Repurposing a room to make way for baby

For the past several months I’ve been telling myself that I need to write a blog post. Part of my reason for not is that I haven’t had any decent sized house projects to blog about. There has been alot going on lately though. To start, I switched careers after being with the same company for almost 12 years. It was time for a change, and I needed a new challenge. The switch has been amazing, to say the least. I have wanted to work in education for a while, so when the opportunity presented itself I jumped on it. To add to the “everything is new” theme, we will also be adding a little baby boy in August. Commence more house projects!

We were fortunate in that when we bought our house, it was a little bigger then we needed. Now that a baby is on the way, we could convert an unused bedroom into the baby’s room. When I originally reno’d this room I didn’t completely finish it. The baseboard molding never got done, and I didn’t finish the closet. My first task was to repaint the walls, ceiling, and finish off the molding.

We decided to go with a light blue for the ceiling. The walls are white, but we’re going to add a cow print at some point soon.  On the wall you see here in the picture above, I added a light dimmer that has a remote. That will be nice for when the baby arrives, and we fall asleep with him in our arms. Also on this wall will go a tv for (already hardwired), and the baby monitor. We have a credenza that we’ll repaint that I’ll post about once it is complete. That will be our changing table and storage for diapers and other baby supplies.

In the left hand corner will go the chair, and the crib will go to the left as well. The closet door is on the right.

The windows are almost complete. I just need to finish off the apron on both and that will complete the molding for the room. We’ll add blinds and curtains of some sort as well.

The room has come along way. Here are a few pictures from the before.

I’ve Got the Whole World, on my Wall…

I get a lot of *feedback* when I want to make changes in our house, especially when it comes to walls, be it the color or what’s on them. We started off with pet pictures and God awful yellow paint…

Then we went to white paint (which was an obvious mistake) and travel pictures….

Let’s face it though, the travel pictures have been up so long they’ve started to yellow. If that’s not a clear sign that you need to update the decor I don’t know what is!

The dilemma, find something that speaks to who we are, is interesting and modern, and doesn’t cost a fortune.  So, after some time on Etsy, I found the perfect project, a map of the world. It wasn’t just any map of the world though, it was the world on pallets. Since that little piece of art would have set us back $150, I decided to get my craft on and make it my own.

So, we found a pallet on the side of the street and found a free template online. Unfortunately it took us several tries to figure out the right size template, we overestimated the size and ended up going much smaller than we had anticipated.  We decided to lay the template out on the pallet before we cut it just to make sure we were close.

Thankfully it all fit!

Once we determined the template would work, we cut down the pallet to the right length and Matt nailed it together using part of the pallet on the back to secure the other pieces to.  Note, if you use a pallet you’ll end up with holes somewhere on your map.  That was okay with us, we thought it added some extra interest, but just know you’ll have to deal with it!

So far you’ve seen the easy stuff.  I’m not going to lie, transferring the template to the wood was a pain.  Be prepared to spend several hours doing it, we did.  I’m sure there are easier way to do this,  we used a pencil and traced it onto the wood.  The lead didn’t always transfer that well and several times we ended up having to freehand it a bit.  Eventually it came out really well, but it was much more time consuming than I had anticipated (hence the $150 price tag to buy one).

This was pretty early into the tracing and I’m already a little annoyed.  Patience is not one of my virtues.  If it’s not one of yours I suggest you abandon this project immediately.

Once the stenciling was done we moved outside and started staining.  I suggest you stain outside like we did unless you a) have no sense of smell or b) really want a buzz.

The painting was pretty easy.  We bought a small paint brush and some dark stain and just painted away.  This part went pretty quickly and easily, just make sure that once you get to the lines you have little stain on your brush or it will bleed.  Other than that, not a tough job!
I’m thinking it came out pretty well…maybe you’ll see me on the next craft wars. I’ll give Tori Spelling a run for her money.

What do you think? Would you do it in your home?

I’m no Norm Abram

I’ve been told recently that when I get bored, I get grumpy. I’m not sure if that’s entirely true, but I do find myself pacing around the halls when there isn’t a large scale project happening at the house. We certainly have enough small projects that need to be completed should we ever list the house, but I don’t think that will happen in the near future. If money were no object, I’d have the third floor finished off… maybe a master bedroom with en suite and a cozy propane fireplace in the corner. We don’t think this house is too small. It has 3 bedrooms and a full bath with room for expansion. There is a point though when you should only dump so much money into a place. We don’t want to renovate when there is a chance for little in return. No matter how much work we do, the house will always be sitting on a small lot. So, there is the dilemma.

I spend a lot of time on realtor.com. Some people knit or work on cars. I look at houses. During one browsing session I came across a house for sale in our neighborhood that had a lot of character on the inside, so I asked our realtor to set us up for a showing. The house was amazing. It needs tons of work, and may need tons of money too.

The previous owner let the roof fall into disrepair and it eventually caused severe water damage on all 3 floors. It has other issues too, like one corner of the foundation that is falling in, or the old furnace that could be used as a prop for a Stephen King movie. It could have other long term issues as well, like heating all 6+ bedrooms and 3,200 square feet. It is a HUGE house, but it has tremendous potential. Hardwood floors on the first and second floor, 6 foot windows, 8 foot ceilings, 3 baths, the potential for a 3 unit apartment… or 2. When we start to compare how much it would cost to renovate, the numbers begin to add up. Windows alone could run over $5,000.

There is always a risk with purchasing an investment like a fixer upper, but the question becomes how big of a risk are you willing to take? And is now the right time? Is it ever? How do you finally make the big decision? Who needs six bedrooms when you don’t have any kids? Is there a need for an orphanage in the area? Has years and years of watching This Old House finally gotten to my head?

Straight out of “Compostin”

I’m sure that NWA had at least a passing interest in composting when they  wrote the lyrics “Mix em and cook em in a pot like gumbo“.  That’s kinda like composting right?  Are you still with me?

To say I have a one track mind is an understatement, so when I saw my first compost bin I knew I was going to have one someday, and quite frankly so did Matt.  There was one problem however,  we don’t have a lot of space to have one in the yard,  oh and I didn’t want to spend the nearly $100 bucks to have one.  Seriously,  $100 bucks for a place to put my kitchen scraps?  Yeah, not so much.  So, when I saw a post over at Young House Love on how to make a compost bin out of a tote, I was in.

We got this bad boy at Walmart for a whopping $8.  That’s more my speed.

I drilled some holes in the bottom and top of the tote to let air move around and *hopefully* make a nice home for some worms.  (Another one of my obsessions currently revolves around having a worm family in my compost bin).

Then I took a newspaper and shredded it to put in the bottom of the tote.  (Do you see a misbehaving puppy in my former lily garden?  See her little mouth open and biting.  That’s what we like to call “Velociraptor” Claire. Women and children first!)

Once that was done we put in some soil and added some of the vegetables we grew this summer that we didn’t pick in time.  Note that our vegetable garden was a pretty big fizzle.  We got some cucumbers but they were pretty bitter, and the rest of our vegetables either didn’t grow or we didn’t pick them in time to eat them.

You’ll probably want to cut up your vegetables before you put them in the compost bin, at least that’s what the internet tells us.  I’m a little bit lazy and couldn’t be bothered.  We’ll see if it makes a difference or not.

We finished by mixing everything together and putting the top on the tote.  Ultimately the bin went behind our shed, a nice shady area away from the house where we made a bed of sand to put it on.

We also bought a container to put kitchen scraps in so we don’t have to trek outside every time we have something to put in the bin.

It’ll take a while before we reap the rewards of our effort.  I’m hoping to have compost for my side garden next summer.  Fingers crossed! Have you ever made a compost bin? How did you do it?

Can’t see the chicken wire, can you Russ?

We had a few more sections of fence to finish up in order to keep Claire safe and off her leash in the back yard. Some of it had to be done with chicken wire, and the other few sections we finished up with the fencing that we used in the other project. The fencing we were using before from Lowes was out of stock, and they had a delivery date of 3 weeks from now, so we opted to use a smaller height fence of the same style from Home Depot. The first section to go up was the area next to the deck. I had originally intended to use a full height section, but given the change in elevation that wasn’t going to work. I think it was Sara’s idea to use the different size, but I’ll take credit for it

We may end up doing something for under the deck, but for now we’ll keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t escape. Don’t let her cute looks fool you. She can be a terror.

The shrubs on the side of the property were an easy getaway spot as well, and we didn’t want to use the decorative fencing for this since it would have cost alot more, and it would have been difficult to install with the shrubs being in the way. We decided to go with a 3′ chicken fence from Home Depot, in green.

It was a little more for the green color… but not by much, and it would blend nicely with the plants. The entire time I was putting this bad boy in, I had a line from Christmas Vacation running through my head….”Can’t see the line can you Russ?”.  Don’t know that movie? Watch the scene here.

So here I am with my head in the shrubs.

I used my trusty staple gun to attach it to the shrubs. It was an easy project. Can’t see the chicken wire, can you Russ?

On to the next corner of the house. These sections of fence go in quickly and do a good job of keeping puppies in, and stray cats out. For those out shopping for this stuff, these sections were $5 cheaper at Home Depot. Sometimes it pays to price shop the Lowes/Home Depot, and if you find it cheaper at Lowes… Home Depot will beat it by 10%. I don’t think Lowes will do the same thing, but it may be worth checking.

And that completes the fencing project for this summer!

Olympic Fencing

I’m not much of a sports fan, so this weekend while the Olympics are in full swing on the “teevee” I’m spending the day out back working on our own fence. When we had Charlotte, we had planned on installing a fence out back to keep her in the back yard. She was good at staying on our property, but it was more a peace of mind for us to know that she couldn’t escape if given the chance. When Charlotte passed, we kept with the fence plan. The newest member of our family, Claire, learned alot at her foster home before we adopted her but she’s still learning her name and commands. “Come here Claire!” hasn’t registered yet.

Here is Claire visiting the ocean for the first time. She’s about 17 weeks old in this picture.

She’s been a great addition to our family, even if she is a handful.

So we decided to still go ahead with the installation of the fence since she is still a puppy, and learning. We would need it now more than ever. I did some price checking to see what was the best way (and cheapest) to get a fence installed. We decided to go with the decorative metal fence from Lowes. It didn’t involve setting the posts in concrete, and was less than a third of the cost of permanent aluminum fence. It won’t be as solid as the permanent aluminum fence, but after setting a few sections up…. I think it will be fine. It will certainly keep Claire where she needs to be, and if she gets big enough to jump the fence like a crazy Olympic horse jumper, it will be easy enough to replace.

Here is the before.

The little square area next to the deck had to be leveled off to keep the fence straight, but since we haven’t had a solid rain in weeks the grass peeled right off the top soil.

The gate doesn’t have a solid locking mechanism yet, but we’ll figure something out. I also have one more section to go on the right had side that will fill in to the deck. That should keep the pup out of that area. You might also notice the plant next to the steps in the picture above. We got them both at a surplus store earlier this year and they were doing great, then all of a sudden one of them died on us. I’m not sure what we did to it, but it lost it’s leaves. Any ideas? They are the same plant and get about the same sun and water.

So that is the start of our fencing project. Do you have any DIY fencing stories? Please share!

For Charlotte

It’s amazing to look back at all our old house project pictures and see one detail in almost every set, our dog Charlotte. Our little lab/mix has been my project manager since we got her as a puppy over 9 years ago. One of my first gigs when I was a commercial producer was to put together a campaign based on volunteerism in the area. I decided to highlight the local humane society, and during a visit to get some cover footage I noticed a little black dog, one ear up-one ear down, sitting in a cage shaking like a leaf. She stole my heart and I had to have her. I called Sara and said we should consider bringing her home. We always wanted a dog at some point, but the decision was made to adopt her as soon as we could. That day when we picked her up, they had put her in an office by herself and a pile of newspaper. Within a few minutes the room was trashed and there was poop everywhere. We knew we were in for an experience. The puppy years were great, and although she got sick almost every time we put her in the car, we had a lot of great family memories. She got used to the water quick at camp. After a few hours of splashing around, chasing a ball or frisbee, or jumping off the dock when she had the courage, she would fall asleep in the back of my truck for the hour ride home.

She was the perfect little house companion and quickly grew into our family. She wasn’t shy, and made it known if she needed something or someone. She had a loud deep bark, but would roll over on her back if she saw a chance for a belly rub. She got along well with her cat brothers and sister, and would even break up the occasional fight that would develop between them. She certainly got into her fair share of trouble as well, but sometimes it’s hard to stay angry at a dog.

When we decided to adopt Charlotte, I never knew that I could grow so attached to her as I did. She was my best friend, my daughter, and knew me better than almost anyone. They say that a dog is a man’s best friend, and Charlotte was no different.

My daily routine revolved around her and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. She was such a happy dog and always looked like she was smiling, even when she had to take her medicine (ants on log we’d call it). During my lunch break we would sit out on the porch when the weather was nice, or in the winter we’d cuddle up on the couch. I’d talk to her like she was going to talk back, only she’d look at me with her big brown eyes as if to say “I love you”. And sometimes that’s all I needed.

We had to say goodbye to our Charlotte last weekend after a quick illness. It was devastating, to say the least. Our home just isn’t the same.

Shortly after she passed, Sara had to remind me that “It’s better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all”, and I guess that’s true. I don’t regret taking her under our wing, but it’s a reminder that we all must go someday, and to spend every minute with them like it’s your last. I would give me right arm to have another hour with her, but I’m thankful for the 9 great years that we had. – Matt