I'm excited about my freshly painted shelves and cabinets. They are ready to receive tools, chemicals and other workshop supplies. Everything, (well, almost everything) is in place. It just needs to be all screwed together so it won't fall apart in an earthquake. This is going to make such a huge difference. All the tools will be in one place and I'll be able to eliminate about 10 boxes that are taking up space in the garage. There will be a place for the kind of art supplies that don't really belong in my studio. Things like mosaic tiles and bags of grout. Really, this is all I can think about right now. I'm giddy about my garage.
No one else would be impressed because it's still a huge mess. But at least now everything has a place to go. At least now it can be cleaned.
I'm also getting excited about my pergola project. I bought a pergola kit from Kmart last spring. The basic frame is ok but the cover that came with it blows off all the time. It looked good but didn't function well. I'm going to add some wooden cleats to the frame and cover one side and the top with trellis panels. I've been engineering it in my head and I think I have it worked out. I think it'll cost around $100 to retrofit the whole thing. Once it's done it should make a nice little patio. One thing I've been missing here is an outdoor hang out space. At the farm I had my fabulous front porch. This one won't have a view but it will be cozy. I'm looking forward to it.
Other projects I want to tackle this spring-
The hallway between the kitchen and the office- I want to finish taking off the wall paper, paint the walls, sand down one wall and paint a large rectangle with chalkboard paint, frame the rectangle, change the light fixture. This will be my message center.
The back bathroom- Take down the wall paper, paint the walls a latte color, ceiling a lighter shade, the vanity a darker shade. I need to repair the big hole in the wall where they took out the heater and replaced it with a sheet of cheap, wood paneling, install new floor and a new faucet. New window treatment, towel bars, toilet paper dispenser. I'm going to try to keep it all under $150.
My room- Take down the wall paper, paint, new light fixture, repair the furniture I got from Mindy, cut down my bed and re=upholster the headboard, assemble the bed, rework the curtains.
Kitchen- Finish the capiz shell window treatments, paint the walls.
That's enough for now.
14 comments:
Ow, makes my head hurt.
You are your own Home and Garden channel. No one deserves to win that stupid big house more than you do.
dean
I had this fantasy that if I do win I'll tell them what my plans are for what I'm going to do with the proceeds. Then I'll invite them to do a show on my whole-house makeover. I think it would be interesting. There's so much that needs to be done to this house. Once the issues are fixed then we'd move on to making it a small-scale dream home. They'd have to go for it.
That's why I simply MUST win.
Tonight I dumped out Jim's three tool boxes and sorted everything out. There's one box that's all electrical stuff, which I'll probably never use, but I'll keep for when Drew is here doing fix-it. The other two boxes are full of screw drivers and wrenches and I don't know how many allen wrench sets. Lots of other little tools as well. I'm getting rid of anything I don't know how to use. There's a pile of miscellaneous electronics stuff that I'll take to the thrift store.
Ooh, that felt good.
electrical doo-dads - fuses and such good for funky jewelry.
Gheez, you're ambitious. We can't even get a patio designed for our backyard. And I have about 3 rooms that need wallpaper ripped off - we've lived with it for 20 years now!
Hey, check out this blog, and scroll to January 4th for a cool chalkboard paint idea. The woman is too talented.
http://blogdelanine.blogspot.com/
Nancy, love that blog you posted. I am truly addicted to reading art/craft blogs. This one is particularly beautiful. Love her design sense in all things.
That blog is gorgeous. She reminds me of Carol Powers.
Yeah, she's a pretty amazing artist. I love the rubber stamps she makes, and she's got some links to some other outrageous artists, too, like the person who does the seaweed prints! oh, man do I want one of those.
Viv - have you seen that magazine "Artful Blogger?" I have seen it but haven't picked it up. Also,
I should mention Viv, that your beadwork is superb. I saw a book in the bead store the other day about the bead journal project - I wonder if that was your teacher. Makes me want to learn bead embroidery now.
I love her watercolors. I've carved some stamps before (not much room for error) but overall I'm not a big stamper person because they're so limiting for me. BUT I love the look, especially of homemade stamps.
I've looked at Artful blogger but I think the price is outrageous. I guess I cruise for so many blogs that I know what makes a blog visually nice. Or at least visually nice to me. For me the most artful blogs are those generous with photos/art and a humorous streak in the writing.
Thanks for the compliment on my beading. I learned first by just sewing beads to fabric (the easiest) and then picked up beadweaving from magazines/the internet and books. Most of it is pretty easy...if you have patience. It's not a very instant gratification craft.
I would love to see you try something. You have such a beautiful eye. And I do think you could combine beading and your felting to great results. btw, felt is a really nice ground for beading.
I bought a new storage shed so I could get more organized in my garage. Now I have a cluttered garage and storage shed. After doing laborious work in the yard and garden, I like to stand and admire it. That gets me excited. I've always said "small things amuse small minds". Yours however are not small things.
John
Thanks, John. I know they're not small things. They're just small compared with what I had been dealing with. My life has now gotten to the point where there's more good than bad. It feels great to be excited about building stuff. I haven't felt that way in a long time.
Some of the best days that Jim and I spent were when we did yard work together. We'd spend a Saturday working real hard and at the end of the day I'd make a good dinner, usually teriyaki steak, baked potatoes and a fabulous salad. We'd make a big pitcher of margaritas and sit out on the patio just enjoying the view we had worked all day creating.
This morning I woke up thinking about my garage. I had gotten a cabinet from the farm that was brand new and still in the box. Yesterday I pulled it out and started putting it together. There were some pretty important parts missing. I looked at the pile of components on the workbench for a while trying to decide if I should just chuck the whole thing. Then I grabbed the drill and started improvising. I still don't have all my tools and I couldn't find my big box of screws but dammit, I made that cabinet. Hear me roar.
March 1st
Yo, Donita,
Your public is waiting!!!!
8:44 PM
Who dis?
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