"I had more clothes than I had closets..."

Let's just start off by saying that organization used to be one of my biggest strong suits.  All my clothes in the closet were on matching hangers, facing the same way, pants organized light to dark, shirts organized long sleeve to short sleeve...it was magical!  And then, I started sharing a closet with someone.  I had to give up some of my space, and with the space went the organization.

To help divvy up the space, I bought a Hemnes 6-drawer wardrobe to keep my non-hanging stuff, while the Mister had my old, hand-me-down dresser in the closet for his non-hanging stuff.  Even with two dressers and a closet of hanging racks and shelves, we had too many clothes!  Especially because the Mister had an entire drawer that he couldn't use because the drawer was broken beyond repair...

Needless to say, our closet needed an overhaul!  

After some research, we budgeted $1,000 for a Pax closet organization system from Ikea.  We originally looked at allen + roth at Lowe's, but determined that the Ikea system would work better from a customization standpoint.  Really, the pull out pants rack was the kicker.

Our closest Ikea is 1.5 hours away, but totally worth the trip.  The only problem was getting the stuff back.  Believe it or not, a closet system even for our little closet comes with a lot of boxes.  A lot of HEAVY boxes.  And those boxes are long.  Which lead to putting all the seats down...including the passenger seat.

 

Bonus points if you can figure out where I sat.  Because yes, by virtue of being the smaller of the two of us, I got to sit in the back, on top of the back seat, with all the boxes.  Needless to say, it was an interesting ride home.  Most amusing comment of the day: "Good thing we left the baby at home or we wouldn't have been able to bring him back!"

We made this trip on a Sunday, and since both of us work full time, the boxes sat in the living room for a week before we actually did anything with them.  But that, my friends, is for a different post. :)

Tune in next time to see the new and improved master closet!

Can-Do loves Ikea, it's the perfect store for the Can-Do Attitude! 

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...and baby makes three!

When the Mister and I got married, we had a three year plan.  In three years, we were going to get married, buy a house, and have a baby (in that order).  We got married in April 2009, and almost exactly a year and a half later we bought our house, in October 2010.  For those of you keeping score, that's two down, one to go, halfway through our three year plan!  So far, so good!  And  then... we found out I was pregnant, in January 2012! Hurray! (We modified the three year plan a little bit, from having a baby to being pregnant).

Baby K was due in September 2012.  As a first time mom, I wanted to get started on things WAY too early, and of course, the first thing I wanted to do was the nursery.  So as soon as we found out we were having a boy, I sprung into action, and dragged everyone else kicking and screaming along with me.

 

Baby K's first portrait! The photo that launched a 1,000 DIY projects and crafts.

The Casa has three bedrooms.  At the time, they were the master bedroom, the guest bedroom/storage room, and the Conservatory, which was the tiny third bedroom that housed all our books, DVDs, and Mister's collection of guitars and amps.  We debated moving the Conservatory into the larger room, and using the smaller room for the nursery.  We ended up making our decision based on lighting (the Conservatory gets CRAZY bright as soon as the sun rises, and we thought that would be a bad idea for a room where a small demon would need to keep sleeping). So we turned the guest bedroom into the nursery.

The problem there? The guest bedroom had previously been the bedroom of a 7 year old girl... who was obsessed with princesses.  Guess what that means!

Yep.  Pink.

So our first stop in the new nursery was picking out a new paint color for the walls.  Now, I'm not a traditionalist in any way.  Or at least I think I'm not.  So I wanted a color, ANY COLOR, other than blue.  Maybe a nice orange, some browns and greens... the possibilities were endless!  As it turns out...I like "traditional" better.  Guess what that means!

 

Yep.  Blue.

To be fair, it's a very dusky gray blue called Scottish Moor, which we both liked because it references Scotland (the Mister is very proud of his Scottish heritage, which is a bandwagon I was more than happy to jump on, especially after going to school there for a semester exchange program).  More on that later!

As you can tell, there were some other things that came along with the paint color.  When I decided I was going to go ahead and do blue, I had decided I wanted to do a blue and white nautical/ocean theme.  I love the ocean, especially after growing up on the coast of South Carolina.  I also have an obsession with chair rail (see the bathroom remodel).  When I decided that regular wainscoting was going to be way too expensive for our tiny budget, I decided to substitute it out for faux wood paneling done wainscoting style.  I personally like this look better.  Doesn't it remind you of an ocean-side beach house?

Much like with the master bathroom, we used the chair rail line to determine our paint line.  However, in this case, we left the Pepto pink under the chair rail line and covered it with the paneling.  To do this, we had to remove all of the baseboard (which I then repainted while four months pregnant, probably not a smart idea).  We put up the paneling, cut out the boxes for the outlets, and put the baseboard back on.  Then we capped the paneling with the chair rail.

All in all, the actual redo of this room was pretty easy.  Add a few finishing touches, and you've got yourself a baby boy nursery!  The nautical theme went as far as the colors and paneling, and then it just turned into boy/blue.

Dog poster prints on sale for $2 each at World Market.  Add cheap $5 frames and voila! Boy nursery artwork!

Scarf from the Scotland-USA friendly football match I attended while in Scotland.

Cameo by Baby K

The lanterns work for a soft light at night.

So.  Many.  TOYS.

Repurposed vanity, only change we made was new drawer pulls.

But do you know what I love ABSOLUTELY MOST about Baby K's nursery?  How many repurposed and handmade items there are, made by me or from friends and family.

Andrea, the artist, modeling her work.

Thanks, Pinterest, for the idea!

Repurposed from baby congrats card

Repurposed from baby shower gift bag

Also by me, also an idea from Pinterest.

     

Handmade by me!

     

Handmade by a friend's mom

Inside-outimal by Mrs. Wabi Sabi           

Made by me!

And remember how I said we ended up without a theme?  Well, you could almost say we ended up with a Scottish theme.  Along with the paint color and the scarf over the door, we also have this:

Giant sheep rug.

And this, from Etsy (also from a Pinterest idea!):

THOSE are the colors I wanted to do...

And the coup! An entire set of Scottish Highland Games implements, scaled down to Baby K size!  The Mister is an amateur Highland athlete, and this was a baby gift from one of his fellow athletes and his family.

And yet ANOTHER sheep.

So, that's the nursery!  The only thing I wish is that we had done more with the organization in the closet.  It is a hot mess!  There are baby  clothes everywhere!

A few notes:

@- Pinterest is AWESOME!  There are so many fantastic ideas for EVERYTHING.  My biggest board right now is for things I tagged while I was pregnant for pregnancy and awesome baby ideas.  I'm sure I'm going to have more than a few posts that are related to me trying something I found on Pinterest.

@- The last thing you want to do is believe that things only have one purpose.  The lanterns above our chair (Ikea Poang, btw, which we LOVE!) were originally wedding decorations.  We found them on sale $2 for a set of six, and they came with the colored ribbon we used to hang them.  Add a few AAA batteries, and you've got yourself nursery lighting!

@- Most of the time, you can make something chic and custom a LOT cheaper than you can buy it.  My friend Corinne (Mrs. Wabi Sabi) does a lot of sewing.  She not only made the Inside-outimal for Baby K, she also made me a set of custom blackout curtains using some fabric I found and a blackout curtain I found on sale.  You can see them on the bottom shelf of the changing table; I haven't gotten around to hanging them yet.  Anything is possible if you or a friend have some skill and a sewing machine! BTW - Mrs. Wabi Sabi sells her Inside-outimals on Etsy: WabiSabiSewing.  She also runs a website called Wabi Sabi Living where she puts up a great list of DIY projects for kids toys and sewing projects.

@- Speaking of Etsy, that's a great place to go if you're looking for custome, handmade items for cheaper than you can get them in the store.  My Scottie dog was custom made with his tartan to match the accent colors I was planning on using in the nursery.  Funny story behind that - she actually found ME on Pinterest after she saw a bunch of Scottie dog things I pinned for the future nursery.  A few messages back and forth later, and I had a custom Scottie dog pillow AND custom dinosaur car seat toys AND custom bird car seat toys for a baby shower!  Look around, you never know what you'll find!  You can find these items at her store on Etsy: PiffcatPillows

Can-Do and Mr. Can-Do had a baby.  Is he going to be Baby Can-Do?  I hope so!  It doesn't hurt to get them started early so it can be a habit that grows with them (:

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The First Project in the New House

The Mister and I have lived together since 2007, first in an apartment, and later in his grandmother's house (est. 1969) where his mother lived as a girl. Much like me, Mister is a go-getter, so there is very little we weren't able to tackle together.  After we married in 2009, we decided to brave the housing market and buy our first home.

Our first Christmas in the house, and we got SNOW! Very rare for here. :)

Buying a home is like enabling an addiction to a DIY-er.  There wasn't a lot that needed fixing in our 1997 house, which had recently had some interior upgrades done.  But as first time homeowners, fresh to this new adventure and full of unmitigated enthusiasm, we found things to do.

The master bathroom was the first project I tackled when we moved in.  It was smallish (for a master bath), with white walls, laminate floors, builder grade cabinets, and very little storage to speak of.  The previous owners had left their shower curtain, which I loved, and used for inspiration for the paint colors. (The curved hotel-style shower rod was our doing, to increase the space inside the shower for my 6'2" hubby).

The muse for my bathroom redo.

I am an earth sign, and the greens, grays, and tans of this curtain really spoke to me.  We took the curtain rings to Lowe's to get paint matches, and decided on the lighter green-gray on the top portion of the walls, the darker green-gray on the lower portion of the walls, and the gray on the cabinets, with dark brown accents.  We also decided to install chair rail (in white) to divide the two paint colors on the wall.

My brother-in-law helped with the cutting for the wood projects, as he is the super for several rental homes and does this on a regular basis, and therefore owns POWER TOOLS! I also own power tools (what successful DIY-er doesn't?) but mine are basic and his more specialized.  It definitely helps to have the right tools for the project.

After painting, we installed the chair rail to hide the line where the two colors met.

Before. Tape line indicates where the chair rail was going to be.  We set the height based on keeping it below the outlets.

After.  Paint and chair rail complete!

I also decided to replace our single, massive mirror with two smaller mirrors, which I framed myself.  Three and a half years later, this is a decision that I regret.  Not because I don't love the look of the two mirrors, because I do.  But because the OCD in me HATES that the light fixture, mirrors, and vanity are not all centered.

Before.  The mirror went from the wall to the light switch.  HUGE.

After. We broke a shade installing the light, but we got that fixed.

As for the framing of the mirror, it's simple decorative molding with add on blocks in the corners, cut to size, spray painted (black and brown), and glued to the mirrors.

The leaf motif echos the shower curtain, nicely framed in this photo :)

By this point, I was getting pretty worn out.  So much cutting! So much nailing! SO MUCH PAINTING! So a couple things got left undone (and are still undone today): the chair rail didn't get painted, the cabinets haven't been painted, there is still laminate on the floor, and the vanity has been left untouched, gross cracked sink basins, old cheap faucets and all.  But I did add some finishing details!

Hooks on the door and wall near shower for robes and towels.

New rug to (partially) hide ugly laminate.

New hardware to upgrade builder grade cabinets.

New window treatment.

Do I consider this a success?  Well, mostly.  It is my hope that one day I'll be able to finish it.  Touch up painting and painting the chair rail and cabinets, mostly, but I also want to reinstall the big mirror and frame it (we kept it after we took it down), and replace/reuse the vanity.  Maybe with a new single unit, maybe with two separate units.  I haven't decided.  I have decided that I want vessel sinks, and definite added storage.  I want to redo the floors too, with either a different, sturdier, better looking laminate (stone or wood look) and if I'm feeling rich and fancy (and my budget agrees), in floor heating and tile bath/shower.

My Can-Do attitude got me this far, and makes me believe I can go further.  How about you?
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That DIY Disease

I've been a fan of all things Do-It-Yourself for as long as I can remember.  I can't remember which DIY project came first, though.  Growing my own plants in a dixie cup on the windowsill in kindergarten? Maybe.  All I know is that it's like a disease I was born with, and that has only gotten worse as I've grown older.  Like a disease that progresses until it ultimately becomes incurable, I am riddled with the DIY disease.

The beginning of my doom Image:kwod

As Henry Ford said, "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right." Fortunately for me, I THINK I CAN! I call it the Can-Do attitude.  I'm a firm believer in the Can-Do attitude.  I strongly believe there is nothing that I can't do if I do a little research, roll up my sleeves, and get down to business.  Over the years, my Can-Do successes have run the gamut from gardening (DIY greenhouse for seedlings, and then made from scratch raised beds for my herbs and veggies) to auto maintenance (over the years I've replaced my own starter and alternator, changed my own transmission fluid, and of course, repaired and/or changed several tires) to home maintenance.

After buying our first home, we launched ourself into a whole new realm of DIY: Homeowner DIY. Successful projects included replacing the front steps, tearing out the bushes and installing flower beds in the front yard, replacing a ceiling fan and adding a light fixture (stolen from another ceiling fan and painted to match), repainting the half-bath downstairs, repainting the kitchen, and a near total redo of the master bathroom. But a lot of these projects were half-done or poorly done.

With full time jobs, it was hard to find the time and energy to start and complete entire projects, especially when I am prone to biting off more than I can chew and starting HUGE projects instead of breaking it down into smaller, more manageable ones.  3 years on, I'm learning that things can still be done, little by little, step by step, and with a little help.

This blog aims to be a chronicle of my successes and failures, so I can help others in their DIY adventures by teaching them WHAT NOT TO DO and hopefully improve my own DIY adventures by garnering advise from others.  Ultimately, I aim to make my house a home, one project at a time.

Me and my Can-Do attitude are going places.  Come along for the ride!
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