Memorial Weekend Blogathon: Day 2

Well, Friday night, we emptied out the closet.

After dinner, Nick decided to start to demo the closet.  The flippers (we bought the house from some flippers) did a great job of installing the closet, and then painting over the installed pieces. (Sarcasm!!)

So we had to patch, sand and paint the walls.  I was a little unhappy with this, because it just shows the quality of the flippers work.  
After fixing the walls, we started with a clean slate.

The rest of the morning we installed the Pax wardrobes from Ikea.  In the afternoon, I worked on the double hanging rods.  Because I was planning on Nick hanging his suit jackets on the double rods, I decided to add some extra depth to the hanging rods, to accommodate the extra width of the suit jackets and its hangers.

These are two 1x2s screwed into the stud.  The extra 2 inches should help with the width of the suit jackets. 

We are done with the left side of the closet.  

 Tomorrow, we will finish the right side of the closet.  I'm looking forward to finishing it up and filling it back up.

See you tomorrow!

Memorial Weekend Blogathon: Day 1

For the usual readers, I usually post on Sundays but for the holiday weekend, I will be posting everyday this weekend.  Yes, Friday, Saturday, Sunday AND Monday.  We have decided to redo the master closet this weekend, and will be keeping all of you updated with the progress daily.   
Here's how the closet looked before.  It seems to have lots of storage, but it really doesn't.  You couldn't use the double rod on the left side, and the shelves in the back were difficult to access.

Here's how the master closet before:

 

Here's the plan for the new closet:

 The plan is to have shelving on the left for shoes, and a double rod for Nick's clothes on the left.  The right side will have a double rod for my clothes, shelves, and a single rod for long items.  

Come back tomorrow to see how far we have gotten with the new closet.

8 week countdown ends + TJ

Since my birthday is this week, the countdown is ending.  As I mentioned last week, we had a set back.  I was in a bad accident that totaled my new truck the end of April, and it put a hold on most projects.  Yesterday, we went and got a new truck. 

I know what you're thinking, "That's your new truck? It looks like your old truck".  It's identical with my old truck.  I call him Truck Junior or TJ.  No more rental car, YEA!


So here's how the countdown finally finished up.  Not to bad actually.


8 Week Countdown
Curtains-office, guest room, living room

Paint post on front porch

Finalize plans for walk-in closet

Plant grass

Put down rubber tiles by dumpster
Shop for sideboard
Patch/spray office wall
Clean cubes in living room
Photograph bedroom

Move hose corral

Install light over dining table 

Next weekend is a long weekend, and we have plans to upgrade the master closet, and BBQ some ribs.  Any plans for the weekend?

Razorback Office Upgrade!

While I was working on the office curtains, I had an idea to rearrange the Razorback office.  Luckily, I had a day off work that week, and took it as an opportunity to rearrange the office while Nick wasn't there.  I moved the Billy bookcases (Ikea) to the lounge area, and moved his Besta unit (Ikea) to flank an Expedit unit (also Ikea), with the intention of buying another Besta unit if he liked the changes.
We usually have a 30 day let's-wait-and-see-how-we-like-this policy.  We move/change something and live with it for 30 days before we make a decision on whether we approve of it or not.  Most things don't make it the 30 days.  It takes about 7 days for us to decide if we like it, and we move on from there.
Well, last weekend Nick said the words I've always wanted to hear, "We need to go to Ikea".  He had decided that he liked the new arrangement, and wanted to pick up the other Besta unit.  After the other Besta unit went up, we realized that the 2x2 Expedit unit was awkward in the room, so we switched it out with the 4x2 Expedit unit we had in the guest room. 
 So here it is, the upgraded Razorback office:

 We have created more space for Razorback items, although we have limited the art space.  It looks a little sparse right now, but after our vacation to Arkansas in November, it should be looking fuller.  

We are still working on the countdown list, but I can guarantee that it will not be completed by my birthday.  We hit a big snag two weeks ago, and it's been slow progress since.  We have about two weeks left though, so if we get to a couple more items I will be satisfied. 

P.S. Happy Mother's Day!

Curtains and Art

We have been busy with lots of projects.  Two weeks ago we officially became an aunt and uncle.  Nick's sister had a beautiful baby girl, Abigail.

 For weeks before she was born, the in-laws and I were working on artwork for her room.  We picked out fonts and colors, and I had it sent to printers, thinking it would be ready before she was born.  She was born before I could finish it.  I finally got it done this week.  

The color is a little lighter than I had expected.  But I still like it.  I will be visiting the in-laws this weekend, so I might be able to take a picture of it in the room. 

I was also working on the countdown list.  This week, I was working on the curtains in the living room.  I bought two pairs of Ikea curtains (Henny Rand) that I had been admiring for a while.  I put them up, and have them pinned for the hem.  Hemming will be done this week probably.  

 This is a bad photo, but I will show better photos when I am done hemming.

Have any of you finished some projects lately?

Razormap

True or False:
Nick loves maps and globes. True!
Nick loves the Arkansas Razorbacks.  True!
 
So when I saw this on Pinterest, I knew Nick would love it.

I don't know where the original is located or who painted it, but whoever did this is very creative.

I knew I couldn't paint this, but I could make it with Adobe Illustrator.  I found a free map vector, and played around with the alignment, and came up with this.

Looks like the Razorback logo, huh?  We will be printing and framing this, and putting it in Nick's Office.

Here's the key for those cartographers out there to test their knowledge.

 

How To: Leading Edge Detail

The curtains are done.  Nick's been waiting a long time for them.  I think he never thought they would actually happen.  They are really simple to do.  I just actually had to do it.  I'm glad they are done.  They make the room look more finished. Here's how to add a leading edge detail.

What you'll need:
Curtains
Ribbon ~8 feet per panel (for standard height ceilings)
Thread  (2-to match curtain fabric, and ribbon)
Fray Check or Fray Block

Sewing Machine
Scissors
Rotary Cutter
Cut Mat
Quilters Ruler
Iron

What you'll do:

Wash, dry and iron curtains and ribbon. Follow manufacturers directions.

 All Clean!

Cut ribbon to length, pin to curtain's leading edge.

Sew ribbon onto curtain, ribbon-colored thread on top, curtain-colored thread on bottom.
       -I folded a half inch of ribbon over the top hem of the curtains, and sewed along the top.  I then applied fray check to raw edge of the ribbon.  I turned the curtains lengthwise and skipped over the rod pocket, and began sewing.  
      -If you have hem on the curtains you are keeping, fold ribbon over bottom hem before sewing, and sew to hem's edge.  Fray check the raw edge.
TIP: Make sure to avoid sewing the rod pocket closed on the top. 

Repeat down other side of ribbon.

Repeat sewing process on other panels. 

 Here's a completed panel

If you have excess length beyond your ribbon, remove excess fabric.

      -I did, Ikea makes really long fabric.

Hang curtains.  Pin to desired hem length. 

      -I do it this way, because even if your curtain rod is level, the floor might not be.  Not to mention, fabrics hangs differently, than when laid flat.

      -If you have a finished hem already, you're done.

      -I prefer a wide hem, but I didn't do it this time.

Iron the curtain's hem.

Sew the hem

      -I did a lazy hem; folded over, ironed, sewed, and fray checked the raw edge. 

 My lazy hem

Iron the hem again.

Hang curtains. You're done!

 

Looks better than the boring all white curtains.

Better, huh?

Bedroom Reveal

It hit me when my parents were in town, that I have never put up photos of the bedroom, which was probably the first room we finished up.  It's also the only room I painted the walls.  So to remind you of what it looked like when we bought the house.

First, the view from the door, and then the view from the bathroom.

Now, the view from the door, and then the view from the bathroom.

 
 This room is quite small for a king size bed, but we weren't going to get rid of our bed, so we made it work.  I painted the walls and ceiling (best thing I did), which is more evident in the pictures below.

Our bedroom has never looked so nice and clean.

So this crosses off another item off our countdown list.  Office curtains are about 75% done.  Need to trim, iron, hem, and install them.  A how-to and pictures will be up next week.

Chipping away at the list

So this weekend we chipped (Masters pun intended) away at the 8 Week Countdown list.  Some of our work involved actually finishing up projects, but some of it involved prep. 


We were able to patch/spray the office wall.  When we removed the broken Brinks panel from the wall, we found the old paint color, and no wall texture, both of which we were expecting.  We had some spray wall texture and paint from other projects, so this was an easy, free fix.  


I washed and ironed 4 curtain panels, so I could get started with putting up curtains in Nick's office/lounge.  


We have finalized a plan for the walk-in closet as well.  It will probably change a little from the plan during the construction, this summer. 

So here's the progress on the list

 8 Week Countdown
Curtains-office, guest room, living room

Paint post on front porch

Finalize plans for walk-in closet

Plant grass

Put down rubber tiles by dumpster
Shop for sideboard
Patch/spray office wall
Clean cubes in living room
Photograph bedroom

Move hose corral

Install light over dining table 

I've been told I'm slacking on photos, so here are some:

Any projects planned or completed recently?

8 Week Countdown

There is just under 8 weeks until my birthday, so I decided to get going on a 8 week countdown list of items that need to get worked on.  Once we get most of these projects done, it'll be time to work on the walk-in closet project, which was one of the New Year's Resolutions projects. 


8 Week Countdown
Curtains-office, guest room, living room

Paint post on front porch

Finalize plans for walk-in closet

Plant grass

Put down rubber tiles by dumpster
Shop for sideboard
Patch/spray office wall
Clean cubes in living room
Photograph bedroom

Move hose corral

Install light over dining table

As you can see, we've already completed some of the projects.  They were easy, but needed to be done.  

Any projects you're working on?