Switching gears

When I set up this blog, the idea was for it to be a place to plan and post about projects I did with my kids. As they have gotten older and busier with school, we started doing a lot less of that, and my focus is switching from just a full time mom, to trying to find ways to supplement our income while Chris is in school. My plan is to really start refinishing, refurbishing, and re-purposing furniture to sell, or taking in custom work if anyone has any. So, my blog, I feel, needs to reflect that. I've had a business in the past with the name Set Interiors, so I've decided to go back to that with a new blog that reflects these new focuses. I'll leave this blog up and may post here from time to time if something seems fitting, but you will be able to find my regular furniture and interior design posts at http://setinteriors.blogspot.com/ I hope that you will all check it out. As of right now, it's not terribly pretty, but I'll be working on cleaning it up over the next couple days as well as adding posts on projects I've recently finished and ones I'm working on. Be sure to become a follower so you don't miss anything exciting.

The Table is IN!

These will not be the best pictures as it's the middle of the night and the light isn't very good, but I couldn't wait to show you! I'm sure I'll do another post with better pictures tomorrow, and talk about all the lessons learned during this little project. (I know, you are all on pins and needles now, hu? :p)

I want to start with a "before"....

This little table was given to us when we were first married. It has served us well, but since there are five of us now, you may guess that we've outgrown it...by a lot. And forget having anyone over for dinner. There simply is not room!
Here is a good example...trying to set a table for Christmas with 5 people for dinner = squishy...

And now...(drum roll please!)...


Oh, I'm so in love! :)

Ok, I'm going to go to bed now...I'll have better pictures tomorrow...I can't wait for breakfast when we have our first family meal on this! (I think I'm going to need more chairs...)

table teaser

I'm totally DYING to show off my new table...but I have to wait 24 hours for the poly to set completely before I can assemble it! So here is a little teaser....oh so close to being done!

Table building is so much fun!

We have the table top all put together now. These are pictures of us gluing it all up. We did it upside down so we could use the ribs to help support and pull it all into line.

Peeking at the top side...

Chris tightening the clamps...
Ok, I think I've decided I need to have my brother just follow me around and take pictures for my blog. I'm sure you can all tell the difference from when he is hanging out and when I'm just snapping shots...

So, the table top, legs, and apron will be ready for final sanding and (hopefully) stain tomorrow (I'm finishing the pieces before assembling it all). The apron is a couple nails from being complete, the legs are sanded, and all the knots are filled on the top. It's really starting to look like a table :)

So tomorrow I have to make a final decision on the stain color. The original plan was for a honey color stain with some darker glaze to bring out the imperfections, but that was in our old place where we had off-white walls. Her we have...hmm...orange/gold/brown? walls...hmm...let's see if there is a picture...ok, if you look in my last post you kinda can see it...I'm actually kind of liking this color. Especially when I put a creamy white against it. So I'm pretty sure I'm going to look for chairs that can be mismatched, but all creamy white, and I *think* I want to go darker with the table because I'm worried a honey color would blend into the wall color too much. Plus, the floor is a darker wood and we had a darker wood table in here for a few days and I liked the way it brought that dark wood color up into the room.

Hopefully we'll have pictures of a finished table tomorrow or the next day!

Things coming together

Laundry is the BANE of my existence....seriously! I absolutely HATE it...I'm never even close to being caught up with it...and even when we do manage to get clothes though both the washer and the dryer, they sit unfolded in "clean clothes" piles. It's really rather ridiculous....

Then one day, I read about "the family closet". I can't find the original blog post that inspired me, but the pictures from the link should give you a good idea. I thought to myself...I bet that would make me at least a little less stressed about laundry...maybe even I could keep up with it sorta...So, when we moved one of my wants was a laundry area that could be turned into a family closet. And, I got my wish :)

The washer and dryer is in the basement, where I have plenty of room to create a closet...however, the space is completely unfinished...not even studs to hang shelves on. And the price of closet systems really add up. So, working on no budget at all, I started figuring out how I could create what I needed. I knew I wanted most of the rods low enough for my little girls to access, but tall enough at least for my shirts to be hung up. It had to be free standing. I need at least some shelves/drawers for folded things and boxes of clothes that are being hung onto for hand me downs or off season stuff. So this has been simmering in the back of my mind for a month now, and one morning I woke up with the solution.
We have 2 of these we'd used for pantry food in our last place (only ours are black...) They were sitting in pieces in the garage with plans to be used for fabric/craft storage. I decided my laundry organization was more important just now since we were working with a massive "clean pile" and "dirty pile" that I was desperately trying to keep from mingling in my basement and the reply to "I can't find any pants was" go look in the clean pile. (no wonder it takes us forever to get out of the house...) So this is what my black shelves look like now. (I think we will call this space "the dungeon"...)
Ok, you can see that I still have a lot of clothes to be sorted and put away, but I now have a place to put them! I even had an extra table to use as a folding table!
I started by taking the top two shelves for the older girl's clothes. I was just looking to get stuff off the floor, really, and turned up like that, they worked well.

Then I remembered these two closet rods I'd picked up at the DI. I took the lower shelves and left them the right way and then we zip tied the rods to the top for baby clothes and my shirts. Longer dresses are just going to have to go in the upstairs closet with Chris' clothes. The buckets I found today at Wal-mart for $1.50 each. My kids were always dropping the drawers out of the dressers in the past, so I think this will work nicely.

I'm really excited about my progress down here. This is the year I get my laundry under control!

Katie's first design choice

While moving, I was noticing that the hand me down crib that we've used with all three girls was looking rather tired and starting to get some chippy paint in places, so I decided to refinish it. At the store, I picked up a light pink spray paint for it and asked Katie if she wanted to paint her bed...she replied "no...PINK!" and pointed at the BRIGHT pink can. All right then...it's her bed, after all. So we went PINK!

Wouldn't this piece of art look cute in here? I think I have some old canvases I'm not using right now...

In other news...we are working on our table. We brought the boards in so we could see how the size looked in our space. We decided on a 7 foot table. We decided which sides would be the tops, and jointed the sides and have them ready to glue up when the new clamps get here (expected tomorrow). We also got the legs cut to size. I'd like to run a sander over them to clean the up just a bit before putting the apron together. Plus, we are working with slightly different sizes then I'd planned. The 4x4's were pretty rough, so we went with 4x6 legs (YAY for hefty legs!) Plus, the 2x8 we'd planned for the tops were not very straight, so we switched to 2x10s. These aren't huge differences, but enough that I need to re-figure the apron lengths. (have I mentioned that I'm excited about this project? I'm NOT excited to help carry it into the house, cause it is going to be SOOOOO heavy! but I'm excited to get it in here)

My new treasure!

So, I'm at the thrift store yesterday, and was just about to call it quits. I'd found a couple closet rods, and grabbed a couple of forks and spoons (our new house has a bigger dishwasher, and I'm finding we are running out before the dishwasher is full...). I also found a sweet little vase that works perfectly with my "orange" stuff, and Katie found a cute sun hat she had to have. They were all things I needed, but I didn't feel like it was an awesome thrifting experience. On my way out, I noticed a couple big things in the furniture section were being taken to the back...and experience shows that if you wait just a few minutes, they will bring out *something* to fill the empty spot...so I stood right there in case it was awesome and there would be a race for it....after a minute, the nice man showed up with...



Cool, hu?! I was right there, so I was looking at it first, but there were three other people hovering over my shoulder, so as soon as I was sure it was in good condition I grabbed it! I have NO IDEA what I'm going to do with it, but it is beautiful and it awesome condition. the top could use a light sand and maybe a finish...but I like it the way it is, too... I was thinking it would be cool laid flat and used for my computer desk...and it's totally stable enough for that, but Chris thinks it wouldn't work because of the legs and not being able to really get a chair under it. I may insist on it anyway :)