$10 Bathroom Cabinet, Say What?

So there I was, brainstorming ideas for Christian's twenty-whatever'th birthday present (who's really counting after 21; I'm not really sure how old I am either without some maths), when I remembered how his bathroom of tiny proportions supports little to no counter space for his manly accouterments. And what better solution than a rustic bathroom cabinet made with love, care, and only mild swearing from his dear wifey?

I didn't have a plan for this one; I was mostly winging it and measuring in finger to elbow lengths (hence the 1-2 swear words), but I think it ended up resembling a bathroom cabinet.  And what's that, you ask?  A herringbone pattern???  Why, yes.  I've been obsessed with herringbone lately, so I thought I'd give it a try with some 30 cent lattice strips that I cut down to little 4" chunks (sorry for the endless miter sawing, neighbors).

And of course, the coolest part is that it cost $9.68 for everything.  Just a 1x4, a 1x3, 4 lattice strips, scrap plywood, some pocket screws, that sexy door pull, a magnetic closure, and little baby hinges (that I painted black because they were that gross chromey brass color.  Does anyone even not puke when they see that finish?).

I wanted to surprise him by having it fully installed in said bathroom when he got home from work.  But you know, I quickly learned a profound and valuable life lesson:  It's impossible to install a bathroom cabinet by yourself.  And let that be a lesson to you, kids.  

ps-As you can see, with some help from pop-in-law, it did finally find its home above the toilet.

I run, therefore I hate it.

And here you thought my couple-month-long blog hiatus meant I wasn't makin' stuff.  Thought I was just distracting you and glazing over the absence with insane miniature bread creations, didn't you?  Don't you feel silly as I present to you: Stuffs I Done Made Over the Last Couple of Months (In Addition to Etsy Orders, Of Course).

So I drew sis-in-law-Liz for Chrimmat and since she's a big fan of running, I pulled out my bff (the Silhouette) and made her a tile sign (recognize that tile??), the sentiment with which I personally cannot identify.  Mad respect for folks who run and actually enjoy it.  I run a lot, so I'd love to feel that way.  But nope.  Wanna die every second that shiz is happening.

And since I was on a vinyl-on-tile kick, I made another wee tile sign with my very favorite quote of all time (made famous by MaryAnne Loveless and the old hymn book).  The sentiment is: quit worrying about everything, dummy.

And then I also made Liz this sign out of, yes, antiqued, aka old, wood planks.

Oh and THEN, as I was brainstorming xmas present ideas for my cute little niece, I came across this doll bed plan (from Ana-white.com).  And remember how I obsessively made miniature baked goods that one time and then shared it on the internets?  And remember how once I start a project, I get mildly obsessive about it?  Well the doll bed preceded those notorious baked goods, so this was probably the catalyst for that particular insanity (and more insanity to come, in all likelihood).  We don't have to talk about just how many hours were poured into this, but suffice it to say, it's embarrassing.  But if you're squeeing every hour or so at your baby lace throw pillows and other various miniature goodness, I think it's ok, right?  I'm pretty sure that's the rule.

The checker at Home Depot asked what I was using the wood for and I said, "A miniature bed." And SHE gave ME a weird look.  Can't a grown woman make a doll bed without being interrogated?

                                      

And then I realized you can't have a farm-style doll bed without a mattress and pillows and quilt.  What kind of comfort that does offer to inanimate play things?  And here's where I got in deep.  I pulled out the ol' sewing machine that -I'd never used before- I was mildly inexperienced with, studied the manual on how to use a sewing machine, looked up some tutorials, and after ...an embarrassingly long time... I give you a crappy phone picture of [in my opinion and if I do say so myself] a totes adorbs doll bed!

And then I was like, "Oh, yeah, I'm completely sewing illiterate, but I'm'a tuft this sucker."  And thus, it was en-tufted.

I think the sewing is passable (just not up close).  Turns out sewing isn't the spawn-of-Satan activity I always thought it was (thanks, home ec).

And then the real exciting news happened: I got a dehydrator, so I've been sucking moisture from anything that will hold still long enough.  I'm like an Aquaman villain up in here.

So these sweet potato chips were amazing and allow you to feel all kinds of pretentious that you're eating such a healthy chip.

And then fruit leather, what????

You can come have some.  It's kind of amazeballs.

Baby Baguettes, whaaaa???

I have something to tell you.  And trust me, I'm as bewildered as you are.  This statement should probably have a confessional tone to it...  Deep breath:  I made non-edible, miniature baked goods for absolutely no reason whatsoever.  [opens eyes into orbs, awaiting your judgmental eyebrow raise]

And before you go thinking I'm one of those desperate stay-at-home moms who has the time to iron sheets, grow and mix my own organic baby food, and hang pictures on my walls, stop right there.  I was really busy.  In fact, I was going to be late for a meeting to talk to a guy about turning my l'il Etsy biz into a limited liability corporation, had sssick husby who may or may not have puked out his entire soul, and was lining up someone who wasn't dying to watch Jack, and I was like, "Nah, I have time to give my fake bread a coating of clear nail polish..."

It started out innocent enough.  I made Jack some salt dough to play with, which he immediately threw on the floor.  And staring at its plump little mass on the floor, my head cocked slightly to the side, and I'm sure I had the crazy eyes as I picked it up and began to mold it into.... miniature bread? And before I knew it, there I was, hunched over my baby baguette, giving it some dimension with a burnt sienna chalk pastel.

And that in itself probably wouldn't be that weird were it not for the fact that I don't think I've been more pleased with a creation since... Jack, maybe?  I mean, look at it, will you??  Just look at it!  (Side note: I realize now I should have included something for scale in the picture.  That adorable baby cinnamon roll is about the size of a quarter, squee!!)

The real problem here is that now I've got a taste for it.  [Not a literal taste. There's nail polish on there, remember?]  And who's to stop me from making mountains of miniature food until the wee hours of the morning???  No one.  I'm a grown-A adult and if I want to spend my time making baby baguettes, I get to.  Sucks to be you, kids.

Ch-ch-ch-Transitions - Turn and Face the Strain

Don't care what I do in my free time?  I'm going to tell you anyway:  watch countless videos on how to lay tile, of course!  Don't you, Weirdo?  In fact, I watched so many, I started considering myself a theoretical expert on the topic.  And that's dumb.  Don't do that.  It will make you seriously underestimate the time and effort involved in something.

So when we finished our hardwood floors, we didn't have quite enough planks to do the little hallway to the garage.  And optimists that we are (don't laugh), we said, "Well, tile would be better in the hallway anyway, since we (I) are always traipsing saw dust and other undesirable particles through the garage door."  So we wooded up to the hallway and until now, it's been a MacGyvered conglomerate of plywood covered by a carpet rug and linoleum...also covered by a carpet rug.  Carpet rug ftw.

-Insert non existent picture here.  Trust me, it was ghetto.-

But then after a GOOD deal of decision making (sorry, everyone who suffered at Lowe's), jerry rigging a contraption that would allow the borrowed tile saw (thanks, Lin) to cut tiles larger than was intended (thanks for staying positive and being smart, Joe), and what turns out to the be the, no kidding, ABSOLUTE BEST #1 activity in the world (i.e., grouting), I give you the tiled hallway!

And while it may not look incredibly spectacular, rest assured the effort involved was.  For instance, take this little hog here:

It turns out what I thought was dry wall was, in fact, metal when going to reattach this vent.  I don't want to talk about it.

And then, once the tile was finally laid, there were still transitions to do.  Picked this hardwood beauty up, got a stain to match as closely as possible, and it turns out it didn't fit into the gap I'd left as well as I thought it would.  More jerry rigging ensued, maybe a few wood chips in the eyeballs, more help from Patient Joe, a bent nail poker, scrumptious wood putty for the holes, and BAM.  Donezo.

And I think it looks pretty stinking good.  Ain't nobody tripping on that.

Lastly was the transition to the carpet in the closet.  This was terrifying.  I feel like handling tack strip  is almost certainly going to be the way I leave this world.  Or at least how I poke an eyeball out.  In the end, after some nerve-wracking decisions and the absence of a crucial carpet kicker, the deed was done.  And don't be fooled by that carpet rug on top of the actual carpet, that transition be seeeeeeeamless.  MmmmmmOK, when I was hammering down the tack strip beneath the carpet, I chipped the tile.  But once I filled it with sanded caulk, c'mon you hardly notice it.  Right?  Right??  It makes me want to take a dirt nap every time I see it :(

Anywho, in the end, I'm pretty pleased.  The grout helped cover up my not-so-straight tile lines (I noticed that Chris wrote on the label so it now says, "I am Groot.") and popping those baseboards back on covered my not-so-great edges, so you know...it's done.  And now only three bathrooms to go and we'll be a linoleum-free family.  I wonder if there's a coin or something for the one year mark...

Sssssslant Board

It turns out that flooring projects are inherently underestimated.  So while I'm finishing up such a project that I'll lament about later, here's another one that only took a handful of minutes:  homemade slant board--BAM!

A little background.  Christian's feet are jacked up.  Like this kind of jacked up:

More specifically, extreme plantar fasciitis that has required years of semi-cripplehood, shots to the heels (shudder), a podiatrist named Petersen (Uuum, he pronounces it PED-erson.  Someone should tell him that's a bit much.), and finally a physical therapist who necessitated the purchase of a slant board.  

BUT, it turns out that two planks of wood that fit together at a 30 degree angle are suuuuuper expensive--some over $100 bones, those wily thieves.  So we were like, forget that noise; we have a cornucopia of delicious saws and scrap wood that shall meet our footly needs.

SO, I pulled out the ol' Circular Saw of All Things Good and got to work.

I of course already had some wood, so I put the pattern I had sketched on some sssupple maple plywood, clamped her down (ps-Don't be a dummy (DAVE); always clamp down your workpiece when you're working with the number one culprit for finger amputations. Yeeeez.), and sliced it up.

After adjusting a bit for my thicker wood, I double checked this hog was at a 30 degree angle -the magic foot angle- and like I said:  BAM.  Slant board for like $2 and 15 minutes.  Eat that, manufacturers of slant boards!

Chair-a-palooooza

The end of porch desolation is upon us!  Christian built a twinner Adirondack chair, I built us a lemonade table (only supports glasses of lemonade--I build specific, baby), throw in some rather loud day lilies in the foreground, and bada-BING:  summer porch chair-splosion of maybe-semi-epic proportions!  No more will tumbleweeds roll sadly over our decrepit porch.  No more will our butts search aimlessly for a place to rest.  Just try not to be distracted by the insecure lilies or Jack's fingerprints on our very filthy shutters.

So a little process here...  I didn't have a plan for the table, so I sat in the finished chair and mimed putting a glass of lemonade on a not-yet-existent table, got an eyeball height measurement, and went to town.  And by town, I mean Home Depot, which is in town.  Anywho, would you believe it ended up looking something resembling a table??
We get a little clampy-clampy here...

 And then BAM!  Table.  Also stool when not sporting beverage.

Aaand then, Auntie Debbie wanted some chairs for her front yard, so then this happened:

 And though our chair friends were only with us for a brief time, I thought I should capture this chair camaraderie before they were sent to their new family.  Good times.  A spot for many bottoms.

P-p-p-peg board and dreams come true

You probably thought I'd fallen off the bloggin' wagon, huh? (blaggin' wagon? Minnesota accent? Stop it? Ok.)  Well you'd be wrong, Grace.  I blessedly had a big ol' increase in Etsy activity, so I've been cutting away oodles of signs for folks.  And you know what I realized?  Sawdust and wood debris gets every. where.  And at first it didn't really bother me, because things were accessible and I was in a busy tizzy, but finally Chris was like:

And I was all:

But the man made a good point.  And as soon as creepy-crawlies get involved, that tips the scales hard core (I guess ants like sawdust...LOTS of ants like sawdust...like more than I've ever seen in one place ever.. And you know, when you wake up from a nightmare thinking millions of ants are all over you, it's time to clean the garage).

So the cleaning began and since I have so many cool garage goodies now, there just wasn't enough space for them on the shelves.  And the answer???  Why, peg board, of course!

And good heck, I wish I'd known how cheap and easy it was earlier.  All together, this cost us less than $25 bones and took maybe half an hour to put up there.

You find them studs and screw in some 1x2s (cut to fit with the tremendously delicious and helpful DeWalter White the miter saw - pictured below. Isn't he adorable??).

 You have Christian hold up an entire 4'x8' sheet of pegboard by himself while I screw it in (and try dropping some screws to add to the excitement!  Men love to hold heavy objects while you fumble with a drill. Trust me.)

 And then voila!  I feel like I have my own little store out there now, like I've always dreamed of (I begged my dad to construct me a little store front from age 7-10. It was to be called Sam's and it would have made the Fortune 500 by now, I know it.).  I kind of want to stock it with candy, too..  I think all well-rounded shops have candy..  Just grab my nail gun and some Haribo frogs and have a great day, you know?