Tag: living room

That Target Lamp

Last Wednesday, I went ahead and spent some of my birthday on that Scandinavian-inspired floor lamp from Target that popped up in lots of blogs this summer (here, and here, for example). Overjoyed at my luck that they had one left, and stoked that it was now on clearance– $20 off! I nabbed it up and rushed home to assemble it.

The box was slightly torn at the opening, which should have been my first clue. The lightbulb that was supposedly included was missing, clue number two. Nonetheless I unwrapped, assembled, located a lightbulb (much too bright of one– gotta go shopping and get a gentler one), and set it up just so in a dark corner of the living room.

Target Lamp

Looks great, right? Good location, the gray goes with the frame and the couch… And makes a nice “triangle” with our entryway light and the other one that’s across the room near the other, green couch where we watch TV. (click here for bearings within the living room).

Target Lamp

Cue the sad sitcom sound effects… The wood is curved! See how it leans!!

I should have known something was up, like perhaps someone already discovered it was curved and returned it to the store! Oh well. We have some ideas for a DIY fix. I’ll let you know how it turns out!

Advertisement

Catching Up- Living Room Photos!

Well, the self-imposed deadline I wrote about last time totally worked. By the time we had our housewarming party, the kitchen and dining room were painted, the curtains in every room but the dining room were hung, and everything was tidy!

Of course, I took photos to document it. A few things have changed since then, but I’m working on detailing that in other posts!

I always seem to have about five posts “pre-written” in my brain, but getting them down into the computer? Finding the time is difficult.

Forget what it looked like when we moved in at the end of April? Click Here. Has it been almost three months already?

The Patio

A Seating Area

Living Room

The week of the housewarming we pulled the trigger on the amazing credenza you see above from our favorite vintage shop, Vestige!

Living Room

Living Room

To those of you who follow my blog & were able to come to the housewarming, I had such a fabulous time! To my family members who joined us the following morning for Father’s Day brunch, same to you! I felt so happy to host two back to back gatherings in our new home!

Pine Shelves: Installation

Hi, I’m Staci’s husband, Doug. She has asked me to write a guest post on the blog about the details of our new pine shelves.

Just like nearly all of the projects that we have undertaken in our three domiciles since we have been together, Staci was once again the lead engineer of this endeavor. Her creativity never ceases to flow! I was happy to help, and after a bunch of careful measurements (which ended up not being so careful after all– more on that later) we began by buying the needed materials. I’m decidedly a “list” guy, so instead of intricately weaving each material into a well written example of how it was implemented like I’m some sort of writer, I’ll simply list what we bought and from whence it was got;

  • The hanging structure, and shelf supports —IKEA’s ALGOT (link to similar configuration)
  • Drywall screws –Local hardware store, such as Ace, Home Depot, Lowe’s
  • Untreated pine boards 1″ X 10″ X 12′ –Home Depot
  • Laser level –Lowe’s
  • Power Drill –Home Depot

Putting up the brackets and shelf supports was the easy part. We simply bought enough length of the top horizontal piece, which came in several sizes and slapped it on by pressing the pieces against the underside of the counter and screwing them into place. We then placed each of the vertical supports evenly throughout the 9 feet, with the laser level as our trusty companion. Once we popped in the super-easy shelf supports, we decided to call it a night. The only thing left to do was to put the carefully measured and tenderly cut shelves into place!

pine shelf how to 1

Since the spot we wanted to shelve measured exactly 9 feet (or 108″) I proceeded to buy enough pine to make 3 shelves that spanned the entire space. This was the second day of the project. I bought three 12-foot boards and had them each cut into 4.5-foot pieces. This obviously gave us extra, but it seemed to be the cheapest way to buy 27 feet. In other news, Mosey appears to be taking a yoga break after some diligent work.

pine shelf how to 2

Wait, the space was 108 inches, right? Wrong; we must have rounded up from 107 and 3/4 of an inch-ish. Oops.

pine shelf how to 3

Commence the troubleshooting! While Staci was at work, I started using a small sanding block to carve down the end of one of the shelves to see if I could make them fit. After about 20 minutes of this nonsense (and the onset of a rapidly over-exerted arm), I remembered that we owned an electric sander. The sander bailed me out, not unlike San Diego’s Philip Rivers bailed out my beloved Kansas City Chiefs a few years back during a Monday night game… by fumbling a crucial snap and resulting in a Chiefs victory!

So, after some fluid electric sanding and the aid of a make-shift saw horse out of a cheap folding lawn chair, I adapted the shelves to fit in the space! And…. voila, when Staci got home from work, she was greeted with this:  (!!!)

pine shelf how to 4

Staci here– A huge thanks to Doug for not only saving the day by finishing the shelf installation, but also for filling in by writing this post on an evening when my brain couldn’t put coherent thoughts into sentences. We have really enjoyed filling up the shelves and are both truly enamored with them… We’ve spent many hours patting ourselves on the back and gazing at the finished product. ;)