Recycling Holder

Hi!

It's Friday, Friday!  (Gotta get down on Friday!)

We are getting a bit of snow today- anywhere from 10-20cm (4-8").  Schools closed 2 hours early.  It's so unusual to be able to see the bare ground at this time of year.  I think a lot of people are actually wishing for snow!

I worked on a small project this week. I built a trash can/recycling holder.

To use up some leftover wood- 

from our old headboard,

the wainscoting in the old front room,

and the leftover tongue in groove boards from the front room ceiling.

We keep our paper recycling and refundable bottles/cans in the two plastic trash cans to the right of the armoire pantry.

I always thought they could use a little something to make them look better.

So, I built a little something.

I used plywood for the back and sides, paneling for the front and top, and edged it with tongue and groove.   It's open on the bottom. I was even able to use up the 2x3's from the old headboard for the framing inside.

I decided to paint the paneling with chalkboard paint and kinda "black-wash" the boards with watered down paint so the wood grain still shows thru.

It looks better than this right? ;-)

I still put the same stuff in- the cutlery box, 

the Kreg Jig shelves, 

and the plastic trash cans (without lids). 

Here it is opened up.   

There's enough room to open it with the basket shelves above and I can easily remove the trash cans.

 I think it'll stay dark for a while, but I may paint it lighter sometime...

It's actually Saturday now (I had to wait for better light to take my final pictures) and here's the snow we got! Pretty!

I think we only got about 5-10cm (2-4").

Hope you're having a great weekend! :-)

Weekend Update

Hi!

How was your weekend?  We had a good one.  It was a nice weekend, without much wind. 

Someone cleared the pond by our house with 4-wheelers on Saturday, 

so the kids and I decided to go skating on Sunday.

However, the pond was still too bumpy for skating so we just walked around on the ice. 

On the far left side of the pond, on the bank, you could still see the sun setting over the hill.

This was about 4:40! 

On the far right side of the pond, there were some tracks. 

I had the idea to walk on the edge of the pond on the left in the bull rushes, so we could see if there's still a beaver dam back behind the open water.

I lead the way with C and then N following...

Unfortunately, N fell thru the ice!! Just past his knees!! Ice cold water flooded into his boots! :-(

He was able to just step back up onto the solid ice and we walked back to the other side.  I called Ken who quickly drove down to pick us up.  We got home and N changed into his Star Wars lounge pants and BB8 socks (from Loot Crate for Christmas) and was just fine!  Thank goodness!

Hope you stayed nice and warm and dry this weekend!

Have a fantastic week! :-)

Headboard

Hi!
Another weekend is almost here.  Again, we're missing a big storm that's hitting the NE US with up to 70 cm (27inches) of snow!  That's good for us, but it only takes one storm to bring lots of snow and there's still a few more months of winter!

With my new  "Use it or lose it" motto, I've got to use up my old headboard that was in the storage room.

It looks nice from afar, but it's not in great shape.

Here you can see C tagged it with "I ♥ Niall" (of the band One Direction).

This was from when she had the double bed in her room.

Our bedroom used to look like this.

I made this headboard back in July, 2005 with 2x3's and 3/8" plywood.

 N helped by drawing on it.

I really liked this headboard and the woven pleather fabric, bought in Detroit when K was working there.

We've recently moved our bed so K can finish wiring the bedroom and then I can finally finish drywalling!

The bed is on the cedar shingled wall, which I like because it opens up both windows. Before, the bed was blocking the side window. I think we'll leave the bed here after the walls are done, but the big mirror will have to be moved up and over (or somewhere else...).

Of course, I tried out the headboard to see how it would look... 

Good!

But.... what if we miss the padded headboard?  

Well, I'll upholster the "new" one with the old foam, batting and pleather! 

The old one was quite well done. This one, not so much.  I did it quickly to see it I'd like it....

Now that it's in place, I notice that the pattern isn't straight and the top curve isn't very tight.

I don't love it....

But, I don't have another spot for the pleather...  

Will I keep the headboard like this? Re-do it? Remove the pleather and paint the headboard? I'm leaning toward the last one, but what to do with the pleather?  I'd like to re-do the kitchen bench with it, but I'd have to cut it and join two pieces and I'm not sure this can be sewn easily?? 

Decisions, Decisions....

Enjoy your weekend! :-)

Weekend Update

Hi!

January is flying by!

We had a good weekend.  Luckily, the storm that was supposed to come Saturday night missed us!  It's a bit colder this week, but no storms in the forecast!  Maybe we will get a break this year, after last year's record breaking snowfall amounts.

Feb, 2015

The snow we have now seems to be a nice amount, but the kids of course would like a little more!

K and N fired off a homemade rocket yesterday.  It was the second rocket they made.

The first rocket last week was good!  This last one went so fast, I don't think anybody really saw it go up or come down! 

C had a friend over on Saturday and they spent a lot of time practicing gymnastics.

N has finished reading the Harry Potter series, so now we've started watching the movies.  N and I watched "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" on Saturday and finished it on Sunday- It's a long movie!

Have a great week! :-)

Plant Stand Chair

Hi!

It's Friday already! Are you ready for the weekend?  We don't have any plans- there may or may not be a storm on Saturday night, so we're kinda planning on a weekend in.

Remember when I wrote about our new kitchen lights?  And that I found them when cleaning out the storage room?  Well, here's another item I found- a rocking chair.

It's a cute little chair. 

Under the seat it says "To: Lainey 1-1-73".  I would've been 15 months old.

"From: Janice + L.D. Reynosa, Mexico"

This is my Aunt Jan (my mom's sister) and her husband, L.D.  I guess he was my uncle, but I never remember calling him "Uncle L.D."... 

 Anyway, I've used this as a plant stand before, but because of the rockers, it sticks out a lot.

So, I decided to remove them.  

I had to cut the legs and of course they didn't turn out even!  So, I hot glued some little wooden pegs to the front legs so it doesn't lean!

Then, I replaced the old broken blue chair that I'd tried to re-purpose into a stool, and then, obvi, a plant stand. 

It was in pretty bad shape, so I'm going to have to throw it away! 

Here's the new stand.

So, not much difference, but my new motto is "Use it or lose it".  I'm trying to figure out how to use things that I've been holding onto.  And if I can't figure out a way, then I'll have to get rid of them.  This chair has sentimental value and I'm glad I was able to find a way to get it back into the house and in use!

Have a great weekend!  :-)

Front Room

Hi!

We had a snow day yesterday!  Both work and school were cancelled.  We only got about 20 cm (7 inches), but it was blustery all day.

I've changed up the front room a bit, after Christmas.

I replaced the curtain with some lace K and I got when he was working in Brazil.  C made the snowman on the right at 4H.  The kids and I made the 4 snowmen under the window a couple years ago.  Sometimes they stay outside. Most recently, they were in the kitchen on the bench under the window.

We've got new scarves and hat by the door to the hall.

I erased the chalkboard Christmas tree, but left the snowflakes.  Will have to draw something there soon! 

We've got a new rug!  It's a 4x6 rug from Canadian Tire and fits great.  It's nice and big, so snow doesn't melt on the floor.

We keep salt and sand in the green bins. There's a  wicker trash can I bought at Value Village for $3 in the corner.  It's looking a bit busy with all the boots down there, so I may move the trash. 

This side is pretty much the same, but K's hat is hanging up above the keys instead of Santa's! ;-)  

Have a great day! :-)

New Lights

Hello!

Did you notice anything new in our Anniversary post picture yesterday?

No, not K's mustache or beard!

It's those fancy lights behind us!

Yes, we've put in new lights in the kitchen.

So, I have a list of projects to work on now that the kids are back to school.  One is cleaning out the storage room.  And even though the kids weren't back to school yet, K and I had already started last week!

In clearing out the storage room, I "found" a bunch of lights (well, 3 or 4, really) that needed to be hung.

Here is one of them.

According to the price tag, I paid $10 for it at the ReStore in Nov, 2012.  And I bought 2 of them!

I wanted to put them above the kitchen island and get rid of the old Ikea Paper light.

As the light box is not centered over the island, K decided to run the electric wire on the ceiling over from the box. We don't have great attic access over the kitchen and it would be hard to get the wire  thru all the insulation without distrubing the drywall. Also, there is no rafter above the island, so K made a base for the two lights to fit on .  This way the wires could join up behind it and it would be more secured on the ceiling.

I painted the base with black chalkboard paint.

Here are the two lights hung up. 

 I still have to touch up the paint on the base.  However, I'm not sure I want to leave it black... I may paint it to match the ceiling.  I did paint the box cover blue, but it's not the right paint.  I'm not sure I still have the same blue as the ceiling, so not sure what to do here.  I don't know if I want to buy all new paint just for this.

Anyway, the new lights line up nicely with the hall light. 

Here's how they look from the kitchen table. 

Further down the line, we may get a small ceiling hugger fan, so it's not so cluttered up there on the ceiling.

And the light above the table needs a cover for the electric box....

And the tv antenna doesn't look that great...

But the lights!!  I love them!

Here they are with the cord cover!

Yay for getting stuff done!

Have a great day and wonderful weekend! :-)