Thanksgiving to do list, revisited.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

A couple of months ago, I planned on hosting Thanksgiving at my house.  Not only did that mean I had to plan/cook a giant Thanksgiving meal (though, because of last years triumphant success, I wasn't very stressed out about that part,) I had to get my house together.  I gave myself a to do list and two weeks.

None of it got done in time.

That's probably due to the fact that we decided to move the hosting to dad's, leaving me with just the cooking and non of the getting ready.  So I didn't get anything ready.  Well, some, but few.  (Those are the things crossed off the list in black - green is the new stuff.)

LIVING ROOM

- Couch
  * Buy
  * Stain legs
  * Drill holes for legs/attach (Ok, seriously, I worked on this for DAAAAAAAYS.  The holes where legs are supposed to go are too big for the new legs I bought.  The wood where a new hole could be drilled is chipped off and practically impossible to drill a new hole into.  I gave up on it for a while because it almost made me cry at one point and working on it required me to jack up my couch on two chairs like a car at the mechanics and I wanted to sit on it.  Luckily, my brother promised to help with me with a project for my Christmas present and I've decided he gets to figure this freaking thing out.) 
  * Get/sew some pillows (couch is cute, but a bit uncomfortable without any pillows) - i.e. decide color scheme for whole room.  No biggie! (Actually... my new rug already decided the color scheme for me.  Awesome!)


- TV stand/bookshelf
  * Have
  * Arrange/decorate shelves
  * Get TV (Hannah's job)  (Yeah!  And a Wii!  And a sweet cable/internet/dvr deal with Showtime so  we can watch Dexter!!!!)
  * Arrange/decorate surface (after TV is bought) (I've got my two old mirrors up there now, but I need to fix up the rest.)

- Bookshelves
  * Conceive of/buy materials for/build in a generally bad ass way
  * Stain
  * Unpack books and load them on shelves
  * Arrange books/stuffs (Oh.  I did this.  I. Did. This. Awesomely.)  My dad helped me figure out the size/kind/all that jazz of the wood we'd need and we searched all over Home Depot for the perfect (cheap/unobtrusive) brackets.  It wasn't that hard to put together.  It just took a little math, a stud finder and a laser level (which of course I had, thanks to my father's awesome birthday/Christmas presents!)  Then I just stained and sealed them, screwed them to the wall brackets, and got to arrangin'.  Most of the good pictures I had of building the bookshelves were on my camera (whose location is unknown to me) but I've got a couple of iPhone pics.  

Brackets up and painted the wall color.

Pretty stain!  Those sawhorses are actually the legs I bought for my desk.
(That's actually kind of what the desk will look like if/when it ever gets made.)

While I had on my painting/staining clothes, I did a little spray paint makeover on a few items for the shelves.  I had a ceramic pig from Goodwill with a little country paint job and a (fake) marble horse bookend.  I gave those a glossy white coat of paint and their chic quotient went through the roof.  Even better than the white ceramic animals was a little green brontosaurus that I covered with shiny gold spray paint.  It couldn't have been more than fifty cents, but it might be my favorite thing on the whole wall.  I'll have a picture of it in a second.

So, what do you do with boxes of books and three giant shelves, a white Expedit bookshelf/media center, and lots of tchotchkes?  It can seem kind of overwhelming to put it all together in an attractive way, but I tend to do the same thing every time I arrange my bookshelves, so I've got a bit of a system.

First, I put the books on the shelf just so I can see how much shelf space I have to work with.  This let me know that I had three quarters of a shelf free, plus the entire white bookshelf.  Then, I put all of my decorative objects all in one place so I could see exactly what I had.  I always like to do this, because it lets me distribute all of my pretty things evenly among the space I need to decorate.  There were a few things I knew I wanted to put together (vintage trophies) and some things I knew where they had to go (only space for the vintage globe on the top shelf), so that's where I started. 

Progress shot!

These trophies might be some of my favorite possessions.

 The horse bookend...

 What is that you see on the bottom shelf?

The gold dinosaur!


 I really love the whole wall.  It's got such a presence and brings so much instant interest, color, and texture to the room - definitely my second favorite thing in the room besides my couch, of course!)

- Coffee table - I've done none of this.  so bad.
  *  Either buy already made/built coffee table and tailor to needs OR
  * Get pallet
  * Stain
  * Buy/cut Plexiglas/glass to fit
  * Attach casters/metal and industrial doo-dads (that's the technical term)

- End tables
  * Dude.  I've got no idea. (I did it!  Goodwill, of course for 15 bucks total with the cat lamp!)
  * Maybe a stump table for one of them?  I saw a house in Hyde Park today that had a whole tree cut down and lying in pieces in the front yard.  I might just knock on the door and be like, "Can I have one of those pieces?"  I'm also thinking of hitting up the firewood people.  I'll buy their wood and save them the trouble of cutting it up1 (I don't know whether or not I need one for the other side.  I might just get a floor lamp for that corner if the overhead light isn't enough.  If I need a table, however, I still like the stump idea.)

- Lighting
  * Dude.  I really need some.  Our living room is daaaaark.  (I got one!  It looks like a puma and a puma baby.  I love it.)
  * Floor lamps are uuuuuuuugly!  (Imagine that in the whiniest voice you can think of.) (I'm still kind of looking for one.)
  * I'm working on an overhead lamp, which is about 1/3 of the way done.  I've got all the supplies and I've started constructing it.  I'm gonna need a bit of the padre's electrical know-how to finish it off.



This isn't mine, but mine is inspired off of a lamp that's inspired off of this.

- Curtains
  * Put back up those mini blinds I accidentally tore down the first day we moved in.
  * Or don't.  We've got a fence around our porch and you can't see in (especially if you had curtains up!)  Hannah will kill me if I don't get something up though.  (Screw those blinds.  I'll just do the curtains.)
  * I've sewn a million curtains and I know I can do a set for this window.  I'm just trying to figure out if/when I'm gonna get a rug.  They're so expensive that I kind of want to find one first so the curtains can match/go.  I might, however, just go ahead and let the curtains be the star and just find some neutral rug (easier/cheaper/more boring.)  (I've decided to go for either bright white curtains with a bit of weight to them - maybe a linen?  I think it'll go wonderfully with the pale gray walls, colorful patterned rug, and forest green couch.  The other option is a darker gray textured fabric, but I worry that might be too dark for the room.)

- Rug
  * See last bullet point above
(Done.  Twenty-five bucks.  Awesome.)

- Art
  * Acquire a ridiculous amount of art and mirrors and random things to go on the wall.
  * Actually hang them. (Another work in progress, I've hung a few things and bought the supplies for a few other wall art project.  This might get it's own post when I'm farther along.)

Whew!  All done.  Though, I must say, I'm kind of proud of myself!  I love it all, like I love this photo (and frame, bought as a housewarming present by the hottie in it.)






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