Headboard

  

 One more project down in my son's room that is taking F-O-R-E-V-E-R!  I guess that's what happens when you (hand-shuck) all your furniture. Hopefully it will be done soon...

I hear pumpkins and crafts calling my name.

I do have to say that this turned out pretty cool. 

I found the  headboard plans at Knock-Off Wood, or I think it's ana-white.com now? It looks like she's made some changes and her site is very quick and easy to navigate.

I took her reclaimed headboard plans and put bead board in the center and wrapped the head like I did the hutch so they would be matchy-matchy. :) I think it helps balance the largeness of the hutch.

The headboard is solid and HUGE!  In Target, I was eyeing a navy blue twin headboard, with bead board.  They wanted 99 dollars.  For about 35-40 dollars I built a huge, massive queen-sized headboard.  It really wasn't difficult.  And not to dis Target, ( because I spend a lot of my free time there ) but have you ever put together their laminate furniture?  I don't think it could be harder than building this headboard. When I was 7 months pregnant, I put together a dresser for my son.  I sat on the floor trying to figure it out for at least 5 hours...I'm serious!

Two of my boys started school this week.  This first-day of school picture was so funny to me.  All they wanted was a picture of their shoes.  It's all about the shoes. 

Have a nice and long weekend!

:)

Metal Snips and Signs

I made a couple of metal signs the other day for my son's room.  They were really easy! 

PB had a arrow that he liked.  I can handle this one...two colors, not a lot of detail!

I found a free clip art image of an arrow and put it into Microsoft Publisher. Have any of you used that? I have really taken a liking to it lately, you can do so many things with it. We blew up the arrow to the size of the metal and one of his favorite numbers.

The plan was to use Nicole's fancy Sure Cuts-A-Lot program and Cricut to print the design out on vinyl and have a sticky stencil for precise edges.

Well, we got the barfs in our house and I don't blame Nicole for not wanting us to come over! :)

Instead I cut the stencil out of paper with scissors. 

 Nicole picked up metal snips from Home Depot  last year and told me over and over again about their marvelous capacity.  She's right!  I even bought the (5 buck less) brand and I'm still happy with them.  Although, I can see how the longer snips would be helpful.

Next I used metal flashing in various sizes.  Be very careful with this stuff...IT IS SHARP!  Probably not for young kids.  I think I will mount the signs to wood so it won't cut any little (or big) fingers.

Next, we rounded of the corners.

  (You should probably be wearing heavy duty gloves while doing this .)

Then I took sand paper and rubbed over the edges....carefully.

Can you tell I'm worried about your fingers? :)

Spray paint is the only thing I had on hand that would stick to metal.  I gave the metal a base coat and after drying, used the spray paint with the stencil.

Here's the twelve my son wanted.  I really distressed this one. 

 My younger son keeps asking why I have to make everything look "old and crummy?" 

 "Why can't you just keep it new?'

So, I kept this one "shiny."

Dresser Makeover

One more thing done in the big boys room! I showed you a sneak peek of this dresser badly in need of some repair.  It's actually a changing table that you can flip over into a dresser.  The drawers rotate too.  It's made of pine and has a ton of dings, but otherwise a solid dresser.

The hardware didn't fit very well with our vision for the room.   

I really, really longed to have this furniture and Knock-Off Wood has the plans for it all!  The problem is that my son's room is teeny-tiny, and frankly...I don't think I could muster enough energy to build all that! So, I started thinking and wandered around all over Knock-Off Wood.  I wanted to keep the dresser for my son's clothes and give him some storage space.

I found the HUTCH plans, and I think they are brilliant! I haven't had the chance to build any of her plans yet, and I have to say....it was really fun, even in that hot garage.  It reminds me of all the Lego's I built with my son over the years, connect here and here and you end up with this creation! I had a ball! 

I picked up some pine boards to match the dresser and cut all the boards to size.  I altered the hutch to fit the dresser and the height of the room.  

I sanded, filled and primed/painted the board before I assembled.  I used a paint and primer in one by Behr.  I'm really not sure if it was any easier to do it that way?  The finished product still required a lot of repair and painting.  I made a lot of mistakes that had to be fixed! ;)

If you remember from my earlier post, I did this while my husband was out of town.  We finished the last coat of paint and I was anxious to see how it would all fit together.  I had my nine year old son help me lift this sucker up on the dresser to see how it looked.  I have to say we were really pleased.  The pictures don't show how large it really is. 

Here's it is in his room.  I had a hard time getting the pictures to show the accurate color. 

 It's much darker in person.

We filled it with all the things my son loves and he is happy as a clam!

I did add some dividers on the top to look more like the inspiration picture.  I noticed most of Knock-Off wood's hutch plans have these too.

It really adds a lot of height to the room and fits well with the room size.

There are the "ball cages" or freezer baskets that fit so well on the shelves.

The shelves are 12" boards,  so it's roomy enough to fit large items.

Now, I did not want in any way....for this thing to fall down and crush one of my kids.  So, I headed to Home Depot and asked the guy how to secure it.  He suggested using L-brackets and adhering to the top with screws and into the studs of the walls.

I also added more security and counter-sunk some holes and put long screws into the studs.  It feels safe and secure, because I KNOW my monkeys will be scaling the wall to steal their brother's stuff. 

I also ran into another problem.  The hutch was now flush with the walls, but the dresser wasn't because of the baseboards.  The dresser hung down and it took me some time to figure out how to fix this. 

Shims!

  You just push them in on the bottom and cut off when it fits.  The shims pushed the dresser up so hutch sat flush on the dresser.  No gaps!

I added new hardware.  I went with the simple, brushed nickel, industrial-looking handle.  It fits well with the silver in the room and the containers on the shelves.

Here it is before -because it so fun to compare! :)

There you go!  The headboard is next and I'll share a couple of other projects I have in mind with you this week.  There's a few important things I learned from building Knock-Off Wood's plans.  Having two sets of hands is best and BE SURE to use a square!  Thanks again Ana for sharing your plans-I have caught the building bug!

My Family Tree Shadow Box

I've been wanting a Family Tree of sorts for a while now,

a few ideas have been tossing around in my head.

I'm a visual person, the type that doesn't really read

the articles in magazines, just scans through to see the pictures.

Which is ironic- being that English was my favorite subject

and our Dad is an Editor/Journalist.

So when we girls wanted to do something inspired by Martha Stewart

for the CSI Project Challenge....

2 ideas came to mind.....

A sweet idea we had for a re purposed framed shadow box

and of course Martha's lovely Family Tree Crafts.

It also doesn't hurt that we love vintage old photos!

(I'm feeling old enough to be vintage!)

We thought it would be fun to show 2 similar styles of trees,
one a Direct Line 5 Generation Family Tree
and the other a Family Tree with all sorts of Favorite Family Pictures.
(Because we know it's hard to find all those direct photos!)

I've wanted to build a shadow box for a while now for my daughter's blessing gown

because I'm too cheap to pay the $400 for a custom made one

and the others in the store are at least $150 for a plain box.
So we decided to experiment with these!

Candace scored some great deals (freebies) from a model home auction.

Remember those lovely ottoman's....

These two frames have sat behind my grill since last fall

and we'd actually forgotten about them till now.

First we measured and cut our pine 1x4's to build a box

just slightly larger than the frame opening.

We primed and painted the box and frame.

For the frame and hinges to sit flush on top of the box

you'll need to use your wood carving tools to scrape out enough for the hinges to be inset.

(Wood Carving Tools~~Harbor Freight $2.99

or if you're particularly handy with a flat head screwdriver...)

We pre-drilled our hinge holes and hand screwed them into place.

Once we had them in place on the box we laid

the frame on top where we wanted it to be and

marked with a pencil where the top hinges would be.

This makes it super easy to put them on.

Don't forget to add the little hook enclosure to keep it closed!

Next let's work on the inside!

We just used the mat board from the original art work.

Spray a good coat of spray adhesive and adhere your fabric.

I used muslin and Candace used creme burlap, each for a natural look.

Make sure you start in the middle and smooth your way out.

After trimming with a 1 inch border, 

glue the edges to the bottom side for a nice finished look.

Next we trimmed some branches from one of my trees

and started to arrange and glue them together.

We used a glue gun and really added a bunch for extra strength on the back.

Then we coated it with some brown spray paint

followed by a "mist" of pewter.  I love this effect!

Candace wanted to play with the Celluclay again

and after cutting her tree form from foam board, she covered it with the Celluclay,

mimicking the natural wood grains and knots.
It was fun to do!

After letting it dry overnight, it was sanded and painted.

We cut out a bunch of leaves on the Cricut,

We even "misted" some of the paper leaves to tie in with the shimmer on the trunk.

For even more 3-D effect we folded each leaf in half.

Using the glue gun we started gluing the leaves in place randomly as desired.
Candace glued on faux leaves from a lavender shrub instead of using the Cricut leaves.

Last but not least.....

and of course what takes the longest.....

is to start collecting your pictures.

After 5 phone calls, several emails and 2 trips to get copies.....

It took us a while to get them all sized, cropped and sepia'ed.

I got a little frustrated because the only options on my computer for smaller sizes were

Wallet vs. Thumbnail.

Wallet obviously won.

I didn't really want them that large to start with but

after seeing the excitement in my little girls eyes,

seeing all these amazing people who make us who we are.

Plus to see the excitement on our Mom's face to see this.....

Priceless!

We just glued the mat board into the back of the box

and put some hanging gear on and it's perfect!

Here's Candace's:

Here's Mine:

Chicken Wire Wall Shelf

  

This is another shameless copy of a shelf Nicole and I saw in a store. 

 I think they wanted over 70 bucks for  it. 

We took a trip to the hardware store and made it with

a couple of cedar fence boards, chicken wire, hinges.... and a little finial to top it all off. 

 Much cheaper, and that's for two!

I will not lie...those darn pitches on the roof were incredibly hard to figure out how to cut. 

There were a few choice words said today and this shelf was almost not meant to be.

Seriously, I don't even know how we even got the angles,

We just kept cutting.....and cutting.....and cutting......and yes, more cutting.

We almost tossed it aside.....(well actually I had some grand fantasies about taking a hammer to it....)

but we were stubborn...and you can fix about anything with wood filler! :)

We made a couple more of the Celluclay Pots from a previous post.  We didn't paint these ones, instead we sanded them down after the Celluclay dried to let a little of the terracotta color peek out.

I'm telling you...that is cool stuff! 

 

We forgot to buy knobs for the doors, so we painted some GOLF TEES with spray paint,

drilled a few holes and stuck them in.

I kinda like the look of them. 

 

Of course I had to match my bird house, so I whipped out my left over paint.

After painting it all ,we lined the doors

and the roof with chicken wire. 

Does anyone have a great way to put chicken wire on?  Do you all use staples? 

 

The shelf is meant to hang on a wall, like a mini potting shed...I haven't gotten around to it yet. 

 

Nicole used her table saw to rip the cedar boards.

  The 1 inch excess is what we used to build the doors. 

 

I was in awe of how Nicole figured out how to make the doors. 

She built the base first, and fit the doors to the back.  She made it look so easy! 

 

Now for some real flowers in those pots!

We're linking to,

http://thecsiproject.com/

 because "almost"  all of the supplies, we found at the hardware store! :)