I've really really really enjoyed the last 1.5 weekends of peace. No agenda. No deadline. Just peace in the new house. :) That's not to say we haven't kept busy - just that we haven't had a looming reason everything needed to be finished by a certain date. In fact, we tackled a great landscaping project this weekend, or started it anyway. Isn't that cool? We started it and weren't under the gun to finish it!! I'll update on that once we get further along. That said, I'm kind of itching for a project. hahahahahaha I thought this post may spark some inspiration.
For now I thought I'd share some of the odds and ends I worked on before entertaining our first overnight guests, and before our first party. Speed was of the essence on these random projects, so I don't have a lot of good photos. Still I feel compelled to share how I spent my personal time with all of you. What IS that?
PATIO LIGHTS
Ever since we finalized the design for this house, I had visions of outdoor cafe lights swooping over our covered patio. We've never had a covered patio before! So we decided to go for it, and it turns out it's not that easy. For starters, I should mention that we had the patio wired with an outlet up in the soffit with a switch just inside the patio door and another switch next to our headboard in the master bedroom just in case we forget to turn it off. OK, that switch was supposed to control our flood lights, but we can't expect them to get EVERYTHING right! This works out well anyway.
So, we wanted to configure and swag the lights in such a way that we could plug one end in at the outlet and connect the second strand without having to do a second row of lights and without having to plug a second strand into the outlet to run the other direction. Wow, that sounds confusing. Just draw a square and imagine and outlet in one corner and then try to draw lines to cover all the places you might want lights without having to go backwards creating a double line anywhere. :) It was tricky! But we figured it out in advance more or less to figure out the length we needed.
We bought 2 strands of commercial grade stringer lights with standard E26 base sockets in 37.5' length. We bought white so the wires would somewhat blend with the ceiling. The strands came from Novelty Lights and we bought the bulbs at Christmas Light Source in nearby Benbrook, TX. Keeping with our green-built home, we chose warm white LED bulbs which use about 1 watt each, so the entire patio is lit by the equivalent of a single incandescent light bulb! I have great things to say about both companies - the shipping was really fast and the products were well protected. I would have bought everything from Christmas Light Source, but they didn't have a length that worked for our patio.
Our patio vaults to 16' tall. Between my dad and us, we've got all kinds of ladders, but the only one tall enough isn't actually tall enough when folded to put in the middle of a space. As in, we needed to reach the middle so we needed an A-frame style, not a leaner. Left to their own devices Brent and my dad were going to rig up boards through ladder rungs on top of banquet tables etc, which is when I promptly drove to Home Depot to rent a set of double scaffolding. Once we had the scaffolding we thought it would go quickly, but have you ever tried to assemble scaffolding with a 2 and 4 year old "helping?" So we got very little done before they went to bed. Even after the scaffolding was assembled, we ran into little hiccups trying to space the lights just right. We used exterior electrical cable tacks that we screwed in I think 8 places. We got halfway done and decided to go back and adjust, which meant moving the scaffolding back, bending the metal piece on the cable tacks and adjusting the length of the swag and rebending the cable tacks. It's just not something you can plan 100% in advance. Also, we were worried about the strong winds we get on our little hillside of a backyard so we didn't want so much swag that the lights could smash into the house, and they obviously had to be high enough and secure enough to not worry about the ceiling fan! Can you imagine a strand of lights getting tangled in a ceiling fan?? Yikes!
Here's the scaffolding, next to our tallest gorilla ladder folded into an A-frame. With Brent standing on the very top surface of the ladder on his tippy toes he could reach the ceiling, but that doesn't mean he could use a hammer and drill standing like that! The scaffolding was a game changer!! And I think it cost like $40 to rent for 24 hours. Umm, duh!
So, we hung the strands, said a lot of unladylike words and finally screwed in all 50 light bulbs and lit that sucker up! It was 1130pm at that point I think, and we decided to go for the gusto and disassemble the scaffolding and have it packed in the truck for a quick dropoff in the morning. It would have been so much harder if we waited until morning and the kids were up! So, a very late night, but with great reward. We love our lights. Even if we are the wet blanket of the neighborhood, we LOOK like a party house. :)
DESK CHAIRS/EXTRA DINING CHAIRS
I had 2 chairs that I refinished back in Boston for a little cafe set in the corner of our kitchen. It was like a honey maple color, and I faux painted it to look like dark bordeaux cherry stain to match our kitchen cabinets at the time. They got pretty beat up during our move across country. Since we moved in, we've had them sitting with all the other misfit furniture that hadn't found a new home in our new home yet.
I knew I wanted to refinish them in the same style as our dining room chairs so that we have 2 extras for larger parties, and the rest of the time they'll serve as desk chairs in the kids future homework nook. So I removed the seat, went through the same paint process as the dining chairs way back almost a year ago. [Two coats of white chalky paint, classic gray stain drizzled on the accents and wiped off, then dry brush with the white to bring out the contrast.] Here's the kicker. I had plenty of the dusty lilac vinyl fabric to cover the seat cushions to match the dining chairs. But as I removed the first piece of fabric covering the seat, I remembered I went through a couple different fabrics when I was decorating our old kitchen. And when I saw the fabric underneath I loved it and decided to keep it as is! At the time, when the chair was cherry-eque, the navy/white print gave the chair this americana red, white and blue look that didn't work for me. And overall the fabric was just a little too fresh for the vibe in my old kitchen. So this fabric and I have taken a long winding road and are reunited at last. :)
COAT HOOKS
Another project that was just sitting waiting for attention is the damaged set of coat hooks I got cheap at Home Goods, because, well, it was damaged. They had these super heavy duty hooks, a-la-anthropologie, but attached with tiny screws into paper-like wood. 'Wood' is being generous. The hooks had pulled out and ripped through the board. So I bought it with the intention of only using the hooks, which still was a cost savings v. buying 5 hooks at Anthropologie. I went through many phases of creative ideas, and ultimately decided the little foyer wall just can't handle much more than a simple row of hooks, especially because it's opposite a large gallery of photos.
So we picked up a 6" width common pine board in a 6' length, and Brent used our new chop saw to cut it down to 37". Though just to be clear, I'm more than capable of making cuts with the chop saw. :) Don't want anyone to get a damsel in distress vibe! I faux painted the heck out of it, and truthfully, I completely abandoned my preconceived plan and just decided to wing it. I'm fairly sure I started with an offwhite coat of paint and then used a blend of colors I had on hand to create a dark greige color that I mixed with Martha Stewart tintable glaze. Funny sidenote. I was telling my mom I feel like a REAL DIY-er now that I don't have to buy paint to work on projects. I just mix up colors from leftover paint I already have. :) I coated the whole board and then used my faux wood grain tool to create the look of wood grain. I've had that tool for years and this is the first time I've used it! It takes some practice, but if you don't like how it's looking, just wipe the glaze off and try it again! So at that point, I had a board that clearly looked like I'd painted it one color and used a faux grain tool in another color. :) So I drybrushed some random streaks through the board in several more colors, and then took a light grain sandpaper to just blend it a little. I think it turned out great. I also painted and distressed the hooks themselves. They were a dark rust color. Sorry again - this is a project much better shared in step by step pictures, but I just didn't take the time!
This is what the wood grain tool looks like. Now that I've used it I'm sure I'll go back and find more uses for it and will try to get in progress photos next time!
Here is the finished product! A good blogger would have staged the hooks with a Martha Stewart gardening hat and perhaps something ridiculous but pretty to show it off, but here my lonely coat hooks rest waiting for guests to put them to good use. :)
I realized I never shared all the changes in the game room with you either! I'll save that for another day. Also, our chairs (that I ordered in February) have been sitting in a warehouse since early last week waiting to be delivered to us again. The imbecile furniture manager at Lewisville Dillards scheduled delivery for two weeks out, never told me the date, and I've since rescheduled directly with the delivery manager for this friday! Sorry for that rant - it has not been a good experience with the furniture team at Dillards! Then I can finally share photos of our living room!! Our bedroom needs some attention, I'm reupholstering (and tufting) a chair for the guest bedroom. Plus our outdoor projects are ongoing! So even though we've been in the house almost two and a half months, I still have lots more to share with you. Stay tuned!
For now I thought I'd share some of the odds and ends I worked on before entertaining our first overnight guests, and before our first party. Speed was of the essence on these random projects, so I don't have a lot of good photos. Still I feel compelled to share how I spent my personal time with all of you. What IS that?
PATIO LIGHTS
Ever since we finalized the design for this house, I had visions of outdoor cafe lights swooping over our covered patio. We've never had a covered patio before! So we decided to go for it, and it turns out it's not that easy. For starters, I should mention that we had the patio wired with an outlet up in the soffit with a switch just inside the patio door and another switch next to our headboard in the master bedroom just in case we forget to turn it off. OK, that switch was supposed to control our flood lights, but we can't expect them to get EVERYTHING right! This works out well anyway.
So, we wanted to configure and swag the lights in such a way that we could plug one end in at the outlet and connect the second strand without having to do a second row of lights and without having to plug a second strand into the outlet to run the other direction. Wow, that sounds confusing. Just draw a square and imagine and outlet in one corner and then try to draw lines to cover all the places you might want lights without having to go backwards creating a double line anywhere. :) It was tricky! But we figured it out in advance more or less to figure out the length we needed.
We bought 2 strands of commercial grade stringer lights with standard E26 base sockets in 37.5' length. We bought white so the wires would somewhat blend with the ceiling. The strands came from Novelty Lights and we bought the bulbs at Christmas Light Source in nearby Benbrook, TX. Keeping with our green-built home, we chose warm white LED bulbs which use about 1 watt each, so the entire patio is lit by the equivalent of a single incandescent light bulb! I have great things to say about both companies - the shipping was really fast and the products were well protected. I would have bought everything from Christmas Light Source, but they didn't have a length that worked for our patio.
Our patio vaults to 16' tall. Between my dad and us, we've got all kinds of ladders, but the only one tall enough isn't actually tall enough when folded to put in the middle of a space. As in, we needed to reach the middle so we needed an A-frame style, not a leaner. Left to their own devices Brent and my dad were going to rig up boards through ladder rungs on top of banquet tables etc, which is when I promptly drove to Home Depot to rent a set of double scaffolding. Once we had the scaffolding we thought it would go quickly, but have you ever tried to assemble scaffolding with a 2 and 4 year old "helping?" So we got very little done before they went to bed. Even after the scaffolding was assembled, we ran into little hiccups trying to space the lights just right. We used exterior electrical cable tacks that we screwed in I think 8 places. We got halfway done and decided to go back and adjust, which meant moving the scaffolding back, bending the metal piece on the cable tacks and adjusting the length of the swag and rebending the cable tacks. It's just not something you can plan 100% in advance. Also, we were worried about the strong winds we get on our little hillside of a backyard so we didn't want so much swag that the lights could smash into the house, and they obviously had to be high enough and secure enough to not worry about the ceiling fan! Can you imagine a strand of lights getting tangled in a ceiling fan?? Yikes!
Here's the scaffolding, next to our tallest gorilla ladder folded into an A-frame. With Brent standing on the very top surface of the ladder on his tippy toes he could reach the ceiling, but that doesn't mean he could use a hammer and drill standing like that! The scaffolding was a game changer!! And I think it cost like $40 to rent for 24 hours. Umm, duh!
So, we hung the strands, said a lot of unladylike words and finally screwed in all 50 light bulbs and lit that sucker up! It was 1130pm at that point I think, and we decided to go for the gusto and disassemble the scaffolding and have it packed in the truck for a quick dropoff in the morning. It would have been so much harder if we waited until morning and the kids were up! So, a very late night, but with great reward. We love our lights. Even if we are the wet blanket of the neighborhood, we LOOK like a party house. :)
DESK CHAIRS/EXTRA DINING CHAIRS
I had 2 chairs that I refinished back in Boston for a little cafe set in the corner of our kitchen. It was like a honey maple color, and I faux painted it to look like dark bordeaux cherry stain to match our kitchen cabinets at the time. They got pretty beat up during our move across country. Since we moved in, we've had them sitting with all the other misfit furniture that hadn't found a new home in our new home yet.
I knew I wanted to refinish them in the same style as our dining room chairs so that we have 2 extras for larger parties, and the rest of the time they'll serve as desk chairs in the kids future homework nook. So I removed the seat, went through the same paint process as the dining chairs way back almost a year ago. [Two coats of white chalky paint, classic gray stain drizzled on the accents and wiped off, then dry brush with the white to bring out the contrast.] Here's the kicker. I had plenty of the dusty lilac vinyl fabric to cover the seat cushions to match the dining chairs. But as I removed the first piece of fabric covering the seat, I remembered I went through a couple different fabrics when I was decorating our old kitchen. And when I saw the fabric underneath I loved it and decided to keep it as is! At the time, when the chair was cherry-eque, the navy/white print gave the chair this americana red, white and blue look that didn't work for me. And overall the fabric was just a little too fresh for the vibe in my old kitchen. So this fabric and I have taken a long winding road and are reunited at last. :)
COAT HOOKS
Another project that was just sitting waiting for attention is the damaged set of coat hooks I got cheap at Home Goods, because, well, it was damaged. They had these super heavy duty hooks, a-la-anthropologie, but attached with tiny screws into paper-like wood. 'Wood' is being generous. The hooks had pulled out and ripped through the board. So I bought it with the intention of only using the hooks, which still was a cost savings v. buying 5 hooks at Anthropologie. I went through many phases of creative ideas, and ultimately decided the little foyer wall just can't handle much more than a simple row of hooks, especially because it's opposite a large gallery of photos.
So we picked up a 6" width common pine board in a 6' length, and Brent used our new chop saw to cut it down to 37". Though just to be clear, I'm more than capable of making cuts with the chop saw. :) Don't want anyone to get a damsel in distress vibe! I faux painted the heck out of it, and truthfully, I completely abandoned my preconceived plan and just decided to wing it. I'm fairly sure I started with an offwhite coat of paint and then used a blend of colors I had on hand to create a dark greige color that I mixed with Martha Stewart tintable glaze. Funny sidenote. I was telling my mom I feel like a REAL DIY-er now that I don't have to buy paint to work on projects. I just mix up colors from leftover paint I already have. :) I coated the whole board and then used my faux wood grain tool to create the look of wood grain. I've had that tool for years and this is the first time I've used it! It takes some practice, but if you don't like how it's looking, just wipe the glaze off and try it again! So at that point, I had a board that clearly looked like I'd painted it one color and used a faux grain tool in another color. :) So I drybrushed some random streaks through the board in several more colors, and then took a light grain sandpaper to just blend it a little. I think it turned out great. I also painted and distressed the hooks themselves. They were a dark rust color. Sorry again - this is a project much better shared in step by step pictures, but I just didn't take the time!
This is what the wood grain tool looks like. Now that I've used it I'm sure I'll go back and find more uses for it and will try to get in progress photos next time!
Here is the finished product! A good blogger would have staged the hooks with a Martha Stewart gardening hat and perhaps something ridiculous but pretty to show it off, but here my lonely coat hooks rest waiting for guests to put them to good use. :)
I realized I never shared all the changes in the game room with you either! I'll save that for another day. Also, our chairs (that I ordered in February) have been sitting in a warehouse since early last week waiting to be delivered to us again. The imbecile furniture manager at Lewisville Dillards scheduled delivery for two weeks out, never told me the date, and I've since rescheduled directly with the delivery manager for this friday! Sorry for that rant - it has not been a good experience with the furniture team at Dillards! Then I can finally share photos of our living room!! Our bedroom needs some attention, I'm reupholstering (and tufting) a chair for the guest bedroom. Plus our outdoor projects are ongoing! So even though we've been in the house almost two and a half months, I still have lots more to share with you. Stay tuned!
That patio is calling for a party! (and maybe some late night karoake? lol)
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