Friday, January 4, 2013

2012 in Summation.

How does this work again?! 

I didn't stop making things last year, I just stopped sharing them with you. I blame Pinterest, Stupid Zombies, Stupid Zombies 2, road tripping, moving my BF in, being stuck at work 9 hours a day and my overall lack of blogging enthusiasm. Sorry. 

So I went through my phone and pulled pictures of what I made. Here's a brief (Just kidding - this is the LONGEST POST IN HISTORY!) photo summary of "what I made in 2012!"

 I made some cute spoon markers for the garden.
 I made a kick-ass bird house.
 I made some raised beds and grew grass in them for a few months.
 I made and murdered strawberry crepes.
 I made a little hot-house for plant starts (that has since sat empty, as I killed everything I put inside of it. You gotta water that stuff man!).
 I made a ring to replace the one I lost on the raft-like-boat.
 I made this guy get outta my way.
 I made these get in my belly.
 I made this dead bird. Or rather, I made this bird dead...
 I made clean laundry.
 I made it home.
 I made my kid get out of the Delaware River.
 I made no excuses.
 I made a potato tower.
 I made Oreo truffles that looked like poo.
 I made this all better.
 I made spicy green beans.
 I made this into canned food.
 And this.
 And these.
 See!!!
 I made the boy make me a pantry out of a closet.
 I made most of that food.
 I made this note to the Post Office.
 I made much nicer looking Oreo truffles.
 I made it into a book.
 I made this fish wind-chime.
 I made these tags out of old Christmas cards.
 I made this plate with Sharpies.
 And this one...
 And this one...
 I made this shroom cup.
 I made this picture.
 I made my nails pretty.
 I made his nails pretty.

 I made some spicy goodness.
 I made what looks a lot like guts but is really tomatoes.
 I made a cork board.
 I made most of this box of cheese vanish.
 I made a pillow igloo.
 I made my kid the scariest on the block.
 I made dinner with mushrooms I picked.
 I made myself not scream.
 I made cookies without burning down the house.
Last, but not least Cheesehenge was made (I can't even take credit for this one, as the boy made it).

There you have it kids. The LONGEST POST IN HISTORY. Hope your 2012 was great. Hope your 2013 is better! 

~J






Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The REDRUM

When I bought my house, I decided to have a red library. Like blood red. Murder red. That project required lots of  heavy handed removal of some pretty epic wall paper and a few friends with brushes. Oh, and buckets and buckets and buckets of blood...uhhh... I mean red paint. 

After the painting, McGriddle Pants and I deemed the library REDRUM. Sometimes we even do our Danny impressions in there, but that's a story for another day. Fast forward to the internet phenomenon of Pinterest,  combine that outlet with my love for shelves, big and small and you get the following:

I've seen on Pinterest, small shelves build out of dresser drawers,


and this and I thought to myself, 

I'm handy and junk! 
The Boy can play power tools with me! 
I can build something like that for the REDRUM!! 

Off to the ReStore I went in search of drawers. My local store had quite a selection. It took 2 serious car loads to get my purchase home. I waited until they had a 50% off day, because even though $2 - $5 is cheap, I'm cheaper. $28 later, I had filled my garage with empty drawers. After about three months of stumbling over them, wrestling laundry around them, hearing them crash in the middle of the night when the cats played in them, I FINALLY started my project. Honestly one of the only reasons I waited so bloody long in the first place is I am currently also refinishing my hardwood floors. So I had to finish that room before I could put the shelves in... or so I tell myself...

So here's what I did: 

1.) Buy a crap load of drawers on the cheap
2.) Store them in the garage for an extended amount of time
3.) Remove all hardware (drawer pulls, roller brackets, odd screws, etc.)
4.) Remove any wall paper or contact paper linings
5.) Start sanding, then sand, sand, sand...  I should probably mention that you should wear some sort of mask while you do this. No one likes dust boogers. 
6.) Measure the wall on which you would like your shelves to go
7.) Find a flat open area and tape off your wall measurements (this is so you can get a feel for where everything should go, without accidentally making it 11 feet high for 8 foot ceilings)
8.) Lay out your project. 

Take a picture of this. You'll probably want to refer back to it later, but chances of it really looking like this are pretty slim. It's almost like playing reverse Tetris. Almost. 

I wanted some negative spaces in mine, to hold knik-knacks and such, so I spaced the drawers out here and there. Planned on putting some wood shelves between some (you can see my mock up shelves in the middle of the photo) and  I wanted to remove most, if not all of the press board backing. Knowing that this was going to go onto a white wall, I thought it would be cool to have that show through randomly.

9.) Take your hammer and remove some press board. You will probably have to re-support those shelves with nails, because they are not really sturdy without the backs, but the stuff came out fairly easy. Watch for wood staples after this step. And wear some safety glasses. Safety first man. Safety first. 

10.) Decide what end you are going to start with and start bringing those shelves, a couple at a time, into the spot you want to eventually have your shelves. You could just screw everything together where it sits, stain it or paint it, and then try to wrestle it into the spot you eventually want to have it, but there is always (for me anyhow) something. Something doesn't fit, or gets in the way, or is lopsided and you didn't realize it, or breaks or whatever else. So, start fitting your drawers together a few at a time. Since I had so many different styles of shelves it took a variety of screw sizes to make this work. I used 4 screws to attach each drawer to the next. Screwing from below so that the screws are not as visible on your bookshelves. 

11.) I set up all of the left side, then separately set up all of the right. They do nestle together, but are two large pieces just in case I get the urge to move it. I spread out a tarp on the REDRUM floor, gently moved the shelves onto the tarp and stained the whole thing with Minwax Wood Finish - Natural Stain. Because that's what I had, and that's what I wanted. I love how each drawer (now shelf) is made different and is accented by this light stain. You could also paint it if you want like they did in the photos above.

12.) When your stain (or paint or whatever you decide to use) dries, move the shelves back to where you want them and bracket them to the wall. 

13.) Add some shelves inside some of the larger drawers, fill it with books, knick-knacks movies or whatever your little heart desires.  



 And there you have it! Sadly my library is too small to get a picture of the whole thing, but if you have questions, just ask. I'd be happy to answer :)