No craft projects today. The kitchen will soon be a disaster area filled with potato peels, turkey parts, and hopefully wonderful smells.
We are extra thankful and blessed this year for our little one on the way. My 26 week appointment was yesterday and everything looks great and right on track. Hopefully I passed my glucose test but seeing as I won't get my blood work back until after Thanksgiving I will be enjoying all of the yummy carbs and sugar just in case I won't be able to over Christmas.
Wood, Cloth and Baby wish you and yours a wonderful day filled with family and friends.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Earlier this year I posted a tutorial for making car seat covers. I have made about 8 of them over the past couple of years for friends and family. I enjoyed making them but it was always a little bitter sweet as I was eagerly awaiting the chance to make one for my own baby.
So of course when we got the baby news this craft went on the "to do" list.
I feel in love with this fabric from the Riley Blake Apple of My Eye collection. I like that it is girly without being overly pink. The red polka dot fabric has apples mixed in periodically which I love!
Click HERE for the link to the original tutorial. This is a really easy project without any really difficult steps. They really go together quickly and make good baby shower gifts.
This was the first sewing project I completed for my little girl and there were a couple tears of overwhelming joy along the way.
I can't wait to pull back the cover and see a smiling face looking up at me.
Nesting...it is a real phenomenon that pregnant women tend to go through. It is the drive to make your home ready for a baby. The husband does not believe that this is a real condition. He believes it is an excuse women have made-up to go shopping and force their husbands to do projects around the house. He can believe what he wants but as the wife is the one growing the baby she calls the shots.
My main nesting focus has been organization and maximizing storage space. We are lucky to have a large amount of storage space already but for some reason I just envision that as soon as the little one arrives she will take over every inch of space with diapers, bath paraphernalia, headbands and bows, toys, and of course...clothes!
I don't like clutter. I like things to have a place that is easily accessible.
I wanted make a bit more storage space in the extra bathroom that will become baby bath central. My focus was clearing/cleaning out the linen closet so that it could be used for baby bath items. Up until this project the extra bathroom linen closet was used for towel storage for all bathrooms, including the master bath. I didn't want a bunch of homeless towels so space needed to be created somewhere else.
Do any of you have a toilet room? A toilet room is a complete waste of space in a master bedroom that only houses a toilet. While some, including the husband, might argue that function alone is important enough I couldn't help but feel we were wasting a storage opportunity.
Pinterest to the rescue!
I stumbled upon this great usage of space from laramarkdesigns on the HGTV website...just add some shelves! I loved the chunky look so the husband came up with the following plan that used 2x4's. It ended up being a pretty cheap project, looks great, and provides some extra storage space freeing up the baby bath room.
Win, Win, Win!
Chunky Wood Shelves
Project Rankings
Difficulty - Medium (You do need wood working tools including a planer)
Frustration - Low
Makeability - 100% worth it!
Materials
2x4's
1x4's
Stain or Paint
Wood Glue
Instructions
Step #1: Determine the number of shelves you want and the desired length and width. The width will just be how many 2x4's you want to glue together. We ended up using 4 2x4's so the total width was about 16 inches. The husband used 1x4's to rest the shelves on instead of trying to anchor the shelves to the walls themselves. If you want more of a "floating shelf" type look you may want to figure out a way to direct mount the shelves to the wall and skip the 1x4 shelving brackets. If you want to use the shelving brackets you will need to measure the following for each shelf....2 pieces that are the shelf width minus 1 inch (the width of the 1x4), and 1 piece that is the length of the shelf.
Step #2: Cut all of your 2x4's to length and glue them together with wood glue. Clamp the pieces to together and allow to fully dry. ***A tip from the husband is to try and find some fairly straight/non-warped 2x4's it will make gluing and the next step easier.***
Step #3: Cut your 1x4's if you are making the shelving brackets.
Step #4: Once your shelves are dry you will need to run them through a planer to get them smooth. If you don't have a planer you can probably use a sander to get some of the smaller height differences in the wood buffed out.
Step #5: After wiping down your shelves to get rid of the sawdust you are ready to paint or stain your shelves. You will also want to stain/paint your 1x4's.
Step #6: Install your shelving brackets by placing the long piece at the back of your wall. This piece will go from edge to edge of your wall. Next install your 2 side pieces. They will butt up against the back piece shelving bracket which is why they are 1 inch shorter than the width of your shelf. Take care to get your shelving brackets level or else your shelves will not be flat and they might wobble. No one like a wobbly shelf!
Step #7: Place your shelves on the brackets and enjoy your new found storage space.
When we built our house almost four years ago I knew I wanted to have a room where I could store all of my craft items, spread out projects, and not have to clean everything up at the end of each day. I wanted a craft room!
With no children we had a large excess of rooms so I pretty much had my choice. I decided on the corner room. It was the biggest of the remaining rooms and had the best window.
It was a bunch of fun to convert the space into a dream craft room filled with storage and Wood and Cloth projects. Wood made the craft table (using table legs we had found in an antique store) and the built-in window seat storage. I had fun finding a bunch of antique items to use as storage and organization, I sewed a window cushion cover, and we both got our feet wet on home DIY projects with the installation of the bead board and chair rail.
I spent a ton of hours in that room making things for friends, family, and our home. However, if I am honest, I always wanted the room to be a nursery. I suspect most of my choices for decor were based on the hope that someday we would be able to put a little one to sleep in the room.
So as soon as we got the news I started planning the destruction of my beloved craft room and the creation of the nursery.
Before any of the nursery fun could truly begin we needed to move the craft room to the empty room down the hall. Previously this room was used for all of our numerous painting and staining projects...(we will have to find somewhere for all of our craziness..most likely the basement)
Making the move was not as easy as I thought.
I kind of freaked out when planning the new craft room. I loved the yellow in the old room but didn't know if we were going to keep it for the nursery or not. If we were having a boy..no. If we were having a girl..maybe. So I spent a couple of months in a constant state of "what do I do." I didn't want to move everything out of the nursery into the new craft room without painting it first.
But what color? Did I want to do something fun on one of the walls like batten boards? What was I going to do for storage now that I was leaving the cabinets in the nursery? Needless to say numerous hours were wasted on Pinterest trying to find inspiration.
Total breakdown. I am going to blame it on hormones but I was completely incapacitated when it came to any decisions related to the nursery. Very frustrating and not really like me. I can usually envision what I want and begin to work toward it immediately (and somewhat impatiently).
Finally one day I woke up and decided who cares? The new craft room can be a work in progress. We can move stuff out and paint later. No need to have everything in place. I just needed a place to begin nursery crafts.
So here I sit in my new craft room with unpainted walls and I love it.
It is smaller, less bright, and devoid of character (so far). I love it because next door is an amazing space that will welcome my baby girl in a few months. I have projects planned for the craft room but they will have to wait...
I have a princess that needs a castle.
I can't believe I never posted the final pictures of the laundry room redo! Apparently we finished just about the same time we got the amazing baby news...so here is the big reveal six months later!
This really was a fun (and involved) project. Because so much time has gone by I have been able to put the new laundry room to functional use and I couldn't be happier. It is very functional, has a ton of storage space, and is bright and cheerful (which is needed when you are doing stupid laundry). If you remember the husband was a bit concerned about the crazy patterns but he has seen the light and likes the room almost as much as I do.
I linked to the past posts if you want a refresher of what we did and how we did it. This was definitely a combo effort from both Wood and Cloth.
Painted Rug
Stripped Wall
Built In Cabinets
Chevron Wall Art
Mini Clothesline Decor
I did make the paper fans using a tutorial I found online (there are a bunch of them out there) as well as the roman shades. For the roman shades I went with a tutorial that converted the cheap mini metal blind kind.
I don't know if I can pick my favorite project. They all came out like I wanted! As a final follow-up on the rug...I think it still looks great. I was worried about the paint job but it has held and still looks like it did on day one. I am counting that as a win!
After a longgggg break Wood and Cloth is back with new posts and a bunch of new projects. Our last post was way back in July. I knew we were not going to be regular bloggers but I didn't think we would need a 6 month hiatus so soon! So what have we been up to....? Traveling the world? Winning the lottery? Developing the new iPad mini...?
Nope....making a human!
In June we got the amazing news that we are expecting our first child in February. We couldn't be more excited as we have been eagerly awaiting this news for a long time now.
As soon as we saw the "positive" sign our lives have not been the same. The first trimester brought a lot of worries and sickness for Cloth. Neither of those activities are very conducive to home decor and improvement projects. Everything was fine but when you have been waiting so long it is easy to focus on the things that might go wrong and forget to enjoy the ride. Meanwhile Wood spent most of the first trimester trying to ride out the wife's hormones and take care of the majority of the cooking (as pretty much any strong smell or raw meat handling would send the wife running to the bathroom).
With the approach of the second trimester we started to get very excited to find out the sex of the baby. Everyone would ask if we wanted the sex to be a surprise...to which the husband would always reply "it is either going to be a surprise in a couple of weeks or a surprise at birth." It is true no matter when you find out boy or girl it is still a surprise. That being said we did want to find out as soon as possible as we are both planners...we did have nursery projects to plan after all! DIY decor doesn't happen overnight!
So drum roll....
We are having a little girl!
My mother's intuition was wrong from day one as I was convinced she was going to be a he but we have had multiple ultrasounds and she is definitely all girl.
The wife's first thoughts were to all of the cute little girl clothes she could buy and possibly make...the husband's first thoughts were to how much more a girl was going to cost us. Apparently he has already started a plan to make sure she does not want a wedding, that elopement is the way to go. Or even better no wedding as she will not be allowed to date.
Our lives are about to change in amazing ways and as a result our projects are going to be nursery and baby heavy for the foreseeable future. We have already been pretty busy so hopefully there will be a bunch of posts in the coming weeks. I am super proud of how the nursery is turing out so I can't wait to share.
Wood, Cloth, and Baby Girl
Happy 4th of July everyone! Thanks to all of the veterans and those service members currently in action.
I had a bunch of projects planned for some red, white, and blue fun but I just didn't get around to them. I did get some fabric slapped on toilet paper rolls...no big whoop.
We, like most of the country have been battling high temperatures, a bunch of wind, and no rain. That makes for tinder box conditions in the hills directly behind our house. Almost 2 years ago we came very close to loosing our house when a wildfire came down the hill. It burned three homes within 2 blocks from us and actually scorched our next door neighbor's back yard. We had to evacuate and load our keepsakes and the pugs in the car.
Last week there was another fire in the foothills in our town. We were a bit further removed this last time but the mandatory evacuation area cutoff was about a block from our house. All of the smoke, orange sky and planes making water and retardant drops brought back a bunch of anxiety.
Then yesterday a very large wildfire broke out in a neighboring town...
As a result I am NOT looking forward to fireworks. In fact I am so nervous about something catching fire tonight that the husband and I are turning down multiple party invites as I don't want to be away from home if something were to happen. I want to make sure that we are here to get the dogs out if the unthinkable were to happen.
So please enjoy your 4th of July but if you are in an area with high fire danger please be careful and leave the fireworks to the professionals this year.
Wood and Cloth will be sitting on their deck with the sprinklers going in the yard watching the shows and hoping not to hear any fire sirens.
