Josh and I have been living in our new apartment for six months- just long enough that we've stopped seeing all the little things around the house that we never quite got to. We moved in 90% and sort of left the rest of the projects hanging in the "we'll get to them eventually" category.

Well, we got to them. Over the course of the next month we're going to have loads of guests, and when I looked at our apartment through a visitor's eyes I saw all those things that I never quite got around to finishing. Here are a few:

My desk; I looked, and looked, and looked for a small, narrow desk that wouldn't overwhelm my tiny office. I found nothing. So we built something. A deep shelf, offset about a half an inch from the wall (so that cords can be routed to the outlet) hung thirty inches high; just big enough to fit my computer, not so big that it is the only thing in the room.

I don't know what to call this next thing. It's sort of like a dress for the shelves in the sunroom. We desperately need this storage space, this is where we keep plant food and extra pots, kitty litter, trash bags, board games and everything else that might go in the utility closet we don't have. The problem with the shelving is that it is so visible through that window I love so much in the kitchen; all of our junk is always on display.

I just wanted something that would act like a cupboard door, hide the clutter and make that space a little more peaceful and tidy.

And finally I've been meaning to make some throw pillows for ages, and now I'm just doing it. It's is so easy, it only takes a few minutes, and for a few dollars I can make what I might otherwise have spent big bucks on- have you seen what they charge for pillows? Madness!

Oil paint. It's a tricky bitch.

Working with oil paint last night was the first time I've had difficulty with something in this class. All of the media we've worked with up until now has reacted exactly the way I expected, but oil paints are another story. The paint, the brushes... it's just not particularly intuitive. They don't respond the way I think they will.

Since I'm the only person in the class the teacher is sort of letting me dictate what direction we take, and although it would be easier to go back and work some more with acrylics, that wouldn't necessarily be the best use of this opportunity. So, we're going to stick with oils. Who knows, maybe in a few weeks I'll figure out how they work and make something beautiful.

Just an apple. I'm sure everyone on earth starts learning how to paint by painting an apple. But I love it. It is acrylic paint on a cheap little canvas. I worked on it for about an hour. I find it absolutely amazing that in one hour I went from feeling bewildered and hesitant to feeling proud.

I started off, scared of ruining the canvas. I was scared of screwing up with the paint. Charcoal can, after all, be erased. I am overwhelmed that from that blank, white canvas I created something that anyone could recognize as an apple. Every week I think "I have no idea how I was able to do this."

Would you believe it took me 5 months to hem the curtains in the sun room? And I only got around to it then because I caught one of the cats "marking" their territory back there? Well, whatever the impetus, I finally hemmed them and tied them back. It made a HUGE difference! The room is lighter and bigger and much more open, and I remember why I so loved it when we first moved in.

The arrival of the curious (and tall) new puppy was all the motivation I needed to finish another project that had been languishing in my never ending queue of started-but-not-quite-completed projects.

Almost a year ago I started a project building a false front for our entertainment cabinet. Just something to cover up our mess of receivers and DVD's and games and remotes... etcetera. I built this prototype ( eh, I'm an engineer) and although I really liked it, that webbing was outrageously expensive. I waited ages for it to go on sale and it never did. I started thinking of some alternative solutions. I had some plywood leftover from these projects so I took it back to the hardware store and had it cut down to size.

I picked up some foam and a few knobs and dug out some gorgeous fabric I've been saving for... something. I was saving it for this I guess. A few staples later and I was finished. It makes me feel a little sheepish that it took me so long to just finish the darn project already.

My last two projects were rush jobs. We needed a couple new beds for the new dog and they are so expensive I wanted to make them myself. I made Murph's bed and it exactly fits our needs.

The first one I made out of a super soft leopard print throw I found on sale at Marshalls. I sewed a zipper in one side and then sewed the other three sides shut. I stuffed it with a comforter I picked up at a thrift store and voila! A super easy, washable crate pad that he can't tear apart.

The second one I made in the same style as Murphy's bed in a coordinating fabric. It's sewn like a pillow sham and stuffed with a thrifted blanket as well. These are really nice because they get so dirty (as you can see in the picture) and they're so easy to throw in the wash when we do laundry. Plus, I like that they cost me about $5, instead of the $75 I would have spent at a pet store and they are rather contemporary and totally devoid of "dog" designs (bones, paws, etc.).

I know, I'm amazing. I never thought I'd ever be able to create anything like this. I know it doesn't look exactly like me, but it sure looks a lot like me.

I missed my painting class on Monday (I was on an airplane) so it had been more than a week since I'd done anything arty when we started a self portrait on Wednesday night. I started the night with a warm up, a nice way to refresh myself on a few techniques I'd learned the week before, and the benefit of being the only student in the class, I can take a half an hour to warm-up and practice before diving in if I want to. My real self portrait in still in-progress, but I thought I'd share my warm-up drawing from this week's class.

It is exactly what I think I'd look like if I was a character in a Sunday morning comic strip.

This week we started working with charcoal. It's really interesting trying out different types of media each week. Before last week I had no idea how many types of pencils there were and how versatile they could be. The same is true about charcoal; we used willow charcoal- literally burnt twigs and sticks. At first when we were practicing using the charcoal on newsprint it gave me an extremely unpleasant fingernails-on-the-chalkboard feeling, but that was mitigated once we switched to a heavier paper.

I had a lot of fun using the charcoal; it was kind of messy, and easy to blend, smear and shade. It was less precise than the pencil, but also easier to make changes. My still life came out a little dark, but I learned how to lift excess shading out with an eraser, and that made for really cool fabric folds.

So each class is an hour and a half long. When I arrived this week my teacher Jessica informed me that we were going to be doing another pencil drawing, this time working on shadows (she calls the levels, must be fancy art school talk). I agreed but I have to admit that I thought to myself "what are we going to be doing for the other hour?"

Well smack my ass, because I sat down and began at 6:30, and I swear I'd just gotten started and it was already 8 o'clock.

Time flew- I mean flew by. I'd just started working on the vase and I didn't even get to the apples.

I have to tell you, I can't believe I drew that.

In an effort to get out of the house more and meet some people in my neighborhood I enrolled in a painting class at the Cultural Center. Just my luck that I'm the only person in the class.

Not one to be discouraged I decided to change my perspective. I'm going to think of it this way, I may be alone, but I'm getting 20 private art lessons for just $90. What a steal.

I don't need to remind you that I have next to no artistic ability, but I definitely think I'm going to learn a lot over the next ten weeks. Because I have no shame, I am also going to be sharing the fruits of my labors here.

First up, drawing contour lines with out picking up the pencil.

Next two drawings done without looking at the paper

And finally, my first still life.

Check out those grapes! I'm telling you, think I might be a natural.

I am absolutely crazy about this 'E' marquee I made for the kitchen.

I fell hard for Urban Outfitters marquees, but for $178? They've got to be out of their damn minds.

They got me thinking though, and one day when browsing Jo-Ann I came across these big cardboard letters, and I figured I'd try my hand at making my own.

I picked an E (the national letter of Eisenbergia) and got to work.

1. Cut panels out of the back of the (3-D) letter. The more you cut off the easier it will be to put in the lights, but you don't want to sacrifice stability.


2. Randomly scatter holes across the front surface of the letter, I started each hole with a nail, and found that a number 8 knitting needle makes the perfect sized hole to snugly hold the lights.


3. Paint the letter as neatly as you want- or not. I wanted sort of a rough, worn look, so I painted the sides and front outside edges yellow, and finished the front with orange paint.


4. Once dry, push the lights through from back to front and tuck the cording into the letter.

Total cost of my marquee letter? $18.

Josh and I were looking for a bar cart, something old and unique, but then bar carts were all the rage and we couldn't find one anywhere. Instead I started looking for a cabinet of some sort that we could use as a bar, something rather narrow to fit in the empty spot in the dining room, and something that had door instead of drawers so tall bottles could be stored upright.

Josh found this crazy pepto-pink cabinet and we decided to strip it and refinish it. I had no idea what a process that would be. It took us forever to strip it, under every awful layer of paint laid another, and the wood underneath was a crazy mix of plywood and hardwood.

This simple weekend project ended up taking almost a month to finish, but it turned out really well.

If I'd known that it would take forever I probably would have passed on the cabinet in the first place and kept looking, but now that it's done I really like it.

More completed projects!

Found this HUGE mirror at our trusty "Obama" thrift store, cleaned it up and spruced up the orange (yuck!) frame with some gold paint. Our living room is instantly bigger, sunnier and having something on that wall makes it feel finished.

The frame shelf was a quick project, a can of spray lacquer, and we're done. The black frames look better than the old yellow ones did, and I swapped out a picture of my dad and me for one of Josh and me. Don't laugh at me too hard, but I read that in a feng shui book I got from the library.

Inspired my self-pep talk on Friday I approached the weekend in earnest, cranking out projects left and right. For a year I've been dithering about what to do with the bed.

Do we bite the bullet and buy a bed? No, we're kind of poor,
How about refinishing a thrifted headboard? I tried. For a year. I didn't find one I liked.
What about a DIY tufted headboard? This was the plan I settled on, but I just kept putting it off because the materials are still a couple hundred bucks, and I'd rather keep that money in the bank..

I finally had some inspiration last week. I'd build something with materials we already have; leftovers from other projects. That's sort of the ultimate recycling, right?

The materials I found in our apartment to use on this project included:
Two pieces of hardwood plywood
Ferm Living Bindweed Wallpaper I got on the cheap
Clear acrylic paint

Additional materials I bought to complete the project:
Mod Podge
Brackets

It was a pretty easy project, and all told took about 24 hours. I sanded the plywood and wrapped it with the wallpaper, just like wrapping a present, making sure to glue down all wallpaper surfaces with the Mod Podge. Once it was dry I coated the whole thing with two coats of clear acrylic to protect it and had my trusty side kick hang it up.

All told we spent about $24 and I am extremely pleased with the result.

Of course, the downside to finishing a project is that I start to look at the rest of the room like; "wow, those nightstands could use a little sprucing up", and "hmm, I need to iron my shams..."

I've had a lot of requests for pictures of the new place, so this weekend I snapped a few photos (a few are Josh's too). Because of the shape of the apartment and the old-school layout, it's a pretty tough space to photograph, but I did my best.

This first photo was taken from the sun room through the old, original window that remains in the kitchen. I think the sunroom is turning into my favorite spot in the house. For the record, neither Josh nor I smoke, we just keep that ashtray for guests, and it hasn't found a home yet.

The sun room has a door leading down to our landlords' apartment and the back yard. They have opened their home and welcomed Murphy in, and we almost never see him anymore. If we're home, the doors are open, and if the doors are open, Murph is poking around downstairs.

The view out the back window is great, the yard is lovely, and Murph has taken to spending as much time as possible chasing squirrels. There are always birds swarming the birdfeeders, and I can sit and watch them flitting around all day.

In this picture you can see what I love about that old window- the way the light and colors are distorted due to the width variances which, by the way, aren't due to persistent viscosity, that's just an old metallurgy myth. Really, it's just a result of the way that panes of glass were made so long ago.

I also love the hallway that leads from the dining room to the kitchen, Josh's old art looks great hanging here, and I love the way those hanging vases look when they are filled with fresh flowers.

It is so nice having a real, honest-to-goodness dining room, and our "stuff" seems to fit just right.

You can see the walls are a kind of buttery-khaki color. As much as we loved the dark greys in the old apartment, we've decided to embrace the lighter neutrals. Frankly, neither of us could summon the energy to paint again, and the lighter walls work with all the light (lots of windows) and make the apartment sort of glow.

The pantry! Yes we have a window in the pantry. And yes, we keep the cat's food in the pantry. And my cookbooks. And our laundry hamper. Hey, the bedroom is pretty small, and we had to get creative. There are as many shelves on the other side of the pantry housing all the small appliances and kitchen gadgets my grandma sends my way, as well as our wine fridge, and various vacuums, toolboxes and mops/brooms/swiffers.

This is the view from the kitchen to the sun room- the most difficult room to photograph. It is a narrow room with high ceilings, which means I can only get pictures in iterations, it's just impossible to move back far enough to snap the whole room in one shot, even from the kitchen.

I finally found a place for the Ferm Living bird stickers I snagged on clearance.

Those drapes I made for the old apartment found a home out here as well. It certainly isn't a beautifully decorated space, but it really is comfortable. A big comfy chair, a hot cup of coffee and the chirping birds make a perfect start to the weekend.

I love this old table Josh salvaged years ago. The kitchen is a little wonky in the apartment. It is an old, old building, so the modern sized appliances are a little overwhelming. The average sized fridge looks huge in here, and creates this nook of unusable space. Enter that old, bright table, my onion bowl, and some fresh flowers. That picture frame (filled with some of the worst and funniest pictures from our wedding) is covering the huge outlet and the plugs for the fridge.

And finally, one quick shot of the living room. The living room and the other two smaller bedrooms that Josh and I are using as our offices are no where near ready to photographing, but I love how our iving room sort of glows in the afternoon light, and how that light can be seen even from the very back of the house.

Thanks for all the good words and support this week!

It was great to finally share the finished projects.

And just so you don't all leave with the wrong idea, here is our bedroom as of last night. We are mid spring-clean in the bedroom, and it is not pretty...

...but we have to start somewhere.

Have a great weekend!

The 8 Step Cure is winding down in our home, and man! We got a lot of projects done around the house. Sort of like the "big reveal" on those home make-over shows, I've got a bunch of before-and-afters to share this week.

The Kitchen

We moved the Ikea shelves that we used to separate the kitchen from the living room. Opening up the downstairs really opened up the downstairs- what do you know. The openness was what made us fall in love with this weird little rental despite its myriad flaws.

It is funny, the kitchen part of the cure took us, by far, the longest to complete (the cleaning, organizing, and those bookshelves!); and though you can't really see the changes, you can feel them.

The Living Room

I love the living room. The biggest thing we did was get rid of a bunch of crap. The AT book says something about how hard it is for most people to start getting rid of stuff, but once they do they love how their homes feel lighter and more open and from then on it is easier to get things you don't need of love out. That was absolutely true for us. At first is was hard to decide what to send off to the Salvation Army, but by week 4 we were throwing things in the "donate" pile without a second thought.

The dining table and spiral staircase are just out of frame, to the right, in these pictures. My favorite new place in the house is that back corner by the patio doors. We had those dark wood bookshelves (now refinished and int he kitchen) back there and the door didn't evn open up all the way. Now that space is clear, and in the afternoons the light shines in and I like to sit in that chair and soak it up.

Th drapeswere unbelievably simple, but probably the most expensive thing we did. Even super cheap Ikea fabric still adds up when you need 10 yards- and we did, we have very high ceilings. I sewed the drapes, Josh hung them and then once they were up I hemmed them so they would be exactly the right length.

The Patio

Finally, my other favorite place in the house, the patio. A hacksaw, some hard work and $100 were all it took to turn our patio into the kind of place where I want to hang out in the summer. Don't get me wrong, I sure miss my old patio furniture (so comfy!), but this will do. I got our little summer garden planted; nothing fancy, some tomatoes for BLT's and some mint for mojitos (sounds great, right?) and a few flowers for color.

Sunday night we celebrated with a glass of wine, and a game of backgammon.

The 8 Step Cure is winding down in our home, and man! We got a lot of projects done around the house. Sort of like the "big reveal" on those home make-over shows, I've got a bunch of before-and-afters to share this week. Today is sort of a round up of various little projects that I dig.

Spice Drawer

Getting all of my spices down into a drawer saves a ton of hassle; it is so much easier to find what I'm looking for without having to stand on my tip-toes and dig through a cabinet over my head. This clip art template for the labels from Martha Stewart made this project a snap.

Kitchen Jar Display

I like a lot of different grains and rice, and I'm much more likely to mix it up (not brown rice again...) if I can see my options. These glass jars are always available in thrift shops, and make a nice looking display.

Entryway Chair

I found this chair at a local thrift shop. It needed some TLC, a small repair, a fresh coat of paint and a new cushion I made out of this fabric from the remnants bin at the fabric store. This chair now lives in our entry way, and it sure is nice to have a place to sit down to take off my work boots.

Table Lamps

Finally the lamps- I love lamp. We found two of these avocado green lamps on different days and the lampshades a few weeks later. Table lamps are tremendously expensive, I seriously don't get it, and I can't imagine I'll ever buy one retail. It just feels wrong to spend that kind of money on something I can pick up so cheap ($25 and $15 dollars, 5$ for the shades). Again, it's amazing what a good clean and a fresh coat of paint will do. I was planning on covering the shades with fabric, but we have a lot of patterns going on in the living room right now, so we stuck with something simple- another quick coat of paint. I'm not sure if the bird decals are here to stay or if I'll get rid of them.

The 8 Step Cure is winding down in our home, and man! We got a lot of projects done around the house. Sort of like the "big reveal" on those home make-over shows, I've got a bunch of before-and-afters to share this week.

A Bookshelf-come-hutch

I was so disappointed last month when someone else snagged the hutch we had our eyes on. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. This bookshelf never really found a home in the 20 years it lived with my parents, and it's been in three different places since we moved in to our apartment.

It's finally found a home in our kitchen as a makeshift hutch- a place to store some kitchen miscellany and get our wedding gifts out of their boxes and off the floor.

Our Revamped Dining Set

I got this table from an old coworker who owned a florist's shop for 20 years before retiring and taking a job in research. This table was in his shop, and was in terrible shape when I first got it. I refinished it in my parents garage, and finally found a place for it in front of the HUGE windows in our living room. Josh and I have been loving to eat dinner here with a nice view of our "garden.'

The chairs are randoms from thrift shops, painted white and recovered with more Ikea fabric. I LOVE them. Love. Love.

Love.

The 8 Step Cure is winding down in our home, and man! We got a lot of projects done around the house.

Sort of like the "big reveal" on those home make-over shows, I've got a bunch of before-and-afters to share this week.

The Custom Slipcover

This was my white whale- I got every other little project done before there was nothing left to do, and I had to give it a shot. I wish I had a better before picture that showed the front of the chair, it was a mess- Kitty had absolutely shredded it. It came out really well! I am so proud of myself.

The Side Table "Refinish"

I got this table from m y mom when I moved to Chicago. I knew she would be throwing it out, so I snuck it on the moving truck with the rest of my stuff I had stored at my parents house. It is the perfect little table for my reading nook under the stairs, and now it isn't a terrible eyesore. There was a big hole in the top of this table, so stripping and refinishing wasn't even remotely an option. I've been wanting to incorporate this wallpaper (from Ferm Living) into the décor somewhere, but we rent, so actually wallpapering wasn't an option.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a bookshelf-turned-hutch and newly refinished dining chairs.

Our trip to Denver put us even more behind schedule than we already were- and then I went ahead and got sick. The plan was to take care of weeks two and three last week, but then I got sick. We will be finishing up Week Two tasks tonight, the last thing we have to do is install a water filter and we'll be ready to start Week Three!

The first task in week two was a deep cleaning of the kitchen; cleaning out the fridge and cupboards, editing the mismatched plates, cups, glasses and silverware floating around the kitchen.

Josh picked up more than his fair share of the cleaning part of this weeks work. It seemed the easier thing when fighting to get contact paper laid down left me swearing like a sailor on leave and slamming our cheap kitchen cabinets.

My favorite thing about this project is how many things we're noticing need fixing or sprucing or just plain cleaning around the house- things that we'd gotten totally used to and that we'd begun to simply overlook. Like a pile of wedding presents stacked in a corner. Instead of unpacking and using the gifts, we're still using my mismatched glasses from college. Frankly, we're so used to the pile of boxes there, we don't even see them anymore, but at the same time, we never feel like our home is really clean. No wonder.

So the editing has been a big thing for us. We could save the nice glasses we received as wedding gifts for company, or we could donate the ones I have and upgrade. Why not?

Week two's second task was grabbing that list I made of all the small repairs we need done around the house- and doing one. Just pick one and do it. This wasn't be a problem, as most things on the list are no more labor intensive than tightening a screw, hanging a picture or removing some unused hooks from the walls. I tackled four of these repairs while Josh was working in the kitchen.

One big disappointment- We've been looking for a hutch for ages. I feel like I've thrifted all over the place and just never found quite what I was looking for. I gave up the search and began looking for a bench for our entry way (more on that later) and just sort of stumbled upon a perfect vintage hutch at the Salvation Army- for only $60!

Unfortunately I was sick and not really in the mood to figure out the logistics, so I went home without it. Later that day, I sort of realized what I'd done and Josh and I made plans to go back the next morning and buy it but... it was gone!

I know, I know... lesson learned.

So while week two and the kitchen are done, the kitchen doesn't look quite... finished. I'm still on the lookout for a hutch, but next time I won't let it slip through my fingers.