Chalkboard-Painted Clementine Boxes

For the last month or so I've been HOUSING Clementines, with the help of a certain 3 foot tall member of the family. My friend Christa has some empty Clementine boxes in her kitchen to hold various sundry objects, so I figured I really needed to stop throwing them out.



Nathan's toys are all over the place, so I figured they could be useful under the TV. I coated the front panel in the chalkboard paint leftover from the kitchen cabinets, and used chalk to denote what goes in them. Not like Nathan reads. Or puts his toys away. But it looks good, damnit!



I like the way it came out. Also, you will note from the above picture that an IKEA entertainment center made of MDF is not to be trusted, as it's all warped from use.

Now I Can Never Leave

Our older neighbors next door snowblowed the end of our driveway today - the guy next door has always been really nice, and they knew we had a new baby and Mike had surgery, so he's done it a few times for us. I'm currently baking up some pumpkin spice muffins to give them as a thank-you, hopefully it won't be too awkward to knock on their door.

Anyway a few weeks ago my brother came up with one of his construction buddies to take care of the last few major projects in the house - fixing our downstairs bathroom where our dog, Bob, ripped out some drywall, and putting in a subway tile kitchen backsplash, finally getting rid of the terrible 1960's wallpaper that was not even vintage cool, just terrible.



Sure, I *could* have moved the PB&J out of the way, but you try doing anything with a toddler and an infant. I dare you.



This used to be a piece of cut stainless steel sheet behind here. Looks SO MUCH BETTER now.



The kitchen will never be magazine-perfect, but it's small and for 4 people and it's lived in and dangit, I can write recipes on any of the cabinets. Like pizza dough. Good to have pizza dough.

Anyway now that the house looks pretty much awesome, I don't really ever want to leave, even with the distance to Boston or anywhere that isn't the Atlantic ocean, and the sometimes crappy neighborhood. Sure, I'd like to live on some kind of hobby farm selling eggs to people, but that's a lot of work.

Nathan's Big Boy Bed

I remember my brother having this bed growing up. Apparently it originally hails from UMass Lowell (or at that time, Lowell State College). It's utilitarian, but it's also free and it works perfectly as a little boy's bed and matches the dresser I have for him.

Shed Loft

For the last couple of weeks I've envisioned a smallish project where I put a loft/attic over one side of our new shed, for storage on top and bike hanging underneath. I finally grabbed all the stuff from Home Depot this week and today was the day to do it.

I'd measured from side to side, and the shed was 89 inches across - meaning we could hang 7 bikes with hooks 11 inches apart. That also meant I needed to learn how to master a circular saw.

All in all, the parts were cheap. I got 2 2x4s and 4 brackets, but only ended up using one (the other will be re-used to make the same loft on the opposite side), and 2 2footx4foot 1/2inch thick plywood boards. It was about $45 for parts and $20 in gas because I drove all the way to Foxboro and back to borrow my brother's pickup truck.



The loft part came together pretty quickly! Once I mastered the circular saw, anyway. I only had to cut the 2x4 down by 7 inches, and one of the plywood boards down by 7 inches as well. The brackets were easy enough to nail in, and I only smashed my thumb once!



I hadn't bought any hooks but we had bunches lying around - we're still missing one in the middle, but oh well. Two are rated heavier than the other ones, but those work perfectly for the heavier bikes.

I'm proud of myself - I did the whole thing by myself while Mike watched Nathan - even hung the bikes myself. Not bad for 21 weeks pregnant! It came out awesome! Usually my projects end up Homer Simpsonesque.



EXACTLY LIKE THAT.

Big Boy Room

OK, so I have a terrible summer cold. Awful. Sinuses feel like there's tiny fire ants breeding inside them. So why when I'm super sick do I want to get redecorating done? I don't know. Probably because I'm crazy.

I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm losing my awesome lavender guest room. It's OK. Nathan's cool big-boy room will be worth it.

Here's the cloth that will be used for the curtains:



And here's the rocking chair that will be in his room:



I'm trying to find a color to replace the purple that will match well with the chair and the fabric. I'm thinking a really light blue or really light khaki - almost white. I've gone the route of having too much color on the wall and regretted it (not in our bedroom though which I STILL LOVE). His current nursery is half baarely blue, half light blue, and it looks great.

Maybe one of these colors:





Or something super super light blueish or green. Who knows. I really like the khaki color with the fabric, but I also have to find him a twin-sized comforter set that would coordinate as well, and I think the best option there is to get something near a burlap color.

I guess this is why I have four more months to figure this out!

Oh Crap, I'm Nesting.

Mike's been home for a few weeks now on short-term disability since his shoulder is messed up, so I've had time to actually accomplish projects since there's two people to watch the baby.

Since Mike's been home, he's also been amassing bicycles and their assorted parts, which has made our already messy and unorganized workshop room into a total disaster area. A few months ago I started work on that room, putting our old kitchen table in as a workbench and hanging wire shelving above, with labelled plastic bins for everything. It was a start, but it was still nearly impossible to get in there and find what we needed. I decided some shallow shelves on an odd-shaped wall would help get stuff off the floor.

So in the interest of organizing, I sent Mike off to Home Depot with a list, and he came back with everything I needed for shelving, and in the time he was gone I was able to paint the area where the new shelves would go with leftover paint from Nathan's room.



The entire thing was pretty short money. I asked him to get two 1"x6"x8' boards and have them cut into 30" sections, making 6 shelves (and a tiny bit of scrap), which was $15.98 altogether. He also grabbed 12 cheap shelf brackets at $.78 each, and a pack of 100 screws with anchors for $3.98. So the whole project was roughly $30.



Yeah, I still have a long way to go. But if I need spray paint and a sledgehammer, I am IN LUCK.