Category: At Home

Memorial Day Table

Last Memorial Day was eventful, we helped Doug’s parents buy a new flat screen TV–their living room is in the basement and we had to haul the broken old 5,000,000 pound old one up the stairs… it took four of us, but we did it!

This Memorial Day we’re enjoying the fact that we’re both 100% obligation free for the first time in months. No work, no church, no nothin’. We’re going to tackle a project but take it leisurely–we have all day after all!

We picked up this beauty at Goodwill yesterday and it’s going to be our “training wheels” project for wood restoration. I decided I didn’t want to tackle our reupholstered chairs for my first project because I like them too much and don’t want to mess up. So we got all the stuff we need and today’s the day. I’ll show you how it turns out, for better or for worse!

Here’s the top:

I’m hoping for some dramatic improvements. If not, we could always paint the recessed part a bold color and seal it. (Actually, it would be cool to paint that section and then “dip” the legs in a matching or contrasting color).

Now after a good bout with Murphy’s Oil Soap:

We’re going places already. We have this kind of Murphy’s… we diluted it as per instructions and filled up an old spray bottle–so handy!

Now off to sand, oil, and wax! We’ll see how we do!

25 Reasons to Clean House

image from PuyoDead on Flickr
  1. Cleaning releases endorphins.
  2. Cable went out.
  3. Mother in law’s coming to visit.
  4. Mother’s coming to visit.
  5. Baby-proofing (or puppy-proofing for that matter).
  6. Throwing a party.
  7. Just threw a party.
  8. Trying to sell your house.
  9. Moving.
  10. (In college) a big paper’s due soon.
  11. “Getting anger out” cleaning.
  12. Spring cleaning.
  13. New Year’s Resolution cleaning.
  14. Gotta try out a new cleaning product.
  15. Time to shoot “after” pics for your blog (hehe).
  16. House-guests coming to visit.
  17. Trying to convince your husband to let you buy new decor items.
  18. Realized your house has had the same “look” for 5 years.
  19. Look around and realize you can’t remember last time you vacuumed.
  20. Trying to impress boyfriend/girlfriend (gotta keep the “perfect” facade up as long as possible!).
  21. (In college) dorm inspections.
  22. OCD.
  23. Cleaning reduces allergies.
  24. Starring on an episode of an HGTV show.
  25. Family staged an intervention.
As for me, I’m heading off to start on #5 (we’re babysitting our nephew and niece this evening).
Got any more reasons? I’d love to be able to hit 50!!

Unpermanent

So, for the longest time, I’ve been having issues with what to put above the headboard in the bedroom. That is, what’s cheap to put above the headboard in the bedroom.

First, we had a map of New York City in a frame we got for our wedding, but the proportion was killing me. The wide bed+bedside tables and wide wall really deserves something with a more horizontal nature to it. Image below: awful, right?

So, I had the courageous idea to do a New York skyline mural on the wall. In my first inspiration board, which this room is loosely based on, I’d envisioned a headboard cut out to look like a skyline. I still think it would be totally awesome.

For my skyline, I looked up some stylized NY skyline prints and adapted one onto my wall in pencil, then taped it off with blue tape with the plan to paint it. It was around this time that I started sending out lots of job applications to outside states, and we got our new landlords and Mosey, so I put off painting… and put it off, and put it off.

(Photo taken Sunday: bed not even pretending to be made) I think it would have looked really cool, I was just too hesitant to do something too permanent to a rental that, when I did it, we could have moved out on short notice. Now, a few months later, I know I could’ve done it because we obviously haven’t gone anywhere. Guess I’m starting to dig in my heels for a little while longer.

Sick of the blue tape, I took it all down (carefully, because I think the wall is in fact painted-over wallpaper, which likes to peel off) and put up some of the extra antique postcards I got in preparation for our wedding guestbook (we had guests write us a note on the back and we keep them in a box). I tried out a couple of different patterns flat on the bed before they went up on the wall.

It’s not perfect, but the arrangement meets our color scheme (sort of–I mean there is a fair amount of green, and the blue goes with the blue baseboards and curtains–features of the room chosen by previous tenants that we’ve just left as-is). It’s wider than it is tall, although I could add one more “layer” around the edge to give it a grander scale–I just don’t have postcards that look like the rest (I tried to stick with illustrations rather than photos for a more antique feel). I used sticky tack, for the first time since my freshman year of college, since I didn’t want to do anything permanent to the cards and would feel guilty putting that many holes in the wall.

Here’s another shot, closer up and from a fancy-schmancy angle:

My favorite is the first one directly to the left of the two vertical Chicago cards. It’s a view of Shelter Island and San Diego bay as seen from Point Loma! So cool that I found that old card in Kansas :)

What do you think?