Hiding the Meter

After our basement renovation, I had sort of mentally tabled the weirdness on the basement bathroom wall.



There was no particularly appealing way to hide those utility doodads, so I decided to accept our contractor's "Let's put a white frame around them!" solution with a shrug, and figured we would eventually figure something else out later. The main complexity was working around the way that the gas meter juts out of the wall a full 3.5 inches, which basically meant that the standard solution of "large art" wasn't really going to work - at least, not off the shelf.

So, now it is later and we have indeed solved the dilemma! I bought stretcher bars, stretched a big canvas over them, made a masking tape grid over it, and the kids and I whipped up... let's say a tribute in equal parts to Mondrian and Joseph's amazing technicolor dreamcoat.

But this is not actually the solution - the key to that lies in the way I framed our painting. I used 1x4 pieces of lumber to construct a basic frame (the kids helped me glue, hammer, and stain the wood!). Then, I attached the painting as near the front edge as possible (inset only 1/4" or so). This left enough space for the gas meter to be hidden behind the canvas. And now our bathroom is a little less factory-chic and a little more rock and roll.

Floating Desk Nook

What do you do with an odd little bumpout in the corner of a room? Well, if you are me, you at first daydream about the possibilities of a quaint and charming window seat. But then you quickly come to your senses and realize there are already quite a few various reading spots all over the house and this one would not be nearly as comfy as the plop-worthy couch. And also? A second grader could really use a desk - a real desk, one that isn't primarily an art table.



After a bunch of research, you add some cleats to the wall to support the floating desk, making sure to anchor them deeply in studs on one side and masonry on the other (because your house is old and so is a mixed bag when it comes to wall materials).



Then you measure the walls and realize that not only are there no right angles, but there aren't even straight flat spaces... and so you cut your tabletop and shelves with curved sides. Then you fill the remaining gaps with some paintable caulk, which is only ever your friend.



Three coats of paint, two coats of poly, a chair, and a lamp later? You've got yourself some very happy kids all excited about their new desk nook! Here it is again:

Dresser Re-dress!

Ok - after 9 months of trolling Craigslist for a new dresser to replace the IKEA workhorse that has seen us through three moves and is now thus merely a shadow of its former self, I got lucky. Super lucky. Might I even say, crazy lucky? Seriously, you guys - check out this amazing $225 dresser, and then feel even happier that its former owner was a totally delightful person to deal with:



Ah, but that is after a day of scrubbing and restoring and buffing and waxing the wood to bring the glory back. It was in excellent shape, and survived its trip back to our house in the bed of a Zipcar-ed pickup quite well. But still. Scratches, nicks, heat rings, and a little dust were obscuring the full beauty here.



Here's a shot-to-shot comparison of the before:



... and the after (after a little vinegar, super-fine steel wool, Magic Eraser, and Howard's cleaner and wax):



All the shine! And that wood grain! And all those different inlays and veneers!





And the carved legs? And the casters?



Now, to get it up three flights of stairs...

For the Feast

With a little sawing, a little sanding, and a little drilling, I made these woodsy candlesticks for tomorrow's festivities from some more Sandy-logs. I love how chunky they are, and the contrast between the heaviness of the bark and the creamy white of the wood on the inside:



I also made some napkin rings from stone beads and 20-gauge wire. All the natural elements make for a nice fall table.



Stay tuned - I'll post the whole tablescape tomorrow!

In a Round

Courtesy of hurricane Sandy, I picked up a few logs from fallen trees. Two of them went to making... well, stay tuned. But one was just perfect for slicing up into circles and making a little fall weather wreath for our front door.



I left the rounds totally raw - I'm sort of curious to see the wood's natural aging process. It's attached to a twig frame with a bunch of hot glue, which I'm hoping is enough to secure it at least for the time being.



The color works really well with that slightly grayish blue, no?

Stumped

Well, I finally did it. After being obsessed for months with the stump tables that have been popping up all over the place, I made one of my own from a free Craiglist log. Dare I say I am totally in love with this thing? Even though I don't really know where to put it in our tiny house?

Making it wasn't so much hard as time consuming and messy: lots of elbow grease, lots of patience, lots and lots and lots of sanding. Did I mention the sanding? There was quite a lot of it. But the thing is a beaut, so in retrospect it definitely seems worth it.

It Came From the Basement...

... but luckily, it was just a tree stump turned planter for the back yard!

I've become kind of obsessed with these log-based side tables that have been floating around the internet. So I found someone on Craiglist who was giving away their cut down tree, and swooped in to pick up two pieces, each about a foot in diameter and two feet long.

For a couple of months, they sat drying out in our basement, looking pretty much like what you'd expect the chopped up sections of a tree trunk to look like:



I didn't spend too much time identifying the species of tree because, honestly, I have no idea how to do that in the absence of leaves (any takers?). Then I saw that one of the pieces had rotted out on the inside somewhat, so it seemed like having that in our living space wasn't the greatest idea. But outside? Why not!

I chipped off the bark with a hammer and chisel (after the drying time it proved super easy), and then chipped out the rotted part with various improvised implements:



A little potted soil and a relocated plant later, we ended up with a little planter/side table next to the iron bench:



I'm quite happy with it. My only question is whether the plant will survive inside the tree trunk - could the tree rot be dangerous to the plant somehow? I guess we'll have our answer in a few weeks. Meanwhile, the second piece is still undergoing processing, and will be revealed shortly!

The Mystery is Revealed

Remember when I posted this mysterious clamp-ridden photo? Well, the clamps have come off and now it's time to reveal what it is I've made. Ta-da! A floor mirror for our bedroom, using one of the large unframed beveled mirrors that the previous owners left in the house:



It will serve to cover the wall that currently has a giant access panel cut-out as its main decorative element. This seems better.



I built the frame out of plywood and maple, with thin slivers of aluminum in the places where the maple beams connect for a little bling. It's rather heavy, but I would ideally like to hang it on the wall. I haven't yet checked whether any of the studs are suitably located. We'll see!

Secrets of the Basement

There are things afoot in our basement... Namely, a long and somewhat involved project that I decided to brave after the success of this shoe rack/hall table combo. It's been a lot of fun trying to improvise a wood shop in the smallness of our basement with my tiny arsenal of tools. Not as much fun? Trying to make my way around this thing every time I haul the laundry basket to the washing machine. It's hard to tell from my intentionally mysterious photo, but this project pretty much takes up the whole width of the space down there.



What is it, you ask? All shall be revealed when it's done. Which, hopefully, will spur me on to actually finish it already!

Woodworking Project #1

There might have a lull in posts on the ol' bloggariffic, but there certainly has been no shortage of doings Chez Forty-Two Roads. To wit: I built (well, I IKEA-hacked) a console-table-cum-shoe-organizing-tool to make our entrance a little less chaotic. I was so excited about it that I took picture without styling the background too much, so voila, the table plus some dry cleaning:

It is basically, two of these IKEA shoe cabinets, assembled and then bolted together, with a long piece of 1"x8" maple from Lowe's glued and bracketed to the top, overhanging the cabinets by about 1.5" on each side. I think most of the credit should probably go to Mother Nature, since the reason this works so well is that maple has a beautiful grain that reads well with a dark stain... on the plane... in Spain...

Why is this post #1, you ask? Why because there is more wood working on the way! I was pretty inspired by this maple situation to have another project pop into my head. It'll probably be a few weeks before it's done, though.