A quick look
I realized that after I finished the coffee table, that photo I took was it sitting on a drop cloth. Not really that exciting…because you know, coffee tables are extremely exciting. Anyway, here is a just a quick update to the room as it is right now. Still no dining room chairs, but hopefully that will be in the somewhat near future (probably not).
We’re very happy with how it all looks. Next up, decor. We really need to get something on those walls, just not sure what it will all be. We’ll be doing some more work on other rooms very soon, we’re just getting it all in order, so have no fear loyal readers, there will be new updates soon enough.
Read MoreResolutions and ideas for 2012
I’m a few days late, but that’s okay (being prompt wasn’t a resolution). It’s that time of year where everyone makes bold resolutions and comes up with ideas and accomplishments for the following year. Since it’s starting to get a bit colder outside, I won’t be doing any woodworking over the next few months, at least, not until spring. So I’ll need something to blog about, right? Well, here are a few (of the many) things on my list for 2012.
1 . Paint – We still have at least three rooms upstairs (both guest rooms and a bathroom) that need a new coat of paint. Our main guest room will be pretty easy once we decide on a color. The other, smaller bedroom will take a bit more effort because of the “awesome” blue trim that goes all along the base of the room.
2. Another bathroom remodel (maybe) – As mentioned above, we have a bathroom that needs a coat of paint. Okay, it needs a lot more than that, but as I learned while renovating a half bath, I hate doing bathrooms. That being said, we need to do something with this bathroom, because it is a true eye sore.
3. Replace the kitchen ceiling fan – I’ve blogged about this briefly, but it has to go. Now that we’ve done so much work on the first floor of the house, this (along with the ugly “boob” lights) are all that remain. So, it’s time to bite the bullet and get rid of this thing. 
4. Build more stuff – Once spring time hits, I’ll hopefully be outside building more furniture. On the list of things to build are side tables for the living room, nightstands for our bedroom and potentially a farmhouse bedframe for the guest room. Yeah, we want our guest to be sleeping in style.
*image courtesy of Ana-white.com
5. Landscaping – This is a tough one, because neither of us have a green thumb. The yard, as small as it is, isn’t too bad, but there are a few areas that could use a little love. Mainly, we have a tree in our backyard that is sectioned off with small old tree stumps. Those tree stumps now have grown a mushroom like mold and they don’t look that great. It’s time to ditch those and come up with a long term plan that is functional and looks nice. Oh, and mulch…boy do we need mulch.
6. Blog maintenance - This one is a doozy because it’s all background work that you’ll probably not even notice, that is, unless you are like my mom who can’t see any of the photos I post because flickr is blocked at her work. Lame. So, in order to remedy that, I will hopefully migrate all the photos onto this site directly, and then everyone should be able to see them super easy, and it should also help with page load times. Again, it’s a little thing, but hopefully effective.
7. Learn something new – Anything really. I am someone who needs to constantly be learning, it’s just in my nature. I learned how to create webpages, blog, build stuff, fix stuff, yell at stuff…and so on all by just doing it. I hope to keep that moving forward over the course of 2012, and by year’s end, have something completely new under my belt, and ready to try something different in 2013.
8. Decorate more – Lastly (for now), one thing we really need to do in our house is make it more personal. We both know this. We don’t have much on our walls around the house. Part of that is because we haven’t had a lot of furniture until recently, so it’s hard to come up with a plan when you’ve got nothing. This year we really want to get more photos up, some art, and other things put up around the house. It’s the little things that make the biggest difference, don’t you think?
So there you have it faithful readers, a list of 8 things I’d like to accomplish for 2012. I left a lot off the list (and yes, I actually wrote out a list), but these are the main areas I’d like to focus on for now. Notice “go to the gym, eat better, be proactive” aren’t all on the list, because that’s a given, and usually by my birthday I’ve given up on most of that. I will, however, eat more cookies, that I do promise.
Read MoreIf at first you don’t succeed…
…Sand it down and start again. As you may recall, I recently finished the coffee table I was building for our living room. With our new furniture, I thought it would be the perfect idea and tip of the cap for the room. Here’s what is was supposed to look like.
I wanted to match it to the dining room table as closely as I could, so that the room would really flow together. Well, upon further review, and nearly breaking my back carrying this table up and down the stairs and all around the house, I noticed that I didn’t quite get the same look.
On the right is the dining room table, and to the left is the coffee table. Even though I used the exact same stains, it didn’t quite come out right. Ironically, the darker/redder look was what I was going for originally with the dining room table, but there was no way I was going to sand that down and start over since I had poly’d it and all. So my options were simple, live with the mismatched tables, or sand down the coffee table and restain. I chose to sand it down. After carrying it to the back yard…again, I busted out my electric sander and went to town. Now, I know when I stained it, I didn’t wipe off as much stain (which is why it was darker), but when sanding, it just kills sandpaper so fast. I went through about 20 sheets of 60 grit sandpaper just to try to get it back to the bare wood.
As you can see with this small section, I couldn’t get it all the way down, most of the dark stain still was in the wood, and I caused a few new marks as I was sanding (because I was really digging in). After the entire table was sanded down, I took to the stain again. This time I started (like before) with a coat of Minwax’s “English Chestnut,” and when I was done, it started to look a bit too dark again. Plus, some of the red from the original “gunstock” color was still there, so to lighten it up, I applied “Golden Pecan” as a second coat, which is the same color as our floor.
As I applied the second coat, I was able to wipe away a lot of the really dark areas, which helped. Now, I had to wait and carry the table back inside (again) to see how it matched. Wouldn’t you know, it was pretty close (as close as I was going to get). So I heaved the beast to the back yard one last time to Poly it up. Three coats (and even though it wasn’t in the forecast, it started to rain right after the second coat). After the third coat was done and had dried, I pulled the table in for the final look. You tell me, I’d say it is pretty perfect.
The extra sanding really brought out the grain in the wood, which I really do love. So even though it was a huge pain in the butt, and it took much longer than I expected, I am extremely pleased with the overall look. And in case you are wondering why it’s on a dropcloth, I just wanted to be 100% sure it was dry before I moved it onto the carpet. I would hate to ruin our new carpet because I wanted to see how it all looked.
Read MoreBuilding a Coffee Table
I hope everyone had a wonderful and happy holiday this year. With a few extra days off of work, I spent some time working on a new build. This time, a coffee table to match the dining room table. I got the plans from Ana White’s website, much like the dining room table, but I did do some slight modifications. I changed the overall size of the table, since ours needed to be a bit smaller, and I also changed out the legs. She calls for 4×4 legs, which for a coffee table just looked huge, so I used 2×3′s instead.
I headed over to Lowe’s to get my wood, and all in all, it cost me about $20. I had a few spare 2×4 strips, so that helped, but building a coffee table for $20 is not a bad thing. After cutting all the wood to size, I began to lay out the project.
Note, that doesn’t include the 2×4 strips that serve as the table top. Those I cut after I put together the legs and built the frame. Here is a very important hint when building this table, and I wish I had paid more attention to it. It’s very important to get the straightest boards you can find. I wish I had a lumber yard close by that sold furniture grade lumber, but I don’t. So a few of the 2×4′s I bought were practically useless due to some bowing. It took me a long time to get the boards cut properly and placed in due to the warping. Once I did, I screwed everything in using my kreg jig pocket holes and secured it up. I also added 2 45 degree pieces on each end to match the look on the dining room table.
Once everything was all assembled, I started to put on the stain. I stained it exactly the same as the dining room table, which was one coat of minwax’s English Chestnut, followed by one coat of minwax’s gunstock.
Sorry about the bad shadow, the house was blocking the sun. Now that the table is stained and drying in our basement, all that is left is to put a few coats of polyurethane on it and we’ll be good to go. That’s my plan for next weekend, assuming that the weather is decent enough to drag it outside again. Once it’s poly’d, it will find its new home in our living room. Huzzah!
Read MoreThe rug really ties the room together
Our rug was delivered yesterday, and I have to say, it helps break the living room and dining room apart. We had bought the rug on super sale (because they couldn’t find the price tag), but that also meant we got the dirty floor model. So we sent it off to Hadeed Carpet cleaners, and in less than a week, we had the rug back looking brand new.
A little about Hadeed Carpet. We went with Hadeed for a variety of reasons. One, we had them do our wall to wall carpet before we moved into the house, and they made this awful carpet look good. Two, I had actually done their commercials way back when, so I’ve seen how the clean rugs up close, and they do a great job. And lastly, it was 20% off. I can tell you that, while their jingle is slightly annoying, the people and the customer service were fantastic. We recommend them.
Well, this room is really coming together. Still to be done, add some sheer curtains behind the brown ones, change out the light fixtures in the hall, get some chairs and a rug for the dining room table and finally hang some art/pictures in the room.
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About Matt and MC
We just recently bought our first home, and we decided to share our story of our adventures with you. The ups and downs of home ownership, and all the fun we'll have in between. Ignore the typos and just have fun, that's what we're here for. 
