It’s Curtains for the Door Project!

The project to install doors is complete; I couldn’t be more pleased with the final look and functionality of them. Yesterday I posted this photo as a tease for how the before looked:


The opening on the nook that we call our bedroom is approximately 62” wide by 77” high and as you can see in the lower right corner there is a piece of furniture rather close to the opening so the traffic path is just wide enough for passing ability. This means we could not have a standard swing style hinged door so Matt and I began brainstorming a better solution.

Our final decision was to use bi-fold doors. There were a few reasons for this:

1. They are a cost effective solution (since this isn’t our permanent residence that is key).
2. Installation is relatively easy.
3. They will block light & noise as well as provide a greater sense of security.
4. They can come with us when we go if the landlord doesn’t want to keep them.
5. Minimal damage done to the homeowner’s doorway is easily fixable later.

We headed up to tax free New Hampshire for a day of shopping last weekend and picked up all the supplies we needed. Because the brown and copper leafed desk was going to be residing in this space, and also that I was intending to exchange the cranberry velvet curtains with a pair of green striped panels from another room, we decided on sage green paint and oil rubbed copper pulls.

Including the trim on the inside to finish the look and block the light from coming into the sides, the entire project cost us about five days to completely finish and in the ball park of $225 for materials. Here are the finished doors installed and functional! Only bit left is to paint the interior trim which I will finish up this week.

The look is much more streamlined than the curtains were and when left open, they don’t impact the traffic path at all.

These pretty pulls bring the look together well.

So what did I do with those cranberry colored velvet curtains?

Well they were the perfect compliment to our movie themed living room!

They instantly warm up the space, both visually and physically, by providing another much needed punch of color in a room which we are not allowed to paint.

The posters and movie themed pictures include: The Goonies, Memphis Belle, School Ties, Honeymoon In Vegas, Aladdin, Cinderella and Spice World (oh you better believe it!) plus around the space are tons of movie related items such as a Lord of the Rings statue, scene markers, movies and a copy of The Hobbit plus much more.

Repurposing, Recycling, Refinishing, and More Projects

Good morning friends! I do greatly apologize for my time away but there have been quite a few projects going on over here and now that everything is done I’m really excited to share the final photos and stories with all of you!

I have never been a person to just toss a piece of furniture, in fact, most of the time I tend to keep pieces long past their intended life cycle. I recently refinished a desk where this was most definitely the case but it came out so well that it probably just gained another five years at least!

When I was a very young kid, about seven or eight, my dad made me a desk. It was a simple piece made of pine, with an interestingly shaped top that fit right into a corner, one large drawer in the center and three legs which screwed into the bottom. I have been carrying it around with me for all of these years because of its versatility.

About five years ago I painted it and a side chair (which I had acquired from my grandparents years before and was likely already twenty some odd years old) in fire engine red and spray painted the white ceramic pull with brushed silver then used it in my funky colored craft room. The color was good but the paint wasn’t and over the past couple years it had started to peel or chip off, including the pull. In addition to that I had a small table in there that I got for free out of the trash somewhere that was originally fake wood sticker over particle board. Here are all three pieces in my old sewing room (table in lower left corner just a glimpse of it):

With my experience painting, plus the desire to freshen up these pieces I decided to pick through some paint we had lying around and a project was born! I decided to utilize the chocolate brown left over from the free entertainment center project from last year so everything would come together much more cohesively.

I scuffed them all, wiped them down and brushed on two coats (no primer needed as there was already paint on all the pieces).

Then before applying the antique flat, water based, top coat varnish I got inspired to do a little leafing with some left over copper leaf I had from a previous client. I used a simple but decorative stencil to apply the leafing adhesive to three of the corners, around the pull and on the pull itself.

For the side table I purchased a piece of $0.98 hardware and Matt drilled the hole to install it. For the chair I utilized a piece of fabric that I already had to reupholster the seat (which goes perfectly with the palm tree area rug we have in our living room, score!). Here’s the final look of the other two finished pieces:

But these were not the really big project that we both took on over the past week. The biggie was finally putting a door up on the entrance to our bedroom. I’ll give you a little teaser with a before photo but come on back tomorrow for the full story!

Bamboo Might Just Be the Coolest Substance Ever

Readers of this blog know that I love all things bamboo from tee shirts to flooring but there are so many more amazing things created from this rapidly renewing resource it is almost mind boggling! I started to research just what we could begin using in our day to day lives and the answer is if you use it, there is likely a manufacturer who will construct it out of bamboo.

Since my internet access is still moderately limited until later this week when our network is up and running full steam, I am going to simply link-list a whole bunch of cool stuff here. I hope everyone has a chance to check out these fun, funky, and functional products created from this strong and hearty grass.

Bicycle

Utensils

Bedding (side note -- bamboo is inherently antibacterial & soft, perfect for bedding!)

Furniture

Dishes

Drums

Makeup Applicator Brushes

Garden Gloves (for men!)

SNAFU Is Not Always a Bad Thing

Many of you have been keeping up on the progress of our entertainment center which began back in November of last year with the idea that we could create just about anything out of free materials, one just had to know how to find them. For anyone who has not been following along I encourage you to check out Matt’s updates: Part I is here, Part II here.

This weekend would mark the installation of the entire unit, now that the paint was fully cured and feet were attached, including Matt attaching the doors with hidden hinges and drilling through the doors to secure the hardware. What ended up happening was installation of the unit itself, a whole bunch of swearing and an entirely new plan for an even better base to the unit. Let me explain.

I finished painting the piece and its associated parts this past week. The deep chocolate brown color we chose is modern yet sleek enough to last even after the trend of this color goes out of fashion and due to the sheer size of the furniture it would make a really bold statement (read: the focal piece in our home). We purchased a drill bit (total cost for the entire piece is at the end of this post) so Matt could attach hardware and he got to work placing the doors at about four yesterday afternoon.

It was too quiet in the office for the couple hours I spent reading my library book so I knew something was dreadfully wrong.

Upon a check in I found Matt on the office floor with a screwdriver in his hand, a scowl on his face and sweat on his brow. Not to mention it was six and only two of the four doors were even attached. Clearly, the doors were not working out. My heart sank as I envisioned us living another week with all this stuff scattered about the house and I wondered what the number was to the local mental hospital.

Matt is one of those people who is so dedicated to complete something correctly he will not allow himself to redirect even after it becomes clear he must. Both a blessing and a curse I assure you. So, since I am a person who likes things to keep moving no matter how many detours I have to take to get there, I suggested we just install it anyway. You know, just to get an idea what it looks like in its home. He begrudgingly obliged and we made the swap from mish-mosh, college style, eclectic hand me downs to the center. The doors were showing all kinds of gapping, did not completely close and also the two bottom center ones kinda, sorta, got in each other’s way when opening. I blame the engineering, not the Engineer, but this would mean our pull out shelves were no longer viable and realistically the entire base unit was just for show.

I must give Matt credit -- no tears were shed or tools thrown although there were many moments of self depreciation which I figuratively smacked him for by reminding him this was built from scrap material and the single largest & most complicated piece of furniture he had ever constructed, there were bound to be a few snags.

We finally agreed to just hook up all the components (another fun challenge as always!) and take the doors off completely for now until we devised a solution that would make them work. Here is Matt during the initial install (he is 5’-9” so it should give a good idea how tall this baby is!)


From this angle the doors look great but in person, well off they came! We began filling it with everything intended for the unit from video tapes to cd’s to dvd’s to components and more and finally crashed at about eleven last night to recuperate from the efforts. As we both sat there looking at our full, streamlined, gorgeous piece of hand crafted furniture I had an epiphany.

Two large doors for the base that open out would alleviate all of the hinge/slide shelf issues. Yes they would be large but they would also give the base a grounding substance.

The more we both looked at it the more we actually liked the top without doors because just by residing in one piece everything instantly looked less cluttered. So it was settled that we would be returning the hardware we had purchased (pulls and hinges for six doors now only needs to be for two) and using that money to acquire the lumber required to create the two new doors that will finally and functionally complete this piece.

Neither of us are unhappy with the development because sometimes you just never know until you try and there are a lot of lessons we both learned this time around that will stick with us for future projects.

So far total dollars spent is about $75 because we made use of so much scrap material, gift certificates, store credits and exchanges that we have managed to pay only for the hinges (approximately $58), the paint (approximately $15) and the drill bit (the final $3). We hope that the exchange for lumber is a wash and I have plenty of paint left over to complete the doors, no problem. In the meantime, it might still have a slightly cluttery look but neither of us are complaining about the total transformation of our space.

Before:

After:

That's what I'm talking about!