Dewey YESimal!

I had longed for a real card catalog for years. Liz Lemon has a behemoth one in her apartment, and she is my life coach and Swami. All the cool makeover projects I found for them on Pinterest started with "I found this for $10 at a local rummage sale," which produced in me a charming bitter envy-rage. 

No one is so naive as to price a real library card catalog for a mere $10 anywhere around these parts. A weekly search of craigslist showed me that people who had these babies KNEW what we the crafty would give to possess them. Here's one I just found on craigslist nearby. 

But to be fair, Jo Ellen deserves to be compensated for having her head spun. The poor dear.

$475?! Mama can't play dat. And while I am a HUGE proponent of affordable hacking/DIYing I just couldn't bring myself to fake this instead of having the real thing--even though this DIY version looks crisp!

Why? I am a staunch defender and consumer of actual books. I have never read an eBook because I think a real, made-from-a-tree, printed-with-ink, feel-the-heft-of-the-pages, book is a magical experience too good to pass up for pixels (yes the irony that you're only reading this because of pixels isn't lost on me). 

I actually USED card catalogs and learned about the Dewey Decimal system in elementary school *yikesface*.  I remember the vertiginous, Mary Poppins Carpet Bag feeling of pulling out one little bitty drawer and it being longer and deeper than any drawer I had ever encountered. I felt so grown up (like an archivist! or Egyptologist! or Treasure hunting preteen Indiana Jones!) flipping through the hundreds of little cards and find the magic number for the book I needed (The Courtship of Princess Leia, for the record. Not joking) --and then getting distracted because my friends were playing M.A.S.H. nearby and inevitably forgetting the number and having to start over.

While computers are obviously a far more efficient system for library users now, I still think these massive fossils deserve better than to rot in school basements like some kind of sad rodent tenement. I think card catalogs should be honored, or at least given a cushy retirement where they can be treasured, remembered, and revered. And that reverence to me would come in the form of having juice spilled atop them, crayons scribbled on their sides, and all manner of action figures, pacis, and ossified string cheese stuffed in their hallowed innards. RESPECT THE PAST.

There were actual tears when a teacher friend texted me 2 years ago: "you wouldn't be interested in our library's old card catalog that we are getting rid of, would you?" I screamed. It's not like I had even told this beautiful Saint about my longing. Clearly this was my destiny's child. 

When I first saw it in person my reaction really bordered on crazy cat(alog) lady talk, "Awwww, it's so tiny!" "It's even more beautiful than I had imagined!" and "Oh, but so heavy! What a healthy boy...yes you are! Who's a healthy boy?" Because yes, my newborn dream come true was only 2 feet square, but weighed more than an Imperial Star Destroyer.

I got it home with only like 5 slipped disks and Jesse was like, "What now? What are you gonna do with that? Where will it go? You realize our house is tiny?" And I covered the catalogs impressionable ears and scolded him, "We'll make room! This is a blessing! I'M KEEPING IT!"

And then I left it in the garage for 2 years to be a spider habitat until we moved. Shut up.

But here we find ourselves with lots more space, and finally the motivation from me to take on the restoration.

This is the state he was in after his stay in the garage. 

That bottom piece of trim had fallen off somewhere along the way. The presence of MDF underneath the trim also let me know that this wasn't totally solid wood like I had thought--despite weighing  more than the Forest Moon of Endor. Bummer. Or swomp-swomp (as Layla says when you drop something thrown to you). I lose vintage-antique points there, but who cares, the thing held freaking Dewey Cards, yall. I'M KEEPING MY POINTS.

The veneer is a shiny flat doo doo brown and had HAD to go.

He is almost a perfect cube. Short and stocky and frisky and fine. Too little to be a stand-alone piece, but to big and deep to really fit comfortably on a normal table.

 Beside a book, for scale. (1 of about 300 Star Wars books that I own. Because awesome).

Last week I sat down and took all the hardware off to assess the situation.

Michael Scott is my constant DIY companion. I will never be defeated at "Office" trivia, btw.

I found that the hardware was solid brass (not plated...via magnet test), and gave it a brasso bath to take off most of, but not all because VINTAGE, of the tarnish.

The next day I got down (girl, go head get down), on sanding the beast. The yucky brown veneer IS real wood so I could strip and stain it like a solid wood piece (being careful not to sand all the way through the veneer which would expose the MDF and my secret shame).

The drawers are plastic (oh the ignominy!) and metal bolted on to solid wood fronts.

Sweet boogers, it was hot that day and I laid down a preliminary stain with my sweat. I was batter-dipped with the sawdust by the end of this.

I moved the show into the blessed AC to try out stains. 

I tested each of the colors on a drawer front. This was so stupid. HELLO KEIGHT, IT'S STAIN. I knew I'd have to sand off the 2 losing shades, but didn't plan for how deep that would be. Total pain. Next time I will test on the back side.

 I wiped the whole thing down and started staining (went with the golden oak...even though I typically hate oak colored stuff, it looked the best by far).

A coat of finishing wax and the hardware went back on. Here's where the giddyness began. Jesse cut me a strip of thin plywood to cover up the bottom trim piece that had come off. Itf fit so perfectly and took the stain just the same as the catalog did.

Wood glued and weighted down overnight and that little strip is now an inalienable member of the piece.

I got a set of 4 hairpin steel legs on eBay (from this seller) for $45 (the best price of all 13 places I looked).  These are 14", tight profile, and unfinished steel.

I screwed them on last night, lickety split.

Turned him over and put him in a place of honor in the foyer! 

Yeah, I am freaking jazzed about this guy. The catalog itself is so heavy and solid and stout that the dainty (looking, but solid to hold the weight safely!) legs set it off so well. Besides looking great, it really does have tons of storage space and is a great height for cute things to display and as a drop zone for keys. This bibliophile is all heart-eyes for her restored biblio-file (#sorrynotsorry).

 Welcome to your forever family, baby!

Adventure of Islands

YOUGUYSYOUGUYSYOUGUYSYOUGUYS. I have had my first true Thrift-Steal-to-DIY-Treasure moment.  To the tune of $35 for the raw materials turned into a golden nugget that would probably have cost $1000 to have had professionally made/installed. 

Even? NO, I CANNOT!

It all started when I was in an area of the thrift store I usually don't even glance at. Do you see anything worth $1000 here? (well there's not...yet!)

Tanks a lot, amirite? (sorry)

It was those torn out kitchen cabinets. There were exactly 5 of them and they were $25 for the bunch. I thought they would be perfect in my workroom/studio/sewing sweatshop. This room right here is it:

So, yeah. It's not the worst (even without Baby McHugginLovinStuff parked there)

If you're not impressed with the riches of this space, maybe I need to rub your nose in the rags from whence my DIY/sewing career began in 2010:

She was so eensy and adorable. And I was beyond proud of her! My little starter nooklet.

Anyway, I always knew that if I had the space I would love a cutting island/table. Sort of like this: 

But since my studio is actually built to be the formal dining room (We don't formally dine. What we do at our normal kitchen table can barely be called "dining."), I did want to make a space that wasnt ultra outwardly crafty and could still serve a purpose if/when we do entertain (like a buffet line for the potluck!).

I brought the cab frames into the garage and started toying around with how they would be laid out.

Hello, boys.

 Note: this configuration was not the answer. I might not be gifted at Tetris, yall.

 But the main problem I kept running into was the table top. I wanted something sturdy and solid. Ideally a chunk of solid wood. But dannnng if thick, solid countertop material isnt expensive!

It would kind of defeat the coup of my $25 cabinets to have to shell out $500 for the top. Even my blessed Swedish Godmother couldnt help me. IKEA's best option was this guy who was only real wood to a depth of 1/8" and STILL cost $270. 

And then I went to another local thrift store on 50% off day and stumbled upon a recent donation they had received of SOLID. WOOD. DOORS. 

Not the actual one I ended up getting.

Technically it's just a solid core (like real wood but all mish mashed together and not from one tree) under a soild wood veneer. Good enough! I realized I could have had one of these from Home Depot all along for only $63, but I was so glad I didnt discover this until after I found the brand new (still with its barcode sticker on) one at the thrift store for $10!

And the added bonus was that we only had to make one cut through this monster (so. heavy) because he came the perfect width already. We also now have 1/3 of the door left over for another project.

On Saturday we Jesse solved the arrangement conundrum and we bolted the 5 cabs together and backed them where needed with plywood. Then we got some trim for Home Depot for the baseboard and the edges. I stayed up waaaaaay too late nail-gunning and wood-filling to get us to this point:

I put the finishing touches on the bottom with sanding and paint, and then screwed the tabletop-formerly-known-as-door down atop the cabinets (nearly herniating myself in process because I was too giddy to wait for Jesse to get home to help lift it):

 UHMUHGAH!!!

This is the ONLY photo I have of it right now because I wasnt planning on posting about it yet, but I got so so excited that I just whatever-ed and here we are.

I still need to decide on a stain for the top (tricky because of the reddish wood of the floors, sigh) and cut more custom shelves and fill in the pre-fab shelf-peg holes that arent in use.  I am undecided on whether or not to put cabinet doors on the long sides (the front short side here will definitely stay open and be filled with pretties--not supplies).

I'm loco, ha-ha, banana-flavored bonkers over it!

If you ask me if you can take it from me, I will tell you:

Feeling GROUTchy; or, PUMice, ice, baby.

We finally repressed enough of the unpacking trauma (impressive, considering we arent even really done) to summon up some motivation for a NEW project in the new house. I thought I would be clever--and I love a good Zooma--and post a little photo hint of what that DIY might be on my Instagram and Facebook, to see if anyone could guess what these pretty lines meant:

 

Shocked that no one guessed DIY New York Yankees Pants.

It was such a total stumper that only 11 people guessed it was tile cement within the first minute. I felt like the creator of Gold Case (aka Kenneth Ellen Parcell). Whatever, super sleuths, nobody guessed what it actually, ACTUALLY was. 

CONSIDER YOURSELVES VEXED! 

So, yes, tile. Tile on our master bath tub surround!

 Beforesville McSnoresville

Let's be clear: I LOVE this bathtub. It's HUGEGANTIC and bright white and smooth and dreamy. I love that it is separate from the shower (which is to the left), and that it is next to a big old square window. I take baths a lot. Like that is exclusively how I clean my JohnMayer'sWonderland. Only in the direst of circumstances will I take a shower; RE: at someone else's house--because too intimate, or after giving birth when my OB is like "no submerging your lady parts for 4-6 weeks," and I'm like, "yeah right, try to stop me," and she's like, "your junk will get gangrene," and I'm all, "SHOWERS IT IS!"

So this massive (Jesse can lie down in it flat--you should probably picture that right now) boat of a tubby tub is a happy place for me--even in its original builder beige and bottom of the line chrome fixtures state. But as I spent time in there I thought it could really be glammed up and made to look fancy and chic and modern with a tile surround. 

Also this made me nervous since the house is less than 2 years old and my tub addiction was already dissolving the very walls. FORTIFY THE REDOUBT!

We have done tile before and found it a really easy project (RENT THE WET SAW, FOR THE LOVE OF DRAKE), so we felt very competent to tackle this. I went with a yummy and affordable charcoal and grey striated oversize Metro Gris  tile from Home Depot. Since we needed less than 60 square feet, the tile was only a little over $100. 

Tiling is a 2 day process. The first round is cementing the tile to the wall. You wait 24 hours for it to set and then go back and grout (those rough cement lines between the tiles that you love to scrub when youre high on nesting hormones).

Night one was Jesse cutting the tiles and me affixing them to the walls (with the mystery lines above--so pleasing!).

It's important that you see these exquisite precision cuts that Pastor Jesse Dukes accomplished on the wet saw--which is a fixed-blade table-saw-esque set up. Mucho impressive.

I was pretty sure I wanted to go with a brass/gold finish on the fixtures, but was too chicken to actually shell out the money for them before I knew how it would look (those things are NOT cheap!). So of course, when in doubt: SPRAY!  I just spray painted the originals (whose shapes weren't offensive to me as much as the finish) because it was cheap and easy and I ain't afraid of no ghosts.

Shiniest metallic gold I could find.

Day two dawned with the promise of me setting sail in my new luxury vessel by sunset! Jesse was at a church event with the big kids and when Noa went down I started grouting. Trowel the grout in, sponge off the excess. Wait a few hours and then wipe off any remaining grout residue (haze, they call it. EFFING HAZE).

When it was all grouted up, there was a good bit of the haze from the white grout left on my delicious gray and black tile (we'd only ever done white tile + white grout). 

 

Like a Beijing sky.

No matter! I am a good girl and have all the necessaries from my supply list, including:

NOPE

As far as I could tell, this was a $6 bottle of water for all the good it did. Panic started rising in my throat as NONE of the white drips and hazy clouds came off when wiped with this stuff.

Jesse came home about this time, and since there was another adult around to be sane, I let my irrationality off the chain. I may have cried and declared "Oh Lord, what have I done?! We have to move again!" The only progress we saw was when I grabbed my pedicure brush and Jesse tried scrubbing with it with all of his manly might and after like 5 sweaty minutes produced this result:

ON ONE TILE!

The thought of having to exert that much effort on every square inch of tile was crushing. Especially since the haze problem (like the aliens in "Signs and "war of the Worlds") had been 100% curable by SIMPLE WATER just hours earlier when it was first going on (aka do this project with two people: one whose only job is wiping behind the grouter while it's still wet...especially when your grout contrasts with the tile color!)

Enter a 5 day period of buying and trying every different method that anyone has ever posted on the internet about how to remove grout haze (except the really scary chemical ones used by professionals). We knew that grout has a cure time of 10 days so it felt like a big scary countdown to solving this horrible mess. Have you ever prayed about tile? We have. It's a strange place to be, life-wise.

NOTHING

NADA

UH-UNH

NEGATIVE

Only useful for scratching up the glaze. NO GO

This was the hardest core combo we tried: a super stiff nylon cup brush attachment for the power drill  coupled with dissolved sulfamic acid crystals.

On night number whatever of feeling defeated and thinking we were going to have to call professionals (the bane of an empowered DIY'er!) or start over, we were sitting there, in my acrylic love boat, dust and debris and failure pheromones all around, and our nerves more scoured than the tile. In desperation I grabbed the pedicure brush again, but instead of the brushy bristle side, I rubbed dejectedly for a few seconds with the pumice stone side.

QUE MIRACLE!

with very little effort and maybe 5 seconds, this much hope dawned upon our hearts.

We kept going and after maybe 20 minutes, had 4 full tiles crystal clear! (and no more pumice because it was getting powderized as it worked).

EEEEEEEEEEK

We went to bed praising the virtues of that humble scourer-of-calluses! The next day I bought 5 of these guys and prepared to go to work:

GOD BLESS YOU PUMIE!

Friday afternoon Jesse and I took turns pumice-ing and watching the kids. In a little less than two hours, the haze had cleared and we were finally at our AFTER moment!

I kinda didnt hate the no-spout look. Sort of a throwback. 

Turning on the water and washing all the dust and grime and pulverized (noble) pumice dust down the drain was the best feeling.

Putting the fixtures on was even better!

Totally digging the combo

indecent amounts of celebratory grunting!

Quite the Tile-uh Pair-y, no? (OMG I'm sorry I had an extra shot in my coffee today).

So that was an expensive lesson (in time more so than in actual money) learned: Really address the grout haze runoff BEFORE IT DRIES.

But if you are left with impossible, adamantium-based dried on grout haze after the fact: PUMICE!

There ya go: our first DIY in the new house was a total success. AHEM. A TOTAL SUCCESS, I DECLARE. Shut up about it.

One last note: though I waited many moons for it to cure and applied it perfectly, the spray paint finish is doing some weird thing where plain old water leaves stain-ish things after a bath. I can rub them off, but it's going to eventually annoy me so I will start looking an saving up for the real deal. I think the spray paint trick work wonders though on a darker finish like nickel or oil-rubbed bronze.

that's okay. a little splashy residue can't stop my flow. (GET IT!?!?!? BEST.)