How to make a bench (and other stuff)

Well hello! OK – I’m finally back with the down low on the book nook closet. Sorry it took me awhile, but I wanted to make sure I got to all the details and plenty of pictures!

First of all – I was totally flying by the seat of my pants throughout this whole thing. If something didn’t work quite right I just figured out a way to fix it. It’s SO not perfect.

And secondly, and probably most important…I have to send out a big BOOYAH to my Stink Eye Sis.

Remember when we cleaned out the garage and she kept yelling at me every time I wanted to keep a piece of scrap wood? How she even spray painted the ones in the trash can so I couldn’t pull them out again?

Well…this WHOLE bench was made with scrap wood only – so I’m doing the BOOYAH dance. Serving up a slice of BOOYAH. Would you like a sip of BOOYAH with that?

Excuse me, I’m back. Anyway, I was really excited.  :)

I started with the base, and this part was all scrap mdf from this staircase project.

I’ll show you pics and then explain:

I did my measurements and laid everything out to make sure it would work. Then I started securing everything to the walls with long screws.

I did not take the baseboards off. Our baseboards are practically soldered onto our walls, so they stayed. And they gave me a good strong base to secure the mdf to.

I added the center support and screwed in in from the front (it split the mdf a bit, which is OK.) On the back part I just screwed it in from an angle.

Then I covered it with slats of scrap mdf:

I used a bead of wood glue first, then my nail gun to secure it along the frame.

You can see that I didn’t use one big piece of mdf – I was trying to use what I had, so I just cut them to the right length and made them work.

Then it was on to the bench! I used more scrap mdf for this one too:

I did this one very similar to the bottom base. The main difference was finding the studs – as many as possible! And our closet only had three – one on each wall.

I was a bit concerned that three wouldn’t hold up my booty, so I added screws in the corners (where I knew the closet was framed) to get some more support. I held up the center braces with brackets I had in my stash.

Then I took wood from our old DIY sofa table (I took it down a while ago) to make the seat. I installed them in that direction (coming out from the back of the closet) because five of those boards just happened to fit perfect that way.

If you don’t have scrap wood for a project like this, just have a piece of wood or plywood cut to the exact size of your bench. (Hardware stores will do this for you!)

Because I installed the wood that direction, and I was working around the door frame inside the closet, the wood didn’t match up just right at the front. I used a piece of scrap wood from our powder room across the front:

But there were still gaps. I thought I could cover that with the seat cushion, so I just cut the foam with a little bump out so it would cover all the gaps.

I made the cushion like I make headboards, like I showed you here.

I even used scrap foam (I scored a big roll at Goodwill a couple of years ago) for the seat cushion!

BOOYAH. ;)

Because I didn’t have a ton of studs to work with, I was a bit nervous about the stability of the bench. I sat on it over and over and it was fine, but wanted to add a little somethin’ to make it even more sturdy.

Dad suggested a couple more supports against the door frame:

And it did the trick! I have no doubt this will hold up to many sits for many years. :)

(And no, I didn’t fill the holes under there.)

The bench was DONE – so it was onto the shelves. I used a 1” x 2” piece of wood to build a bracket:

Then I used more scrap wood from the sofa table (hence the brown!) and nailed it into the “bracket.” I finished it off with a piece of mdf on the front, and then just painted it underneath so it melted in with the wall.

**If I was really good (and patient) I would have covered the bottom with another piece of wood…but I’m not. :)

There’s a few issues I hit as I went through the process, and I figured them out along the way. The first was covering where the hinges and the strike on the door frame were.

I got a couple of pieces of the thin lattice boards (like I used for the Bub’s “board and batten”) and nailed them over the frame:

The top piece was another scrap, so it’s a tiny bit thicker. I caulked the hinge part (picture on the left) and still need to do that a bit more up in the corners.

My cushion idea (cutting the foam to hang over a bit) worked pretty well, but then my (not good) cutting job on the foam was showing through and it was driving me crayyyyzay. (It was ragged and you could tell.)

I found more scrap wood, cut it to the exact right size, and then wedged it into the door frame right in front of the cushion:

I didn’t even nail it in. It stays put!

Usually I miter the corners of the mdf at 45 degree angles, but this time I just butt them up against each other and it worked great!:

You can see how they meet up from underneath:

I still need to caulk a few spots, but this gives you an idea.

I didn’t continue the mdf around the back of the bookshelves:

I knew it would take up valuable book space. And you can’t see back there with the books anyway. :)

Now…for the goodies – the sources for the cute stuff!

The light was from Menards for $12, but I was at Lowe’s today and found this cutie for about $18:

The basket was from TJ Maxx (already had it) and the “book” label was a cheap chalkboard from Joann’s that’s been in the basement:

The “NOOK” letters are cardboard, also from Joann’s, and spray painted in Pistachio spray paint (from Valspar I believe?)

The fabric is from Joann’s as well – I only need a bit so it was less than $10!

Oh, and the cutie pirate pillows were a HomeGoods find a few weeks ago, $10 each. I love how all of the colors came together!!

Throw all that together, and you get the cutest book nook I ever did see:

Whew!! :)

I am playing with the idea of a drape off to the side – hubby thinks it would be so cool. (For the Bub, of course.)

I hope that helps! It was NOT hard! I promise you. It just took time and patience. I’ve never built anything on my own, and this went so well for me.

And I had a blast doing it!

If you have any additional questions, please let me know and I’ll answer them in the comments!

Thanks again for all the love on this project!

Closet turned book nook

Hello all!! I’m SO EXCITED to show you the fun little project I’ve been working on over the past week or so. Well, the space is little, the work was not. ;)

The idea for this project came to me over time…the first idea was to just replace the wire shelving in a closet off the playroom with wood shelves and then paint the inside a fun color. I picked out the paint forever ago to do just that....and it sat. And sat. 

As time went on (and I avoided building those shelves week after week), another idea came to me that I liked SO much better. I mentioned before that we weren’t using this closet anymore (thank you decrapification!) – so it was just calling out for something FUN.

And fun it is. :)

I have this thing about nooks – I just think they are the coolest. I think kids are drawn to small spaces too. I know I was growing up – a space to read, play, dream, whatever. We don’t have many nooks in this open floor plan house, so when I got this idea I was in luuurve with it before I even started.  ;)

I began with the help of an electrician – which we were going to do anyway because we have no lights in our closets. (I’m hoping to add them here and there over time.)

I saw the end result in my head, and in my head there was an adorable lantern/outdoor-type light. When I found the light that was in my head at Menards a couple of months ago, well…it was meant to be:

The fact that it was only $12 made it even better. ;) WHOO!

(I did some research and asked a few electricians to make sure the outdoor light would be OK installed inside – all said it was fine.)

Once the lighting was taken care of, I started the building process. I wasn’t sure where to start, so I did what any good DIY gal does –  I called Dad.  ;)

He talked me through it and then left me to try it. All by my lonesome. Did I mention I’ve never built anything like this (on my own)?

I wasn’t sure it was going to work, but I went for it! I started with a bottom shelf:

And once that one was done, I did the next one, which was the actual bench:

I was totally winging it, but it was working! And I was using only scrap wood from other projects. About half way in, I was challenging myself to keep it up and see if I could do the whole bench without buying anything for it. And I did. :)

The top was a bunch of scrap pieces:

Which was OK, because I was going to cover it with a cushion, which I threw together with scrap particle board and foam:

And finally, I created some shelves:

And when I was done, the cutie patoot book nook was born!:

Shut the front door – I LOVE IT. I think it may be my new favorite room in the house!

Well, favorite nook in the house:

I had planned on closing off the bottom part, and making it look like a built-in bench, but then I realized it could be great extra storage. And it works perfectly for those big honkin’ books.

I considered a curtain of some sort, but I’m leaving it be. I love having it open…for now. We’ll see how if it stays this organized. ;)

And originally I planned on making the board go vertically, but because I’m lazy inventive OK, lazy…I made them horizontal to hide most of the holes from the wire shelves:

I covered most of the holes with those boards. SCORE!

The bookshelves fit perfectly in the little recess inside the closet:

It was that little recess that started my mind rolling on this project. ;) (The door used to open out to that side, and I’m guessing that’s why there’s extra space there.)

You might notice the light changes a bit throughout the pictures – I had the electrician install a dimmer (first one in this house I haven’t put in myself!) so we could keep it low as a nightlight (since the door is staying off) or up high for reading.

I painted the walls and ceiling above the molding with a beautiful deep blue/green color I found at Lowe’s:

I picked this color out months ago to work with the new drapes in the playroom, and it’s so so SO pretty.

I wanted to create a little space for the Bub to get away and dream, and I think I accomplished it:

The fact that it’s new storage for half of his books is just a bonus. :)

And I’ll admit it…I’m dreamin’ in it too:

BIG FAT SMILEY FACE.

:)

I’ll share the whole process of how I did everything in the closet later this week – the bench, shelves, paint, cushion, costs -- all of it. There were little things that tripped me up here and there and I’ll show you how I dealt with them.

We all love this little space so much. :) Hope you enjoyed the tour of our new favorite nook!

Accidental redo

OK Squeezies. Hang in there with me on this post. I’m going to try to make sense of the way my mind works and the stream of thoughts that go on. Aren’t you so excited to get a look into how my decorating ADD happens? My mind can be a very scary place.  ;)

As I mentioned last week, I’ve started a little redo of our playroom/loft. I can’t even pinpoint when it started, but it’s been in the works for months. I’m just finally getting the projects going.

I’ve told you before, I’m nothing if not efficient. :)

Let’s look back at how the playroom looked for a while:

There was a time when I didn’t care for our wall color (the one I had them paint half the house with) – and I thought I had to match everything to it. Hence the reason I used so much red. (I thought it was the only color that worked with the hue of the paint.)

I’ve grown to love the color, and realize it’s an excellent neutral paint. And it’s opened up my world people! I now know I can use more than red to decorate these rooms! ;)

Anyhoo, remember when I told you back here how I took a couple trips to IKEA in a couple weeks? (Gleee!) Well, the reason for my first trip was to pick out this beauty:

It’s the Hemnes dresser and I thought it was going to be perfect for the Bub’s room. I planned to paint it RED (OK, the red isn’t gone for good) to go with his room. Because of that, I got the navy blue version of this dresser, so it would be a good dark base for the red paint.

Well…the reason I loved this dresser was because it had so much storage. What I didn’t realize (even though I measured the space before I got it) was that it’s MASSIVE. I mean, seriously. It’s SO stinking big people.

So I put the MONGO dresser together, and moved it into the Bub’s room, knowing full well it wasn’t going to work. It was too tall and too deep.

Drats.

I was freaking out just a little. What in the world was I going to do with a gigantic navy blue dresser? We certainly don’t need anymore dressers in this house. (You know my dresser obsession.)

And then…it hit me. I could use it in the playroom. Ah HA!! (You can see how I resolved the Bub’s dresser issue here.)

We have had a cheapy laminate TV stand in their for years and years – and a while back I tried painting it. Most of it held up OK, but some parts were flaking off daily:

I’ve been wanting to toss that thing (it was literally falling apart) forever, so I knew this could work out perfectly. Oh yes, my evil plan always comes together…even when I didn’t have a plan to begin with. And it wasn’t evil.

So I crushed the laminate stand (it. was. AWESOME.) and put the new dresser in it’s spot. LOVE.

Even the insides are adorable:

I changed it up just a bit by adding some fun green knobs (half off!) from Hob Lob:

The blue and green color is so FUN – and will make even more sense in just a minute. :)

Because the dresser is ginormous, it works insanely well for toys and games. Between another purge and this dresser, all of it is hidden away. And there are even empty drawers:

Glorious.

Because the dresser was a lot wider than the old TV stand, it created a few more issues. I had to take down the mirror and the art pad off the walls to accommodate the width of this monster.

And doing so left lots of these:

But we don’t have matching paint to touch them up. And even if we did the wall is about ohhhh…20 feet tall? I’m not painting it, and I don’t know anyone who will. :)

I decided to hang the TV above the dresser, so the need to repaint continued when I went to take the vinyl off the wall:

NICE. What the ??

Good. Ness. See how these things happen? It’s just a tidal wave.

But tidal waves are good around here. They give me an excuse to get creative. And in my mind, creative usually equals putting wood on our walls. Or mdf, in this case. :)

I used about $40 of the good stuff and did another board and batten treatment on that wall:

Oh my, I never tire of how fresh and crisp and classic it is! Nevah!

The height has no rhyme or reason to it – I just wanted to cover the big holes that showed up when I took down the bottom shelves. ;)

I used this method to fill the other holes, painted a couple coats of primer on the wall, installed the mdf and then gave it a coat of primer. I covered everything one more time with glossy white paint.

It gives the large wall a base and grounds it – which is a very good thing in this space:

By the way, this whole room is still so in between – nothing has been accessorized, so many projects aren’t done. I just couldn’t wait to show ya. :)

Onto the final project (for now), which may have been the first project. I have no idea. It’s all jumbled in my head. Remember that beautiful fabric I used for the kitchen window treatment?

Well this is the space I got it for:

I wanted to inject some more fun, make it fresh -- but keep it an adult space too. This room has morphed from a playroom to a game room over the past year, and I’m going with it.

And the new fabric was the a beautiful change – still lighthearted, but more grown up at the same time.

I don’t know. All I know is I LOVE it.

A couple weeks ago I found a couple of pillows at HomeGoods that happened to have the exact same colors on them:

And the Bub loves them because the one side has pirates, and he’s ALL over pirates lately. They a little whimsy in the room.

So far I’m loving the changes – so fun and bright!:

That new coffee table is for another post – a Craigslist find a few months ago:

It’s Pottery Barn and it’s fantastic! And no, it’s not staying red. :)

I love looking back to see how our spaces have changed – here’s the playroom a couple of years ago:

And the new game room, as it is today:

There are so many things left to do – the chairs will be replaced with our family room sofa…when we get a new family room sofa. :) The lights will come down, and my plan is to put built ins on each side of the windows. (Dad? You there?) The gallery wall is coming soon, and I’m figuring out a couple of other changes as well.

For now, I’m so pleased with how it’s coming together! All of the voices in my head are making sense…finally. ;)

P.S. To see a few of my board and batten tricks, go here to watch a short video. :)

The gallery wall-to-be

Helloooo! How’s your week going?

We were on Spring Break around here last week and I was an absolute slug. Really – when hubby is home all day I’m just completely worthless. All I want to do is sit around, eat A LOT and watch ridiculous amounts of reality TV.

It’s AWESOMENESS.

But by about Saturday at 5 p.m. last weekend, I my slothdom had run it’s course and I had to do something. And do something I did – I started one or fifty projects in the playroom turned game room. But this week has been so crazy,  none of it has been touched in five days.

The first little project I tackled is going to be a big one and I can’t WAIT to show you:

It involves a closet, an electrician, paint and me learning how to build stuff – we’ll see how that last part goes. Could get interesting.

But if it all comes together = AWESOME! Ack, I’m so excited about this one.

Next up is the pile of mdf sitting in the garage, waiting to be installed in the room:

I really hope to get that project done this weekend – it’s going to make a huge difference in there!

But the most dramatic change involves taking all of these off the wall:

No, not ladders. :)

The shelves that have been up for about five years:

I love them, I do! I’m just ready for a change – a change that came to mind as I was going through our boxes and boxes (and. boxes.) of photos recently.

We have so many special family photos and I must display them. They are fantastic – I just had to show you a few of my favorites.

I adore pictures of my husband as a child. ADORE. I wish I could travel back in time when I see these:

And it absolutely kills me how much he looks like our son. I need to get a similar shirt for the Bub and take a picture just like this. They could be twins.

Here’s hubs with my late brother-in-law:

Oh my, couldn’t you just squish them? :)

I love this one of my in-laws:

I love imagining the setting, who was there, what they were celebrating – all of it.

The older pictures of my grandparents are some of my favorites – just look how beautiful my Grandmother is in this picture:

Do you see her wedding gown? Stunning. And my Grandpa looks so handsome! I miss them both so.

Looks like my other Grandpa was an aspiring actor at a young age:

This photo is actually quite large – at least 30 people were in this Ladies Aid Society play. :) I love everything about it – the costumes, the fake beards and mustaches, the mischievous glint in my Grandpa’s eyes:

And he got his beautiful eyes from his Dad (the groom):

I don’t remember my Great-Grandfather, but his lovely wife (to the right) is my namesake. She was a really fantastic, strong Hungarian woman. And she made some mean kifli. Ohh, I must learn how to make them.

One of my absolute favorite pics isn’t one of the oldest. It’s from my childhood, so probably only 20 25 30 years ago:

OK, it’s pretty old. ;)

We went camping all the time when I was young, and that picture was taken at Brown County State Park (Indiana) in the fall. That’s my Dad pushing me, and my favorite part of this picture is the absolute JOY on my face.

This is the reason photos fill the walls in our home.  :)

I’ve started building up my stash of frames again – and my go to spot is always Goodwill. I found these large, chunky frames today:

I can’t wait to start framing everything and filling up this wall:

It’s gonna be fantastic. I hope. Crossing fingers. It’s pretty awesome in my head.

There’s lots of stuff going on under that TV too, and I’ll show you that SOON.  :)

So that’s the madness going on in my noggin and in our playroom this week. I need to focus and get at least one part of this totally last minute, by-accident mini redo DONE.

So, is there an old family photo you treasure? How far do yours go back? I’m guessing some of mine are last 100 years old, and they’re all originals. Anyone know the best way to store old photos? I plan on scanning them all, but I’d like to keep the originals stored safely away.