New Shelf

My second Ana White project was a shelf for over the toilet in our half bathroom. I had Ryan help me with cutting down the wood (I'm rather terrified of the table saw) but besides that it was a super easy afternoon project. I went with the rustic look again but I got a darker stain since it was going up on dark grey walls. I then put the three pieces of wood together with the nails that I've become obsessed with (and I only had one casualty) and it was ready to hang. I've learned that hanging things is just not my thing (as evidenced by the nail holes behind the mirror I put up last week) so Ryan helped me with that step too #thankgoodnessIhaveahandyhubby.

Before

After

I love it and it was such a quick project (take that Pottery barn overpriced ledges). I'm thinking of making more for my family room as an easy way to display pictures. Maybe it will motivate me to actually order my wedding pictures....

Sandy Project

Over the long, hurricane weekend I built my first piece of furniture via my new book and I am now hooked. Let me rewind, for a long while I had decided that our entryway needed more organization so when I came across plans for entry storage with cubbies I was sold.

Before

So, I took my handy book to Home Depot picked out the wood that I needed (I decided on pine) and had the Home Depot guy make 95% of my cuts for me. The only cut I had to do myself (note:Ryan did this cut) was the decorative cut at the bottom of the piece.

Once all my cuts were done, we set out to distress the wood (although later I would find that me + hammer+ nails= distressing enough).

We found the best way was to hammer chains in to the pieces of wood.

 We used some stain that we had laying around the house to give it a coat before assembling.

A couple of days of drying later, we were ready to put it together with some nails and wood glue. 

Apparently I am terrible at nailing straight so there were quite a few incidents where the nails came through the wood and had to be pushed out and nailed back in... like I said, distressed. BUT in the end, it came together quite nicely.

Starting to come together. Note the wood on the bottom is actually our joists from the kitchen.

Once it was all put together, I found some baskets at Home Goods that fit in to the cubbies (Ryan immediately claimed two).

Pre hooks

Fast forward to our hooks arriving and putting the whole piece up on the wall and here is the finished project:

Swoon.

So much more functional. It is so nice to be able to keep our hats/gloves/scarves in the cubbies. On another note, I really want a nail gun :)

I finished my second (much easier) project from the book last night so once I put it up, I'll share pictures. Meanwhile, Ryan has been working on his plumbing skills and we now have our radiator installed in the kitchen #warmthwin.

Learning Curve

In an attempt to not return the kitty (just kidding- sort of), Ryan set out to make him a cat "condo" in hopes that he would hopefully spend his time scratching it and not our lovely new furniture. Sigh. Being the uber resourceful guy that my husband is, he did a darn good job with some rope and outdoor carpet.

He actually used the tube that the carpet came in to attach the rope.

Stapling on the carpet.

And here it is in all it's glory (and not so bad looking if I do say so myself).

We put it in the corner so it wouldn't glaringly stand out and the rope blends in quite nicely (note that is not the  color carpet that Ryan told me he was going to buy but it will have to do).

So, does Leo use it? Indeed he does.

(He's actually asleep on it in this picture which is pretty funny).

The jury is still out whether or not he's also using our lovely furniture but for now, he stays. ;)