Goodbye
We just sold our very last pink lacquer storage box. Let us take a moment of silence.
Thank you.
To add to the sadness, I am not sure that I am going to be able to get my hands on any more.
Thus I had to pretend this last one was ours just a little while longer… and then it got shipped across the country.
It’s a good thing that I still have black ones to console me.
But if you want to take these away from me, you can do so right here. Don’t worry, I’ll be okay if you do.
I will just move on to the white ones. Yes. White ones. I love their Asian flair and clean lines.
Oh, yeah. I have a plan b and a plan c so shop away friends.
Bar Closet Building – Day One
Have we mentioned how excited we are that we were asked to create a bar space in someone else’s closet? As in, someone else that we didn’t even know?
Here is how it all started. Way back when I climbed up into our own living room closet-turned-bar in order to paint some stripes on the walls.
My new friend Anna saw said shenanigans and decided to leave a little comment. Just enough to peak my interest.
After several e-mails and a visit to Anna’s casa we were in. Here is what it was looking like.
Our first step in the entire process was to find out exactly what Anna and her husband Jeb were looking for. This closet is in a room with a tv and a pool table so they were just looking for a nice little nook to keep the mini fridge and some adult beverages. Storage for board games and other items was also something they were looking for. Right now the standard closet set up was just not working for them.
They liked the way our bar closet was done with a painted cabinet below, open shelving above and a tile countertop and backsplash. Simple enough right?
Well after taking some measurements, we pretty quickly discovered that this 22″ deep closet would not be able to accomodate lower cabinets like our 36″ deep closet could. Okay, so we could have installed lower cabinets but opening the doors could have been tricky in parts. Darn doors.
This led to a slightly more elaborate plan of building custom shelving, to include space for the mini fridge. This is where the previously mentioned sweat fest began. You see we rig build things for ourselves all the time but this was for someone else. The stakes are quite a bit higher. Looking back on it all the easy way out could have been to install a cabinet but just remove the doors for the look of open shelving. Live and learn.
Luckily Anna and her husband Jeb are a super nice and very understanding couple who were looking for someone just like us to DIY their closet rather than come in and charge them a million dollars for professional contracting. This is good because professionals we are not.
As evidenced by my really coherent and well-designed planning notes.
And my uber-organized shopping list.
I promise it all felt more in check than these documents would lead you to believe.
Here was the plan for how it would all go:
1. Remove the existing wire closet shelf.
2. Fill in the door hinge marks.
3. Remove the old door magnets and fill in marks in door frame.
4. Remove the old baseboards from the back and right side wall. Reattach them at the end of the project.
5. Pull back the carpet, and cut and reattach it where needed.
6. Fill in the screw holes on the wall left behind from the old wire shelf and touch up the paint where needed.
7. Build base of bottom shelves with 2×4 studs.
8. Build a shelving unit on top of and around the studs using 2′ x 4′ handy boards from Lowes.
9. Prime and paint these lower shelves.
10. Tile the countertop and backsplash.
11. Hang two wall shelves, stemware holders and artwork.
12. Paint shelves and brackets.
13. Caulk and touch up the entire project.
14. Add Accessories and photograph.
15. Nap.
Some of this grand scheme worked while other items on the list were definite road blocks. All in all it took us two full days to complete the work and I’ll be headed back another night sometime soon just to do a couple of touch ups.
We accomplished the following on Saturday:
1. Remove the existing wire closet shelf.
2. Fill in the door hinge marks.
3. Remove the old door magnets and fill in marks in door frame.
4. Remove the old baseboards from the back and right side wall. Reattach them at the end of the project. DID NOT WORK! THAT STUFF WASN’T GOING ANYWHERE SO WE BUILT ON TOP OF IT.
5. Pull back the carpet, and cut and reattach it where needed. SEE NUMBER FOUR.
6. Fill in the screw holes on the wall left behind from the old wire shelf and touch up the paint where needed. WE ENDED UP REPAINTING THE ENTIRE INSIDE WALL OF THE CLOSET AFTER DISCOVERING OUR TOUCH UP PAINT WAS NOT THE SAME COLOR AS THE ORIGINAL INSIDE WALLS OF THE CLOSET. IT LOOKS WAY BETTER THOUGH SO THIS WAS A GOOD HICCUP.
7. Build base of bottom shelves with 2×4 studs. SANITY SAVING TIP: DRILL PILOT HOLES. YOU MIGHT NOT KILL YOURSELF OR YOUR WORK PARTNER IF YOU TAKE THIS ADVICE.
8. Build a shelving unit on top of and around the studs using 2′ x 4′ handy boards from Lowes.
9. Prime and paint these lower shelves.
10. Tile the countertop and backsplash.
11. Hang two wall shelves, stemware holders and artwork.
12. Paint shelves and brackets.
13. Caulk and touch up the entire project.
14. Add Accessories and photograph.
15. Nap.
All in all it wasn’t too bad for the first day’s work. Especially since a few things didn’t go as planned. A la HGTV style, here is how things look after night one.
This is the part where we look dramatically into the camera and confess about how tired we are and how many things that we still have to get done and how we don’t know if we’ll be able to finish in time tomorrow. You -the viewer- will be nervous for us.
Don’t worry though, we know how it ends. It will be okay.
Fu Dogs At Target
Thank you Tar-jay.
You never let me or my quest for quirky home decor on a budget down.
They aren’t available online right now, but there appear to be several stores in our area with some in stock. Yes.
On our trip to San Fran last year I searched for days for a great pair of Fu Dogs that were actually within my budget - without much success. At $9.99 each these are just right. The grey color is also much more subtle than many Fu’s you’ll find out there. A great way to ease into the trend.
Photo: Kristy Lee Interiors
Photo: House Beautiful
P.S. Another dog we know ate a second rabbit last night. Then she threw it up all over our bed. What. The. Fu.
A Country Chic Bedroom
I think tonight I will close my eyes and pretend that this is my bedroom.
Photo: Country Living
It is perhaps too feminine for the husband to allow it but that’s kind of what I like so much. Look at those massive flowers! Too bad each of those prints will run you about $1400 each from here. I do not tell a lie.
Good thing you could probably just paint your own for m-u-c-h less, and choose flowers that are much more personal to your tastes. I might recommend a dandelion.
The wood furniture is all the same tone and the same weight visually – somewhat delicate with thin legs, but still carefully mismatched to be perfectly interesting. The pale pink chair paired with the bold blue trunk add just the right impact of color around the room. And nothing competes for attention with those flowers, except maybe the height of the antique bed. A lovely combination for sure.
This little room gives me warm fuzzies like nothing but granny floral bedding mixed with ikat pillows can.
“O” My!
Just a quick snippet to let you guys know that our Later Gator bangle bracelets were just featured in O Magazine’s February 2012 “O” List. Oprah says they are a great way to express yourself and we agree – or at least I agree. Chad cares not.
This news is very exciting no? Buy one… or five, right here for only $18.
Cutting Travertine Tile at Home
Just this weekend we completed our first ever client project by way of installing a closet bar area for a couple about our age here in Durham. The bar ended up being very similar to the one in our home.
After spending many many hours in their home drilling, painting, groutng and reminding them that I’m not a builder or a handyman – I think it came out pretty well considering it was my first outside project.
More pictures will be up later this week when all is really done. We’ve got a few touch-ups to take care of before its close-up.
In the meantime, as the title of this post might indicate I do have some photos of the countertop tile to share. You’ll remember that we put together this little inspiration board for our new friends.
The tile we chose for the counter (we have a second tile that went up on the backsplash) are 4×4″ travertine tiles from Lowe’s that came in boxes of 9 for only $4.48. This tile has a pretty high end look for something so inexpensive.
We knew that each box covers about one square foot so we scooped up 12 for this project. You’ll see later that the countertop we’re working with is preety l-o-n-g.
In order to save time when physically in our client’s home we measured out a space on our dining room table – which is oh so beaten up anyway and will only get better with some tile scratches and dents - and laid out their tile pattern ahead of time, making any cuts where needed.
We were amazingly lucky in that the depth of the bar space will be exactly 5 tiles even. However, we didn’t want the look of square, square, square, square all across the counter. We wanted a pattern that was a bit more interesting, and that would hide any lines that were not perfectly straight.Remember this is our first time to do this for someone else, so I was pretty much a little sweat machine throughout the entire process.
My sweaty little self decided to stagger every other row of tiles, cutting the end tiles in half. We think it looks pretty snazzy and makes things more interesting for sure.
There wasn’t even that much extra effort needed for cutting either. I was worried when purchasing the travertine that the tile was going to be too thick for a hand held tile cutter so I picked up a larger model than my little nippers, last seen here. It uses the exact same principle. Score and snap. Worked like a charm. By the way we used a $19.99 MD 14′” tile cutter from Lowe’s for this.
If you do this at home just make sure to wear some sweet glasses or goggles, and also score and snap the smooth tops side of the travertine. We tried the underside which is much rougher, and well – the snapping made it kind of crumble.
And no one needs that.
We’ll be back soon with more details on this first little adventure. Including more notes on planning, shopping, receipt keeping, installing and the best stuff – the before and after photos. But for now you just get 538 words about scoring, snapping and sweating. Sounds a little creepy.
