Though, if I'm going to sew, I should really finish my flat panels for the kitchen, which are already cut and ready to just run some seams through. Flat panels ain't exactly difficult.
But it's so hard to ignore shiny new fabric!!
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Home Office Desk Build: Finished! (For Now)
{ My side }
{ His Side }
{ Shared Space }
{ More Shared Space }
I wanted to take the time to make all of our tech look nice and presentable for these pictures, but I would just rather show the finished desk and then spend my time loading all of my things onto it today...
The cats like it, too. Plenty of places to sit, watch, snuggle, avoid Great Danes, and to sabotage our productivity.
{ Really, cat? }
{ Yes, I'm blogging about you. }
We will likely wait a couple of months to stain/paint the desk. Right now, it's functional, which is what we needed more than anything. We have a lot going on in our life right now, so taking an entire weekend to sand, fill, prime, stain/paint, and possibly poly a desk of this size is just not feasible.
And as his reward for a job well done, he now gets to spend all day doing homework at his awesome new desk! Good job, honey!
Monday, February 24, 2014
Home Office Desk Build - The Top is On!
I'm such an over-achiever, I even married one... No sooner did I post the completion of the open shelf bases, he had the desk top done!
Here's a look at the center of the desk top. We chose to make the desk longer than 8', which is the full length of the board, so these 2 pieces had to be cut and then spliced together in the center for support.
Here's the under-side of the desk top. There is some magical pattern to the way it's all screwed together, and he would gladly tell you if HE did the blogging, but he doesn't, and I don't get it, so you are just going to have to use your imagination.
"103 inches exactly!" - The Husband.
And there she is, nearly finished, with a top on her now. We just need the center shelf to support the center and to divide up our His & Hers workspaces. See that trash can? I just picked that up for $3 at Meijer today. He's all, "I built the perfect wooden desk top with perfect dimensions," and I'm all like, "I got this trash can that someone else made for $3 on clearance!" (Hey, everyone has his/her own unique talents!)
I plan to work at the new desk tomorrow ... on the very left side ... nowhere near the center ... My chair fits perfectly underneath!
Not to be excluded from the fun, our big Dane baby congratulated her daddy on a job well done and got her some belly rubs, too. (I think she's trying to convince him to make the extra boards into a nice big dog bed just for her...)
Here's a look at the center of the desk top. We chose to make the desk longer than 8', which is the full length of the board, so these 2 pieces had to be cut and then spliced together in the center for support.
Here's the under-side of the desk top. There is some magical pattern to the way it's all screwed together, and he would gladly tell you if HE did the blogging, but he doesn't, and I don't get it, so you are just going to have to use your imagination.
"103 inches exactly!" - The Husband.
And there she is, nearly finished, with a top on her now. We just need the center shelf to support the center and to divide up our His & Hers workspaces. See that trash can? I just picked that up for $3 at Meijer today. He's all, "I built the perfect wooden desk top with perfect dimensions," and I'm all like, "I got this trash can that someone else made for $3 on clearance!" (Hey, everyone has his/her own unique talents!)
I plan to work at the new desk tomorrow ... on the very left side ... nowhere near the center ... My chair fits perfectly underneath!
Not to be excluded from the fun, our big Dane baby congratulated her daddy on a job well done and got her some belly rubs, too. (I think she's trying to convince him to make the extra boards into a nice big dog bed just for her...)
Home Office Desk Build
Not only did I finish painting the chair rail this weekend, but the husband got started on our Double Desk.
Until I finished the painting, everything was piled into the center of the room.
Yes, I actually worked for a week in that cramped up situation.
Following this plan from Ana White's web site, we picked up all of the wood for our new modular double desk and got to work! This is birch, and roughly $50 per board. Pricey, but we didn't need much.
I told him to let someone at Lowe's rip the boards for him, and he reallllllly shoulda listened... just sayin...
We don't have a big table/workbench for him to cut on, so of course we used 2x4s to prop the wood on the garage floor and went to work ripping the boards and cutting the back, sides, top, bottom, and shelves for each of the open shelf bases.
We'll have some great scrap from this project, and I have my eyes on it for some shelving to finish the laundry section of my pantry.
A lot of boards later, I actually left the build to take care of the kids and our dogs, one of whom is a young, untrained foster puppy that weighs over 100 pounds ... so I didn't get a lot of great pictures of the actual build!
There's one of them! I had him make the bottom shelf about 15" tall so that I can fit a canvas tote in there that I've been stalking at Meijer...
And here's the second one, complete with un-level shelf that he needs to fix when we go to stain/paint the entire piece in a few weeks.
Oh, and that's a little white desk that I've been using for work and that goes with our daughter's canopy bed. Oh, and 4 monitors that I acquired from my office shut-down this week. Once you use multiple displays, you'll never want to go back, I'm telling you... my geekness is showing.
So that's it. That's all I've got for now. The desk top is being built as I type, and then we'll be able to set up the computers, printer, and mount the TV on the wall with a swivel mount for use as both an additional computer monitor and an actual television. The corner where the printer and a desktop computer currently sit will be the sewing machine corner, and the opposite corner will be where a big, luscious chair will sit once I find the absolute perfect one!
Husband wants to stain the desk, but I really want to paint it black. It will match the color palette of the room if it's black, but not the sewing machine tables. I guess he has a point, but I'm not going to make a decision for a few weeks. Must consult Pinterest and outside counsel on this one, I think...
Following this plan from Ana White's web site, we picked up all of the wood for our new modular double desk and got to work! This is birch, and roughly $50 per board. Pricey, but we didn't need much.
I told him to let someone at Lowe's rip the boards for him, and he reallllllly shoulda listened... just sayin...
We don't have a big table/workbench for him to cut on, so of course we used 2x4s to prop the wood on the garage floor and went to work ripping the boards and cutting the back, sides, top, bottom, and shelves for each of the open shelf bases.
We'll have some great scrap from this project, and I have my eyes on it for some shelving to finish the laundry section of my pantry.
A lot of boards later, I actually left the build to take care of the kids and our dogs, one of whom is a young, untrained foster puppy that weighs over 100 pounds ... so I didn't get a lot of great pictures of the actual build!
There's one of them! I had him make the bottom shelf about 15" tall so that I can fit a canvas tote in there that I've been stalking at Meijer...
And here's the second one, complete with un-level shelf that he needs to fix when we go to stain/paint the entire piece in a few weeks.
Oh, and that's a little white desk that I've been using for work and that goes with our daughter's canopy bed. Oh, and 4 monitors that I acquired from my office shut-down this week. Once you use multiple displays, you'll never want to go back, I'm telling you... my geekness is showing.
So that's it. That's all I've got for now. The desk top is being built as I type, and then we'll be able to set up the computers, printer, and mount the TV on the wall with a swivel mount for use as both an additional computer monitor and an actual television. The corner where the printer and a desktop computer currently sit will be the sewing machine corner, and the opposite corner will be where a big, luscious chair will sit once I find the absolute perfect one!
Husband wants to stain the desk, but I really want to paint it black. It will match the color palette of the room if it's black, but not the sewing machine tables. I guess he has a point, but I'm not going to make a decision for a few weeks. Must consult Pinterest and outside counsel on this one, I think...
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Good Find at Goodwill
This table, which looks like it may have been used at a school somewhere, is our latest Goodwill Steal, costing us $17 (after scanning my Goodwill Rewards card)! It's kid-sized and a great substitute for the one we had in there previously, which is a pedestal model and tips over easily. Kids + things that tip over easily = no bueno!
One of these days I WILL make them a large play table with built-in pencil holders and Lego nets and a green Lego top on part of it... But until time and money allow that, Gosh I love Goodwill!
Sewing Room-- I mean, Home Office
A lot has changed since I originally started my Sewing Room project.
I picked out this yellow for the top half and kept the same gray as was used in the sewing closet.
I decided that putting my office in the basement was a horrible decision. I thought it would be quiet and cozy, but it's actually cold, dark, and renders me completely unable to parent or otherwise be connected to the family if needed. The basement is also where the teenagers and cats are most of the time, so...
So now the Sewing Room is actually going to be a Home Office. One corner will be for sewing machines, another corner for a computer desk, and another corner will have a cozy chair and side table for lazy mornings/evenings of doing introverted things like reading, knitting, or watching DVR'd episodes Ellen and Sunday Morning.
Yep! I'm putting a 20-some" flatscreen in here as a computer monitor and television! I bought a much bigger pre-owned one from my company because we're shutting down our office and becoming remote employees (largely because we already work from home most of the time anyway!), so we put that one in the basement for gaming, and I reclaimed the smaller one for this Home Office.
We have added a chair rail to this room (obvi), and pictures of it will be in later posts about the upcoming Desk Build. That's right, we're building a double desk!
I am going to be a good wife and share "my" space with the husband (and maybe the kids... Maybe). Because he's in school, he also needs a quiet place to do homework, and he does bring administrative tasks home from work too sometimes, so it will be a His & Hers Home Office!
The inspiration for the new desk was found here on the amazing Ana White's blog. We've reviewed the patterns and have made some adjustments to the length of the finished desk (my husband's a big guy!), and we're buying the materials TODAY! Yippee!
More to come on this project and on the Master Closet, which we neglected for a little while but really need to finish. It's been about 75% complete since before the holidays!
I picked out this yellow for the top half and kept the same gray as was used in the sewing closet.
Or should I say, the HOME OFFICE closet.
So now the Sewing Room is actually going to be a Home Office. One corner will be for sewing machines, another corner for a computer desk, and another corner will have a cozy chair and side table for lazy mornings/evenings of doing introverted things like reading, knitting, or watching DVR'd episodes Ellen and Sunday Morning.
Yep! I'm putting a 20-some" flatscreen in here as a computer monitor and television! I bought a much bigger pre-owned one from my company because we're shutting down our office and becoming remote employees (largely because we already work from home most of the time anyway!), so we put that one in the basement for gaming, and I reclaimed the smaller one for this Home Office.
(some fabric patterns I'm stalking for curtains...)
We have added a chair rail to this room (obvi), and pictures of it will be in later posts about the upcoming Desk Build. That's right, we're building a double desk!
I am going to be a good wife and share "my" space with the husband (and maybe the kids... Maybe). Because he's in school, he also needs a quiet place to do homework, and he does bring administrative tasks home from work too sometimes, so it will be a His & Hers Home Office!
The inspiration for the new desk was found here on the amazing Ana White's blog. We've reviewed the patterns and have made some adjustments to the length of the finished desk (my husband's a big guy!), and we're buying the materials TODAY! Yippee!
More to come on this project and on the Master Closet, which we neglected for a little while but really need to finish. It's been about 75% complete since before the holidays!
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Sewing Room (a.k.a. My Room Away From the World)
I don't know many women who can say that they have a true "Sewing Room." Many have to make do with what space they have. That was me, too, in our first house. I realize what a blessing it is that my home includes a spare room with big, bright windows and a spacious walk-in closet JUST for containing and enabling my hobbies. (I am also grateful that my stepson agreed to take a room in the basement so that I could have said Sewing Room all to myself!)
So when I walk into my sewing room to find THIS ... I feel like I'm kinda slapping all of those women in the face, ya know? Here I am with this blessing of space, and I'm just abusing it! How DARE I?!
You see that brown table to the right? My grandfather made that for my late grandmother. You see the old, antique sewing machine table tucked underneath it against the wall? It was my husband's great-grandmother's, and his grandfather made the wooden cover that protects the sewing machine. I am EMBARRASSED that these family heirlooms are being kept this way.
So, with most of the other important areas of the house now painted, I can focus on my sewing room for a bit. I at least want to get it painted and organized enough to do projects, like sewing curtains for my front room.
Like every other room in the house (except the basement, oddly enough), these walls have never been painted. This is technically the third bedroom upstairs, just off the stairs.
My inspiration for this room is yellow. My grandmother loved yellow (my mother's mother, not my father's mother mentioned above). There are some very nice patterns on the market right now, including these found at Jo-Ann and Meijer:
I didn't buy any of these, but I should probably check to see if there are any left before they go out of stock! I just wasn't ready to purchase when these photos were taken.
I decided to start with the closet because that would allow me to get more stuff OUT of the room and INTO the closet. The closet has 3 wire shelves (that you know I love!) and was so piled up with stuff at one point that I couldn't even walk into it!
So, having watched my husband rip out plenty of other wire shelves in the past year, I ripped out the shelf on this wall only, patched up the holes and sanded them, then began to paint the closet a nice light gray color.
It took about 3 hours total on a Monday night after work to get about 75% of the closet painted, including baseboards. I came back a few weeks later to paint one side of the closet door.
The plan is to get one side of the closet built out and organized so that I can free up space in the room and on the other side of the closet piece by piece, without having to pull things out of the room. Ideally, I can just shut the door to this room and walk away from it for days/weeks if I have to.
I forgot to sand some of the holes I patched, so I couldn't paint them. And since the paint was wet, I couldn't sand them until it dried. Oops.
Nice neutral gray.
Once it dried, I bought and built a cheap white shelf and started putting things onto it and stacking my organizers next to it. The space is about TWO inches to narrow for a second white shelf! So irritating. The husband wanted to do built-in shelving, but we agreed that it would take too long and cost more for just a sewing closet. Maybe someday we'll come back through and make it the full built-in it could be!
With one side done, I could rip out the shelves on the other side and patch up those holes.
I'm just a few steps closer to a functional sewing room that I can walk around in and actually sew in!
I think we'll add a chair rail to this room as we did in the other bedrooms, which will cost a little bit more, but not too bad. The end result is worth it. I should be able to get the painting done while I'm on vacation.
So when I walk into my sewing room to find THIS ... I feel like I'm kinda slapping all of those women in the face, ya know? Here I am with this blessing of space, and I'm just abusing it! How DARE I?!
You see that brown table to the right? My grandfather made that for my late grandmother. You see the old, antique sewing machine table tucked underneath it against the wall? It was my husband's great-grandmother's, and his grandfather made the wooden cover that protects the sewing machine. I am EMBARRASSED that these family heirlooms are being kept this way.
So, with most of the other important areas of the house now painted, I can focus on my sewing room for a bit. I at least want to get it painted and organized enough to do projects, like sewing curtains for my front room.
Like every other room in the house (except the basement, oddly enough), these walls have never been painted. This is technically the third bedroom upstairs, just off the stairs.
My inspiration for this room is yellow. My grandmother loved yellow (my mother's mother, not my father's mother mentioned above). There are some very nice patterns on the market right now, including these found at Jo-Ann and Meijer:
I didn't buy any of these, but I should probably check to see if there are any left before they go out of stock! I just wasn't ready to purchase when these photos were taken.
I decided to start with the closet because that would allow me to get more stuff OUT of the room and INTO the closet. The closet has 3 wire shelves (that you know I love!) and was so piled up with stuff at one point that I couldn't even walk into it!
So, having watched my husband rip out plenty of other wire shelves in the past year, I ripped out the shelf on this wall only, patched up the holes and sanded them, then began to paint the closet a nice light gray color.
It took about 3 hours total on a Monday night after work to get about 75% of the closet painted, including baseboards. I came back a few weeks later to paint one side of the closet door.
The plan is to get one side of the closet built out and organized so that I can free up space in the room and on the other side of the closet piece by piece, without having to pull things out of the room. Ideally, I can just shut the door to this room and walk away from it for days/weeks if I have to.
I forgot to sand some of the holes I patched, so I couldn't paint them. And since the paint was wet, I couldn't sand them until it dried. Oops.
Nice neutral gray.
Once it dried, I bought and built a cheap white shelf and started putting things onto it and stacking my organizers next to it. The space is about TWO inches to narrow for a second white shelf! So irritating. The husband wanted to do built-in shelving, but we agreed that it would take too long and cost more for just a sewing closet. Maybe someday we'll come back through and make it the full built-in it could be!
With one side done, I could rip out the shelves on the other side and patch up those holes.
I'm just a few steps closer to a functional sewing room that I can walk around in and actually sew in!
I think we'll add a chair rail to this room as we did in the other bedrooms, which will cost a little bit more, but not too bad. The end result is worth it. I should be able to get the painting done while I'm on vacation.
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