On a hot streak

I may not be the best carpenter around but I really enjoy making things myself. It started last winter when I was bored. I had painted all the rooms I felt direly needed paint and then I discovered Pintrest and all its glory. And all the ‘totes cool’ DIY thingies.

At some point my little heart just HAD to have an ottoman bench so I could store blankets or movies or whatever. Upon scouting around and pricing out these little buggers, my wallet about fell over in shock to see that on sale these benches were a hundred bucks. Not on sale… don’t even get me started about the audacity of price-gouging merchants. 

So I went to my little friend Pintrest and seriously started investigating the ‘how-to’s’ and DIYing ottoman storage benches. Somehow I managed to find a blueprint and a list of all the wood and lengths needed for this project. It can’t be that bad, right? 

I dragged myself into my local lumber hardware store and ordered what I thought would be enough wood. Turns out a sheet of 3/4inch plywood goes a looooooong way. Somehow I measured, cut and screwed together (after learning that pre-drilling does pay off) this diamond in the rough bench. There’s still the legs, hinges and the actual covering of this thing to do yet. So my time estimate was a little off. Okay, fine, it was several days off. Maybe it shouldn’t include the time it took to pick just the ‘right’ fabric, foam and batting. I can do that. I’m the one in charge of all this. I’ll call it creative license. Yup, sounds good. 

Finally… the bench is padded and covered. It turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. It was about this time that my mother in-law saw it and asked if I could build her one. And then she bought a king size bed but didn’t want to chip out the cash for the accompanying king size head board. So she asked if I could build a king size head board as well. Me, in my high of building accomplishment glory, said sure. 

Face palm! I mean, what was I thinking?! I mean, obviously, I built a bench for her like mine but not like mine. Make sense? It was exactly what she wanted. Well, anyways. Also at that time, I’d decided to redo my garage. Do the whole insulate, drywall and paint thing; did that last summer. 

I managed to get off my procrastinating duff in the last two weeks and finished the garage project. I put up some simple 1x4 spruce trim around the windows, 1x6 as the base board. All were sealed with a clear varnish. Then to hide where the drywall didn’t quite square up with wall/ceiling (the house shifted? Or else the builders just failed back when it was built ten years ago.) I put up a simple spruce molding also sealed with a clear varnish designed to handle high humidity. I think it turned out pretty darn good. 

And while I was building a headboard for the MIL, I decided to keep up the hot streak and build two for my guest rooms. The one room has a height limit for the headboard, hence why it's shorter. 

I may even have just enough time for another little DIY project before planting.
 

Guest room headboards with first coat of stain

Getting that window trim done!

Window trim and ceiling molding up