The Unveiling.

My apologies for waiting so long to post this, I've been a bit busy (story of our lives, right?)

BUT.......

I feel like the Target Lady!

Hooray!

Why? Because it's finally done!! 

I have a working kitchen!!

No more washing lettuce in the bathtub!!!

This happened.  More than once.

Soooo, I guess you want to see it?

Here it is!!

BAM.

Some cruddy i-phone panoramas for you.

I LOVE my kitchen.

I'll do some specific posts later about a few of my DIY projects, but here's a few photos to tide you over until then.

Oh hello, hidden microwave!

I had to spring for the brass faucet.  It was 100% necessary.
It also took Dave almost a month to realize there was a sprayer built in here.

Giving myself a pat on the back for this one- I made 2 pendant lamps for $66 total!!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!
I won this penny tile on ebay.
(It's in the side door hallway).

Side hallway.
Not much to see, except my new floor and light (which needs an Edison bulb, btw.)

This sink is almost 12 inches deep.  Sigh.

Handmade walnut shelves!
And no, nothing on here is "staged" for this post.
I have actually been able to keep things looking like this for over a month without any problems!

Walnut butcherblock countertops, finished by yours truly.

I searched for WEEKS online to find this rug.  Thanks Etsy!!!
It has the perfect color combination for my house to tie everything together!
Also, caaaaaan you spot the dishwasher?
It's there!

This is the glass globe from the original outside light above the side door.
I followed a tutorial on vintagerevivals.com, and made it into a planter!

Of course Margot needed updated bowls and a tray...she's gotta fit into my glamourous kitchen, too!

Can you spot Margot?

We've still got some work to do- a few things to wrap up in the side hallway, touchups on the organizer wall, and now a domino effect has taken place that means the dining room will end up getting a mini-makeover later this month (think new paint and curtains, as well as a new light).

I'm so excited to finally have a working kitchen, though- it's pretty glorious!! 

I Have No Kitchen.

Well, it only took 4 hours on a Saturday morning for my kitchen to go kaput.  Minutes before hammer met wall, I began to feel a bit guilty about what was about to happen.  Someone built a kitchen that has lasted for almost 70 years, and here I was, about to destroy it.  It might not have been functional for modern day living, but it WAS solid.

Look at the inside of those cupboards...I will miss that pop of teal blue.
Miss Mamie was a color rockstar when she lived here.

The hesitation was short lived, though.  Dreams of a dishwasher and actual counter space becoming reality trumped any guilt I felt about destroying someone else's work.

And just like that...

...my kitchen disappeared.

When Dave came home to an empty room that afternoon, his first response was, "This place stinks".  He's right.  Uncovering wood and insulation that hasn't seen the light of day in 66 years doesn't smell like roses.  It smells....old.  I'm just waiting for the smell of new wood, fresh paint, and wet varnish to fill our nostrils with the pleasant aroma of toxic cell killing freshness.  It'll come soon enough. Till then, we breathe deeply to inhale what are most likely asbestos and lead particles.  (Don't worry, Mom...the dust was properly contained and removed during demo- I'm just making jokes.  Promise.)

So what surprises has this house revealed thus far? 

1.  Wires hidden behind one cabinet bulkhead that need to be moved.

I forgot to snap a picture of the wires before they were moved.  Whoopsie.
Instead, you get more holes and future range hood draft ducting.
Bonus? If you look closely, you can see remnants of all of that glorious
mid-century metal mesh that holds the horsehair cement and plaster to the walls.
Old houses are where it's at, yo.

2.  Pipe hidden behind a second bulkhead that needs to be moved.

Well, umm, once again, my contractor was too quick,
 and got to the pipe before I had a chance to take a picture.
At least I know he's doing his job, right?

3.  Wallpaper!

You'll have to pretend you're in a drug induced haze while looking at this picture.
The only strip of wallpaper that was left was stuck behind molding that was ripped off,
only to be promptly covered over with plastic to contain the dust.
I can't even gain access to the kitchen without asking permission,
so fat chance I was going to get a clear picture just for you all!!

4.  The kitchen wall cutout (not original to the house) was never properly supported by a header.  My closet is directly above this wall.  Could it have caved way at some point?  Maybe.  Wouldn't that have been an absolute mess?!

The ceiling was bowed about 3/8" in the center...yikes.

Whew...all better.
Notice something else that's now missing, though?
The ceiling.  Had to make a sacrifice to get all of my new lights wired in.

Next up?  Finishing the non pretty stuff...electrical, plumbing, and mechanical work.  Snooze fest.  Wake me up when the cabinets arrive.

No Power? No Problem.

This summer was a crazy one for SE Michigan.  We've had hail, wind, rain, and floods that have just been bananas.  BANANAS.  One day last month, the internet kept warning me that yet another storm was coming...yippee, right?

And storm did it ever.  We lost power on a Friday evening, and didn't get it back til Sunday night. Sooo, what to do with a weekend full of power outages?  Can't break out the sewing machine.  Can't break out the power tools.  Can't even cook because I don't have a gas stove, and the refrigerator has become a bacterial death trap.

Luckily, I had just cleaned out the fridge the week before, emptying bottles with expiration dates of 2011 stamped on them.  Yikes.  Apparently I didn't need a power outage for my fridge to be a death trap.  Anyone else clicking out of this blog to go check your condiment bottle expiration dates right now?  You might want to.

Let's wait a minute while people do that (insert Musak here).

Everyone back?  So, after the Great Fridge Cleanout of 2014, I bought a few plastic bins at Target, and labeled them with a few of the most commonly grouped items for easy reach.  Even though I have a small fridge, things still seem to get pushed to the back and lost for eternity, shriveling up and dying, only to be discovered weeks later with a, "Hey, I could have used that if I had known it was back there!" 

Lucky for my wallet, when the power went out, I hadn't yet gotten around to replacing all of those staples that I usually kept in the fridge.  Win for big grocery shopping procrastination!!

So, with an empty fridge, no power, and plenty of time on my hands, what is there to do?  Well, lots of things, but only one I'm going to actually write about in a public forum.  Get your minds out of the gutter, people...I'm talking about going to the movies, which no one wants to hear about.

After my last post detailing my lovely little Wine Sign for my sister, I thought I could just pull more wood scraps out of the garage and paint.  So I did.  I'm not really feeling a detailed instructional play by play on this, so I'll just show you a few pictures and then reveal the final product.

Can you spot me in the glass table reflection?
It's the blog version of Where's Waldo!

Add some tape in your favorite geometric shapes!

Slap on some mastic!

Layer on some paint!

Keep on layering!

Take a picture!

Then take a closeup!

I have no clue what I'm going to do with this.  I'm not even a huge fan of modern art pieces like this one, probably because when I see them hanging in a gallery, I think, "Why would I pay thousands of dollars for this when I could make it myself?"  Annnnd I think I just proved my point.

In honor of my Storm Happened, Lines are Down, DTE Can't Work Fast Enough, No Power weekend, this piece is titled, "Edison."


It's Electricity Appreciation Day in this house, peeps!

Wine. It Does a Body Good.

Please don't sue me for stealing your slogan, Dairy Farmers of America!  Wine is much more fabulous than milk, though, isn't it? (and water. and every other beverage. right?)

Preach it!

My sister had a birthday in August, so it was time to DIY!  For those of you who like to say, "It takes too much time to DIY, I can just go shopping and buy something.", I officially challenge that statement.  All in, which included researching my sister's Pinterest boards for what to make, making the gift, and running it to the post office took a smidge over an hour (in bits and pieces, mind you).  Unless you live directly above a gift shop and your sister lives with you, I doubt you're clocking any less time in buying vs. DIY'ing a gift like this.  Plus, people LOVE homemade gifts.  Unless they don't.  Soooo, there's that, I guess.

Luckily for me, my sister appreciates what I DIY for her.  Either that, or she's just too nice to say otherwise.  I'm sure I've given her a few duds in my DIY days, but hopefully the good projects make up for it.

Today's project is an easy one!  Here's what you need:

Scrap of wood
Paint (the 99cent acrylic variety will do just fine)
Paintbrush
Paper/pattern/sketch (or freehand it, whatevs.)

Here's the plan:

Take your piece of wood that most certainly DID NOT come from the garage attic covered in bird poop, and make sure it's clean and free of rough edges.  (Here's the spot where my sister will pause, never knowing if the above sentence is the truth, or just my way of freaking her out.  She'll live in the dark forever- I'll never tell.)

It's clean, I promise!!
(I used the tacks to hold up the backside of the board for quicker drying time)

Next up, paint the wood with your background color.  I chose to use a mixture of white and graphite paint with a smidge of water- I wanted more of a weathered gray wood look- something slightly opaque, but still rustic looking. 

Let the paint soak in for a  minute, and then wipe it softly
with a rag to let some of the wood grain show through.

While your paint is drying, start making sketches of your wine bottle.  Don't worry if it isn't perfect- it shouldn't be- it's not a photograph!!  When you think you have the template you want, slap it on your DRY wood piece, and trace around it.

I sketched a smaller version of the bottle first,
and then enlarged around it to make the process a bit easier.

Here's where you need to make sure you've got the right paintbrush- no dollar store paint by numbers brush here.  Get yourself a small angled brush- that's what'll work best for painting straight lines with a smart edge.  Use your angled brush to trace the outline of your wine bottle, and then fill it in.  I used the full strength version of my graphite acrylic paint that I mixed up earlier.  You could always use chalkboard paint here, as I was going for a similar look, but I did not feel like busting out and mixing up my pint of chalkboard paint when I wasn't going to use it as a reusable chalkboard. 

Ignore the shadows, please- my basement craft room needs some additional lighting.

While that dries, practice your handwriting.  You need to give it a few goes- work the kinks out!!

Practice makes (almost) perfect!

When you feel that your handwriting is sufficiently less sucky than when you started practicing, use a paint marker on your wood board.

Almost done!

Drill a small hole in the back to use as a hangar of sorts, and voila, you're done!

Easy peazy.

Instant gift!!

Hope you liked it, Jess!!

Boxes O' Fun.

After Dave and I take trips, I like to create photo books with some of our best pictures.  For our bigger trips, I try to document each day's excursions, knowing that 5 years from now (heck, 5 weeks from now), I won't remember some of the great details of our day to day experiences.  Those descriptions get added in to the photo books, as well.  Snapfish, Shutterfly, Costco, Apple's iphoto...it doesn't matter which one you use- they all offer page options in your photo books for straight up full page text (diary style).  

The Adirondacks, Alaska, Amsterdam.  We are moving our way through the A's, apparently.
Next up, Azerbaijan?

While I love my photo books, I am left after every trip with a variety of postcards, plane tickets, event ticket stubs, receipts, and small trinkets that I want to keep, but don't necessarily want to display on a day to day basis.  Please don't tell me to scrapbook it.  I may do a lot of crafty things, but scrapbooking is NOT one of them.  I feel like scrapbooking is one of those things where you're either all in, or all out.  You can't half-ass a scrapbook, and the doodads and embellishments needed to really make it work can start to add up...CHA-CHING!

I saw a few interesting things on Pinterest that seemed like potential projects to solve my travel paraphernalia dilemma.  This, for example, was kind of neat, but it's not something that goes with the decor of my house.  Dave took one look at it while glancing at my computer screen, and scoffed at it.  

Fancy idea, just not my style.

On to the next idea:

Gotta give credit where it's due.  This one came from my girl Martha.

This one, I thought, was do-able and practical.  All I needed was some paint and wooden boxes.  JoAnn's, Michael's, and Hobby Lobby all have similar boxes to this,  so take your pick of where you'll go.  

I bought gold, brown, and dark grey paint.  I wasn't sure which of the dark colors I might use...
at a dollar a pop, they'll get used at some point!

First things first:  I unscrewed the latches on the boxes- they weren't going to work for this project.  I could have bought similar boxes without latches, but they would have been almost triple the price.  

The hardest part?  Hunting down that super small phillips head screwdriver...grr.

After taking off the latches, I filled the holes with some wood glue, waited for it to dry, and sanded.  I did this process twice.  Because the holes are so small, it only takes a few minutes for the glue to set, so this is a quick step.  You could also use wood filler, but mine had dried out- time to buy a new pot!

Fill 'er up.

Next, I took some charcoal grey paint, watered it down til it was the consistency of heavy cream, and did a dark wash on the boxes, both inside and out.

Remember- when a bit of water is added, the paint wash will dry in a lighter shade than it looks when wet.

As the dark wash dried and the clock tick tock tick tocked, I probably did something fun like washed the dishes or changed the oil in my car.  

Ding!  Drying is done!  See that super clever thing I did there?  Pushpins in the bottom to keep the box off of the table- makes it dry all the way around without drip puddles forming on the bottom.  SO SMART.

For the next step, I watered down my gold paint (slightly thicker than heavy cream this time), and painted just the outside of the box.  I let each box sit for a minute before using a few scrunched up paper towels to slightly wipe off the gold, allowing the dark grey to show through- I was going for a distressed, old gold, not really gold but kind of, you can still tell it's wood, but not stained wood, kind of look.  Did I succeed?

That's really neat.

After the boxes were completely dry, it was time to do some lettering.  I had an alphabet stencil, but decided against using it- I just didn't like the font enough.  I found a few ideas on how to transfer lettering, and decided to try one out.  

I printed my lettering backwards on a sheet of paper and placed it on my box.  I then wet down the paper, and used the cap of a marker to rub the backside of the letters, hoping to transfer the ink off of the paper and onto the wood.

I don't remember what font this is, or I'd share it with you.  Sorry.

No dice.  I read back through the instructions, and noticed that the website stipulated that I use an inkjet printer.  Damn it...I have a printer that uses toner.  Across the street neighbor Kristin to the rescue!  (Yes, we recycle names on our block- it's just too much trouble to learn new names.).  Kristin printed off my backwards letters on her inkjet printer, and I repeated the same process.

Not trying to pull a Rodman here.  Just visited south of the border.

This time, partial success.  I could see the lettering, but it wasn't very dark.  Ugh.  Looked like my "easy" project was acquiring additional steps.

The lettering was only visible in bright light.
The boxes are being put on a shelf with low lighting in front of it.  No dice.

Next, I tried to just trace my faint letters with a paint marker.  Utter failure.  I didn't even take a picture of this step- it was that horrible.  I do NOT have a steady hand, and my letters looked like a kindergartener did them.  I slightly sanded out the trace job, and wiped some new gold paint across my mess.  Good as new to start again.

I didn't want to give up on the font lettering I had printed out- I liked it too much to give in and use the stencil.  For my next try, I printed off my letters on heavy cardstock, and took the time to use a sharp knife to make my own stencil.  Yeah, this was starting to border on madness, wasn't it?  I used a foam brush to slightly tap some paint onto the box using my handmade stencil.  Success!!  (Mostly, anyway).

Oh man,  I should have dusted the shelf before taking a picture.  Yikes.
I'm not going back and photoshopping that out, though.  We keep it real at The Regular House.
And regular houses have dusty shelves.  Live with it.

It's not super crisp, but the more I look at the slightly wobbly lettering, the more I like it.  Gives it character (at least, that's what I'm telling myself).

While waiting for the lettering to dry, I found one more way of transferring this lettering that I thought I'd give a shot.  I glued a piece of wax paper to a regular piece of printer paper (waxy side out), and ran that through the printer.  Then, I used the cap of a marker to rub this onto the box, hoping the ink would transfer off of the slippery wax paper and onto the box.  No dice.  The entire internet lies.  This does not work.  Don't let anyone tell you it does.  Again, I didn't even bother taking a picture.  Just know that it failed.

So, there you go.  Some failures, and a "pretty good" success.  Now to fill my travel boxes with my leftover paper scraps so they're off of the dining room table.  Project complete, and the house has less mess.  Everyone wins.

Next up, it's a whole new shelf redo.  I mean, I can't leave the shelves untouched when they've got shiny new travel boxes sitting on them, right?  Right???