Sew Half Crazy: bookcase

Showing posts with label bookcase. Show all posts

2/03/2016

Styling the Basement Built-In

Heather 2/03/2016 0 Comments

My husband thought I was nuts. After we finished the built-in, I was worrying about styling it.

We'd just built this beautiful thing, and I was worried about what to put in it.

I should've trusted the hubs, because he was right. Styling it was the fun part. I got to go shopping, both retail and at home, and experiment with stuff. What's not to like? I think I was mostly worried about the vastness of the space I needed to fill. It was a lot, at first, but then it really wasn't so much.

After I got the books put in place, then came the fun part. I was able to create this nice cohesive look with a mixture of old and new.

2/02/2016

State String Art Love - Virginchusetts

Heather 2/02/2016 0 Comments

You might be a bit confused by the latter half of that title, but let me explain it. My Big Guy has been putting his witty 10-year-old prowess to work with puns and other wordy jokes, and when I completed this project (the first time) he dubbed it Virginchusetts. So it's now stuck.

So if you've followed Sew Half Crazy on Instagram or Facebook, then you know for the last 3 weeks or so we've been diligently working in our basement. Super Bowl is Sunday. We're hosting. We've got a bit more to get done. Eek! I digress.

3/02/2010

An Unexpected Fun Day

Heather 3/02/2010 1 Comments

So I wasn't planning on posting again until tomorrow after I got the suit jacket done to my outfit, but my mom was sick today so when she called me I did what any concerned daughter would do.....I asked her if she wanted to go run my errands with me :)

After our obligatory stop by McD's for Dev, we headed onto A.C. Moore because I needed to get some greenery for my March flower arrangement. Instead, I got several bushes of yellow forsythia (at half off!), 4 frames (to complete my collage for the sewing room, see yesterday's post) and other assorted stuff that I need or think I will need for any project I think of in the future. :)

Then after feeding H (he was quite grumpy that it'd been 4 hours and no nap from his last feeding) we were on our way to one of my favorite hunting spots, the Salvation Army store. Manassas has a huge Salvation Army store and the inventory rotates very quickly. I try to go every week, but its more like every 2.

We started wandering around the store with only the stroller to hold stuff, but it was quickly very evident that a cart was going to be needed. So after fetching a cart, the hunt was on!

We must've spent at least an hour looking, digging and sorting. H got in a nap and Mom and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and then it was time to go home and take stock of all our new finds.

Once we got home I set all my beauties on the table to show off to ya'll and then I got to work on finding homes for all of them. They are all their homes now (well mostly...there is one still on the stairs, but only because I haven't gone upstairs yet). I've taken some picture, but I'm not going to reveal much because I plan on expanding on some of the pics with future projects. :)

Oh and how much did I spend on all this? $50!! I can't do much better than that.

Stephen, hubby, wanted to steal the red fleur de lis for the basement. I had to tell him to find his own. Those two pieces only came to $8!

side note: this is my grandmother's sister, June Marie, not just some random old picture. I've had this picture printed for a while and was just waiting for the perfect frame for her. :)

I also had another suprise (sort of) when I got home. the carpet had been installed in the exercise room (which I knew was happening) and my dear sweet husband was putting some of the finishing touches on the room (this was the suprise)! I think it looks awesome...obviously we still need to install baseboard and the doors, but that's small when you think of what this room look liked last summer. :) Oh and yay that the elliptical is out of the main basement area!

One side note though....when we painted the stripes we used regular blue tape....and we got this:

It's kind of splotchy and some parts have really bled, but over the weekend we spoke with a painting company at the Dulles Home & Garden Show and asked what tape they use and they said Frog Tape. So we stopped by Lowe's and picked some up and this is the result of the frog tape:

We will be using frog tape from now on. :)

linkimg up to:

2/27/2010

My perfect craft room

Heather 2/27/2010 1 Comments

As anyone who does any amount of crafting (of any sort) you know that you accumulate stuff quickly. It's no use to toss this stuff because it can still be used or utilized in some fashion. So what do you do with this stuff? You stash it, and what do you do when the stash starts taking over your space? I don't know about you guys, but my stash is starting to drive me crazy. I don't like that my craft room is a mess and dysfunctional....I can't work as well in there because of it. I knew that when we moved in my room wold be one of the last to get tackled and well we're coming to the end of the house list. :)

So here's what I have now.....

The room is the smallest of the bedrooms upstairs. Roughly its 10' 5" x 10' 3" with 2 windows on the north wall, and a closet on the back wall. I'm asking a lot of this small space, but I'm confident that I can get it to where it works for me.

I plan on keeping my existing computer desk, printer cart and craft table. Everything else....GONE.

I'd like to replace my sewing table with this: Ana's sawhorse table which would be good because buried somewhere in this room is another sewing machine....actually its an embroidery machine that I have yet to play with. sad. :(

And since I'm getting rid of ALL my storage I'm going to convert the spaces in my closet behind the door opening to shelving. This will allow me to also put my craft table in the closet when I'm not using it. I need space for the scrapbooking stash, sewing patterns, and just miscellaneous sewing stuff.

So I'm planning on building this: the Bedford 3x3 Bookcase also from Ana's site. I actually plan on building 2 of these shelving units and stacking them. It should provide more than enough space to hold basket. Per the specs on Ana's site these ClosetMaid Canvas Drawers should fit just fine. I don't know if I'll stick with the neutral or go with the colors. I may do the neutral so I can embellish it how I like.

I'd like to add some art to the walls, and I have some ideas on that, but that will have to wait for another day. :) I do like this however, Magnet Board from Beneath My Heart, and the magnet would be awesome, but I also love cork boards....so I might have to come up with something that works for me.

I love how this workspace looks and feels. It's bright, airy and open and I love that.

This is from Better Homes and Gardens. I don't like the window treatment though. The two windows that are in my room are on the front of my house, so any window treatments I do need to look good from the outside as well. I haven't decided what I want. I like the shabby-chic look, but with the desks and everything I don't know that I'll be able or want to deal with curtains. So then I was thinking of a shade of some sort. I'm sure inspiration will strike...at least I hope it does.

I do like this window option...1) because I have the curtains already and 2) I like the idea of painting a custom design. I love florals but I rarely use them because of the girly factor, but I could do a silhouette of flowers and I think it'd look lovely. The only thing I'm concerned about is the length of the curtains I have now. They're 84"......I could always shorten them and that would be simple to do, so maybe I'll just direct my energies in that direction. :)

So here's what I'm envisioning. I'd like to do a staggered yellow stripe on the wall and then create a U-shape work area in front of the windows. I want to keep space so I can expand my craft table to make cutting things out easier.

2/20/2010

Spring is here.....almost

Heather 2/20/2010 0 Comments

Well the bookcase is glazed and resting in its new home, with stuff on it already. I'm very pleased with how it turned out and the fact that it's hiding my ecclectic collection of cookbooks. It's also hiding the magnet toys for the boys :)

The glaze turned out better than I had hoped, which is nice because there is nothing more frustrating than having an idea and implementing all of it and then having the final step not turn out like you imagined it would.

I was quite nervous about doing the glaze but I tested my idea out on a scrap piece of beadboard and I liked what I saw so then I went to the inside of the cabinet (If I hated it at least it would be behind a door, I'm so brave) :) and then after that turned out well I went to work on the rest of the piece.

After I got everything where I wanted it I realized my door was slightly off, and by slightly I mean by like an 1/8"....so moved the door hinges to fix my problem and luckily the hinge is big enough to cover the original hole so I didn't have to patch that up.

I've been very excited for weeks about the Maymont Flower Show which is held in Richmond towards the end of February and every year the Fisher women go and get ideas for everything they'd love to do to their gardens. This year my grandmother, Bet, my mom and I went (boys in tow as well) and we enjoyed ourselves emensely.

It's fun to see what the entrants have come up for the theme that year, and honestly I have no idea what this year's theme was, but all of the entries were gorgeous. I must say my favorite was either the courtyard of orchids and other exotics or the one with the elevated house. I do love orchids, they just don't like me :)

It's always nice to get a taste of spring during the dreary days of February.

2/16/2010

Out of sorts....

Heather 2/16/2010 2 Comments

I'm feeling a little out of sorts right now, because the big project I've been working on is coming to an end. It's painted and tomorrow I will glaze it and then after that dries it will be done. I don't know why I'm out of sorts, because it's not like I don't have umpteen other projects in the wings, but I guess it's because my next project has to be my outfit for H's baptism, otherwise it might not get done.

I love to sew but my sewing room is not working for me right now, and I have plans for it that I'll share later, but as it is....it's bugging me, but enough of that. On to what I've been working on for a few weeks.

I've mentioned that Ana's got a great blog (http://www.knockoffwood.blogspot.com/)and I found plans on her site for the Thomas Collection. Well I have a corner in my kitchen (remember the kitchen redo that I went through?) that has a shelf from Ikea. Now I love Ikea....but this shelf I have stopped loving, as has Stephen. Stephen hating it made it much easier for me to foist the boys off on him so I could get it done and get the hated ikea shelf out of there. The picture above shows the hated Ikea shelf as well as the cabinet portion of the bookcase that will be replacing it. This is February 2.

On Feb. 8th the hutch portion of the cabinet was completed, sans the shelves. We're making progress! Again the awful shelf is next to it. :) Oh and the cabinet door is on!

So here we are today, and I've moved the pieces into the living room to work on them. I really need it to be spring so that I don't have to work on this type of stuff in the house, or get our garage insulated so I don't freeze.

The moulding is up and the piece is painted. I'm so impressed with myself. :) The door on top of the hutch looks awesome, don't you think?