DIY Fortress go bye bye...

Having two blogs is too much work! Bloggy is now absorbing this DIY experiment: http://cassieopea.blogspot.com/

I can't figure out how to delete this, so here it sits until I can!

Farmhouse Table

It all started after sitting in this dining room, at this hand-me-down table and wishing I could see out the window. The dining room, I think, was once a bedroom. The bookshelf unit behind used to be an ugly closet,  (more on that later!) and the previous owner took out the doors and made curved doorways. It looks awesome, but is a smallish, dark kind of room. After 3 paint colors, I am loving the pumpkin. But we never spend any time in there, since it's dark and uncomfortable. I toyed with the idea of putting in a bigger window. But we're not ready for that yet.

I moved the furniture around and around, tried to make it a lounge/bar/library area...anything to get more use out of the room. Finally we decided that we'd buy a bigger table and more comfy chairs. After venturing out onto the shoppers abyss, we considered dropping $1,000 on a counter-height chair/table combo from a decent furniture store. Thing was, even at a grand the table top was cheapy-looking wood veneer. Ugh. Why isn't anything made out of good wood these days? We loved an Amish table we found, but it was about $3,000. So.... with that inspiration, we decided to make one to own specifications!

Brandon did the measuring and cutting (ugh! Details!) and I got to do the planning, staining and finishing. Also the chair-picking. This is the table in the garage before the polyurethane. We ended up staining it black because we were to cheap to get all matching, nice wood, so a lighter stain would have revealed the greenish tint of the poplar tabletop, and the reddish tint of the base. Oops. I know that now for next time. The legs are straight-up 4x4s, with 2x2 beams for support and random poplar timbers for the top. Brandon was very worried this would end up looking like a picnic table, but once we got the right chairs for it, it looks just fine!

If I had to do it again, I would make it a little bigger. We got the height right, but the chairs are a tad tight. Otherwise, I love the thing. I can stand on it, even dance on it! And now we have a great view out the window when we're eating, studying, reading, whatever. We've moved back into that room! Yay! 

We distressed the top with chains... fun!

Four chairs from Overstock.com, very comfy!

In all, we spent about $600 on the table. But... that was only because we bought a chop saw from Dewalt for $300! I think the chairs ran about $300 also. But now we have a table that will last forever, and if we can get sick of it, it will be right at home on the deck. We also scored a nice tool that we'd have probably been too cheap to buy otherwise!

This was a bad idea...

Bad idea....tea-dyed blanket

White is not so good at my house. It doesn't stay clean for very long, and in the case of this nice white blanket, I'm just not into bleaching it weekly. So, since my debit card was recently hacked and I can't get to any money until my new card comes in the mail, I decided  to try this tea-dyed technique I read about on the internet.

I started by brewing several pots of black tea I had leftover from a random trip to Chinatown in Chicago 3 years ago. I also poured some coffee grounds into the mix, some hot water, salt, and maybe some vinegar. I kept it in the "bath" overnight, and expected greatness when I pulled it out and hung it on the deck rail the next day.

I thought it would be a lovely rust-batik, or something. Brandon saw it hanging there and laughed. He asked if I'd been drinking. I do remember having a couple glasses of wine before I started this project. Wine + home improvement = dirty coffee/tea/blanket. Next step: buy some real dye and do it right!

Tea bath

Retro chair re-do

Before, take II

Before, take I

Chairs, like all furnishings, are freakin' expensive. I needed a smallish chair, and instead of paying $600 at RC Willey, I found this $60 one at a thrift shop in California. I don't really know why I like it, maybe because it's curvy and has a lot of real wood, which is hard to find in new furniture these days. The foam was in good shape, but the wood had this 1960s opaque-looking finish on it. The color was all wrong, and the fabric was hideous.

I sanded it down which was a huge pain in the butt. All those curves, surfaces. Argh, it took forever. I stained it a darker color, and used satin polyurethane for the finish. I think it updated it at least ten years. Ha. The first incarnation was recovered with what I thought would be a very worldly use of fabric-- a hot pink hammock I've been dragging around with me from Ecuador. It turned out that the fabric was just too thin, and you could see it puckering around the foam. I'm sure I could have added it to a base fabric of some sort, but by the time I'd sewn it and put it on and taken it off several times, it had already started to wear out in placed. I loved the hot-pinkness of it, but ended up going with something else. I will keep that fabric for pillows!!

After!

I found this very retro whitish-yellow circle print at the discount fabric store for yes, $5/yard. It is heavy, so hides the foam well. It was really easy to work with, and I think it goes well with the dark wood. I basically made two pillowcases for the cushions, and blammo, $70 chair! And my first upholstery project!

Frustrating shopping day!

I just pulled out the down comforter for winter and realized my green paisley patterned duvet looks disgusting with my new patterned DIY Roman shades... So I went out to find a plain duvet cover, thinking I could do this for under $40. Ha! These stupid things are not cheap! How on earth is what basically amounts to two sheets to slipcover a blanket worth $100 or more? I went to Ross, TJ Maxx, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Kohls in search of a cover for under $50. I considered making one out of two sheets, but you have to buy two sheet sets, and finding two that match for under $50 even at a discount store is not easy. I know I'm cheap, but really? It's a flat piece of fabric. I don't get it.

It was a frustrating day all together. Maybe because our finances are still depleted since Burning Man, but I don't understand how people just come out of these stores with bags and bags of new stuff, and get into their new cars. How do they do it? How are me and my husband, who both work full-time and don't have kids trying to figure out how to sew two cheap sheets together to make a stupid blanket cover?

Gah. Deep breath. Remember words of wisdom.... be thankful for what you have!

DIY Roman shades!

This fabric started as homemade curtains in the living room, but they ended up being too busy for that small space. I reverted back to some basic curtains for that room, and cut this fabric up and turned them into roman shades. So simple! The bedroom was an issue-- it had these long curtains over the short windows and I never could get it looking right. I wanted nice, white cell blinds or roman shades, but a blinds.com quote was for over $250 for simple Roman shades for all 3 windows, and I didn't feel like spending that.

So I made these from the old curtains--which were a good deal in the first place, like $6 a yard! I cut them to the window size with a little extra on each side, about 5 inches longer in length. Then I made five small folds and ironed them in-- big enough to place wooden dowels in the back of the shade so they won't sag. The folds were about 5/8". Once those were sewn in place, I sewed by hand these little plastic rings I found at Lowes on the back of each fold--two per fold. These are to secure the opening device. I strung rope through them from the bottom up, and tied a knot at the bottom. At the top I strung the rope through screws with eyelets attached to a 1x2 wooden beam secured to the trim of the window. That allows me to move the shade up and down by pulling the rope. So easy.

I ended up not needing a securing device or a fancy opening device-- the combo of the heavy-ish fabric and the light plastic rings, and the rope actually makes it stay in place while up. Then I just gently pull at the bottom to bring them down. All in all, besides the fabric which I already had, these cost me $20! Yay!  I think they look so much better than my curtains, and better than the nasty, dirty blinds the previous owner had up.

Resurrection cedar chest

Lane cedar chest-finished!

Top view-before.

Front view, note uneven stain and varnish.

I inherited this 1940s Lane Cedar Chest from my grandma's house when she moved out after grandpa died. It had been hiding away in an upstairs closet for who knows how long; dried glue on the veneer, polyurethane wrinkled and spotted...it was begging for a resurrection! I loved that it was my grandma's, so I really, really didn't want to mess it up.

This was one of my very first wood projects, so I learned a ton. To refinish it, I started by sanding the whole thing down with a power sander. I regret that-- always start with the most minimal effort! I was so lucky that the veneer was thick enough that I didn't sand through it. I probably should have stripped it first to see where that got me, then broke out the 150 or 220 sandpaper by hand, THEN used a vibrating sander if needed.

Once there was a good surface I played around with stain. The front was still a bit uneven, like it was faded in places. I mostly used a natural stain from Minwax, and just did several coats where it was lighter.

It has a couple different varieties of veneer on it, and I wanted to let each piece show through, so I used a shiny polyurethane over the top, several coats. I wasn't sure if that was the thing to use... antique restoration websites say don't use poly on antiques. BUT... my chest is technically not an antique, since it's only from the 1940s and not over 100 years old. And based on the pictures I Googled, these chests are pretty shiny. So I went with it, and I think it works. I think it turned out so good, and is now one of my favorite pieces of furniture in my house!

First post! The door where it all began...

Welcome! Since this is my first post on my new blog, I thought it would be a good idea to share a story about our front door, the entrance to our fabulous "new" abode! We lived in the house for nearly a year before attacking this project, even though the old door had cracks in the window, and a huge doggie door big enough for a man to crawl through. The reason we waited? Front doors are friggin' expensive!

We finally got to it after the not-so-stable former owner showed up at our doorstep, twice, and asked when we changed the locks. He informed me that he used to be able to pick the lock with his thumbnail.

After that, we also got a dog. Anyway, I wanted a solid wood door--and they are not so budget friendly. I kept thinking I'd stumble upon a Craigslist beauty, but that just didn't happen. I decided against a steel door because it can dent, and a fiberglass one with a fancy glass insert that just doesn't go with the rustic facade of the house. So I scoured Craigslist for weeks... not wanting to spend hundreds on what was basically a piece of wood. Besides, I could easily refinish an older wood door in good shape. But, being that we have an older house, the frame is not square. Buying a used door without a frame would be much harder to fit into the space, we decided we needed a door that came with a frame, so in this one case, new was the way to go.

New wood doors on a frame can cost thousands! I had no idea. In the end we opted for an unfinished big box store special order in alder. We paid $399, which was a bargain. Sanding, staining and finishing it was a super pain-in-the-ass. All the nooks and crannies hold stain and polyurethane, and it is super heavy. We still don't have sawhorses, so I did it all while it was lying on the floor of the garage. I used Minwax Early American, and an outdoor urethane.

The hardware is from handlesets.com. I tried two different sets at Home Depot and Lowes that didn't fit. I really really suggest NOT buying the "Smart Key" technology from Kwikset. After installing it, we proudly opened and closed our door for a day or so when it seized up and locked us out! Good old Google revealed that we were not the only ones with this problem. It is made for landlords I guess, who want to change the keys occasionally. It is faulty, and I boycotted Home Depot for at least a day for selling such crap.

After installing two sets of doorknobs, we had "extra" holes. My poor husband, expert driller of holes, was so ashamed. So much for DIY-- there is a very big learning curve to all this! We had to special order a handleset that has a big back plate to conceal our boo boos. In this case it definitely could have been done more cheaply, but we love how solid the iron looks and feels, and how beefy the door is. Finally we have a custom-looking door, a new lock, and peace of mind, all for around $600.