Friday, November 21, 2014

homemade platform storage bed

Ever since we moved to Gburg and I was pregnant with Evie in 2007,  I have struggled with insomnia. I have good nights and bad nights - sadly it's a chronic thing. Trips especially mess me up, as does pregnancy. I had a good sleeping record with Samuel's pregnancy, but not with Ezra or Evie. When Ezra was born things improved but September was a particular struggle for me. I was having a especially bad night when I just became fed up and decided something had to change. The bed simply had to go.

Terry and I have had the same bed since we got married 10 years ago. And Terry had it from before that time. And before he had that mattress, he had the bed frame. Terry's parents originally had this waterbed frame from the time Terry was a young boy. At some point, when he was still little, they gave it to him, with a queen size mattress inside of it. Terry worked out the math, approximately, and he had been sleeping on that bed frame for about 25 years!!!
the waterbed frame


It was one solid piece of workmanship, that is for sure. Here you can see the headboard a little better. And look at little orange baby Borg Samuel! AWWWW! And little Evie and Noah! Geesh.



So yeah, I pretty much convinced Terry it was high time for a new bed. I only wished we had done it sooner - like the last three times I was pregnant and had such a difficult time on that hard bed. Plus, he had crazy bad back pain and we were pretty sure the bed had something to do with it. 

We finally made up our minds about this investment, went shopping and purchased a new bed (that's when Samuel sliced his finger). At the very same time we were randomly able to sell our old bed as well! Terry likes to browse the facebook classified page for our area. Someone was looking for a queen size mattress and Terry said we had one. She visited that night or the following, committed to buying it and came and picked it up the very next night. She even paid us! Hehehe. Thank you Lord!

Since our old bed was gone and our new one wouldn't arrive for a week, Terry and I slept in the dungeon on our big couch. It wasn't so bad. It was better than the old bed!

And then that glorious day dawned and our new bed arrived. Yay!



 It has proven to be a good bed and we are happy with it. I was even happy with it on the floor but we didn't want to leave it there forever. So, the weekend before the Fall Retreat Terry got to work making a homemade storage platform. He only spent three hours at Menards making up his mind about lumber...



Here is Terry and Gumby's wife (or maybe Elastigirl?) going over the Ana White plans (look at my weird bendable arms!). 



Ana White. Back to Ana White. Ana White is awesome. I seriously want to make everything on her site. It could be our secondary stream of income. Ana White is what my brother and I used to make our school table

Before we ever bought or sold a bed, I did a lot of research into what we were going to do. Spend $2000 for a new bed frame? I think NOT. That's where Ana White comes in. Make it yourself! She gives you the plans! Totally awesome. Here are the plans we used. I'm planning on submitting my own brag post :)



That weekend was just gorgeous. It was perfect for working in the garage. And that's what we did for approximately 24 hours. After Terry bought the lumber on Friday, he continued late into the night making the end storage bench. Actually, this part didn't take him that long.



It was the confounded drawers that took so long! 



But in the end, by like 11pm that night, he finally finished them. But he wasn't happy with them. He didn't sleep very well b/c he was calculating how to improve them the next day.



And improve them he did. Drawers are picky. They have to be extremely square and accurate. So Terry stepped up his game. Here he is making the next to two side storage benches.



By that night, Terry had come a long way!



In the original plans, the side benches do not have drawers. But Terry wanted to add some since he figured out how to improve upon his first attempt. So that's what we did. 



His last project for the night was constructing that support thingy in the middle. In the plans you're supposed to screw it into place. But Terry screwed little boards under it so that the support itself could just set on top and not have to be screwed in and out if ever we have to move our bed (fingers crossed that we never have to). 



The following day, Sunday, was supposed to be the easiest day, and perhaps it was, but he still worked for about eight hours. He cut all the nice trim boards and nailed them down to finish it off. 



Oh yeah!



He did it! My husband is awesome!



So then it was my turn. I am in charge of finishing finishes. But I could not make up my mind! I really like the Weathered Oak but also the white stain we used on the trim in our dungeon



In the end I went with the Weathered Oak b/c we already had a white duvet and I didn't want to overdo it on white. Plus, I just really liked the Weathered Oak. Once I made up my mind, staining was easy peasy. 



After two coats of polyurethane we bought the bad boy upstairs to our room. It's a monster!



See how the boards go over that support so it's all one clean level area?



And...BAM! It's done!



I love the Weathered Oak, especially with the white duvet. And I love those drawers. I still have to put stuff in them though... That's another project.



Yay for our new bed!



Go Terry and Eva :D

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

beautiful fall day back yard playing

Wednesday, October 22 was such a beautiful fall day. Especially from where I sit - 2.3 degrees and 6-8 inches of squeaky snow on the ground. BRRR! But, October 22 was great. In fact, we have had a very mild autumn until this cold snap settled in. 

After lunch the kids usually go out to the back yard to play. Every kid needs recess. I was busy inside until I saw Ezra climbing the back steps with two big red apples in his hands. Too picturesque to pass up so out I went. 



The weekend before had been our last grass mowing of the year and Noah and Terry worked hard raking up all the leaves and pine needles. Evie found more leaves under the apple tree and was pouring them down from the play set. It was so pretty. Ezra was mesmerized. 



Then the kids started showing off. This is what it looks like when all four are caught mid-spin. Check out Evie's face. She cracks me up. 



Ezra thought Snap's bucket did well for a hat. 



Noah was like, "Let me help you with that."



And then, "Let me help you put your feet in there." 



Evie very much wanted to take some pictures so I let her take five since it was the nice camera. They were pretty good. I do this to Ezra constantly. Gotta squish him.



Check out this selfie. Okay, seriously. Wow. 



Evie's picture of fuzzy headed puppy Samuel. 



And wacky long limbed Noah. 

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

scraping popcorn off ceilings

Since July, I have been on a ceiling scraping kick (though somehow I only included pictures of the school room project). Our house has this incredibly thick popcorn texture on all of the ceilings. I grew up with scant popcorn on my folks ceilings and it never bothered me. In fact, it was kind of fun to have it rain down on us when my sister and I played volleyball in our room and the ball hit the ceiling. Perhaps that's the reason the popcorn was so scant...and how we broke the light... Anyway, the popcorn in our house now is out of control ridiculous. 

When Terry and I returned from our youth group Disconnect trip at the end of June, I just found the motivation and started scraping in the upstairs bathroom. I'd been wanting to paint in there for a while and in fact already had purchased the paint. Scraping had to come first though. So here's that bathroom before. And a cute little Evie helper.



And here's the stupid popcorn. Sorry, I just really detest the stuff. WHY did they do this?!



I had never done it before, but found which scraper I liked pretty quick and just went to work like you can see below. It actually goes pretty fast, except for the edges. Those take a bit more work to get the painted popcorn scraped. So it's pretty quick to scrape but it is a massive mess and the clean up takes time. I also found found that I should wear a mask because of the dust it creates. The stuff starts to line the inside of your nose and that can't be good.



The color is Sherwin Williams Tame Teal with more white added in to tone it down a bit. 



I really love it and it matches the shower curtain just right. Sure brightens it up in there. 



The very next day I got to work on the upstairs hallway. This particular wall/ceiling really annoyed me big time. WHY did they spray the blasted stuff on the walls?! Isn't it bad enough to have it on the ceiling? Do we really need it on the wall as well?! Forgoodnesssakes.



Those popcorn sprayed walls had been painted over so it was a lot more difficult to scrape off. I probably should have used water or something, but I didn't. So it's not as clean as the other ceilings. But it's painted gray to match the walls and looks a ton better.  



The same day that I did the hallway I also scraped our bathroom. The walls there needed scraped/sanded too due to humidity peeling the paint. So I did both the walls and the ceiling. 



I was lucky the previous owners left us their leftover paint since I loved the color. 



And finally, just weeks ago I scraped the ceiling in our bedroom. We had just sold our bed and were waiting for the new one which was on order. Since there was next to nothing in there, I went to work. Of course I did. Find and destroy popcorn is what I do now, apparently.



Here is mid-scraping. So satisfying. 



Like I said, it's one heck of a mess. I should have been wearing long sleeves and pants but it was July and I was hot! 



Nice and smooth. You can see the drywall seams! Perhaps that's why they used such thick popcorn - to hide the seams. I'd take the seams over the stupid popcorn. 



When I was finished I moved all the popcorn to the center of my canvas drop cloth and called Samuel in for a size comparison. That's a big pile! 



It's amazing how not white those ceilings where.  



 How clean and crisp right?!



Oh yeah :)