Update and Upgrade

Update! We made it safely down to Florida and are greatly enjoying the warmer weather.  We also found a spectacular house and are currently under contract. The inspection will happen this Friday and if everything goes well we look to be closing and moving in by the end of January. We already have many DIY projects planned for the house one of which is to completely redo the kitchen. Can’t wait to start sharing projects with you, but let’s not jump the gun we don’t even have an inspection completed yet!

Another hand-me-down upgraded. My husband has had this chest of drawers his whole life. It even has the original manufacturer tag from 1987 on the back. After it had been sitting in our house for a while we thought about replacing it with new furniture. However, it seemed wasteful to get rid of such a solidly-build chest, so before we gave up on it completely I began looking for ways to re-use it. I thought that we could cover the drawers with wrapping paper and Mod-Podge it down. That would work if my husband and I could agree on what wrapping paper to use. We visited many different stores and were not sold on anything. It’s really hard to find something appropriate for a nice furniture piece when you’re looking at wrapping paper, since its intended purpose is to cover a birthday or Christmas present and be torn open then thrown away. Well when at Joann’s, (and when am I not at Joann’s?), I came across a fabric that I loved and went with our anticipated bedroom theme of black, white, gray and yellow. After showing it to my husband he had the idea to use fabric instead of paper as a cover for the front of the drawers. Genius! It’s more durable than paper and the pattern is better than that of any wrapping paper we could find. So we went out and purchased 2.5 yards of the fabric and a bottle of spray adhesive 77. Alex was sent outside to spray paint the dresser white and all I had to do was cut and past the fabric. To do that I held the drawers over the fabric, traced around it leaving an inch or so on all sides, and cut along those lines. I sprayed both the fabric and the drawer with the adhesive and then carefully placed them together, pulled the fabric tight and stapled the excess to the inside of the drawer. Our biggest expense was the new hardware. We found the knobs at Home Depot. They were expensive at $3 a pop, but were the best ones for what we wanted so we splurged and voila we have a very cute chest of drawers. I promise it looks better in person and the pattern is not as crazy as it looks in the photos.  

The "before" photo was taken right before Alex started to spray paint and I had all the drawers up stairs in the apartment. So, not knowing at the time I was going to start a blog to document our projects, I just rushed down stairs and took a quick photo with one of the drawers in place. 

 "After"

Cost Break Down 

Spray 77 adhesive: $12 (but we still had a lot left for other projects) 

Drawer Hardware: $24

Fabric: $7

Total: $43

Show Me The Money!!

Well it's moving time here at our house. We have not been able to create much as we pack everything into boxes. I do have some DIY projects that I have yet to post so hopefully I have enough to last me until we are moved into a house in FL. One that I haven't really thought about till I was packing and taking things off the wall is actually my favorite, simplest and probably first project. I created this when I was in high school and upgraded to a better frame after we got married. I used to live overseas back in the stone ages when each European country had its own currency. My family left Europe right before the Euro started to take effect. During my time over there I compiled a good collection of paper money.  I decided that framing and displaying it was the best thing to do. So I painstakingly ironed each bill and arranged the currency in a two sided frame so if I wanted I could see the back too. I used small pieces of sticky tack to keep the bills in place. I find the sticky tack is kinder and easier to remove than tape.  I continue to add to my collection as I was able to pick up some money from Mexico on my honeymoon and just recently I was able to visit New Zealand and Australia  for a three week vacation.

Storage Simplification

One of my favorite blogs, I Heart Organization, had a guest post the other day that I truly loved and had to do myself. It involved simplifying our DVD movie collection. As we mentioned earlier we don’t have cable and probably never will. What we do have are tons and tons of movies. My husband and I got most of ours when we moved out from our parents and took some movies (with their permission) with us. That was the base we then added to that by buying one $5 movie a month and snatching up any movies we don’t have from garage sales and GoodWill. For those we will pay no more than $2. The only full priced movies we ever buy are the newest Disney movies or the Disney movies that are currently released from the vault. I really hate that I had almost all the Disney Movies on VHS and now I have to wait years to get that collection back this time in DVDs.  I have put together a fun step by step process on how to organize and simplify a DVD collection using Atlantic Movie sleeves. 

Phase 1:  Empty the entertainment center of all DVDs

Phase 2: Go through and sort out all movies that contain more than one disc 

Phase 3: work rapidamente as the cat glares on at your progress

Phase 4: Sort the movies into alphabetic groups and then try to pair common movies within those groups together. For instance Air Force One was paired with The Bourn Identity.  How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days was paired with Hitch. You get a few weird pairings like The Devil Wears Prada and Double Jeopardy. 

Phase 5: Cut the front cover of the DVD so you can place that into the sleeve 

Phase 6: Put it all together  

Phase 7: Clean up the mess 

Phase 8: Organize into alphabetical groups then cut and label dividers. Place nicely into cute boxes 

Phase 9: Marvel at how little space your movies now take up 

Cost Break Down

4 Atlantic Movie Sleeves: $13.99 each so $55.96

2 Boxes: $5.99 Each so 11.98

Total: 67.94

Let’s break that down into a cost per unit

I have 13 unused sleeves which is equivalent to 26 movies that have no second disc  

I have 154 different movies in my collection

154 +26 = 180 possible movies that can be stored 

Cost per movie:  $0.377 that includes the purchase of the 2 storage boxes.

So in the beginning it may look like a lot of money to spend to reorganize and compact your DVD collection, but it’s extremely cheap per movie especially if you don’t have many Special feature or bonus disc or some movies that are just 2 DVDs long. In addition, consider how much cheaper this is compared to buying a nice quality dvd tower or other type of bulky storage unit.

As I went through my collection I made note of some of my favorites:

Favorite Robot movie: Transformers 

Favorite President Movie:  Air Force One

Favorite action Movie: True Lies

Favorite magical movie: Any of the Harry Potters

Favorite Disney movie: The Little Mermaid

Favorite Foreign film: The Black Book

Favorite Movie to study to: Independence Day

Favorite Christmas Movie: Love Actually

Favorite movie that runs over 4hrs: Pride and Prejudice the A&E version with Colin Firth

Favorite environmental movie: Erin Brockovich

Favorite Chick Flick: While You Were Sleeping  

Favorite Scary Movie: Disturbia

Favorite movie involving a sport: Cinderella Man

I could make category after category, but I think that is enough for now. Even though my husband did come up with one awesome category that has to be mentioned 

Favorite movie about a man who steals the Declaration of Independence to actually save it from harm and returning it to the government after finding buried treasure: National Treasure 

Kool-Aid, Borax, and Cinnamon all in one post

My husband and I have been fighting our poor rental dishwasher and the hard water from Ohio. Usually when unloading the dishwasher we would have hard water build up on our glasses and excess detergent piled up on the inside of our bowls. We had to wash the dishes by hand after the dishwasher washed them… which seemed counterproductive. We even tried different dishwasher detergents and additives to help solve the problem. Finally, while pursing my favorite idea gathering place, Pinterest, I found a tutorial on how to make your own dishwasher detergent (found here) by simply mixing a bunch of ingredients together. I thought I’d give it a try so I went out and bought all the supplies. It was so simple to make and the results are great! We have no hard water stains and no detergent build up and our dishes look amazing. Another great thing is that this home-made detergent will last for a very long time and costs significantly less than any commercial detergent.

Cost break down:

24 packets of Sugar free lemon KOOL-AID:  $4.80

Epsom salt (3 cups): $2.39 

1 box of Arm and Hammer Super washing soda: $2.89

1 box of Borax: $3.12

Total: $13.20 for 1.5 gallons of detergent 

Directions for use: Simply put 1 tablespoon of the homemade detergent and 1 table spoon of Lemi-Shine in the detergent dispenser of the dishwasher. I have always used Lemi-Shine when doing the dishes so that is why it is not factored into the cost, but supposedly this recipe does not work well without it.  

My husband came home right as I started to mix the ingredients together. He decided to take a few action shots. The best and most ridiculous one is the one shown here with my husband’s feet, me staring off into space and the cat running around us. We don’t have a big enough bowl so we mixed ours in an old popcorn tin we had sitting around.

I also went to the dollar store and got a plastic gallon-size container to hold my new detergent. I spray painted the lid jade (one of the colors in our kitchen) and added a label made from my new Cricut machine. Yes, I finally broke down and bought a Cricut. After searching on Craigslist for what feels like forever I scored a really amazing deal. I was able to get the machine and 10 cartridges (worth nearly $1000) for only $150. 

While we’re still on the subject of Pinterest and cleaning…here is something else I discovered. This is the cheapest and most effective way to make my house smell awesome that I’ve come across. All you do is boil a few orange peels and ½ tsp of cinnamon over a medium heat. It is so simple and makes your house smell of freshly backed cupcakes. The other day I cooked fish and I noticed the smell lingered in the house so later that evening as a snack I had three clementines and boiled the peels with cinnamon and the fish smell was gone and the heavenly smell was back. But don’t leave it sitting over the heat for a long time and forget about it because that’s a good way to ruin a pot and start a fire. I make sure to check mine every few minutes and add water as needed.

The infamous couch

My husband and I purchased this couch from Salvation Army for only $51. My husband saw the potential right away, but it took me a while to be won over.

First, some background info. When we got married our whole house was furnished by hand-me-downs from both our parents. My parents gave us a light tan leather couch with big fluffy cushions large enough to devour a cat in their crevices. 

The light tan color didn’t go well with our mostly dark furniture and the leather was discolored in places.  We “fixed” this issue with a brown slip cover, but due to the couch’s large size the slipcover created an undesirable two-toned effect. 

I began dreaming of my future couch; the first big furniture purchase we were going to make once we got to Florida. It would be sage green with dark brown legs. That sums up my requirements, but my 6’4” husband was harder to please. He wanted a couch large enough to stretch out on and tall enough to easily rest his head while sitting upright. Additionally, he desired attached cushions that were firm yet comfortable, and sturdy but thin armrests. Talk about needs!! Add all those needs up and you’re looking at getting a custom-made couch that will cost $$$$$.

Keen on the idea of a new couch, but not-so-keen on the cost of said new couch, my husband tried convincing me that I had the powers to reupholster anything, and that if we found a good couch we could save a ton of money and get exactly what we wanted. He reasoned that if I could redo a couple old chairs then I could take on a complex couch. That’s like telling a runner that if you can run a mile you can finish a marathon. His delusion prevailed over my apprehension and we dove right in

.

Let the reupholstering begin! We headed straight to JoAnn’s Fabric to pick out the upholstery fabric. Unfortunately I have really expensive taste and fell in love with a custom order $44/yard fabric. But no worries, we were able to get 60% off the order and for every $50 we spent we received a $10 certificate to be used on another purchase. We spent just over $260 on 13 yards of fabric, but we did get $50 to spend on another purchase. Seems a little much for a couch, but you could cut the cost a lot with a cheaper fabric. We thought we did well by staying way under $400, considering a brand new couch that met our specifications could run well over $1000. 

The only downside to this project is our current living arrangements. Alex’s assignment to Wright Patt was a short tour so we rented an 800 square foot apartment. Try reupholstering a large couch in such a tiny house. Things get messy and quick. It took us almost three months to finish the job.  

Things that I have learned during the process: 

•   If you have the room, try reupholstering in the garage or a spare room that you rarely use.
•  Tearing off the fabric is a bigger job than putting it back on.
• Take pictures, lots of them! Also try to label the pictures each day so later you know what is shown and why you took that picture.
•  I wrote down the order to how I thought the couch went together and altered my assumptions as needed. This was the best idea I had, it made putting the couch together so much easier.
• The fabric you remove is your template so try not to tear it off or cut it.
• Stop when you get frustrated! 
• “Curve-Ease” is the best invention for reupholstering a wing back couch or chair. Here is a video that taught me how to use the product.

Here are some pictures of the process.

It took so long to remove all the nails!

The couch fully stripped and ready for reupholstering 

I made sure to lay all the fabric out to ensure it fit and the pattern was in the same direction for each piece 

Slowly putting it all together 

The couch soon took over the living room. A little info on us: we do not have cable and probably never will, nor do we have an antenna so we get nothing but a black screen when we turn on our TV. So during this process we watched almost all our movies and some three times in a row because I was in the zone and didn’t want to hassle with choosing a different movie.

I was even able to enlist the help of my husband when it came to sewing the back cushions closed.

Curve-Ease: The best invention ever!

  

After finding Curve-Ease my husband and I thought that we were in the clear. Everything else would just flow from there. We were wrong. When we got to the outside arm we discovered the hardest part of our reupholstering project. The wing in our couch ends below the arm so instead of a straight line across the side we had to somehow go down and around the wing without getting a large noticeable fold in the fabric. We were too afraid to just cut and see what happens so we decided to do the most logical thing. We googled “How to reupholster a wing back couch.” Well it seems no one has done that and all tutorials and information were on wing backed chairs. No problem, I thought, a wing is a wing. Turns out that none were the same as ours. So I thought long and hard and finally decided to try the rule of association. What is that you ask? Well if our friend Harris has a dad that got through college doing reupholstering on the side then said friend Harris should know how to reupholster by association. So we called Harris up and asked if he could stop by sometime and offer up some advice. Harris came over, looked at the couch, made some cuts and viola we were back on track to finishing our couch. I was so amazed! I asked him to come over in a few days to do the other side and that time I would take detailed notes and pictures so I could pass on this wonderful advice to others (and I gave him a cake.) So here it is

First staple the fabric on the outside of the arm up to where it meets the wing.

Then pull the fabric parallel with the wing and measure about an inch out from the corner.

Cut down about an inch 

Then cut in to the corner so that now you have an “L” shape in your fabric.

Reinforce your cut by making some cross stiches at the corner you created.

Staple the fabric in place and continue with your reupholstering project.

Cost Break Down:

Couch: $51

Fabric: $260 for 13 yards

Curve Ease:  $11.90 + shipping and handling so $20

Cording: Free (used the gift card from the fabric purchase)

Cardboard Tack strip: Free (used gift card from fabric purchase)

Dust Cover: Free (already had from the chair makeover)

Mallet: $5 (for the curve ease) plus it is a tool we would have needed to buy eventually anyway.

Staples: $5

Batting: $5.99/yard + 40% off coupon = $28.752 for 8 yrds

Total: $369.75

We sold our free couch for $125

Effective Total:  $244.752

Stapling the bottom. Almost done!

During the very stressful time of working on the outside wing of the couch, before my discovery of Curve-Ease I was so frustrated that I stopped and decided to make this pillow instead. The green is actually scraps from the couch. I then used a basic home upholstery fabric in an off white for the rest of the pillow. The tutorial for the pillow can be found here. Word of advice: if you are going to tackle this pillow it eats ups a lot of fabric. I made a 16x16 pillow cover using about 1.5 yards of fabric. 

Finally The finished product 

Just to compare again here is the "before" picture for you 

Wedding Gifts

This past weekend my husband and I traveled all the way to Chester IL (the birthplace of Popeye the Sailor man) to attend the wedding of one of my sorority sisters. It was a beautiful wedding, and my first since becoming an avid DIY-er. Naturally, I made gifts for the bride and groom, using ideas gathered while perusing Pinterest.

The first was a set of hanging dish towels and the second was a really cute piece of art to commemorate their wedding. I loved the dish towel idea and will soon make a set for my own kitchen. They are so cute and cheap to make. You start by buying a set of dish towels (or I suppose you could use some that you already have.) I bought the towel set that the bride requested from Bed Bath and Beyond so it was a little pricy, but I am sure if you went to Wal-Mart you could get some for cheaper these were $9.99/pack of 4. 

I then went to Joanne’s fabric and got 1/4^th of a yard of fabric, used for the hanger part, in the colors of the bride’s kitchen. I was also able to score almost a yard of green fabric and fleece from the remnant bin, making my total fabric purchase about $5. You can find the tutorial for how I made the dishtowels here. 

The Materials 

Cost Break down

Finished Product 

Fabric and Fleece: $5

Dishtowels:  $9.99   

Buttons: Free (already had)

Total: $14.99 or $1.87/dishtowel 

 The second gift idea was found here. I was a little shocked by the price of $60 for something I knew I could make for way cheaper. Not only was this a cute idea, it was also an opportunity to see what the real cost could be for such a gift.

The Materials 

 We found a piece of wood from the scrap pile at Home Depot and had it cut into a perfect square. We took it home and spray painted it black. We then found an outline of the state of IL online and blew it up in Microsoft Word to a size that would fit on the square. Then we taped it to our newly painted piece of wood and started nailing. It did take my husband almost 3 hours to nail all the nails (117 of them) into place so after some consideration I could see that most of the price that I saw online was for labor. When all was done we ripped out the paper and started stringing which only took me about 5 minutes. We then asked my amazing mother-in-law to write the couple’s name and date of their wedding on black paper, which we attached to a white background before adhering it to the wood. Her hand writing is way better than mine so it added that extra cute touch.

Finished Product

Cost Break Down

Wood: $0.54

String: $1.99

Nails: $2.69

Spray Paint: Free (already had)

Total: $5.22

Before we entered the reception we remembered that we forgot to take a picture of the finished product so in the beautiful sunlight with my husband’s shirt and tie as a background we snapped a quick picture. Well while sitting at our table we were describing what we made and tried to show the picture to some of my friends we discovered that the memory stick had been loose.  So not wanting to post this without an after photo we snuck over to the gift table took our gift back to our table and as sneaky as possible took a picture of the gift before placing it back in the gift bag and back on the gift table. Talk about the wrong place and time to do something. 

Side note about the couch: It is almost completed, but sadly not at my must-be-finished date of November 7^th I have to wait till I can catch a free minute of my husband’s time to help flip the couch so we can staple everything to the bottom. That’s right, I have everything done except for stapling the fabric to the bottom of the couch. We are so close to being able to check this project off my list.  

Goodwill Hunting

I have found the best time to go to Goodwill is right in the middle of the week. The best selection at the Goodwill near my house occurs on either Wednesday or Thursday. I recently picked up two items that I love.

Candy Dish 

 The first is just a simple white porcelain candy dish that I have been eyeing for weeks and finally decided to get before it was snatched up by someone else.

 The second and more amazing item is this porcelain horse head for only $7!! When I saw it I immediately thought I had to have it, but curbed my craving and told myself to walk away. Well I made it halfway down the aisle before I turned around and snatched up the figurine.  It now currently resides next to my TV. 

Here are some photos with  Zoe for a size comparison.