Trash to Treasure

My trash-to-treasure transformation is finally complete.  I have new living room chairs!

Back in November I happened to drive by a yard sale and bought two great/ugly chairs for five bucks.  I made the purchase on a day when I thought I could do anything, so the thought of reupholstering them didn't phase me.  Plus, I have wanted chairs for the living room for ages, and this seemed like a financially realistic way to achieve that dream.  I immediately set about finding an online tutorial (here) and began stripping the old fabric from the chairs.

{Insert a sigh of realism.}

The stripping process took for.ev.er.  Seriously.  Hour after tedious hour of prying up hundreds (not kidding) of thick staples pounded into several layers of fabric made me realize why it costs so much to have things professionally reupholstered.  Garry helped with the backs of the chairs, which were especially difficult.  We both had cramped and bruised hands after working so hard.  The whole process was quite demoralizing, and I was quite sure I'd never finish.  It took about six weeks to finish stripping both chairs, mostly because I tabled the project during the Christmas season and just let the ugly mess sit in my living room.

During this time, one of my children (I'm not certain of the culprit but suspect Kate), tore lots of the stuffing off the barest chair (on the left).  It was a lumpy wreck.  At first I just put a blanket over it and ignored it.  Eventually I used a spray adhesive to smooth out the lumps, and then covered each chair's padded spots with a layer of batting.

Buying fabric was the fun part.  I hunted around town but ended up ordering samples and ultimately buying from this store.  After a little research on fabric durability, I learned the term "double rubs" and bought a fabric with a very durable double rub count (30,000).  This stuff had better last! I certainly paid more than I would have at a 50% off sale at JoAnn's.  I also bought some tack strips and cording.  After Christmas I mustered up the gumption to cut out the pieces (patterned from what I pulled off the old chairs) and make about 10 yards of new piping.

Then I cleaned and re-stained the wood frame.  I didn't sand all the wood or repair the broken parts.  I cheated and used vinegar and canola oil to clean it, and then a stain pen to cover all of the scratches and dents.  I think it looks great...well, good enough.

A week later, in my latest Letters post, I complained about this ridiculous, never-ending, overwhelming project, and my friend Sandy came to the rescue.  She offered to lend her experience and helping hands, so I finally got started with the re-covering process, which no longer seemed impossible. Armed with an air-compressed staple gun (power tools are fun), I made a lot of progress on the first day.  I made mistakes on the first chair that I did not make on the second chair, and there are things I'd do differently altogether, but I decided to embrace the imperfection.

On Friday Sandy came and helped me iron out some details that were vexing me and taught me how to assemble the back pieces.  That night Garry and I worked to finish the first chair, and on Saturday we finished the second one.  I love working with Garry on things like this.

After the chairs were done, it took hours for me to clean up the room, which had been Project Central for weeks, but now that everything is clean and in place, I an VERY happy!

So ends the Saga of the Purple Chairs.  Once again I have learned that I should not attempt such large projects, but that finishing them is incredibly satisfying.  I am so pleased to have extra seating in the living room, so if any of you want to come chat, I have a great place for you to sit!

Design dilemma

My birthday gift was a red couch.  I've been longing for one for ages, and now the day has come!

Except that it hasn't. No couch yet.

We have donated our free-to-us-five-years-ago couch to the youth garage sale this Saturday (it's gonna be massive, so come support us!), so there's a big space in our living room where public seating used to exist.  

Funny how something like that gives me a push in the right direction.  I browsed a local furniture store the other day.  The girls and I roamed for about an hour.  They could not have been better behaved, so I took my time.  I also took a lot of pictures and fawned over many fabric samples.  I fawned so extensively that I have a problem: I maybe want a green couch.

So here's the room where the couch will live.  (Sidebar: Isn't my new clock amazing?)

Here is one of the couches I'm considering.  It is very similar in shape and size to the other couches we have owned. 

I would have it colored in this red fabric, with throw pillows in the fabric below.

Pretty simple, right?  Wrong.

Because there is THIS couch.  It's smaller and more tailored and is super comfortable for a short person like me (plus just comfortable in general).  Plus it's different.  So cute, right?

And wouldn't this side chair be amazing with it?

The problem is that this couch and this side chair do not come in a good red.  There's maroon, and there's pink-ish, but no red in the shade of my dreams.  Lame.  However, it DOES come in this awesome green, and I could have the side chair and the throw pillows in one of these darling (that word probably shouldn't apply to living room furniture) purple patterns.

I think I'm in love.

But now there's a new problem: the room is too green already for a green couch, and the valance won't match.  The simple solution, of course, is to buy a new valance and paint the wall under the chair rail purple.

Haha.

So.  What should I do?  Assuming I don't want to do anymore shopping, and these are the only couches in the world available to me, what's the better option?  I should probably make a decision soon, because this is how our living room will look in the meantime:

At least for now I can blame the mess on having no couch.

The Great Room Swap of 2013

Every time we shuffle the kids' living arrangements I think, "This is going to be great for a long time."  Alas, it never is, and so we keep on shuffling.  We have just [nearly] completed a room swap that involved four of our five bedrooms and the kitchen.  Can I get a collective sigh of exhaustion here?  Good grief.  What a lot of work.

Here's what our previous arrangement looked like (at least in words...I didn't take any "before" pictures): Zach and Tyler shared the bunk beds in the largest bedroom in the house, which is in the basement.  Gavin had his own room, with a queen bed, in the other basement bedroom.  Lexi and Kate shared a little room upstairs, but Lexi slept in Gavin's bed because she wouldn't sleep in her own.  We also had a dedicated office in the fourth bedroom, and Garry and I share the fifth, of course.

Well.  Zach and Tyler can no longer tolerate being roommates.  Gavin is not a good roommate for either of the big boys because he always gets into their stuff.  Gavin and Lexi would like to be roommates.  Now, I know that in theory, we should make our kids love each other and get along and share bedrooms because that's what families do.  We cannot seem to accomplish that ideal, so new physical boundaries seemed like the best option.

After lots and lots of work (remember the exhaustion and the sighing?), our new arrangements are like this.

We gave up our dedicated office/project room.  This impacts me the most, since it has been my little hideout and craft/work room for years and years.  However, it's time for us to have the computer in an open area, and giving up the office meant an extra bedroom for the kids.  The biggest part of this transition was giving up the large closet full of STUFF that was in the office.  I spent hours purging said stuff, and then rearranging kitchen cabinets to accommodate the change.  I am very happy with the way things are now.  Simpler is better.

And now you can see the little corner of my world where I write this blog. Note #1: This room is almost never clean.

Tyler moved into the vacated office.  He wanted to live apart from the other kids (although Kate is his neighbor) so he could have some peace and quiet.  Since making the change, Tyler has spent a lot of time in his room just reading and listening to music and enjoying his solitude.  That really pleases me.  Tyler inherited the bedroom set that has bounced around from sibling to sibling for several years, but that Lexi and Kate most recently shared.  This was my bedroom furniture growing up, and when Zach and Tyler were little, I painted it red.  I love it, and now Tyler loves it.  Happiness.  Note #2: The missing drawer in his nightstand went to IKEA so I could match the bed skirt I intended to buy but could not find.  When I took this picture, the drawer was in the garage and I was too lazy to fetch it.

That left Kate without a dresser.  We temporarily housed her belongings in a bin under her bed, but she liked pulling out her stuff and throwing it all over the floor.  I found a darling dresser--perfect color, perfect size, perfect condition--for her on Craigslist.  I bought it for $40 from the nicest guy ever.  He said he's had it his whole life.  Anyway, it found a happy home in Kate's bedroom on Saturday.  There's also space now for Kate's princess castle (a heavily-used Christmas present).

Lexi and Gavin are sharing the big basement room with the bunk beds.  We moved all of Lexi's clothes and things downstairs, and the Littles are officially roommates.  Because we removed Tyler's Lego table and a book case from that room, there is plenty of space for the kitchen, dolls, and toy organizer, which had previously been living in the family room. Win-win!  Lexi has slept in our bed every night since we made the change, but hopefully we can work to improve that very soon.

Zach has his own room in the basement, too.  It's ironic that we just bought Gavin bedding for his birthday.  None of the kids have mentioned it, so we're not talking about it.  We installed shelves so Zach could display his treasures, and also purchased a dresser on Craigslist (for $15!).  The small one we have isn't large enough to accommodate big boy clothes.  It needs paint, but we couldn't beat the price.

Note #3: In the wake of these changes, we sold part of the awesome IKEA desk from the office.  We are also trying to sell a nice office chair, a heavy-duty preschool table, and a child/teen desk and book case.  Let me know if you're interested.

So there you have it.  All five kids have new rooms, and we essentially added a bedroom for less than $100 (dressers, shelves, and paint).  I'm feeling good about it, and I think the kids love the new arrangement.

But did I mention that I am t-i-r-e-d?  *YAWN*

Working vacation

For Christmas, Garry gave himself some projects around the house.  He wrapped up some boxes all pretty and wrote my name on them, but since the contents were supplies for various home improvement endeavors, what he really gave me was a lot of work for himself.

First up: A garage door keypad.  This is kind of hilarious, given our Christmas experience, but the installation was simple--maybe the easiest project Garry has ever done.

Next, Garry installed a charging station for our cell phones.  The electrical wiring for this job was a beast.  It took forever.  But the finished product is pretty slick!

The third project of the week was significantly larger: installing fake-wood laminate in the bathroom downstairs. The old linoleum in that room was completely disgusting. It has bothered us for four and a half years. So on the day after Christmas, we took a little trip to Lowe's and bought supplies (my gift on Christmas morning was a sample).  The project had many phases, including painting the walls, as seen below. [Not pictured: pulling up old linoleum and scraping off all the glue from the concrete.] Garry had to detour a bit because he got slammed with the flu and spent an entire day in bed. But he finished the bathroom on New Year's Eve, just in time for my party.

 

 

As if all of that weren't enough, Garry worked on another project that didn't start under the Christmas tree.  The kids have been begging to swap bedrooms. You might recall this request showing up on a couple of wish lists for Santa.  After considering the idea for several weeks, and even experimenting with the kids' sleeping arrangements, Garry and I hit on a plan that affects four bedrooms and the kitchen.  The plan rolled out New Year's Day.

This is the only photo you get for now.  (I'm a nerd, but organized office supplies make me happy.)  I'll post more pictures when we're done.

Garry is one ambitious guy.  Buying me shoes would have been a lot less work!

A {couch} story

At long last, the couch is complete.  Here's a brief history of this epic project.

May 22: Garry buys lumber and supplies.  He is itching to use the power tools he got for his birthday in April.

June 13: First day of construction.  Garry builds the frame for the bottom of the love seat.

June 16: Garry makes the back of the love seat and attaches it to the base frame.  The kids "help."  Lexi develops a love of tools and begins a phase of tinkering in the garage without permission.  I sew the slipcover for the back of the love seat.

June 30: After a two-week hiatus from the project, Garry uses a staple gun to attach burlap to the back of the love seat.  I help.

July 5: Garry builds the base to the longer couch.

July 11: Garry makes the couch feet, which include lots of router detail.  Later he cuts them all in half because they are too tall.  He also uses the router to make designs in the wood that will trim the bottom of the couches.

July 14: Garry captures this awesome self-portrait during a day in the garage.  Kate is his buddy for a while and enjoys jammin' to his music.

July 17: I begin sewing all of the pillow covers (8) and cushion covers (3).

July 20: I finish sewing the pillows and the second cushion cover.

July 21: I nearly break out in hives because the dining room and our garage are chaos personified.  At the same time.  For several days.

July 22: I finish ironing and stuffing all of the pillows and cover all the cushions.  They live in our {tiny} bedroom for a week.

July 25: Garry adds upholstery to the love seat (most of it, anyway).  This involves adding batting to each pad using spray adhesive, then covering it with the slipcover I made, then rolling the edges around upholstery tacking, and then stapling it in place.

July 26: Scott Whittington helps Garry move our old couches out of the basement and into the garage (because we have so much room in there) in preparation for Friday's carpet cleaning.  I list the couches on Craigslist (no sale yet).

July 26&27: Garry stains the feet and trim.  The first stain is much too red for my taste, so the second coat is a lovely espresso color.  Much better.

July 28: With Tyler's help, Garry adds burlap to the back of the long couch and corner piece.  Garry upholsters the remaining couches.  This is a long and laborious process.  I make the slipcover for the corner piece, which taxes my brain and my fingers.  I'm not thrilled with the results, but it is d.o.n.e, and that has to be good enough.  Josh Roy and Don Davis help Garry take the couches into the basement, where he will eventually finish them.  The corner piece gets wedged in the stairway.  Garry removes the hand rail.  I clean the kitchen and pretend I'm on a beach in Hawaii.  The evening ends at 11:30 with three couch pieces in the basement, two of which aren't quite complete.

July 29: We enjoy a blissful day of rest from this labor.

July 31:  It is finished!  Garry stays up into the wee hours of Tuesday morning, despite major flu symptoms (thank you, Zach and Kate), to put the last pieces together.

Someday I hope to swap out the {ugly} coffee table, add curtains and throw pillows, and put something interesting on the walls.  But I'm definitely done with DIY, and cash for such things isn't flowing at present.

And there you have it: a history of the couch project.

Garry had a fantastic time building the couches and did a wonderful job.  I think he enjoyed every minute of creativity and construction.  The project was FAR more time- and labor-intensive than I anticipated, which was frustrating for me.  It was sure an enormous endeavor to take on with our young and busy family.  That said, I am very pleased with the way it all turned out.  I love the bright color in the basement and hope we'll enjoy Garry's handiwork for years to come.