Archive for August, 2011

305

Moving & Shaking

Posted by
August 15, 2011

We’re knee deep in the middle of a bunch o’ projects (in the office, the dining room, and the living room- yeah we’re all over the place), so we thought we’d share the one thing we actually completed in the meantime, which was a little moving (and some obligatory shaking) when it came to Clara’s nursery. Here’s what it looked like mid-chaos (chaos = really bad pics):

Why the furniture shuffle? Well, we arranged it for Clara’s seven month old self (she wasn’t even crawling when we moved in) and now she’s a fifteen month old walking fiend with a lot wider “wingspan” so we had to make some changes to keep her safe slash happy slash sleeping.

The issues:

Also:

Here’s what it looked like before the switch:

So here are the changes I made (John was working and I was on Clara duty, so she loved “helping” me push things or clapping while I did all the work):

And since all those bullets are probably as clear as mud, here’s a little sketch for ya:

Now that the rearranging dust has cleared, it’s deffffffinitely nowhere close to perfect. But it’s a huge improvement in the function department (no more safety or early-wake-up worries). And Clara, who has always awoken at 7:30 (at least for the last 5+ months straight) has slept til 8:00 since the switch (two days in a row!). Which is no small miracle. So if the room looked beyond ugly we’d probably leave the furniture right where it is. Haha. Just kidding. Not really.

Anyway, here’s the new setup:

And here are some details that make my sappy mom heart happy:

Of course there are more than a few things we’d still like to do in there (although we’re set on finishing the other projects around the house that we have in progress, so there’s no rush). But here’s the ol’ list:

There are probably a bunch more things that I’m forgetting. Oh well, one step at a time, right? And since we’re on the subject of the bean, here’s another little video for ya. So proud of our little “reader”:

Did you guys do any list-making or room rearranging this weekend? Did you do it while your hubby got his laptop on and the baby “helped”? Did you find all sorts of nasty dust bunnies that horrified you behind the furniture? Did your dog whine audibly and try to distract you by bringing in a toy to play with because he was so against the activity?

Psst- See how we made the flower mobile here, refinished Clara’s veneer dresser here, painted and upholstered the bench here, painted the green mirror here, made the curtains here, built the book ledges here, found the capiz shell chandelier here, made the art wall here, painted the walls here, and stamped Clara’s closet here.

Baby Business, Before & After, Our Current House, Problem Solving
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219

Can You Handle It?

Posted by
August 12, 2011

So as much as you guys gushed over our temporary string handles for our new Effektiv file cabinet (note: this is sarcasm), we did scoop up some actual hardware that we much prefer.

They’re black glass handles that were originally $9, but Hobby Lobby (aka Schlobby Bobby) was having one of those perpetual 50% off sales, so they were $4.50 a pop instead.

As I mentioned here, I was a bit nervous about installing them, since it was up to me to make sure they were all centered and level (Sherry + measuring = meltdown). So I triple-measured and even made myself a little guide out of card stock. First, I figured out that my holes needed to be 6.25″ and 9.25″ in from the edge if I wanted it to be centered (which is why I drew those two vertical lines), and we decided we wanted the handles to be placed 2.5″ down from the top of the door (so I added that horizontal line 2.5″ down from the top fold). I used the crease in the paper to line it up consistently for each handle and some tape to hold it in place while I screwed through it to create guide holes. Maybe I should’ve splurged the $3 or so to buy the little plastic hardware guides that a lot of you mentioned from various places (Ikea even had one), but this actually ended up working really well (and I wasn’t sure the Ikea one would work with non-Ikea handles).

Once the holes were made in my guide, it also made it easy to flip the piece of paper over and use it on the opposite cabinet door (ensuring perfectly symmetrical placement).

Luckily all of my holes came out perfectly. But it was only after drilling them that I noticed not all of the handles were perfect. Urgh. Notice how the holes on the right handle are perfectly centered? And the right hole on the left one kinda looks wonky, like it’s raising an eyebrow?

If Hobby Lobby weren’t on the other side of town (good news, we just heard one is coming closer to us in October) I would’ve driven back and exchanged the two bad ones. But instead I just drilled the corresponding holes in the door a bit longer (you know, taller?) to account for the crookedness. Then we could just tighten the hardware to hold them in place so they were nice and level. That worked out just fine, thank goodness. Note: this all looks very whitewashed, we can’t wait to get some color on those walls.

They’re definitely a subtle addition from afar, but up close they make us glad we waited to find these outside of Ikea’s big blue doors (or are they yellow?).

Sherry calls them “her lovies” and says things to them like “don’t you look posh today?” when she walks into the room. Gotta admit that I really like them too.

We especially like how the shape kind of plays off of the caning in our office chairs (which will look a whole lot better when we make some desk upgrades among a thousand other things):

Oh, but no post about a file cabinet is complete without a look behind the doors at the glamorous things that we store in there. A printer & camera bag. Oooooh. Extra paper & hanging files. Ahhhh.

Our wireless printer (an HP PhotoSmart C4780 that we don’t love – let’s just say it’s quirky) fits in there quite nicely (it’s 17 x 11 x 6.5″) since the paper tray folds up when not in use. Of course it still has a wire for the power cord, which I first attempted to slide through the back by drilling a hole. Then I realized it’d be easier just to detach the top shelf of the Effektiv momentarily (since it installs in three vertical parts) and then lift it slightly and tuck the cord through the crack in the back (thanks HP for making a tiny flat cord!).

See, you can’t even see it:

In the file cabinet drawers there are lots of, well, files. Surprise!

We bought some colorful hanging ones from Office Depot (for something like $7 for 25) to make filing a bit less manilla. If only there were some green ones in the mix, we could almost call them Sue the Napkin’s more productive sister: Susan the File Folders.

We even decided to store some various printer papers in there for easy access. You know, for that one time a month when we actually print something.

So thar she be for now. Effektiv is officially decked out with handles (string, you will be missed) and various office necessities (pile in the corner of the room, you will also be missed). Up next? Perhaps some furniture rearranging and definitely some building/lighting/general upgrades.

In the meantime, who else is obsessed with hanging files? Have you ever ended up with crooked hardware that has a sarcastic eyebrow-raise-thing going on? Did you notice I spelled card stock as all one word in my file tab (Sherry gently mentioned that to me a second ago)?

Easy Upgrades, Furniture Makeovers & Building Stuff, Our Current House
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37

Sayin’ Thanks… That Summer Ain’t Quite Over

Posted by
August 12, 2011

**Psst- We know most Fridays we just post once, but today we’ll be back in a few hours with an update on how we upgraded our new office file storage. Who’s excited?

Yup, it’s time again for our monthly sponsor shout out (you know, to thank the folks who make our other 30-some posts possible). But does the fact that August is here mean summer’s almost over? Say it ain’t so! So we’re using this month’s thank you to remind ourselves to embrace the warm weather while it’s here. Most of the items below caught our eye because they make us want to be outside, bring the outdoors in, or otherwise bask in the summery goodness while it lasts. Not that we’ve been gifted anything (here’s our no-swag policy). And of course there are special discounts listed at the end of this post for all of you deal-lovers. Happy Friday, y’all!

And now for the JUICY DISCOUNTS:

Blog Banter
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241

That’s Not My Signature

Posted by
August 11, 2011

Knowing we’re always game for a decorating quiz (like these of the past), our Twitter buddy Shelley sent us the link to Ethan Allen’s “What’s Your Signature” quiz a few days back. It, like any other non-scientific “what’s your style” quiz, was a just-for-fun attempt to define your decorating personality – this time in terms of Ethan Allen’s “Signature Lifestyles.”

It was also remarkably speedy (style quizzes = fun, belabored twenty minute style quizzes = not fun). It just asked you to click one of two images based on what “grabs you first,” which was actually kind of a fun way to let your gut instincts take over. Heck, I even found myself randomly choosing a pearl necklace.

But look where all that jewelry-clicking got me. My diagnosis: Romance (?!?!?)

In a word: barf. Beg my pardon, that’s not very “romantic” of me. I meant: le barf.

No offense to this style or this style quiz (or Ethan Allen himself), but it is the COMPLETE opposite of me (just what every wife wants to hear, right? I’m 180-degrees from romance). But c’mon, just look at the description (curvaceous silhouettes? dressmaker fabrics?). And here’s one of the rooms they suggested I’d like:

If you know me at all, you know there is very little about this space that could be described as my “signature lifestyle.” Okay, maybe that map over the bed (I never met a map I didn’t like).

Speaking of maps, Sherry rubbed it in by getting Explorer as her result:

Probably not a perfect description of Sherry (her blank passport does not speak to “images of world travel”) but it was definitely a closer fit than mine (she loves natural fibers, textural variations, and we’ve definitely been embracing a bit more “relaxed eclecticism” in this house compared to our first one). Here’s one of the “Explorer” rooms that caught her eye. Not 100% her, but not as off as my princess bedroom above (she likes the ORB light fixture and loves the french doors with the dark hardware in the background).

Feeling jealous of Sherry’s diagnosis, I took the quiz again (they have different image pairings each time). And even though I dared to click on the pearls again – I got a closer fit with my second result: Vintage.

Not that I’ll be wearing that outfit above anytime soon, but the rooms shown under this style diagnosis definitely felt more like moi me (sorry, that’s the “romance” sneaking back in). For example, I’m digging the light fixture, the mixed chairs/table as well as the graphic rug against rustic floors in this shot. Though my favorite part is definitely the architecture. Too bad I can’t bring that home from a store.

Okay, your turn. Feel free to take the “What’s Your Signature” quiz (even twice if you have to) and share your results. Were they way off? Dead on? Inspiring in all the right ways? Or just nice for a good laugh? Oh, and if you feel like killing more time, you can find a bunch of the previous quizzes that we’ve test driven here.

Psst- In what can only be described as more-thrilling-than-90210 news, Tori Spelling herself mentioned us on her blog today (among some other great sites of which we’re humbled to be grouped). When I told Sherry she went into silent-freak-out-mode, which never happens. It was epic. I mean, when is Sherry silent?

Psssttt- We picked this week’s giveaway winner. Click here to see if it’s you.

Pop Quizzes
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300

Highly Effektiv People

Posted by
August 11, 2011

We haven’t given our office any love in the entire eight months that we’ve lived here (other than deciding that it was no longer the dining room and shifting that into the old formal living room nearby). Pretty much our moving day MO was to: plop old office furniture down, work away, and ignore the fact that the rug’s crazy-off-center and you can bump your head on the old dining room chandelier. Sad times.

But the lack of love given wasn’t for lack of trying. We’ve been keeping our eye out for two similar/identical secondhand filing cabinets for, oh, eight whole months. So we were starting to lose hope after about twenty five visits to all of our favorite local thrift stores without finding two of them:

  1. that were the same height or depth (we ideally wanted to put two of them next to each other to make a square cabinet)
  2. that were even remotely operable (it was crazy how many were so dinged and dented that they hardly opened)

We even checked out online office supply shops and local places like Office Max, but a lot of the filing cabinet options that we found were upwards of $100 a pop – and we wanted two). Then on our recent trip to Ikea (for these shoe cabinets), this piece of furniture caught our eye as we strolled through the upper level:

It’s an “Effektiv” (hence the bad pun in the title of this post). And we decided half of it (it was actually two of them pushed together) would be the perfect solution for a little “situation” that we have going on (no not that Situation):

Yes, that’s a printer-paper-camera-bag-shredder pile right on the floor that’s sheepishly tucked out of view behind the sofa (but not completely out of view from a few other angles). And yes, Clara loves to push buttons and throw paper and cause general pile chaos. So something had to be done. Like yesterday.

Even though the Effektiv system has LOTS of customization options, we went for something very similar to what we saw on the showroom floor (just half as wide). I annoyingly lost the receipt (bad blogger) but it was in the neighborhood of $150. Which isn’t too bad considering some of the “heavily discounted office surplus” options would have been $200+ for the double-wide equivalent. Even the cost to build it all myself probably would have been in the $150+ range after getting all the drawer slides and hinges and file fittings (and I worried it wouldn’t have the same durability that I’d get from something made by experts since it would be constantly opened and shut). Oh and that price included one base, two shelf pieces, and the various interior fittings for a double wide file drawer on the bottom and concealed storage for things like our wireless printer and stacks of paper on the top double-doored shelf.

We figured it’d be a good piece to anchor this empty wall (opposite the wall with the desk, next to the doorway to the kitchen) while also adding some functional storage.

One by one, I assembled each of the three pieces and screwed them on top of one another. It was a thrilling process I assure you, so forgive me for glossing over it so quickly.

Oh and as for the vent on the right of it, luckily it has those angled registers so the air gets directed out at an angle that allows it to flow right out the side and into the room. There’s about a 4″ gap there (even though it looks a lot smaller in pics due to shadows) so it’s great thus far (we can feel the air easily coming out, so it’s not getting trapped or anything). Whew. Otherwise we’d just close that register because there are a few others in the room.

The beauty of this piece is that it slipped right in under the chair rail and fit pretty nicely width-wise too (we didn’t have the wall measurement with us, so we’re beyond relived that it wasn’t an inch too wide or something). It was offered with lots of customizable options – drawers, cabinets, hanging file systems, solid doors, frosted fronts, etc. We knew we wanted the upper shelf to work as a cabinet (to store the wireless printer & reems o’ paper mess) and the lower one to house a ton of hanging files (we have a surprising amount of paperwork due to being “our own business”). For some reason I’ve become addicted to hanging file storage and the two little file boxes slipped under our desk are, well, not doing it for me at all (they’re only about 7″ wide).

We went with basic white doors since they were the cheapest option and provide the easiest blank canvas in case we want to paint, wallpaper, stencil, or even O’verlay them with these cool things down the line for a more interesting (read: less Ikea-ish) look.

When it came to the interior fittings, first I put the file system in the bottom. It consists of a metal drawer/frame, a heavy weight in the back (to keep it from toppling when the drawer is pulled out) and a flat white cabinet face that will attach to the front. We also anchored it to the wall with an Ikea-provided kid-safe anchor system, just to be double safe.

Then the top half just consisted of putting on two cabinet doors, so the whole thing went from this…

…to this…

You’re probably wondering about our knob dealio. We decided to skip the ones from Ikea and go for a more homemade handle. We thought something rustic like casual string was a nice contrast to the sleek lines of the rest of the piece.

Okay, I’m totally kidding. The string was just temporary (since I learned the hard way that it was impossible to open the doors without prying them open with a flat head screwdriver without it).

I wasn’t kidding about passing on all of the Ikea hardware options though. We tried to like something. Really we did. But nothing was really doing it for us and we thought knobs from somewhere else might give it a little more character and make it work with other things in the room (like our $35 thrifted lattice desk chairs). Note: of course we have about ten million other changes we plan to make in here (slowly by surely) when it comes to the furnishings, lighting, etc.

But back to the hardware. Yeah, we’re hoping that adding some non-Ikea knobs or pulls could help to make the whole thing look a smidge less Ikea-y (as would eventually painting, stenciling, or wallpapering the fronts, sides, top or the whole darn thing). But we’re not gonna do any of that ’til the whole room is further along. Because who knows, once the room is painted (stenciled? wallpapered?) the piece could look best in plain ol’ glossy white (and we’d be kicking ourselves for having jumped the gun). We already found some pretty cool Anthropologie-ish handle options at a place that rhymes with Schlobby Bobby though, so once we make a final decision and screw them in (which always freaks me out by the way- is anyone else totally intimidated to drill right into new furniture?) we’ll be back with updated pics for ya. Hopefully within 24-ish hours.

Oh and since there have been a bunch of Clara video requests, we thought we’d share her latest party trick: animal sounds (although Sherry forgot piggy and doggy). You’ll note that she’s holding a fabric ruler from her tool kit the whole time. Looks like the girl’s ready to help me measure and screw in my hardware:

Has anyone else added some functional office storage recently? Did you have better luck hunting down something secondhand? Do you also have a deeply rooted fear of drilling holes into new furniture to attach hardware? I must measure things fifteen times just to be sure I’m not hanging them an inch off center or something.

Easy Upgrades, Furniture Makeovers & Building Stuff, Our Current House, Stuff We Bought
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