Twiddling my fingers.

Dude, I've got so many ideas floating around in my brain right now. And I can't work on any of them. Arg.

Why?

'Cause I don't want to start anything when I'm so close to moving. Would you? Nah. You'd wait, too. Right?

First off, this idea is grrrr-eat.

This, is an idea board. I want one. It will be covered in random stuff. Will I get to do all the things it's covered with? Maybe. Maybe not. But who cares?

Now this idea:

I can do before moving. Ooh I will do before moving. Yum. Doesn't that look so cool/delish?

I want a window seat in my living room. Right in that bay window. I had a window seat in my bedroom all growing up. They're so nifty.

What do you think, dad? What's the difficulty rating, Daddy-o?

I've already mentioned this. I know. Sorry.

But easter colors, man! Love it.

This is JUST an idea. But it's a cool one. Cool enough to go on a cool idea board:

The boyz bedroom. As Jace says "that's what I'm talking about!"

And also cool and totally doable, this measurement board thingy:


Sigh. Well that's enough. Don't even get me started on weird kitchen/dining ideas. I'm thinking I might need to reign it in. And, Jeff needs to give me a strict budget.

On a more concrete note, Jeff and I have come to full agreements on flooring (hardwood everywhere but bedrooms), type of flooring (cherry), paint (light taupe), and baseboards (biggest we can find in a nice bright white). That's a step in the right direction.

Opened a can of worms.

Let us revisit my craptastic window seat, shall we?

Yes, lets.

I would like to announce that I have finished rerouting the vents and added a bit of trim here and there. It's amazing what a little molding can do to give it a finished look.

Anywho, I am in love with this window seat. IN.LOVE.

See, it's changed the whole look of my room; the extra white has brightened up the place, and well, frankly, the pink cast that my paint was giving off prior, kind of like a freaky barbie house, is gone.

Simply put, I am one happy camper. Thinking of a windowseat? Do it. Don't look back.

But, big but--

it's opened a can of worms, people. I took a look around my room, yelled "what a dump!", and began dreaming of something more. Something less white trash. Something gorgeous, dreamy, storybook-like.

Share in the dream with me, won't you? Get all up in my head. First off-- the windowseat. I know I already shared the dream of a cushion and lovely pillows. I'm thinking some gorg, billowy tie up curtains, like so:



And I stumbled upon zees:

Oh.My.Word-duh. Built-in's? Next to the windowseat? Bring me home a piece a that. Plans have been drawn. Already.

One word for you:

white.

There will be massive amounts of white. You don't care for white? Then you are dead to me. Dead.

Molding. Hello? My project, without molding? Has the world gone mad? I assure you it hasn't. I'll continue this wainscoting around the entire room.

A new bed frame. The Daddy-o made us a bed many moons ago, and I am just now ready to make use of this gorgeousness.

I will proceed with the finishing of said gorgeous bed frame when Jeff and I can come to terms on painting vs. staining. Although I thought we had it worked out, we just don't see eye to eye.

He's an X-box and I'm more an Atari.

Anywho,

the piece de resistance:

my boyhood dream. I always imagined myself as the nicest, cutest mommy in the whole wide world, who had a vanity table, wore a beautiful long nightgown, and brushed her hair with her silver-plated hairbrush 100 times in front of the mirror, every night.

Yes, friends-- I want a vanity table in my boudoir.

It won't be as freaking awesome as that one, I can promise. Champagne taste on a beer budget 'n everything.

So wish me luck. I'm girding up my loins. And I won't promise posting before shots of this dump. And you can't make me.

Staring At My Stairs.

How many different angles can one take a photo of one's stairs?

 

We-he-hell I don't know! Let's find out!

 

 

It took an entire Saturday of hard ace work to completely finish the longer direction of my stairs, and it was heinous. I'd rather chew broken glass then take this on again. It was that fun.

 

 

But I do love them. But um, how do you people with those fabulous dark wood floors stay sane? These show every.single.speck of dust. My eye is twitching for you just thinking about attempting to keep them dust free.

 

 

I'll take this any day over carpet, though. 60 seconds with a wet rag and they are clean. 60 seconds is all it takes. Ironically that's how long they stay clean.

 

So I wanted to do something super funsies with the landing. Something different. Something brave. In a perfect world, I'd have a large enough landing that I could put a cute little window seat that nobody ever sits on but looks just darn cute.

 

Since this isn't that world, I considered my options. Seriously looked into a floor medallion for the landing. Something like this one.

 

 

I don't have the faintest idea how to incorporate them into another flooring product and also they're a bajillion dollars. I mean you could sell your house to pay for the floor medallion. And then you'd be left with just the floor medallion.

 

Just want you to have all the facts.

 

You might not love this. It's okay if you don't, because you don't live here and I do and I totally understand your feelings, but I do love it. We took some left over oak, and then we took some left over maple hardwood, and we like married them together. Because I have maple floors and they're not going anywhere. And now I have oak treads, and they're staying, too. They should be together as one.

 

 And the hubs had this great idea to like make the hardwood turn with the stairs, and I was nodding my head loving this new different plan but had no idea what he was talking about but I loved that he was being creative so I was onboard.

 

 

I really do love it. I also love that the Jeffro, like the engineer he is, drew it out and planned it all perfectly and then went out and cut those pieces and kept the whole thing perfectly square and then brought them all in and they magically fit because his math was pure. That's what I married you for, Jeffro.  Your brains. Also your abs and shoulders. But not your farts, because, wow.

 

So if I get tired of it, it's not a big deal to replace. It's a teeny area. Also, it was free.

 

 

So, let's talk stairs.

 

 

So you say you want solid wood treads, huh? Like I said when we chatted last about stairs, just count on not having nice wood under your carpet. Sometimes it happens. I've heard about it before in hushed, reverent tones. There is also probably a unicorn in your backyard. But like I said: sometimes.

 

Pssssst (loud obnxious whisper): not in Utah.

 

Stair Tread Options

 

Lemme give you the run down on your options for running to the hardware store, okey dokey? Generally, (GENERALLY) this is what you can expect to find:

 

Four choices, here:

 

1. Solid oak 1 and 1/2" treads. Barely under $30 each.

2. Oak (solid? not sure) tread covers that go over the top of your existing tread: $27 ish.

3. Solid oak 3/4" treads. A little over $20.

4. Pine treads. The low low cost of $10.

 

I was tempted with door #4. Really, I was. And then I thought about all those knots, and knots starting to pop out, and a really cabin-y barn-y feel and moved on.

 

Also, I have 14 total stairs. So here's my oak range: $280-$420. (Before taxes.)

 

And then it hit me:

 

Wait a second.?. I could spend a few hundred bucks to still take these home, rip them to my exact width, cut each one, and stain and seal every single one?? What? What am I paying for? Just the bullnose?

 

Yeah. I wanted to make my own treads. If I still have to rip and cut each dang tread, I'm going to save some money. 

 

 Now hold up a second:

 

I'm not really suggesting you should copy me. You might want to.  This is not the normal way to do things. I might regret it 10 years down the road.

 

All my treads are 3/4" oak plywood.

 

 

Here's the thing: I already had a crap ton of this hanging out in my garage. I already had it. It made sense to use what I already had to save money and cut down on my hee-uge lumber pile.

 

Oak ply comes in 4x8 sheets for the price of $50. I bought one sheet and got 8 treads out of that sheet. Then, I ran over to the wood moulding section and purchased a pretty bullnose-ish piece of oak trim for the cost of around $4, wood glued and clamped the snot out of them, and they were ready to stain.

 

 

So my stairs cost me (again I had some material lying around): $78. Plus taxes.

 

Price per tread (if purchasing all the material from scratch): $8.50 (before taxes. Not including stain and sealant, yo.)

 

Obvs, the price is a pro, and here's the con: it dawned on me that if I ever wanted to restain these, you really can't do that with oak ply. Over-sanding the top takes you down to the ugly ply part. So there's the downside.

 

Oh! And if you are crazy like me and simply cannot live without stair skirts, I think Ana White did a great job of explaining cutting the stair skirts to size right here. They are worth it. They are fabulous. Good luck. May the force be with you.

 

So! One last time:

 

 

This is actually my new favorite angle of the house. I love the way the moulding on those windows turned out, and I love my stairs.

 

 

 

My stairwell is no longer the crotch of the house. Sigh. It's the little things.

Smoke 'em if ya got 'em.

I think I should tell you, that I consider my boudoir done. Medium, medium-well.

And, you know, it only took me a month. But you know me; I like to take on multiple projects, allllllatonce. It's part of my mental situation. Perhaps you remember the before before?


And, of course, you know I built me a window seat and flanked it with built-ins:

Some more pillows for my kids to throw to the floor, and a handle to open the storage in the center and reveal my severed heads, and I'm gonna call this space done.

Honestly, we have more bookcases in this house now then we have books.

This is the "hers" side, with some of my faves. "A Connecticut Yankee", and Mark Twain = sheer genius. Am I right?

And then of course there's the "his" side. With like,

"Art And History of Rome". And some other crap. Some white paint, a little caulking, and they look much more seamless and "built-in". 'Cause you know, that was the intention.

And my sign I made last year?

This one? Inspired by the best song by the best band? EV-AR? I had to put it back up. It might be an awkward spot, but I love it there. So take that decorating police!

And of course you remember the staining and shellacking of my bed, from this:

to this:

And I really wanna tell you that the white has stayed just perfect. 'Cept that would make my pants on fire, and hanging from a telephone wire, as I just noticed two little cheeto finger prints this morning.

But quite possibly the largest of changes was this disaster/catastrophe.

I have no shame.

Quite possibly that vacuum's in the same spot. It's very probable.

But my own little space:

I still love not getting ready in my nast-asty bathroom.

And behold my late 80's, Julia Roberts hair!

That's what a vanity table can get ya. 80's hair.

Really though--

moving those computers out of my room has significantly cut down on traffic in here. I can move, I can breathe; the muted colors makes it feel much more crisp, clean, and captivating.

Those are the 3 C's I needed.

While I am aware that blogland has plenty of people taking down the fan for a chandelier, it's just not gonna happen. Helps us survive the summer nights.

In short,

we now actually like our bedroom.

And so do our butt munches. Much to our dismay.

Insane in the Membrane.

I'm so glad I had that peptalk, 'cause not long after, I had the wild hair to start a new project. And in typical Mandi fashion, it's a hot mess.

See, it's been on my to-do list for quite some time, but I just wasn't sure how to begin.

When I was a little boy, errr, I mean, girl, that's what I meant-- I had a window seat. Both the girls had one, actually. The boys weren't loved so they didn't, but the girls did.

And it was awesome. Built by the Daddy-o; covered in carpet. . . those were the days. It still holds my New Kids and Jem and the Holograms memorabilia.

No, no, Mom-- it's okay. You can keep it all.

I have such a generous spirit.

So, when I saw this project, I's all, "Really? Really? You just, like, build a frame and go for it? I thought it was massively complex. I am sooo up for this."

Prior to this craptastic activity, we had a couch sitting in our boudoir. One time, someone sat on it. A few times, the kids slept/slobbered on it when they'd had nightmares of zombies eating their brains.

Anywho, it took up a lot of floor. The couch will have a wonderful home in the basement, and this windowseat will only take 1/3 of our much needed space.


So I got to work. And it was totally like "Uncle Buck". You know, "He's cooking our garbage!!" Except I wasn't cooking anything, I was just cutting up all the crap we have lying around.

I josh not. Remember my rule of taking the kids to Lowes: I'd rather chew broken glass. The only thing needed, not laying around, were these purty hinges I used for the storage space beneath that holds my gun rack and severed heads.

Perhaps I went a little overboard with the framing. But as a mother, I imagined all 200 pounds of my children jumping on it simultaneously, and then potentially getting their friends to join them. I wanted it super strong.

So, as I was saying, everything was scraps. Leftover 2 by 4's from the basement, the top is made of freaking leftover shelving.

Waste not want not, know what I'm sayin'?

The front is cut up particle board that I had leftover from when a friend asked me to cut a piece up, and instead of cutting and returning said piece, I hit it with my van and had to go buy a new huge sheet of it. Much cussing was heard that day, I can tell you.

I opted to do the front of my lil windowseat just like the molding already in the boudoir, as seen in exhibit B:

What can I say? I like to be matchy-matchy.

There's massive amounts of finishing touches that need doing on this little task, like rerouting the heating vents, adding some trim here and there, and so forth and so on.

I dream of a cushy tushy pillow, and many gorgeous throw pillows to adorn the top. . .

but just for right now,

smoke 'em if ya got 'em, 'cause I am done, and I am pooped.

I've Always Wanted To Do This.

Do you know what I've always wanted? ("Always" being a relative term?)

 

I want this ultra cozy bed. People, I love to sleep. I love to sleep, and I love to dream. I have a dream journal, because I am an ultra nerd.

 

Don't you hate it when people, like, tell you all about their dreams forever, and you're like Lloyd Christmas, and you're all, "I don't know. . . and I don't CARE. . . "

 

Sometimes I do that. (My favorite dreams are the ones where I like live in a castle-house and I get lost in my own place and it's so weird and crazy and awesome there I fit that in there.)

 

Lest we forget, let us revisit my boudoir and the current sleeping arrangement that is the Jeffro and I and my king-sized bed:

 

(As always, I'm curled up on the right. Actually I've more recently adapted this picture so that my husband more sleeps on a steep angle towards me, thus leaving more of the sea of bed on his side. But I can't find that more accurate craptacular drawing and I'm supposed to be cooking dinner right this second and it's called priorities, people.)

 

ANYWAY.

 

So here was my so sad bed for the last couple years.

 

 

I still totally loved it-- the white was actually working out, even if it isn't so white, and my pillows are squashed to total pancakes, and that's to be expected, BUT

 

my bed is wearing high waters. It's gimpy. Also someone doesn't know how to tuck in their top sheet even for a picture and that's totally trashy. Why does a king-sized comforter have to be questioned? I assumed a king-size meant it would actually hang over the bed more than a few inches. But that's just me. Going around assuming.

 

So I saw this article on Pinterest:

 

 

And the quest for the most cozy, whisper sweet nothings in my ear type of bed was revived.

 

So the picture of the bed above was one of my faves, and so was this one,

 

and this one.

What do these three pictures have in common, I ask myself?

 

Neutral tones, which we all know I love. "Bor-ing" (sing-song voice). And pa-lenty of textures, and most importantly, faux fur. It must be done.

 

I can't spend a lot, people. I'm on a budget (which I've already totally blown in freaking January but I don't want to talk about it.) Don't expect a ton from me, okay.

 

So here's what I did: I measured my "king-sized" current comforter and realized that the new one need be over 100 inches at least, dang it,

 

and then I hit Ikea to scout for cheap fur and then on to Target for new neutrals. And it was totally fun.

 

 

Couple things, here-- I love this bed. I love it. You don't have to love it, and that's okay, because you don't sleep in it. But I love it.

 

 

(Sidenote: can you see that random orange pillow on my window seat? I was throwing in some orange here and there into the boudoir. Ask me how that went. It didn't.)

 

Anyways, so the messier (within reason) this bed is, the more it calls to me. It still has to look made "ish", but if it's like turned down and looks like someone snuck into it and pretended they didn't, like pillows are kind of helter skelter and stuff, then I love it all the more. The fur rug is right where I pray and I totally love that, and my sheets aren't so white and that's totally embarrassing but not embarrassing enough to care. They're clean okay and that's what matters.

 

 

Currently trying to talk the hubs into a hardwood floor in here. What do you think about only one room being done in hardwood for the time being? Strange?

 

 

So here's to dragging my behind out of bed in the morning for a freezing cold and dark jog. Wish me luck. And also, I'm taking a couple vacays over the next couple weeks so I'll see you in a while. Have a good one, and don't break into my house because it's not vacant and the occupant has an itchy trigger finger.