easier to clean under.

In addition to showing off more of the dark wood top. What do you think of the nearly finished entertainment center? Tall, dark, and handsome, right? Of course that’s about the only thing that is done in the living room. Now I want to repaint the walls with a little color (notice the blue swatches?) in a flat paint. Satin is entirely too glossy on the knock down texture.