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

It’s all about that garage

They say it’s all about that bass but for me it was all about that garage. I was bored last winter and went on Pintrest. Gasp! Oh the horror… Some of you may commiserate with my poor hubby; it has been the source of several ‘great’ ideas and projects.

Prior to this ‘great’ idea hatching, our garage was stud walls only. No insulation and no drywall with open rafters all the way.

I look around the garage. After cleaning, okay, serious deep cleaning and maybe a few shovels, it should be a fairly straightforward project. It took a week but it was finally empty. The previous owners hadn’t cleaned out the garage when they left so… yeah. You know what I’m saying right? I went through the whole business of calling around for quotes on insulation and drywall. I googled ‘how to…’ and figured I knew how to play the game. I’m good with tools but I’ve never done this kind of project before.

Some of you are no doubt laughing at the display of beginner naiveté and over calculation of the length of the project. I thought, hands down, I’d be done within the month.

You may now commence laughing yourselves silly. I know I did later, when it was funny, that is. Yeah…

I didn’t realize that the garage wasn’t framed with the intent to finish it. Meaning, they cut corners and left out the necessary studs in the corners to affix the drywall to. Ahh, my poor hubby. He loves me so and he very nicely volunteered to help me out with it and do that.

Then it was putting in the insulation. It wasn’t bad and going all pretty well till I realized that I’d have to cut all these smaller pieces for the random widths and lengths that were left under the windows and over the doors. Sigh. Well, that was easy.

Next, on to putting up the plastic (the vapor barrier stuff). I thought 'give me a hammer tacker and plastic and let me roll!' Ha. Yeah right. Of course, I would somehow pick the nastiest, stickiest and most humid day to put it up. It happened to be the same day that a storm rolled through and took out the power, including the fan that was pushing air around in the garage. It would be fun they said. No fun, here, none at all.

Well, me and hubby survived. We got ‘er done that day, which totally sucked. I inadvertently got a couple days of a break from the garage while I waited for the delivery of the drywall. Since our garage is attached my hubby decided to go all five eighths instead of trying to mix in half inch here and there.

Let me tell you, those buggers are heavy! I’m not a lightweight at picking up what I put down but when hubby says ‘just hold it for a bit so I can get it level’ and takes his sweet time doing so… I will say and repeat, sink a few screws already! It took a few days to do the walls but then there was the ceiling. Oh the ceiling, how I don’t like you.

Fortunately we had bought a drywall lift when it came time to do the ceiling. It was so handy it made me wonder why we didn’t get it sooner to use for the walls too. Hmmmm… My handsome hubby worked in the evenings after coming in from the fields to put up a few sheets or one each night. A couple of weeks went by. Finally it was done!

Now for the taping and mudding; and don’t forget about the sanding and repeat. The taping and mudding I found to be both mind-numbing yet relaxing-ish. The sanding though, that was a whole new ball game. I work out but the whole wax on, wax off over every single seam (walls and ceiling) proved to a bitter enemy and a vengeful victor. My muscles hurt for days afterwards. I thought my hand would never grip (or flex) anything again.

Don’t forget the second layer!

Grumble, grumble, grumble. How could I possibly forget? Apparently one coat isn’t good enough, three is the best but it’s a garage, I’m okay with two coats. And I’m on a time crunch. The garage has to be finished by end of the following week. So I had ten days to finish sanding, mudding, sanding and painting.

Meanwhile, every now and then I get a murmur of ‘you should come play/work in the shop with me’ or ‘come ride in the tractor with me.’ I love doing those things or being the actual operator of the machinery but this project really needed to come to an end. For my sanity.

I made the self-imposed deadline! The wall finished out nicely with a canvas color, a light ivory and the ceiling a ‘Versailles sky’ blue. I envision the trim to be a cloudy gray, which I’ll do this winter in the shop. I also sealed the floor with a made-for-it epoxy and its corresponding blue and white sprinkles. I mean, who doesn’t love scrubbing the floor and filling the cracks in with concrete glue?! Really, the actually application of the epoxy is the fun part.

It’s so much more fun to reminisce over this event. Somehow your mind conveniently forgets all the mind-numbing rote exercises and pain that go with it. And the dust of sanding drywall, my hair was white! No worries, I got smart and tied a kerchief over my head to protect my hair. The dust is hell on your hair.

Done before harvest, well, my definition of a harvest start.

Done, ma’am, done!