DIY Cheat: Concrete Window Sill

Good news, peeps: we’re finishing off the last of our plastering today! We’ll be priming and painting the dining room later this week. We’re actually ahead of schedule right now because we found a shortcut for making our custom concrete window sills. (If you don’t remember those from upstairs, check em out here.)

In order to make concrete sills, you first have to make a mold. Then you mix up the concrete, pour it, thawp out the air bubbles and wait for it to dry. And finally, you clean them up a bit before installing them. We skipped most of those steps and went straight to the clean-and-install part with these babies:

Those are concrete walkway stones for yards and patios. We went to a local nursery and picked up 3 of them for $80. Each one measured 36″ x 24″ and they’re about 2″ thick.

These slabs are much more textured than ours because they were made to mimic stone:

We went for a super smooth, velvety finish in our DIY version. We’re OK with not having matchy-matchy sills throughout the house if it’s something interesting.

Another big difference between our DIY version and these pre-made slabs is the lack of rebar support. The pre-made slabs don’t have rebar in them, so they’re more fragile than then ones we made. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Since there’s no rebar, we can cut these suckers down to whatever size we want. We just have to be really careful while lifting and moving the slabs because they could easily break if we don’t distribute the weight properly.

We measured out our cuts and drew them on the slab using permanent marker. Then we cut it:

To make our cuts, we used a grinder and a circular saw, both loaded with diamond concrete blades. The slabs are 2″ thick, which means there’s no way we’ll be able to penetrate them with one cut. Instead, we first used the grinder to score the cut.

Then we went over the score line using the circular saw:

It helps keep the dust down if you hose the slab with water once in a while:

We ended up giving each cut 2 passes with the circular saw. The first cut was set so the blade cut one inch deep. the second cut was set so the blade cut two inches deep.

After each slab was cut down to size, we were left with 3 window sills that slid right in:

Each one sticks out a bit, just like the windows upstairs:

And we’re really digging the texture:

We sealed up the cracks between the drywall and the sill with painter’s silicone:

And that’s a wrap: we’re done with the window sills! We saved ourselves about 2 full weekends worth of work with our little shortcut. We also have enough left over to do the window sills for our kitchen, so our $80 spend was stretched to two rooms. Not bad, considering how much time it saved us.

We’ll be back later this week with updates on our dining room. We’re currently duking it out over paint colors, but we’ve narrowed it down to a couple of choices. Stay tuned!

DIY Tree Stump Side Tables

We just realized it’s July 30th. As in, almost August. Which means that summer’s more than half over. Boo! Hiss!! We thought we’d be renovating our kitchen by now, but we’ve had a pretty major setback in the dining room: we have to plaster the walls ourselves. Plastering is the bane of our existence. It’s boring and it takes us way too long to do it. But since our plasterer (who did a fabulous job upstairs) completely blew us off, we’re stuck doing it. Not easy when this is going on outside:

That’s why there haven’t been a ton of updates lately. We would show you a million pictures of ourselves plastering, but they all kinda look like this one:

Also, we’re frowning pretty much the entire time we plaster.

This weekend, we decided to wrap up a way-more-fun-than-plastering project. We finished our tree stump side tables.

This is the kind of project that we live for. You take something that’s essentially garbage and you turn it into something beautiful and functional. We also love that it’s super easy to make, doesn’t cost much and doesn’t require a ton of special tools. Ready for the step-by-step? Us too. Lets go.

First things first: you’ll need a tree stump. We found a pile of them by the side of some railroad tracks near our house. We picked out the two with the most interesting shapes, threw them in the back of our car and brought them home. Here’s what they looked like way back in January:

Next, you’ll have to dry the stumps out completely. This is arguably the hardest step because it requires a lot of patience. We put our stumps in our garage’s uninsulated attic for a few months. It’s 100+ degrees up there every single day, so it basically acts like a kiln and thoroughly dries out the stumps. If you don’t have access to an attic or a kiln, you can leave the stumps in a dry spot for a few months. Elevate the stumps on a couple of shims so air can circulate underneath. This will keep mold from growing on the underside.

How do you know when the stumps are dry? The bark will fall off really easily. If you can grab a hunk and easily rip it off, they’re ready. Which brings us to the next step: remove the bark from the stump.

We used a chisel and a prybar to remove the stumps in big chunks. You have to be careful not to damage the wood underneath the bark. If the stump is truly dry enough, it won’t be a problem. But if you find yourself having to jam or shove the prybar between the bark and the stump, walk away for a few days.

With the bark completely removed, we’re ready to level the table top. To do this, we need to get the stumps on a level surface. We swept all the dust off of a section of the garage floor and then checked to see if it was level. First we check it in one direction:

Then we checked it in the other direction:

And we were happy to find that it was perfectly level:

Maybe happy isn’t the right word. It looks more like he’s in pain.

Next, we need to figure out if our stump is level. To do that, we moved the stump to our level spot and then tested it:

Fail. Our stump was not level at all. So we have to plane our table top.

We used a planer and shaved off the side of the table that was too high.

If you don’t have a planer, you could use a belt sander…but it’s going to take you forever to level off your top. A planer gets the job done in minutes. This is how much sawdust we shaved off from just one table top in order to get it level:

Yeah. Don’t try this with a belt sander. You’ll go through so many belts that you’re better off buying a cheap planer instead.

Next, we have to remove the gouges that the planer left:

And that’s where a belt sander comes in handy:

We used 80-grit for this task.

It’s important to keep checking to make sure the top is level. Once the gouges are gone, we can flip the trunk on its side and start cleaning it up:

We used an orbital sander with 180-grit sandpaper. 180 is coarse enough to get any leftover bark off, but it’s fine enough not to completely strip the wood. Check it out:

We sanded only the bottom half in the picture above. The dust and grime are gone, but the neato bug trails and scars are still completely visible. A closer look post-sanding:

After sanding the trunks, we need to do clean up the cracks and crevices.

If you’re lucky, you’ll get a tree some funky knots and cracks and textures. We think these are the things that give a tree stump table character. Both of our stumps had spots where the bark grew in big lumps and knots:

We don’t want to remove the lumps and knots — we just want to remove the fibrous bark and dirt that’s built up on top of them. So we used a chisel and a rubber mallet to gently pry off anything that seemed loose. After that, we cleaned this area with 80-grit sandpaper. We didn’t use a sander. Instead, we used a sheet of sandpaper and followed the curves of the stump.

We also had some deep cracks on the top of one table:

We cleaned this out by shoving a folded-up piece of 180-grit sandpaper into the crack and then wiggling it around to loosen dirt up. Then we used our air compressor to blow the debris out. (If you don’t have an air compressor, you could use a can of compressed air.)

With everything cleaned up, we were ready to give our tables something to sit on.

We decided not to do legs on our stumps because we like how low they are. Instead, we purchased 2 packs of furniture glides from Lowe’s.

They’re little discs with a nail on one end and a felt pad on the other end. They’ll serve two purposes:

1. They’ll keep our floors from getting scratched up.
2. They’ll elevate the tables off the floor just enough so that air can circulate under them.

That last one is super important because even if you dry your table for a solid year, it’s still going to have some moisture in it. And moisture means mold if air isn’t circulating. We used a moisture meter to check our stumps (Bradley borrowed it from work) and even though they pretty much baked in our attic, they’re still not 100% dry. Lifting the tables up a little lets them air out.

We carefully flipped our tables over and hammered 4 glides to the underside of each table. Also, we flipped them so our freshly sanded tops were on a soft mat instead of the hard floor. Highly recommend that if you don’t want your top to get scratched up!

Now we’re ready to seal these suckers up.

We moved the stumps to a work table and flipped them over so they’re sitting right-side-up. Here’s how they look all clean and ready to finish:

We love the texture in the knotted crack that runs down one stump.

We were originally debating between bleaching the stumps and then staining them white or staining them a dark espresso. After we cleaned them up, we decided that we liked them raw. So we used a water-based polycrylic to seal them:

Here’s how they looked after one coat:

The whole thing got much darker.

We love how the streaks are much more visible. The different shades of brown pop. We let the trucks dry for 30 minutes (timing varies based on the brand, so read the package label!) and then sanded the whole thing with 320-grit sandpaper:

After the first coat of sealer, you might notice that little fibers of wood stand up all over the stump. Kind of like tiny raised hairs. Don’t panic! This is normal. Basically, the wood is dry when you start painting so everything feels super smooth. The dry wood soaks up the wet sealer and plumps up. Sanding with 320-grit will smooth everything back down. Just take your time and don’t rush through the sanding — it’s really important to get a smooth finish or else the table will look kinda shabby.

Here’s how you check to see if you’ve sanded enough. Run the palm of your hand softly across the surface of the table:

Feel any snags? Keep sanding. Feel like velvet? Awesome. That’s what you’re looking for here.

We sanded every exposed part of the stump (we didn’t bother with the bottom), then gave it a blast with the air compressor to get rid of any dust. After that we gave it another coat of polycrylic. Lather, rinse, repeat.

We gave each stump 4 coats of polycrylic and sanded with 320-grit between each coat. It sounds like a lot more work than it actually is. The first coat and first sand is always the hardest and most time-consuming. The other 3 coats are a piece of cake. And remember, you don’t sand after the last coat of polycrylic.

We loved the color of the stumps after the sealer dried:

But we hated how shiny it looked. If you looked carefully, you could see brush strokes in the light. The shininess combined with the brush strokes made our stump tables looks less high-end / modern and more crafty / country chic. But we have one last trick up our sleeve to get rid of the shine and make these tables look fabulous:

The final step is to go over all visible surfaces with grade 0000 steel wool.

Check out the sheen on the side of the table:

We rubbed the ball of steel wool up and down (with the grain) the stump using moderate pressure:

Way less shiny:

Here’s another view. We used steel wool in one corner of the table top to show how it removes the way-too-glossy sheen:

See how it’s blindingly glossy all over but then there’s one dull area? That’s what steel wool does. It takes the edge off. Here’s how the top looked after we steel wool’d the entire surface:

The sides looked a lot better, too:

Annnnd that’s it. They’re done! Now we just need to make a sofa* to sit in between them and our living room will be in good shape.

Let’s talk money. We spent just under $10 on this project. We already owned the polycrylic, the sandpaper and all the tools. The stumps were, of course, free. The only thing we purchased were the 2 packs of furniture glides. And, just in case you’re wondering, for $10 we could have purchased one IKEA Lack side table. Yup. We like our tables better. Viva DIY!

We’ll be back soon with a few more projects to share, including a super-easy shortcut for our DIY concrete window sills. Stay tuned!

* Yes, we’re going to make our own sofa. We have a look in mind and have started planning out the details. Exciting!

I’ve Been Framed 2.0

We’ve already shared how we take existing frames and turn them into mirrors on the cheaps (read up on that here and here). Now we’re going to share how we make our own frames from scratch. We have a lot of stuff we’ve been meaning to frame and hang over the years, but we never got around to it. A few weeks ago, we found this in a thrift store:

Bradley had a nerdgasm. We scooped it up for $10, then chortled and mouth-breathed all the way home. This is the purchase that sent us into a frame-making frenzy. We had some solid oak boards lying around that we thought would be perfect for the job. It looks a little worn and aged — sort of like driftwood. Check out the texture:

We got a bunch of these from Lowe’s for $50, and that was enough to make 5 frames.

The wood was a little rough and had some splinters along the edges, so we started by sanding each board to take the grit off.

While I sanded, Bradley set up the table saw to cut a channel:

Think of a standard picture frame you’d get at IKEA or Target. If you take it apart, you have the frame itself and the glass, plus some sort of backing made out of cardboard or masonite. The glass and backing sits inside what we’re calling the channel.

Bradley ran the end through and then pulled it back out to see if the channel would be deep enough for both the glass and the backing to sit in:

We have more than enough room for everything. So Bradley went ahead and cut the entire length of board. There were some clingers left, so he used a chisel to slice them away:

After that, it was time to cut the board down to size.

We used a miter saw because we need to cut 45-degree angles for the corners.

We simply made a cut with the angle facing in (like the photo above). Then we moved the miter saw blade to 45-degrees on the opposite side and made the next cut. The angles on each cut of wood face in. Once the cuts were made, we could simply piece together the frame:

We have two short cuts and two long cuts. If you want a square frame, just make all the cuts the same. If you want a really long, skinny frame (for a floor-length mirror maybe?), just make the long cuts super long. This is the beauty of DIY frames — the possibilities are endless and the cost is low.

With our frame roughly pieced together, we marked each corner with a pencil:

We made a line to indicate the center of the joint. We didn’t actually measure it out — eyeballing it is good enough for our purposes. This is super important to do because it shows us where exactly we need to make our cuts with the biscuit joiner.

Each joint was also assigned a number 1 through 4, and we marked either end of the center line with that number. We’re doing this so we can take the frame apart and piece it back together later.

The next step is to make cuts with our biscuit joiner. For this we need biscuits:

Not the nummy tea-and-biscuits kinda biscuits, but little football-shaped wood chunks that hold two cuts together. (Sidenote: Bradley’s Dominican coworkers these “cookies,” which is beyond adorable.)

This is how biscuits work:

…except they’re on the inside of the wood. Not following? Lemme break it down for ya:

• Each corner consists of 2 pieces of wood butting up together.
• We make a slot in the butt of each piece of wood.
• We spread wood glue in each slot.
• We put the biscuit in one of the slots. It should fit so that half of the biscuit is sticking out.
• We butt the ends together so the biscuit sits halfway in one butt and halfway in the other butt, thereby joining them. BAM! Biscuit joining!
• Heh heh biscuits in butts.

This is the biscuit joiner Bradley picked up a few weeks ago at the Grizzly warehouse:

It’s a Porter-Cable. He chose it over the others because it has a few more settings than its rival Dewalt. It’s slightly more pricey, but also seems more durable.

See what Bradley’s pointing at there? It says FF. That’s the dial for setting biscuit size. We have to make sure and use FF-sized biscuits or they won’t sit in there properly.

We double-checked. Then triple-checked. And then we made our cuts:

Bradley dangled the piece of wood off the edge of our workspace, with the end he’s cutting facing him. He used his hand to hold it firmly in place. Later, Bradley said, “Don’t do it that way ever.” Why? Because the wood isn’t clamped and could move around. So there you have it: use a clamp, not your hand.

Next step: we line up the red line on the tool with the center mark we drew on the wood.

Once it’s in line, turn the joiner on and firmly push it into the wood. This is what the cut looks like when finished:

We made all our slots first and then moved on to the gluing stage:

We gave each slot a good schmear of wood glue. (Schmear. Always schmear, never smear. That’s the New York in us.) Then we popped the biscuit in the slot

And pressed the ends together. That’s it. We let our newly joined rectangle dry for a few hours. Once dry, we came back to tidy up the joints. For this, we needed wood filler and a putty knife:

A lot of people skip the filler step, but we think it’s worth taking 5 minutes to do. It makes the difference between a frame that looks cheap and a frame that looks fancy. This is what the joint looked like before filling:

We gave it a schmear of wood filler:

Then we pressed it in so it fills the crack:

And finally, we scrape all of the excess off:

Just say no to crack:

We let the filler dry for about 15 minutes and then sanded the joints to make them as smooth as possible:

The next step is crucial. Under no circumstances should one move to the finishing stage without first completing the hammy-posing stage. We take this stuff seriously, people:

Being serious all the time is exhausting.

We really need to lighten up. And learn to use auto-focus properly:

In case you missed it, Bradley’s fingers are doing kind of a weird Dumbledore thing (Level 5 nerd status achieved.) That’s because he stained our frames and didn’t wear gloves:

We felt like experimenting with the finishing, so we tried a few different stains on some leftover wood craps. White made the oak look pink. Black seemed too heavy. Grey looked chalky. So Bradley tried something new.

• First, Bradley stained the entire frame white and immediately wiped it all off. That way the white stayed in the cracks and gaps, but not on the entire surface.
• After that, Bradley lightly stained the surface brown. Emphasis on the lightly. If he used too much stain, it would stain right over the white in the cracks and defeat the whole purpose. So Bradley used a cheesecloth and barely dipped it into the stain. He also took care not to apply pressure at all. Just a light swipe of the cloth gently across the surface.

We really dig the result:

We ordered the glass and it showed up a week ago. Next on our to-do list? Cut mats with our new mat cutter:

Then we’ll be ready to hang up some art. Kinda. We still have to redo the walls in most of the house before we can hang anything. Minor details.

We’re spending our weekend plastering and working on tree trunk side tables, so we’ll be back with more updates soon. Stay tuned for more DIY dorkery!

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We weren’t paid, perk’d, hugged or high-fived for any of the brands we mentioned in this post. We do it just because.

I’ve Been Framed.

ETA: we don’t get many trolls around here, but when we do, we refer them to our comment policy. Please check it out below.

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We realized a few days ago that we completely forgot to post about this frame we found in a thrift store several months ago:

It’s from the same shop where we found our lighting fixture. If we’d had more time to look around, we’re pretty sure we would have walked away with much more. That place was a vintage goldmine. It seems fitting that we walked away with a gold frame. It’s 24″ tall x 35″ wide, and we paid $15 for it.

If you look closely, you can tell that this sucker is plastic. Flip it over and you’ll see a barcode and a sticker:

I didn’t know they made plastic frames in Italy, but that just made it seem so much more fancy. Right away we knew we wanted to paint it a fun color and turn it into a mirror for the half-bath we’ll renovate eventually.

We picked up a can of Valspar’s avocado spray paint in satin finish.

We were really intrigued by the can. We’re loving all the new spraypaint cans that companies are coming out with — they have triggers or super-wide buttons so you don’t get finger fatigue after every coat. Our verdict so far? Rustoleum’s trigger can is our fave because we like the way it’s held and because there isn’t much overspray. Valspar’s is OK. We like the twist cap and the big push button, but there’s so. much. overspray. It seemed like half the can ended up on our grass. We didn’t love it. And we downright hated the color:

As soon as the first coat was down, this is how we felt:

We were thinking the green would be fun and cheerful and cute. Instead, it looked bland and blah and boring. It’s less avocado and more pea soup. It’s just not us. At all.

I hopped in the car, made a beeline for the hardware store and returned with this:

White. Gloss. Made for plastic.

We felt so much better after the first coat of white.

Oh, and while we’re reviewing spraypaint cans here, check out the overspray from our can of Krylon Fusion:

We didn’t love the can itself (finger fatigue happens), but we loved the results. The paint dries fast and looks fab.

The back of the frame sits really close to the wall so you can’t see behind it when it’s hanging, but we gave the flipside one coat of white just in case:

And here’s how it looks now:

While Bradley worked on another frame project, he called up a local glass cutting company. I mean, literally. Here he is on the phone while sanding a frame:

He doesn’t get any I find his multitasking fascinating:

He ordered 4 pieces of glass and 1 mirror, all custom-cut. Once the mirror arrives, we’ll be ready to hang this beauty.

Cost breakdown:
- 24″ x 35″ frame = $15
- White spray paint = $6
- Custom cut mirror = $15

Total cost = $36

We’re big fans of DIY when it comes to frames and mirrors. They’re way overpriced in stores. For price comparison, check out this very basic 30″x25″ framed mirror from Home Depot. It’s similar in dimensions but it’s boh-ring, and it costs a whopping $264. Our total cost of 4 cuts of clear glass and 1 mirror was $37.37. Boom.

If you’re ordering custom glass, we have a few tips to share:

• Go local. Just look under “glass” in a phone book or Google. You can save on shipping and your order is less likely to arrive broken.
• Get clean cuts. That means the glass company scores and cuts the glass, but they don’t polish the edge. Companies charge more for polished edges and bevels — but neither really matters since you won’t actually see the glass edge in the frame.
• Paper your mirror. We talked about this in our last post about DIY mirrors. To keep your mirror protected, paper the flipside after you frame it.

More updates coming up. Stay tuned, peeps!

Green Plants (Black Thumbs)

I love plants. Sometimes I love them too much and I smother them. Sometimes not enough and I starve them. I have a black thumb and will kill pretty much anything that isn’t a basic philodendron (which reminds me, oh crap, I’ve been meaning to water the three I have upstairs!).

A few days ago, we went to Lowe’s and I picked up these beauties on my way out:

Succulents. I have the worst luck with succulents, but I love them so. These tiny plants are supposed to be super easy to take care of (we’ll see about that), and I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t have anything to plant them in, so I picked up a couple of fishbowls for $1 a pop:

We love seeing the whole plant — dirt and all. It’s a nice change from the basic white planters we have all over the house. (We usually go with white planters from IKEA because they’re cheap, durable and neutral enough for any room.)

Right after we planted these puppies, we Googled to make sure we didn’t absolutely need to drill holes in the bottom of the containers. Turns out, we can skip that step if we pour a little activated charcoal at the bottom of the dish, then pile the dirt on top of that. We picked up a small container of charcoal at the pet store — they have it in the fish/aquarium section — and replanted them. So far, they’re doing OK.

Cost breakdown for this easy-peasy plant project:
Small fishbowls = $2 for 2
Plants = $5
Dirt = $6 for a big bag
Charcoal = $9 for a small container (I used maybe 1/10th of the container)

Total cost = $22
Cost per plant = less than $4 each

Not too shabby! In other plant news:

Our day lilies are back! Now here’s a plant even I can’t kill. They come up on their own, I never have to water them and they die because their time is up — not because I forgot to change their soil for 3 years.

 

Baby Name Wall Art: DIY Gift For Expecting Parents

Know what’s nuts? We’re officially at the age where all of our friends are having kids. Scroll down our Facebook pages and it’s basically an endless stream of pregnant women standing sideways holding their bellies. It’s bananas. Apparently we all became adults and didn’t realize it. That fact really hits home this weekend when my brother and his wife have their first baby. And Auntie Leena really, really wanted to make something for the occasion.

Now, we already hit up the stores and did a little shopping for the niece, but nothing felt personal enough. We’ve been DIYing so much over the past year that we didn’t feel right about not physically making something. So this weekend, we threw a little something-something together to hang in the nursery and we like it.

This entire project is inspired by some song lyric art we found on Pinterest. We just put our own twist on it. (You can check out the original at A Beautiful Mess.)

Here’s what we picked up from a craft store for our project:

• 11×14 stretched canvas
• 3″ adhesive letters
• Glossy white spray paint
• Mod Podge
• Sponge applicator
• Patterned tissue paper

We went with a vintage-looking purple and white floral pattern because that’s the nursery’s color palette.

We did a test run to see how everything would look. Basically, you stick some adhesive letters to the paper, then spray paint the entire surface. After the paint dries, you carefully peel off the letters so reveal the pattern underneath. We chose the letters, C, O & P and stuck them to our paper:

We gave it a coat of spray paint:

And peeled up the letters after the paint dried:

The word COP was randomly chosen, but now that we think about it, it might not be a bad idea to whip up some COP art and keep it in the car. You know. In case we need to bribe our way out of a speeding ticket or something. Bat some eyelashes, put a canvas out from the glove box, do a little eyebrow waggling, give a wink. …we’d probably end up in jail.

Anyway, we were satisfied with the way the test run worked, so we went for it. First step: adhere the paper to the canvas using Mod Podge.

We were totally OK with wrinkles and air bubbles, because they’ll add some texture to the canvas. That being said, we didn’t want huge air bubbles, so we used the sponge applicator to smoosh the paper down against the canvas as much as we could. We also followed the instructions on the back of the Mod Podge bottle to a T. We did 3 coats of Mod Podge and gave it 15 minutes to dry in between.

Here’s what it looked like after 3 coats and an hour of dry time:

Air bubbles, creases and wrinkles are ok in our book.

So are brush strokes. We purposely ran the sponge applicator in different directions to get some extra texture in there.

Next step: throw some words out there. We decided to do the baby’s name repeated in a stacked row.

We used a triangle and a ruler to get everything lined up. The N’s were, by far, the toughest letters to lay down straight.

We curled the letters around the top and bottom ends of the canvas:

We ran out of O’s so we used some Q’s for the top and bottom. Shh! It’ll be our little secret.

Then we gave the canvas 4 thin, even coats of glossy white spray paint:

See how the flowers are still visible through the white spray paint? That’s completely by accident. The craft store we went to didn’t carry any of the normal spray paints we get (Valspar, Krylon, etc). They only carried this cheapie brand:

We yelled DO IT! before every coat.

The cheap spray paint turned out to be really horrible. It oversprayed so badly that our grass looks like this now:

And it went on so thin that it took 4 coats (aka the entire can of spray paint) and we could still see the floral pattern. We weren’t sure how we felt about it. Would there be enough contrast? Would the letters even really show up? Only one way to find out:

We waited for the spray paint to dry and then peeled up the letters. There was plenty of contrast. And, since we went with spray paint instead of acrylic, we got crisp, clean lines for the letters. So in the end, we really liked the way the flowers show through the whole canvas.

Here’s how the finished piece looks:

It’s pretty abstract looking until you get up close and see this:

We let the canvas dry overnight. The next day, we flipped it over to paper the back and add a picture hanger:

We gave it another 24 hours to really cure. Then we wrapped it up in tissue paper and put it with all the other baby presents that we didn’t think were personal enough to count. I’ll be delivering them tomorrow. And hopefully my sister-in-law will also be delivering tomorrow. Squee! Fingers crossed for a quick & easy trip to the hospital for her.

This entire project took, maybe, 4 hours from start to finish, minus the drying time. We love how the whole thing can be totally different just by swapping out the paper used for the background and the spray paint used for the foreground. And it doesn’t have to be a name. You could do song lyrics,  a quote you like, a passage from a favorite book, whatever. The possibilities are endless.

We like the look so much that we plan on making one for our house, too. We love the idea of having a HUGE canvas with a really graphic, bold, neon background and a black foreground. We’ll post that when we get around to it. In the meantime, we have a bunch of other projects to share. We’ll be back soon — stay tuned!

DIY on a Dime: $8 Countertop Compost Pail

For everyone who has emailed and Facebook’d to ask for the plans for our tumbler, we didn’t give specific measurements because they’ll be different depending on the size of the bin. Ours is not a standard 55-gallon drum, so our cuts wouldn’t work for it. We also did a lot of things that aren’t really necessary (the removable bin, the routing, the T-brackets, etc). 

If you want to make an awesome-but-not-exactly-like-ours compost tumbler, check out the Boys’ Life plan. Those Boy Scouts know what’s what. Theirs was the base plan for our tumbler, but we figured out our sizes based on our bin and we added features on as we went along. We’ll probably post the exact cuts of our tumbler if there’s a demand for them, but there are so many floating on the interwebs that it seems really unnecessary. Ya know?

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Hey peeps! We’re off to a pretty productive Memorial Day. Bradley’s cleaning the garage and bringing in some new wood we scored. We’ve already picked 2 pieces from the pile to turn into bedside tables for the guest bedroom. So stoked — not that it’s not fun keeping all our stuff of the floor and under the bed, but the room will feel more finished. While Bradley did that, I loaded the composter and ceremoniously gave it the first tumble. I did it with coffee in one hand and I actually said “Wheeeee!” as it spun. I may also have lifted my coffee mug in a toast-slash-salute. Good times.

Now that our compost tumbler (aka R2D2) is in the back yard, we decided to tackle a quickie project to go along with it. We’ve been eying compost crocks and pails that are designed to sit on kitchen counters. Basically, it’s a mini garbage can that sits on the kitchen counter. We fill it up with compostable food scraps, and when it’s full, we take it out to the tumbler. That way we’re not making 3 trips a day. We mentioned in our last post that we want composting to not feel like a chore. The pail would be a huge help in that.

We found some containers we liked. This one on Amazon is adorbs, but not worth $34 to us. This EcoCrock is cute, but not $36 worth of cute. Here’s one that isn’t even cute, but it costs 30 beans.

The more we searched, the more disappointed we were. It’s just a container with a lid and carbon filter inside to keep things from getting stinky. It shouldn’t cost $30 or $40. We decided to stop looking and make our own. And we’re using the word “make” very loosely here. This is a project that a toddler could do in 2 minutes. Seriously. Also, we picked up our materials at a grocery store so we didn’t have to go far.

Here’s what we purchased:

Look familiar? It’s the spitting image of the $30 compost pail we found on Amazon. We’re pretty sure it’s the exact same container. Only ours is a galvanized ice bucket that we found in the seasonal / BBQ aisle of our grocery store. It was $7.50.

Ours came with a little scoop, which we might use to scoop up veggie scraps or whatever into the container. We also picked up a cat litter box air filter from the pet aisle:

Most of the fancy schmancy compost pails (like this $45 beauty) boast about their charcoal filter that helps control odors. This is the same thing.

It lasts just as long (3 months) and it can be found at any pet store and most grocery stores. And it’s hella cheap because it’s not a specialty product. We paid $1.20 for one big filter.

We also needed masking tape and a pair of scissors, which we already had at home.

We removed the filter from the package and cut it in half:

We made 2 rings of masking tape and stuck them to one half of the filter. We sealed up the other half back in its baggie:

We stuck the taped side of the filter to the inside of the lid, pressing firmly to make sure it adhered well:

And, uh, that’s it, folks. We’re done. We popped the lid back on, tossed that sucker on a kitchen counter and started filling it up with food scraps and other compostable stuff.

Our filter is good for 3 months, and then we’ll swap it out with the other half that we sealed up in its baggie. We’re covered for 6 months before this thing will need any maintenance. The container is dishwasher safe in case so it’s easy to clean. It holds about a gallon of scraps, so we won’t have to go to the tumbler every day.

Here’s the materials list and cost breakdown of our quick-and-cheap compost pail:

• Galvanized bucket = $7.50
• Half a cat litter box charcoal filter = 60 cents
• Scissors = already owned, so $0
• Masking tape = already owned, so $0

Total cost = $8.10

We’d been stashing all of our compostable food scraps in a tupperware container in the fridge for 2 days before we made the countertop container. Including that stuff, it took 3 days to fill up the new container. We’re thinking we’ll be outside flipping the tumbler 2 or 3 times a week. Perfect!

We’ll keep you posted on how our new container works out for us. And we’ll be back soon with more updates from the home front. See y’all soon!

I’ll Tumble For Ya (DIY Compost Tumbler)

That was the official soundtrack to our Saturday because we spent it making a compost tumbler. (A sure sign of my internet nerdiness: I keep typing tumblr instead of tumbler. Boink.) We’ve been thinking about composting for a long time and decided to take the plunge.

A few weeks ago, we started researching different composting methods to figure out which would work best for our needs. Here’s our criteria:

• It has to be outside.
  We briefly considered worm composting, but decided against it because we couldn’t leave it outside in extreme heat or cold. We also read that composting can attract fruit flies and gnats. That’s fine with us — it’s part of the natural process — but we’d rather not have it happening in our basement.
• It has to be low-maintenance. 
  We’re busy people and our daily to-do list doesn’t need any additions. Turning compost with a shovel sounds like a chore, so we scratched bins off of our list.
• It has to be dog-proof.
  One of our dogs is a prissy princess and the other one is a total dog. Margot loves to eat garbage and roll around in smelly stuff. The pile and pit methods are out.
• It has to be low-profile.
  We have big plans for our yard, and they don’t include an eyesore of a compost container sitting in a corner. We want something small and low-key so we can hide it behind planter boxes or bushes.

Based on our needs, we decided to go with a tumbler. It’s kept outside, keeps vermin and dogs out, and only needs to be flipped once or twice a week. Plus it’s small enough that we’ll be able to hide it when we start gussying up the yard.

When we Googled, we found 2 basic kinds of tumblers. One is what we’ve been calling an R2D2 style tumbler (again with the nerdiness) and the other is a pig-roast style rotator. We went with the R2D2 tumbler because it seems easier to flip.

Here’s the plan we came up with:

It’s nothing unique. Plenty of websites have the same basic plan for tumblers. Our favorite was this plan from Boys’ Life. We took the principles from their plan and made our own. One big difference: ours is smaller. We also added in a key feature that we wanted: we can easily remove our bin and move it where we need it. That way we don’t have to drag the entire frame everywhere. And we don’t have to dump our compost and carry it where we need it.

One we had a plan, we gathered supplies. There’s a place in Brooklyn that recycles, cleans and sells food-grade bins. Bradley picked up two 40-gallon bins for $20 each:

Why two? Because our friend Jhane came over to make a tumbler for her backyard, too:

Jhane wanted a 101 on using power tools so she can start building things on her own. She made her tumbler while Bradley supervised to make sure she didn’t chop off a finger or anything. She didn’t. And she made her own tumbler with minimal help. Oh, and Jhane also cut most of the wood for our tumbler so she could get as much practice as possible. Awesome, right?

So when we went to Lowe’s to pick up our supplies, we got enough for 2 tumblers and split the cost.

Here’s the materials list for two tumblers:

• Two 40-gallon recycled food-grade bins
• One 12-pack of 6″ Timberlok screws
• One pound box of 1.25″ deck screws
• Four T-shaped brackets
• Twelve 1.5″ lags
• Two 3/4″ galvanized pipes
• Two 3/4″ galvanized pipe caps
• Pressure treated wood
  • One 2x10x8
  • One 2x4x8
  • One 2x6x8

Total cost for two tumblers: $140
Cost for one tumbler: $70

Bradley and Jhane measured and cut the wood for the legs inside the garage:

I went outside to drill air holes in the bins:

We marked the bins using orange chalk so the holes weren’t all over the place.

We’re anal like that.

By the time I finished, the carpentry crew had two sets of legs ready to go. Each leg consists of two pieces:

Flash forward a bit and this is what they’ll look like:

Here’s how we put them together. Each leg is held together using a T-shaped bracket, deck screws and lags:

Plus two 6″ long screws per leg:

These puppies were kind of a splurge. The 12-pack ran us a little over $12. But they’re worth every cent. The legs are crazy sturdy.

We put the two pieces of wood together and lined them up so they’re centered. Then we laid a T bracket on top and traced the outline:

Then we used a router to carve out the shape of the T bracket:

That way it can sit in there nice and flush with the wood:

That whole routing thing, by the way, is a totally skippable step. It doesn’t really matter if the bracket is flush with the wood. I wasn’t kidding when I said we were anal. Plus it gave Jhane a chance to learn how to use a router.

We added a deck screws and lags through the T bracket:

The legs were still a little wobbly at this point, so we added a 6″ screw to each side:

And finally, we had sturdy legs:

Here’s Bradley doing his best R2D2 impersonation, beeps and all:

Next up, we drilled a big hole through each leg for the pipe to go through. We used a 1.25″ spade drill bit for that.

Margot watched him intently:

Not only does she love to eat and roll in garbage, she loves to eat and roll in wood shavings. We had to keep shooing her out so she wouldn’t eat treated lumber shavings. Weirdo!

After the hole was drilled, we used a circular saw to make two cuts from the top of the leg to the hole:

This is how it looked when we finished:

It’s basically like a big U. The pipe will sit in the rounded part at the bottom. We didn’t like how clunky it looked so we decided to shave off two triangles at the top. Again, anal, and totally optional.

Here’s how the legs looked with a 23″ piece of wood between them and the pipe in place:

The wood piece in between the legs is what holds the two sides together, so we wanted it to be really sturdy. We used two 6″ screws to hold them in place:

We ended up having to use 6″ lags for Jhane’s tumbler because we ran out of 6″ screws, but they were even more heavy duty. The legs on her tumblers will never wobble.

Bradley tested the weight limits on our tumbler frame:

It held just find with a 152-pound man swinging on it, so we should be fine. Next, we drilled holes in the bin to thread the pipe through:

We used the spade bit again:

The placement of the hole will depend on the height of the container. Our containers are 32″ tall so we placed our hole at the halfway point of 16″. We drilled one hole on each side:

Then we put the pipe through:

And we put the container on the stand:

We put a galvanized pipe cap on each end of the pipe. Then we put the lid back on the container. Ta-da! It’s a tumbler. We had to test it’s spinning ability:

We shouted “WHEEL. OF. FORTUUUUUNE!” every time we gave it a whirl. And we did Boy George proud with our rendition of “I’ll tumble for ya!” I don’t think the neighbors appreciated it, but we were entertained.

Here’s how the tumbler looks when it’s hanging out on it’s stand, waiting for a spin:

And here’s how it looks when we remove it from its stand and take it to whatever part of the yard needs a little dirt:

Jhane’s tumbler looks exactly the same except her bin doesn’t have a little white spot in the middle of the lid. Her family plans on painting theirs to look like R2D2. Beep boop! Super cute. We’ll snag some pics when it gets a paint job.

The entire project took about 2.5 hours from start to finish. At $70 a pop, it was a bit more than we were planning on spending. We thought each tumbler would end up costing about 50 beans. The reason for the extra cost? We splurged on pressure treated wood instead of just regular lumber.

We could have gotten regular wood and painted it, but it would have involved more work and more maintenance. We didn’t want to have to repaint the stand every year or two. With pressure treated lumber, we can pretty much leave it alone and it’ll last indefinitely.

Coming up tomorrow: we made our own countertop compost pail. Squee! Stay tuned.

How To Find a Find: Our Thoughts on Thrift Stores

We got absolutely no work done last weekend. Instead, we went camping. We spent the weekend hiking, fishing and huddling up around a campfire with the dogs.

Our motto is, “Why do it when you can OVERdo it?” And that’s basically what we did last summer and fall. We were in a zone. Every week was spent working on work stuff, and every weekend was spent working on house stuff. There were entire months where we didn’t do anything but work, work, work. Remember how all-work-no-play made Jack Nicholson go all axe-wielding maniac? We decided we’re going to put a stop to our workaholic ways before we get to that point.

Instead of work-work-work, we’re going for a work-play-work. That way, we don’t totally burn out like we did this winter. Added bonus: getting out gives us the chance to score some sweet finds for our house. We’re talking thrift shopping, baby! On our way back from camping, we stopped at an antique store and took a look around.

We didn’t find anything on that trip, but we did recently acquire some vintage stuff that we later found elsewhere for more than what we paid. Remember these chairs that we nabbed for $6 a pop at a Salvation Army?

While we were sanding those puppies down, we found a manufacturer’s stamp:

It’s basically a little metal coin that’s set into wood so it sits flush. We didn’t notice it before because it’s in a really discreet spot on the leg. We Googled and found out that the W.H. Gunlocke Chair Company is now known as just Gunlocke, and they’re still producing chairs.

Based on the logo on our chairs, these suckers were built sometime between 1940 and 1969. A little more Googling and we found a few places selling those same chairs for way more than $12 a pair. A pair sold for $300 here. There’s one chair for sale on Etsy for $300. Yeah. $300 for one chair. And these are in “vintage” condition — they need to be refinished and reupholstered. So nabbing a pair for $12 was seriously lucky.

In case you’re wondering what the status on those chair is, we managed to completely sand one down before we ran out of sanding pads. We haven’t stopped by the hardware store in a while, so the chairs are just sitting there, waiting on us to get moving again. As far as fabric goes, we’re considering leather. Upholstering leather makes us a bit nervous, but we’re studying up on YouTube and trying to figure out where we can score some vintage cigar leather.

Another lucky find happened just a couple of weeks ago. Bradley’s boss owns a cabin in a teeny town in northern Pennsylvania. (We’ve been calling it Upstate Pennsylvania, but it’s not catching on.) We spent a week there in April, and learned the hard way that teeny towns don’t do street signs. We saw some people sitting around outside a barn, so we stopped to ask for directions. When we got a peek inside the barn, we realized it was actually an antique store. Way out in the middle-of-nowhere.

The people were nice enough to give us really detailed directions on how to get to the nearest highway, so we had to stop and take a look. They twisted our arm with their niceness. And this amazing pendant that was peeping out from a corner:

That’s a huge brass pendant. There’s a spot inside for a bulb and a hook at the top so it can be hung on a chain like a chandelier. The two pieces on the floor next to the pendant were removed at some point (probably for rewiring) and they need to be reattached. Easy fix.

We knew right away that this was The One — the fabulous lighting fixture for the top of our staircase. We walked away with the pendant and a huge gold frame (that we haven’t photographed yet) for $65. $15 for the frame and $50 for the pendant. We didn’t haggle over prices because a) they seemed like really nice people and b) we’re pretty sure that, based on the location of this shop, we were their only customers all week. We thought $65 was totally reasonable when we took that into consideration.

Cut to a few weeks later and we’re trolling through Emily Henderson’s blog for color palette inspiration. Emily is the host of HGTV’s Secrets of a Stylist, which we think is the only show on HGTV worth watching. We loooove her and her show, so we were kinda floored when we saw this pendant she posted about:

Source

Source

Pretty similar to the one we found, no? Only the price tag on this one is $375. Ours is a bit bigger and more ornate, but it’s basically the same style — and we spent $50! It’s going to take about $15 and 2 hours of labor to get ours fixed up. We need to weld two spots and spray paint it. We might also change out the wiring. Not hard, time-consuming or expensive. So we think we got an amazing bargain.

As for the frame, it’s going to be spray painted and turned into a mirror for the half bathroom downstairs. We just need to have a mirror cut for it. We haven’t decided on a color yet, but we’re thinking something bold like matte black. Or something unexpected like a bright teal. We’ll figure it out once we start renovating the bathroom. Pictures of that find soon — pulling it out of the garage to photograph has taken a back seat to a couple of other projects going on right now.

Inspired by our recent good luck, we’ve been making more frequent trips to thrift and antique shops. We know it can be totally overwhelming — how do you figure out what’s A Find versus what’s junk? Here’s what works for us when we go shopping for vintage housewares:

• Partner up.
  It’s inevitable: when we go to an antique shop, one of us will get all googly-eyed over something and the other one will give it a “meh.” We’re both designers and we’re both extremely opinionated on decor. A lot of time, those opinions clash. That goes tenfold for vintage items, which can be really bold statement pieces. When we clash on those, we really clash. We have a rule that we won’t buy something unless both of us agree on it. Getting a second opinion hasn’t failed us so far.
• Take cash. But not too much.
  We usually don’t go to antique stores with more than $100 cash on us. If we see something we love that costs more, we’ll go to an ATM and take out more cash. That gives us some time to think about whether we love-love it, or whether it’s a heat-of-the-moment thing. It really keeps the impulse spending to a minimum. And, so far, we haven’t even had the urge to go to an ATM.
• Don’t force it.
  We’ve found that one of the best indicators of whether something “belongs” in our home is whether we can imagine where it will go. Usually this is a gut reaction. We saw the brass pendant and immediately thought it would look great at the top of the staircase. We saw the frame and knew it was the perfect size and shape for a above-the-sink bathroom mirror. If we find something and can picture exactly where it will fit in to our house, then ring us up. If we find ourselves hemming and hawing over where we would put something or what we would use it for, we move on.
• Is it worth fixing up?
  The best deals we’ve gotten have been on things that need some work to restore. Restoration equals time and money, so we try to balance that out against the initial cost. The pendant, for example, needs spot welding and spray paint. We have access to a welder for free and spray paint is cheap, so we jumped on it. We’ve come across other objects that are awesome, but need a ton of work that we just weren’t willing to put into it. Why buy something that’s going to sit in the garage, right?
• The antique shop is not the boss of you. You don’t have to buy anything.
  A couple of months ago, we drove to a huge antique warehouse about an hour away. We made a day out of it. We took the scenic route, we had a nice lunch at a brewery nearby, and we planned on coming back with a car full of treasures. We looked at every frikkin’ thing in that warehouse, and it was a total bust. We didn’t find a single thing that jumped out at us. At one point, we felt like we had to buy something or the day would have been a waste. But what’s actually a waste is buying something that’s not right for you or your house just because you feel like you have to. We left empty-handed, but still spent quality time together and had a lovely day off.
• What’s it worth to you?
  Here’s the thing: when it comes to vintage stuff, the worth of something is pretty much a made up number. So we make up a number. If we find something we love and think it’ll fit into our home, we’ll mentally put a price point on it before looking at the price tag. Then if we look at the price tag and it’s equal to or less than what we anticipated, we’ll get it. If it’s way more than what we expected, it’s not such a great deal for us. There are lots of shops where they don’t have set prices and the owner will just ask “what are you offering?” Or they’ll throw out a number and see how we react. In that case, we might have to…
• Haggle like a pro with a conscience.
  When it comes to haggling, we kinda don’t. We hate feeling ripped off but we also hate ripping off the shop owner. That $10 that we might be arguing about is their livelihood. More often than not, these people aren’t exactly making six figures a year. We try to remember that we’re not haggling with a vending machine — we’re talking to a human being — and we all walk away happy. That doesn’t mean we’ll shell out more money than what we think something is worth. (Remember, you don’t have to buy anything!)
• Talk to the face.
  When a shop owner throws out a price we don’t like, we let our faces do the talking. They might see us pulling a =\  and adjust the price down right away. Or they’ll ask us, “what did you have in mind?” and we’ll tell them the truth. There’s no point in low-balling, because if we think a frame would be a great deal at $15 then it IS a great deal. If they accept our offer, awesome. If our idea of what something is worth doesn’t mesh with theirs, we politely let them know it’s out of our price range and walk away. If they’re willing to lose a sale, then it’s obviously worth more to them. We don’t feel ripped off. They don’t feel ripped off. No harm, no foul.

How about you? Find any amazing vintage goods lately? How do you feel about haggling?

How We Cut a Rug (Buying Custom Made Rugs on a Budget)

There are two things that we think are incredibly difficult to shop for: 1) curtains and 2) rugs. We have a hard time agreeing on patterns and colors. Rugs are especially hard for us because our old house has big, oddly-shaped rooms that require big, oddly-shaped rugs. Total budget busters.

A few weeks ago, we went rug shopping for our office and hallway. Here’s what we got:

The curvy diamonds remind us of some Moroccan patterned rugs we’ve seen at West Elm and Pottery Barn. For a rug this size, we were expecting to pay $500ish, but we we paid half that price. Why? Because this is not a rug. It’s carpet.

We went to a carpet store and asked if they could custom cut a rug for us. We picked this pattern, and they cut it down to size and did a binding edge with a matching fabric. Viola! Custom rug in a non-standard size for $250.

The texture reminds us of jute rugs, but it’s super soft. And really easy to vacuum, which is huge for us since our dogs are shedding like crazy.

Speaking of which… In case you’re wondering how our painted floors are holding up to 2 dogs, check it out:

Our floors went from smooth-and-glossy to scratched pretty much the day after we brought Margot home in December.

We’re OK with it since painting was always a temporary solution. Just thought we’d throw it out there for any dog owners who are considering painting their soft wood floors. All the more reason to throw down some rugs.

We were a little worried that the patterned rug would clash with our patterned curtains, but we like how they look together:

As The Dude would say, “That rug really tied the room together.”

In other office news, we painted the trim and sealed up the brick wall.

Here’s how the brick looked before sealing:

The dry brick was shedding even more than our dogs. We’d dust in the morning and by the evening, there would be a thick layer of red and white chalk all over the furniture and floors. We couldn’t keep up with the vacuuming and dusting, so we decided to paint the wall with a clear coat of masonry sealer. Here’s what it looked like after one coat:

It looks much less dry and pasty. The red of the brick pops more, and — yay! — it’s not shedding anymore. We’re not sure if we’re going to do a second coat because the first did such a great job.

Here’s how our desk is looking these days:

New notepad from Anthropologie:

Recycled leather pen holder:

New printer — this is only living on the desk temporarily until we figure out a better place for it:

The black dresser is also temporarily in the office until we find a better spot for it:

We still need to make frames for our art. The prints are just leaning against the wall for now. It’s starting to look pretty finished, huh?

Also looking finished: our hallway. We fiiiinally painted the trim and threw down a runner so it’s officially done.

We ordered a custom runner from the same carpet shop. It didn’t photograph well because it’s still all curly from being rolled up. We were too excited about sharing it to wait.

This runner looks a lot like jute from a distance, but when you look closer, it’s a tan and light blue pattern:

The 2′x12′ runner was also $250. We couldn’t find any runners this long in stores, so we thought it was a totally fair price. We’ll post better pictures in a few days when the rug has uncurled itself. Stay tuned for that. We’ll be back soon with more updates!