DIY Recycled Wooden Boxes

So. We made a thing.

We had a ton of landscaping stakes left over after we put up our own fence (you can read more about that here). We needed some shelves for our bathroom makeover. We got rid of a medicine cabinet mirror and replaced it with a flat mirror, so we needed something to store little odds and ends and keep them slightly out of view and easy to access; we thought some cute wooden boxes would do the trick.

We had been putting off going to the hardware store for some wood when it suddenly dawned on me - all those stakes were just sitting in the rain next to our house doing a whole lot of nothing!

Cor went ahead and cut the tips off of each end of the stakes, wood glued them together (holding them with clamps while they dried) to make a bottom and sides, and boom. Boxes.

We used some L brackets to hang them as "floating shelves" similar to the ones we put in our main bathroom.

Pretty dang adorable. And super practical too!

And... We have a fence!

We've been taking a break from our room-a-week situation because we've been working on something big outside. (and we've just been all around busy, but let's just blame it on the out side thing...)

We have a FENCE!

Cor (and a few good friends) did a ton of work to get our 286 foot fence up for a whole-lotta-less-money than paying someone to do it. Plus we had an friend trade us some fencing material for some furniture. Win-Win.

Online estimates show our fencing would have costs us at least $3,000 and Cor got it done for about $1,000.

The first thing Cor did was rent a brush cutter and cleared out some of our property (we didn't fence in all of our property because we wanted to keep the woods in the back of our property line). After breaking one brush cutter, Cor and a friend moved on to measuring out the fence line and marking where post would be. Then they moved on to attempting to aug some of the big holes for the fence posts...

This didn't work to well. He had a two man auger (and a friend) and totally needed something different.

The good news was when he went to return the equipment, the company gave him a credit to rent the proper auger (and another brush cutter).

A few weeks later and the guys were back at it (now with an expert, my very amazing father-in-law.) Cor finished out clearing the hill and then they used a one man hydraulic auger (or so I'm told) to dig out the post holes. This looked super duper easy and took the guys no time at all. We've got a lot of tree roots. So that was fun.

A few holes in, the wise, experienced one, decided they should probably put up a few posts to make sure they measured everything out correctly... Surprise! They we're off by a few inches. But at least they only had dug a few post holes by then and could fix the rest of the work they had to do. Good looking out, Daddy-O.

A few more weeks later (hey now - free weekends are hard to come by when you have so many little humans!), Cor got back to work on the fence. He needed to cut 18in off of each post and measure from the bottom to make sure each rail would be where it needed to be. This required more math. Good thing we met in Middle School Pre Algebra and both aced it (Spoiler: We did not. Not even close.)

Once he got going, math seemed to make more sense and he got into a groove of cutting and setting the posts (and we he had 28 posts to set!) and adding in the rails (we have a split rail fence with 2 rails each).

On a whole other weekend (good fence building takes time, people.), he attached nylon coated metal netting to the inside of the fence. He used 1 1/4in galvanized metal fence staples to staple the netting into place. There were a few issues where we had hills and some creative patch working was needed, but for the most part, it was unrolling and stapling all along our fence line.

Then, with the finish line is sight, we ran out of netting.
Yeah.
We needed like a good 10ft.

And the store was sold out. (Looks like a lot of people buy fencing materials on 3 day Holiday Weekends. Who knew?)

We were able to use some of our garden fencing to block the bottom of the small section of fencing that is lacking the netting (and the area where a large gate will be put in).

Eventually we'll add two side gates and add netting to those too...

... but that's for another weekend.

Watch the Crazy:

DIY Extra Large Book Page Art

In case you didn't know, I'm an English Professor. I, quite literally, love big, classical books. So I knew I wanted extra large book prints all over my home. This post has a few affiliate links to products we used in case you want to make one too!

I started with an idea with the girls' room. The last two pages of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has the word "sister" in it about five time. And it talks about the hopes and dreams of seeing her grown sister sitting and telling stories to future children. Could it be any more perfect? Swoon.

Want to watch us build it (and mess it up) on YouTube. Good! Click Here!

I'm quite aware of copyright law (hey, remember those multiple English degrees?), so I knew that Alice in Wonderland was well out of copyright. Especially since you can find scanned complete copies of the work on online libraries (like here at Google Books). They can do this because it has been over 50 years since the author and illustrator's deaths. Making the works out of copyright and free for use. (Note: DISNEY'S Alice in Wonderland is a whole other ballgame and is NOT out of copyright.)

I knew this.
Staples did not.

I had to go to war with them.
Not really. It actually wasn't too terrible (especially because I made Cor do it...). I needed to print out something that included the copyright situation and include it with my order. I went ahead and used one of the copyright pages listed in a Google Books copyright page, and they happily printed my pages. (And I informed them that I would also planning to do similar projects with other out-of-copyright materials, so now we both know what's up.)

We got an Engineering Print in the largest size Staples prints (36" x 48"). I just scanned a book page and it came out clear enough. I've done photos too that have turned out great! Cor took the file in but you can also order it through their website and preview it.

The entire 36x48 page was only $7.29!

Once I had my giant pages, they sat in my garage for ages... Kidding... Yeah... Kidding. Once I finally got my crafty bug back, I went to work. I used this spray adhesive to attach my large pages to a piece of .205in X 4ft X 8ft plywood underlayment from Lowe's. The whole piece of wood was around 16$ and I had some left over for a few other projects.

I placed a really large desk top on top of my papers to give them so weight while they dried on the wood. The adhesive gave the paper and wrinkly sort of texture, but I was cool with that. It makes it look like old pages. You could staple gun the pages tight to the board if you want to avoid the wrinkled look.

Cor then cut the pages down to size. If you're making more than one page, make sure you make your pages even (if that's what you're going for). That meant we had to have a little more white space on one of our pages.

Then we took some 1 1/2in X 2in X8-ft wood and stained them with this walnut stain. We did math... And did math again... And messed that up and mathed some more (Hey! I teach ENGLISH, folks!) and finally got them cut right to fit as perfect(ish) little frames on our large book page. (We actually mathed so wrong that we ran out of wood for the frames for the second book page... So, that's why you only see pictures of one. Project: To be continued).

Then we used a nail gun to shoot through the back and attach the frame pieces to the book page. We made sure to remove the baby before this step ;) . Gorgeous!

We used these D-Ring Hooks and attached them to the back of the frame on both sides. Then we hung it above Ay's bed, and admired our genius. Boom.

It's one of my new favorite things. I can't stop sneaking away and hiding in her room.

Sorry-not-Sorry.

New Room Makeover - SYKE!

So we've been averaging about a room makeover a week, but not this week. Life just got in the way. And not the good kind of life.

We went to Ikea and had a super fun trip there and dropped some cash. It was Cor's first trip to the land of wonder and amazement. And we took our kids (which probably wasn't the best idea), but we filmed the crazy. You can see it here.

Then we went out on our ELEVEN YEAR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY and dropped some cash down on a brand new king sized mattress. Because we've cuddled long enough and we're ready for space (space that will inevitably be filled with a stray child ending up in our bed.) Fun sidebar, Cam fell off a bed at the store and bleed everywhere... Ever have a bleeding kid in an all-white mattress store. It's super fun stuff. Then our mattress got delivered and was all sorts of lumpy. The delivery guy said it should "settle" but it hasn't... Hmmm.

And we ordered a new king bed from Wayfair for our "steel" anniversary. I like our bed; however, we were NOT impressed with Wayfair. You can find a video of our review here.

Then, after we got home from mattress shopping (and handing over all that cash money), we came home to find out that our WATER was out! Noooooo!

Long story short, it was our well pump. Apparently it's older than dirt. Literally. The well was full of dirt. So that's cool. We were out of water for a good four days and finally had someone come and fix it (and he was here until 1am fixing it.)

It. Was. Mayhem. Don't worry. I filmed that for you too and you can watch it here.

So, sorry-not-sorry for not having a room done this week.
We did buy the paint. That's gotta count for something, right?

Hooray for adulting.

Girl Nursery | Toddler Girl Bedroom Makeover

I was pretty sure the girls' room would be a simple makeover. Really, all it needed was some paint and I had a fun idea for an accent wall. I had a lot of décor from Ay's old room that would still work with the space. Easy. Right?

Easy it was not. But I'm still happy with how the room came out.
There's a few affiliate links in this post to show you what we ordered for the room, and if you want to watch the NOT easy transformation, you can find it on YouTube here.

This was the vision I had for the girls room. We still need to add artwork and all to the room, but I liked having a color scheme to work with. I knew I wanted to mainly focus on some sort of accent wall. So we focused a lot of time on that. We have all our other vision boards here if you want to check them out.

I wanted an arrow accent wall. It just kind of came to me one day, so I drew out my idea on some paper. Oh, sweet naïve Amanda. You had big dreams.

I used our laser level (we were kind of pretty excited about this thing) to make straight lines and put some place holder arrows in place to show where I wanted each arrow and which direction it should be going in.

I had Cor paint stripes on the wall that would be large enough to allow for some giveway when I taped my arrows up. I measured and marked and we drew pencil lines and stuff... and then we realized that it was about the size of the length of a roller anyway, so he just put in some stripes and we called it a day. I used the laser level to put a strip of my large tape on the wall and then went to work on the points and tails of the arrow.

I made each point and tail out of two 4in pieces of tape. I used 1 1/2in tape for the body and point of the arrow and smaller tape (.94in) for the tails.

 

I used my ruler/level to then create a 90 degree angle for my points and tails. There's a sort-of-okay video that Cam took of me making the points if you're confused. (The YouTube video is linked in the beginning of this blog post)

I put my tails 4in apart from tip to tip and just eyeballed them to be center. I could have pulled out the laser pointer at this point again, but I was confident in my eyeballing skills and didn't really need them all super duper perfect.

Boom. Past Amanda was so proud of herself. Then Cor painted out the second color of arrows (we had a tan color and a light pink color for arrows).

Tape tape tape tape tape. Math math math math math.

After all the arrows were taped up, we painted over each arrow with the color UNDER it. So a tan arrow got another coat of tan on top of it. This makes crisps lines when you eventually pull your tape up because the color of the arrow seeps into the little tape crevices and seals it in when you go to paint the top color. We then painted the whole wall Precious Pink. The other 3 walls (and the pink arrows) are Heirloom Pink. And the tan is Toasted Almond. Remember our Wal-Mart paint issue in our Main Bathroom Makeover? They were out of RED in the paint machine this time. So we had Lowes color match our Glidden Color Chips. And they turned out great. Lowes is our hero.

Here's where it got cray. We were SO excited to pull this tape up. I planned so much to make the arrows perfect. We took time to clean and prep the walls. I did MATH. Me! Doing math!?! And when we went to pull the tape up... This.

I don't know what happened. Maybe it was the wall. Maybe we didn't let the bottom paint dry enough before taping over. Maybe the world hates us.

But whatever. We had a solid solution.

We went slow with the other arrows we pulled up and used a pocket knife to score the wall, so most of them were fine. That second one from the bottom really pulled the wall up with it though. So meh. That was totally un-cool.

It still was my vision though. The arrows turned out LOOKING adorable, even if the wall was not.

Remember my solution?

I put the crib in front of the busted arrow.

I win.

This is how I fix the things. Don't judge.

So here's the before (with the sellers furniture). Pretty plain Jane (actually, I'm almost positive it was never painted before. Like ever). It's hard to tell, but it also was COVERED in sticky tape residue so I lovingly spent time scrubbing that junk off. And we had to patch up some wall. Shudder.

And the After. Other than paint, we just added in some of her bedroom décor. The carpet was left here by the sellers (and I'm in no rush to buy something expensive that a two year old can destroy, so hellllo, free!) The blackout curtains came from her room in the old house. I picked up some cute blankets from Ikea that tie the crib and the bed together a bit. I also have a big diy idea planned for some artwork. So stay tuned.

Eventually the bed turns into a bunk bed.

Eventually we need to kick Ay out of the crib and make her use the bed.

Because she won't sleep in the bed. And she kinda has a baby sister who is going to need that crib.

so...

yeah.

Swoon! Even though that wall gave me trouble, I'm still pretty much in love with it. 

So, there you have it. The after of the 'easiest' bedroom in the house. Silly me. I'm happy with how it all turned out. Ay seems to like it. I mean... She still ends up in our bed in the middle of the night anyway... but I don't think it's because of the room.

Master Bedroom Room Makeover!

When we toured the house for the first time, the Master Bedroom needed A LOT of imagination. The sellers had their own kind of style (that most certainly not the same as OUR style), and the room was filled with furniture that didn't really fit or fill out the layout of the room.

Here's the before (with the sellers furniture)

We used our imagination (and Pinterest) to come up with our vision board for the new bedroom. (You can see all our vision boards here). I've added affiliate links throughout this post so you can find exactly what we bought to make our vision come to life. And if you want to watch the madness, you can find us on YouTube here.

I knew that I wanted some sort of accent wall. Our bedroom in our old house was gray, and while I LOVED that room, I was also ready for something different. So we decided on Glidden Blue Gray Slate for the accent wall. We painted the other walls Glidden Antique White. The painting process was relatively painless... for me. Because Cor did most of it.

Thankfully, we didn't have any issues with the paint colors in this room (unlike when we painted the bathroom) and painting was the main thing that this room needed. We got a rug that we have been eyeing up at Lowes for our room. To be honest, it's the most expensive rug we bought for the house because we're grownups and hopefully won't spill anything on it, unlike any other room in the house where tiny people inhabit it and the chance of spillage is 10000%. It's crazy soft. Worth every penny (especially since Lowes has a great Military Discount too!)

We rounded out the room with the same sheer white curtains we had at our old house and a few accessories. I got a tobacco box when we went Antique shopping for Mother's Day. I'm not going to lie, I have no idea why they are called tobacco boxes. I just know that someone local makes them and it supports small business (yay!). The best we can think of is that they are made from barn wood of old tobacco farms. Maybe? Maybe not? But if you come over to see the house, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I also got the antique poetry book (from 1912) on our Antique trip too. There's also a birdhouse on Cor's nightstand from an antique shop when we were visiting Mississippi.

 The cute water pail came from Target and it's filled with Hydrangeas from Dollar Tree.

And that's it! Another perfect AFTER photo!

It's hard to believe how easily this room came together. Partially because we had such a great plan going in. We still have a few more things to add. We're getting a brand spanking new KING sized bed for our anniversary this month and ordered some bedding to go with it. We got these gray and white striped sheets and this lightweight white comforter to go along with it. We're also planning on adding in a celling fan and, like in all the rooms, changing out the doors.

We'll do a fun update when we get the new goods too!

Main Bathroom Room Makeover!

We've got a big goal to try and get a room done each week at this new house. Problem is, we have four little humans who inhibit ... well... getting ANYTHING done. So we have a small window starting at 8pm to get things done each night. But we're doing it!

We started with the smallest room first (but don't be fooled, it probably required the most work!)

Here's our Main Bathroom Makeover! (And because I know you love it, if you want to watch the crazy, you can find us on YouTube here!)

There's also affiliate links sprinkled about to help you find exactly what we purchased for our new bathroom.

First up was paint. We said goodbye to our fond friends, the glitter worms, and picked Glidden Monsoon Green for the color. But more on that in a bit.

We used CraftSmart Chalk Paint and Wax to paint over the gold on the vanity. We probably could have used acrylic paint (but don't quote me on that!), but I have plans on painting other vanities in the house and this was a good first try project.

Remember five seconds ago when I told you we would get back to that paint thing. We're here now. So there was a situation at the paint mixer (spoiler: it was out of white when mixing colors!) and our first can of paint was TOTALLY the wrong color. We also had another problem with a third can of the same paint when we went to do some touch ups! We never had a problem with the Walmart paint department before, but we've learned that the Walmart in our new town is probably not the best place to get paint...  

I waxed over the Chalk Paint with the same brand of clear wax. This was super easy and is a necessary step to seal in the paint and protect it. It's also clear, so I let Car help out (but don't tell Cam. Shhh...)

Our secret weapon. We went back and fourth about wainscoting and what our plan would be. We priced out actual beadboard and it wouldn't have been too terrible, but we were slightly on a budget. We also wanted to do the same thing in another bathroom, those two rooms full of beadboard would have added up. So enter our secret weapon: Paintable Textured Wallpaper! Don't get me wrong, it took a lot of work, but it looks awesome and it was under 25$ for an ENTIRE roll. We used about 3/4ths of the roll for this room (but we also messed up a ton and had a learning curve! Ooops!)

Mirrors. I couldn't decide. I went back and forth. I took a picture and texted it to Cor (who never answered anyway...) and I made an executive decision and bought the one on the left. It was totally the right decision! Let's not talk about how I went to Kohl's to get a shower curtain and came home with a mirror... But it was only $50 and I had a giftcard that made it free-to-me! Score!

Adventures in Miter Joints. And Math. We had to learn both and kind of got it right.

The chunky part was supposed to go on top, but we're just not going to tell anyone that and revel in the fact that we did a thing and it still looks awesome.

Remember that mirror? We hung it on a wall!

Believe it or not, finding one of these thingies was a difficult decision for this room. Who knew toilet paper holder thingies came in so many colors and designs and options. There are SO many on Amazon and they were way less expensive than the ones we saw at our hardware store. We got this one.

We made shelves too. Because we're ambition (and cheap) like that. I wanted to look of 'floating' shelves so we took these corner joints (I guess that's what they're called?), spray painted them with this, and screwed them into our stained wood pieces (on to the bottom of the shelf) and then also to the wall (where the cute stuffs would eventually hide the brackets)

Pretty stuffs! My very sweet sister-in-law is a stalker thoughtful and knew the color we painted the walls and got us the MOST amazing décor for the new bath! It matches perfectly and it's amazing. I also picked up the You Make Me Happy sign at Dollar Tree! Like what!! It was going home with me for sure. And Cor picked up the white shower curtain on one of his Walmart runs. He done good.

And here it is! The most perfect AFTER shots ever.

Swoon! See that wall? That's all the babies after their bath after the first birthday cake smashes (except for Air for obvious reasons) wrapped up in sweet towels. I got the frames at Dollar Tree, painted a base coat of teal and a top coat of white, and distressed them a bit. I also cut the mat that came in the frames to make a square. It's like my favorite thing ever.

Boom. One room done and a dozen more to go! Let's do this.