Project 525: DIY Entry Table

One off the neat things about our new house is the georgeous entry, it has rich blue slate/stone flooring, exposed brick, and a doorway to the "second entry" made of reclamed wood!  It is amazing, in addition to its beauty, it's the perfect water proof room, the flooring actually flows in from the outdoors. So I wanted- needed an entry table but being the frugal (ok cheap) girl that I am I decided that I was going to build one.

During the move I came across this planter that was amazing and fit perfectly in the space. It had the slight instustrial feel to it that I love and I knew I could make a top that brought in the rustic feeling of the house.

So I set out to make a top,at  first I just cut a piece of shelving board to sit on top and yes, it made a table but it wasn't quite the look I was going for.  So when my dad was here for Easter I beggged for his help and he obbliged. 

We took old boards and cut them the 4 inches wider than the width of the board.

Then we attached them to the shelving board, my dad is much more percise than I would of been.

Finished project, we just set the top on the plant stand!

Perfection!

And yes the old boards are that amazing all on there own! 

Project 1 of 525- One become Four

So I had lofty hopes of documenting all our completed projects as we renovated our new house and turned it into a home. Sadly I haven't, as someone who likes to have things done yesterday I felt like we weren't making any progress. Actually I was kind of depressed about it, here it had been a 6 weeks of pre-move in renovations and now we have lived here for nearly 2 months and it isn't finished to perfection. Right how terrible is that, at this point it should look like we've lived her for 8 years or so I thought. Today I had to remind my self that I called this project 525 because it wasn't one project for perfection but many projects to get us there. I mean really its because it our address and but made me feel better so why not. So this is my therapy, a completed project.

Project # 1

When we purchased this house it only had one bedroom and then a large "rec" room (32ft X 20ft) on the second floor. So before we moved in we wanted - needed to create some bedrooms. We renovated the rec-room creating an office, guest room, Bryce's room, and a hallway.

Original floor plan- master on left and "rec" room on right

pre-renovation

mid- renovations- Looking at the studded walls for what is now three rooms.

New floor plan (right side of the stairs only)

Pre-renovation

mid- renovation- awesome hole, I mean hallway I smashed open

first room -office

second room- Guest room

Third room- Bryce's 

 Now because these rooms are not at 100%, ie: it looks like a magazine, I had been feeling like we hadn't made progress. but really we have finished a very large project. Actually the weekend we did this four projects were finished. We ran electrical - Project 2 and it works, replace a damaged floor joist in the crawl space- Project 3 and stop a leak in the up-stairs bathroom- Project 4. 

Project 2

In all actuality at this point, just in this area alone we have completed at least 15 projects (the rooms are fully functional, all though not finished, FINISHED) but more on that progress later.

Project 525

 Early in November we finaly closed on 525 Atkins Drive. I say finally but considering we weren't even looking for a home on September 25th it has actually gone pretty quick.  As excited as we were to get in the house and start the remodeling it was pretty nerve racking to think that we now owned TWO homes and starting January 1st had TWO mortgage payments.  (Random fact, since we had to postpone our closing it actually happened on the same day as our closing on our current home, 4 Mechanic St.) But fears have been laid aside and God has provided, we are in the process of closing a Lease to Own and they will be moving in Jan 1st and purchasing in September!! YAY no double mortgage payment. 

Since the home is a foreclosure and has sat empty for over a year there are many things that need "help" before we can move in.  The carpets need to be ripped out, a rotten joist replaced, and the 12+ months of grime need to be cleaned up. The biggest pre-move in project is to create bedrooms, the house is currently a one bedroom, however there is a 32x18 rec room on the second floor. We plan to divide it into three rooms; two bedrooms, and an office. The rest of the projects are cosmetic and can be done once we are in the home.  Below are the current floor plans and proposed floor plans

Current 1st Floor 

Proposed 1st Floor - tear down wall between kitchen and famly room 

Current 2nd floor- Master and Large Rec Room

Proposed 2nd Foor-  Create 3 bedrooms, and add a 2nd Up-Stairs bathroom

Before we move in we will have built out the three bedrooms, the next project will be to replace all the windows, then to tear down the wall on the first floor, we will have to replace the roof and the HVAC at some point after all that is done we will add the second bathroom upstairs.   Also at some point we will be creating an entrance from the greenhouse into the main house, not sure if we will use it as an office or a garage.

Kid friendly Christmas Craft

I attempted three times to post this yesterday and each time something screwed up.  I had to stop attempting or I was sure to lose the Christmas spirit. It seemed only appropriate that on the first day of December I post a Christmas craft, but with Joey out of town I had no one to couteract my lack of computer competency.   For all my DIY friends and momma's looking for something to do with your children this one is easy.  I have discoverd that when making this with my class we did it "wrong".  We still ended up with an Ornament, but it would of been smaller and easier to fit on a tree if we had done it correctly.

You will need: about 4 toilet paper rolls or 2 paper towel rolls to make one ornament. In addition you will need two pipe cleaners and optional would be paint and or gitter and we covered ours in Mod Podge to seel in the glitter. 

Step 1- Flatten then decorate your cardboard roll, cover in Mod Podge and let dry.
Step 2- Cut the roll into one inch sections, they should look like little circles.. (this is the step we messed up, we used ten whole rolls for our first set, on our second set we cut them correctly and the look is much more delicate.)
Step 3- Use a hole punch and put a hole about 3/4 of an inch in on each side of the cut roll.
Step 4- Cut about 3 inches off one pipe cleaner and twist it to the other.  Thread the smaller pipe cleaner through the bottom set of holes, thread the larger through the top set of holes.
 Step 5- Bring the small pipe cleaner together and twist creating a circle, then repeat with the longer pipe cleaner.

Now hang your pretty star on the Tree.   I wish I had taken photos of the small stars too, but we did this at school and I only got ones of the large.

Sprout 8: Photo Project

Lydia’s senior pictures:

This summer my sister asked if I would take her senior pictures for her.  This was not because I am an excellent photographer but for two reasons.

1.      She thought most of her friends photo’s looked the same and were taken in the same three locations

2.     She is awesome and even at 17 she is frugal, why spend money when you don’t have to!

So two weeks ago she came to visit with a friend and we had some fun around town.  There were tons of amazing photos; of course my sister is beautiful, although not all were “senior picture” in nature. These are a few of my favorite.

I also took some photo’s of Lydia’s friend any my other sister, maybe I’ll post some of them later.