Easy DIY Picture Shelf

 

No one ever accused us of not having enough projects going at the same time.  This past weekend we worked on the deck, planted the garden, planted the flower pots, dug and sprayed dandelions, shopped for patio furniture, purchased bushes for the backyard, played with a baby, and built the picture shelves.

After pretty much running all weekend I made the following observation:  Either we need additional days in the weekend or we need fewer projects. 

One of those things we can control.

We didn't control the projects well this past weekend.

Easy DIY Picture Shelves
Link to project start posting here

Project Rankings

Difficulty - Easy
Frustration Level - Low
Makeability - 100% Worth It

Materials

Crown Molding (Note: You want to have 2 flat surfaces on the crown.  You can make the shelves as beefy as you want depending on the size of crown you get.  We wanted the shelf to be fairly skinny so we went for a small crown)

MDF Board (Note: The width of the board will be the width of your shelf.  You probably don't want to go too big here unless your crown is really thick and beefy.  If you get too big of a shelf and put weight out on the front it may not be able to support it all.  We stuck with a 3 1/2 inch width.  That easily works for the frame width and even allows some small decor items.)

Thin board for the shelf lip (we used lattice board)
Paint (If you want to do a stain you will need to switch out the MDF for a wood board instead)

Step #1:
Determine the length of your shelf/shelves.  You will want to cut your boards (all the same length) before you paint.  I didn't actually do this so I ended up having to do some touch up painting when the shelf was up on the wall. 

Step #2
Paint all shelving pieces.  Make sure you paint all sides of the MDF board as well as the lattice board.  You will see all of the edges of these 2 pieces.  You will not need to paint one of the flat sides of the crown as it will be against the wall.

Step #3
Deterimine the location for your shelf/shelves.  If you are doing multiple shelves on top of each other, like we did, you will need to make sure that you have sufficient spacing between them to get your frames on the shelf.  Locate your studs in the wall.  Frames get heavy.  You will want to make sure that you go into a few studs.  Using a nail gun (if you have one...if you don't you should they are awesome) nail your crown molding piece to the wall.

Step #4
Next position the MDF board flush on the crown molding and nail it down into the top of the crown.

Step #5
Position the lattice board on the front of the MDF board, creating a lip for your shelf, and nail into place.

Step #6
You will probably want to fill in any nail holes and do some touch up on the paint.

There you have it.  Now comes the hard part...at least for me!  What frames and pictures to select.

FYI after looking at a ton of different picture frames I did end up getting all of my frames from IKEA.  I was going for a bit cleaner/simpler look so I choose simple frames in a couple similar styles.  I do like the look of a bunch of different styles of frames...but not for me.

Add a few small decor items if you want and call it a day.  The beauty of this project is that you can easily switch out photographs, frames, etc.  No drilling and hanging frames on the wall.

Before

 

Concept

 

After

 

I am really happy with how this project came out.  I even like the red color!

Red Rum

I may hate the paint color I picked for the picture shelves.

I broke one of my own cardnial rules...ALWAYS get a paint tester and try out a few shades before making a final selection.

I didn't get a tester, I just made a selection.

I may have messed up.

It may be too red.

I may have to repaint.

My plan is to do a final color check with the boards inside the house later today once everything is completely dry.

I may be painting again tomorrow.

Too Many Pictures: Picture Shelf Project

I knew it was going to be a problem.

I have so many pictures of baby girl that I am a bit overwhelmed.  How do I pick just a few to print and display?  Where do I put them?

As I have posted in the past I am not really good at hanging things on my walls.  I over think.  Now with all of the cute baby pictures I need to get my act together and get displaying.

Have I mentioned how much I like Pinterest?  I have...well I am mentioning it again.

I knew I wanted some sort of wall display that I could easily switch out pictures.  With her growing so much everyday my favorite pictures change quickly.  I also want to be able to change the orientation of the frames from landscape to portrait and back again.  I hate being stuck with a specific direction needed for a specific frame as I don't like to think about what direction I need the picture when I am taking it.  I want to be able to shoot the picture in the direction that I think looks good in the moment.

Bottom line is that I wanted maximum flexibility.

After looking around at a ton of options I was really drawn to picture shelves.  Not only could I rotate the frames and switch out the pictures easily I could even potentially include a couple small decor items to add some additional interest.

Which wall to choose?

I immediately knew I wanted to put the shelf/shelves on one of the walls in the main living room.  After all I wanted everyone to be able to ooh and aah at baby girl (can't hide those away in an obscure hallway).

The wall I picked out is a main wall that is against the stairs.  The problem was that it had a light switch and thermostat on it.  The husband did not think this wall would work.  I begged to differ.

Visualization works well for both of use when we are trying to sell a project plan to one another.

So I took a picture of the blank wall.  Uploaded it to my favorite photo editing site PicMonkey.  Added in some shelves and then did another one where I did a quick mock up of some frames.

It really helped the husband to see how it would work around the light switch and the thermostat.  Doing the mock up also helped me get an idea of how many and what sized frames I wanted.  I highly recommend doing some sort of visualization either by putting paper up on the wall or by photo shop, especially if you are wall art impaired like me.

The plan is to build a simple shelf using a piece of crown molding.

So in the midst of all of the deck shenanigans I will be working on the shelving project.  Wood has been selected...

...I'm off to paint. 

Holiday Time

This past holiday weekend Wood and Cloth took a break from the nursery and worked on Thanksgiving and Christmas related activities.

First up was cooking Thanksgiving dinner.  We actually go over to the husband's parents' house and have dinner with his family.  We do however like to have a bunch of leftovers so every year I make a full on feast for us to eat at home.  This includes a 16 pound turkey (yes it is only the 2 of us but don't forget we do have 3 pugs...) artichoke stuffing, fresh cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, rolls, frog eye salad (this is for the husband as the wife will not eat it), and a cherry pie.  This year I also got a bee in my bonnet that I wanted to do turkey stock and turkey noodle soup.  I think I forgot I was pregnant and maybe spending hours on my feet standing in the kitchen working on mounds of food was not a great idea.  Or maybe I was truly feeling my pregnancy cravings and baby girl wanted a ton of yummy turkey day related food.  Either way we ended up with a ton of food that we have slowly been working our way through since Thanksgiving.

It was a good thing that we had some much food as we burned a ton of energy and calories getting the house Christmas ready.  It was a bit of a challenge for me this year. It was hard for me not to be able to run bins of decorations up from the basement.  I could carry the lightweight things but after a few trips up and down I started to feel winded so the poor husband was left with the bulk of the work.  After all of the bins were upstairs in true Wood and Cloth tradition we put on National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and started to deck our halls.

The husband and I have done a bunch of stupid DIY stuff over the years.  Sometimes the endeavour is stupid because we should have just purchased something and saved ourselves a bunch of trouble.  Sometimes it is idiotic because there is a chance of bodily harm (not usually death mind you).

One of these stupid activities is hanging 3 very large wreathes in our living room.  This year marks the third year of stupidity.  The first year involved the husband hand carrying the wreaths up a very tall and steep ladder and then swinging them into place.  We actually did have an incident that first year where the largest wreath fell down.  While no one was hurt we do have a pretty good scuff mark on the wall that we have left untouched to remind us of our moronic past.
The second year the husband got smart (well a bit smarter as if we were really smart we would not put up the wreathes in the first place).  The new plan involved rope and a pulley system.  The plan involved looping the rope around the wreath and the top rung of the ladder.  The wife would then pull the wreath up using the rope from the ground while the husband was on the ladder waiting to place the wreath into position.  This system was a success.  No wreaths plummeted to the floor and no husbands feel off of the ladder.

So for our third attempt we absolutely were going to use the rope method again.  One small problem.  The wife was no longer in the position to pull the wreath up.  This year the husband had to do the pulling until the wreath was up at the top of the ladder.  I then used my extra weight to hold onto the rope making sure the wreath didn't come down while the husband climbed the ladder to put the wreath in place.  Again no major incidents.  You will notice the "JOY" is a bit off but it was close enough.  I wanted to take pictures of the husband on the ladder and swinging the wreaths into place but that idea was quickly shot down as I was reminded about the husband's fear of heights and that he would like me to stay to steady the ladder.  Fair enough.

With the wreaths in place we went to work putting up the rest of the decorations.  It took me longer this year as I had to stop and take breaks quite frequently.  While I might like to think I can still do everything I did before I am about to start my third trimester and things are getting more difficult.
It took the better part of 2 days for me to get up all of the decorations. 

I couldn't help but think about how next year I will have a 9 month old to "help" me put up Christmas.  I might have to adjust some of my decorations as I am not sure that she will have the patience for Mom to hand tie with fishing line Christmas ball ornaments to the banisters... Next year I may just have to throw some tinsel around and call it good.

Let the Nursery Begin...Closet Doors Be Gone!

With the craft stuff out of the nursery let the fun begin!

Before I even thought about color schemes and nursery themes I was thinking about storage.  As I stated in earlier posts I am a bit obsessed with organization right now!  I like to have places for things that are not all stacked up in a corner. With a girl on the way we were going to need a bunch of closet space for clothes (even if the husband doesn't agree).

Step one of the nursery was to rip up the closet!  I have always hated our closest doors in the nursery room as they are the sliding kind which just seem to always get in the way.  The problem is that swing out doors would just take up a bunch of space in the actual room, so...

First step was to take down the doors.  They just get in the way and curtains would look way cuter, right? Next came ripping out the shelf and painting.

I knew I wanted a bunch of shelves and drawers to maximize the space.  Having one large shelf and clothing rod really limits the amount of small, cute, and cuddly clothes one can cram into a closet.

With the prep work done we needed to make a decision on build or buy.  The husband had convinced me that for the sanity of all involved it would probably be best to just buy a closet organizer from IKEA.  He was concerned about the length of his project list and the current NFL season.  I won't allow a TV in the woodshop (aka the garage) for fear of lost fingers and other appendages so he tends to not get much Wooding done on Sundays. 

We had used a PAX system organizer in our old house and it really did add a bunch of functional space to our closet.  The one we had was pretty small but for the nursery I wanted to get a pretty big mamma-jamma with a combo of shelves and pull out drawers.

The building and placement of the unit did not go as planned. Unfortunately it was a bit bigger than I anticipated.  Yes I did measure, (this isn't amateur hour) but I didn't think about being able to get around the depth of the unit.  The problem was that it was so deep that we ended up blocking one of the corners making it unusable. 

The husband thought we should scrap the plan for the organizer and just use the closet to it's fullest.  The wife thought we should just knock out the little jut in the wall which would open up the space in the corner (it would be really easy...).  After a large amount of negotiation the organizer and wall stayed put. 

Even though we are losing a bit of space on the one side we are more than making up for it in functionality of the organizer. 

 

Next up was the shelves and clothing rods.  One advantage with children's clothes, especially baby clothes, is that they are small and don't hang all the way to the floor making multiple stacked clothing rods a possibility.  The husband used 2 brackets per shelf. 

Cut and painted the boards. Attached the boards to the brackets, and finally installed the clothing rods.  They turned out perfectly and I couldn't be happier with the end result.

Now I'm off to sew the curtains!

Laundry Room Final Reveal...six months late!

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!

Wood, Cloth, and....

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

Fire, Fire Stay Away

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.

Wood & Cloth - Laundry Room Update - Painted Vertical Stripes

What is black and white and looks amazing....?  The wall in our laundry room!

After the wallpaper debacle I was expecting a complete mess on the painted stripe front.  The husband was completely dreading this part of the remodel as he was certain the stripes would just come out messy and need a ton of touch up. 

Thanks to some helpful tips on Pinterest we were able to complete this entire project in a few hours.  If you are thinking about stripes...do it!


Project Ranking
Difficulty - Medium
Frustration - Low
Makeability - 100% worth it

Materials
Laser level
Paint (We used Valspar Clean White in Satin & Valspar Barn Door Black in Satin)
Good quality blue painters tape
Paint rollers
Paint brush

There are a bunch of tutorials for stripe painting on the web.  All go about things in a slightly different manner.  Most recommend that you try to stick to neutral colors that are similar in shade to each other.  The thought being if the colors are similar little mistakes will not be as noticeable.

So what did Wood & Cloth do...?  We picked colors that are the polar opposite from each other.  That is just how we roll.  We like to live on the edge and throw caution to the wind. 

We are pretty bad ass.


Instructions

Step 1 -  Paint your wall with one of your colors.  Choose your lighter color.  Obviously for us it was the white.

Step 2 - Make sure your initial wall color is completely dry before moving onto any of the stripe work.  If your wall is not completely dry you may have issues when you put down the tape for the stripes.

Step 3 - Figure out the length of your wall and how wide you want your stripes to be.  Our stripes are ~6 inches wide.  We ended up with 18 stripes.  9 of each color.  Mark off your measurements.  We only made marks on the bottom of the wall.  Not on the bottom and the top.  We ended up checking the measurements in the middle and top of the wall as we were applying the tape in an upcoming step.

NOTE:  Don't get too caught up trying to make all of the stripes exactly the same size.  Pick an easy size to measure, a round number works great.  We ended up with the first and last stripe being slightly larger than the other stripes.  The difference is so slight you can't even tell.

Step 4 - Get ready to begin taping.  Before you begin taping make sure that you can devote time to this project from the start of tape to the end of painting.  The key here is to get your tape on and off in a timely manner.  If you don't have enough time and need to break up the painting into 2 sessions...don't!  If you leave the tape on too long you risk pulling paint off when you remove it. 

Our laser level had a pin on the bottom which made it easy to hang on the wall.  Using the measurement marks as guides we placed the laser level close to the baseboard.  Depending on the straightness of your wall you may have to play around with the laser level in order to see the line all of the way up the wall.  Sometimes we had to pull the level away from the wall as much as possible to compensate for some waves in the wall. 

Before we placed the tape we did a quick measurement check in the middle and at the top.  Adjust your level if the spacing is not consistent.

This was probably the hardest part of the project, getting the level straight.  It involved the wife laying on the cold hard tile in order to see the level bubbles and making small adjustments while the husband yelled down instructions like..."clockwise a smidge" "too far" "not far enough" "back" "almost" "counter clock wise a bit" "the other clockwise".

Starting at the top of your wall place the tape along the laser line on the side of the stripe you will NOT be painting.  So for us we always put the tape on the white stripe side, not the side we would be painting black.  In order to help us keep from being confused we actually wrote a "B" on the black stripes.

You want to make sure that the tap along the side of the stripe that you will be painting is pressed down pretty good.  You want a good seal.

NOTE:  The stripes that you will not be painting will look a lot smaller than your to-be-painted stripes.  This is correct.  They are the same size but because the tape for both edges is part of the non-paint stripes it will mess with your head making them look smaller.

Step 5 - This step might be the best DIY trick ever.  It really works!  Using your lighter color paint (the one that is already on the wall) paint over the edge of the tape that borders your to-be-painted stripe.  The point is to seal the tape edge to prevent bleeding of your stripe paint underneath the tape.  This trick really will give you razor sharp lines on your stripes!  We did not use much paint for this step.  You don't want any drips and you don't want it to be too thick as you want it to be able to dry quickly. 

Let the paint dry for about 45 minutes before moving onto the next step.

Step 6 - Break out your darker paint!  This step was intense.  Black paint is intense.  Painting right next to white paint is intense.  I found myself not breathing as I was painting.  Truth be told the majority of the goobers we ended up with in the end had nothing to do with leaks under the tape.  They came from accidentally painting outside the lines. 

Some tips for this section....

***Make sure you are painting the correct stripe!  Double check before you put down your roller or your brush.

***Having 2 people works well and ensures you get the tape off quickly.  We had one person painting the tape side of the stripe with a brush while the other was rolling the stripe. 

***We painted 2 coats back to back.  By the time we finished up all of the stripes the first coat was pretty much dry so we just started right into the second coat. 

Step 7 - Remove your tape.  By the time we finished all of the stripes with a second coat the first ones were already pretty dry so we didn't really wait any additional time to let the paint dry.  You will have to make a judgement call on when to pull the tape off.  You want it pretty dry but not too dry.  Start at the top of your wall and pull.  Be careful not to let the tape hit your wall on the way down as it may still be a bit wet and you don't want it to hit your other stripes and make a mark.

This part was pretty scary.  We had no idea what to expect. 

We could not have asked for a better result.  There are a few touch ups here and there (seriously only about 5) but even with the black/white contrast the tape & paint combo kept the lines perfect.

Wood & Cloth - Update - Dyer is out of the hallway!

It was a gloriously beautiful weekend.  The sun was shining, birds were chirping, the whole neighborhood was out enjoying the first really warm day of the year.

We were in the laundry room.

At least we got a bunch marked off of the list.

We installed the cabinet doors....

We lined the shelves with contact paper...

We moved the dryer back into the laundry room...and did load after load of laundry!

We built the windowsill...



We did not finish painting the trim.  Partially because we ran out of time and partially because we may not paint it white.  Stayed tuned!

We did not begin work on the stripe wall.  That part of the project could be a bugger so it is probably better to start that fresh, not at the end of a weekend.

Another weekend has come and gone.  Stuff got done and other stuff didn't.  I am loving the way things are coming together.  Getting the cabinet doors installed really made the cabinets look finished and amazing if I do say so myself, and I do!

Wood & Cloth - Laundry Room Remodel - Little by Little

Every night when I walk in the door I am greeted by our clothes dryer.  It is a struggle to shimmy my way around the dryer in the middle of the hall while carrying my laptop and purse.

We need to kick this remodel into high gear!

Accomplished this week:
-Crown molding on top of the cabinets.
-Repair dings, dents, divots suffered during the cabinet install
-Finish painting the cabinet doors
-Order contact paper for the shelf liners
-Put additional paint coat on above cabinets

On tap for the weekend:
-Finish up all white painting (floors, baseboards, crown molding, windowsill)
-Attach cabinet doors
-Build windowsill and frame window
-Build shelves for the cabinets (the husband kind of forgot about this)
-Move the dryer back into the laundry room (Yay!)
-Do laundry
-Design and paint the black stripes on the wall

Even if we only accomplish the bare minimum needed to be able to move the dryer back into the laundry room this weekend, I will consider the next two days a success.

Wood & Cloth- Laundry Room Update - The Install

We have all had those times when you look back at a situation, that at the time was not funny in the slightest, and laugh. 

Such is the cabinet install.

The husband had installed a runner board along the wall for the bottom of the cabinet to rest.  This not only made it easy to get the cabinets straight but it gave the a place for the cabinet to rest so that it wasn't all up to the husband and his brother to keep it held against the wall.

The first cabinet went up without a hitch.

The studs were located and screws attached to the wall.  Every time the stud finder came out both the husband and the brother made comments that there were "2 studs over here" while pointing at themselves.

The second shelf went up without a hitch.

That is where the good times stopped rolling.

The husband had taken numerous measurements along both of the walls to determine how square and straight the walls where before he even began building the units.

For the record...walls are not perfectly straight.  If you are under the delusion that the walls in your home are indeed straight I hate to be the one to burst your bubble.  But they are not.  They ebb and flow a bit making installation of wall to wall cabinets tricky.  Typically professional installers will actually cut some of their cabinet edges on site to fit the wall.  We did not have that option.

From the initial measurements we knew it was going to be a tight fit.  However after the 40 billion coats of paint and one small section of the wall that jutted out a smidgen bit more that the rest it pushed us over from tight to an hour and a half of work to wedge it in.

We pushed it...we rocked it...we tried to brute force it.



After a ridiculous amount of effort and a good deal of swearing an attempt was made to sand some of the wall down.  Seriously we were so close it would make you cry even one less coat of paint on the stupid cabinets and it probably would have gone in.

Finally after so many attempts I thought arms were going to turn to jelly they managed to shimmy it in. 

Is it aligned perfectly...nope.  Do I care....nope.

We did suffer a bunch of collateral damage in the attempt to get the third cabinet jammed in there.  The brother's mad strength lead to a piece of cabinet breaking off and a hand sized indent in the back wall.  Apparently bracing yourself against the back wall to get traction to push up on a cabinet isn't a good idea.

Good thing we had Spackle!