Rustic Barn Doors

Anyone wanna know why I haven't gotten my Bookshelf Tree done yet? Because my most dearest, bestest friend bought a house & needed our help!!! Mr. Awesomepants to the rescue!!
Don't get me wrong, her house is totally awesome, even without our help, but she had one minor issue; Her laundry room is off her kitchen, and there was NO DOOR to hide it! Here's a picture that I snagged from her Facebook page that shows the archway. (Sidenote: I am IN LOVE with her granite!!!!!)

Totally crazy, right? Oh well, no problem, easy fix. She loves the rustic look, so swinging barn doors were the perfect solution. Since it's an archway, and wasn't intended for doors, we're gonna get a little fancy!! ;)
So here's what we did, in case you wanna get fancy too!

Measure the archway. Or breakdown a box, trace the arch and cut it out. I preferred the latter.

Now gather your 1X4 boards and begin gluing them together, then clamp to dry for about 30 minutes.
Since we are doing two swinging doors, they ended up being 5 boards wide. Here they are being glued together. The horizontal board on the top isn't attached yet. As you're gluing, you may notice that your boards are bowed and aren't laying flat & flush together. Totally normal. Tell your Mr. Awesome to use his big boy muscles and force them to flatten then quickly clamp them together to hold. We also used big rocks to keep them down while drying.

After about 2 hours of work waiting for the door planks to dry, here's what we ended up with on day 1. Check back tonight to see the semi-end result. 

UPDATE: May 7, 2013

Mr. Awesomepants and my BFF's hubby got the doors completely constructed today! YAY! They added the signature, barn door "X", using 1X3's and cut the arch using a jigsaw. 

The hardware isn't attached, just laid on top of the doors to preview what it will look like. The next step is sanding and staining. Mr. Awesomepants and I are leaving that up to them though. It's time to get back to work on our bookshelf tree!! But don't worry, I will definitely post a picture of their progress too!! 

OH! And while we're talking about her new awesome house, here's a picture of the house warming gift we got her!  

It was full of all kind of goodies for a new homeowner, such as Goo Gone, batteries, a hammer, wood glue, super glue, nails, screws, a squeegee for the shower, etc. So fun!

DIY Tree Bookshelf

So it's finally time to shake off my lazy bones syndrome and get busy on Olivia's playroom again. Remember when we built that fantastic storage plus reading nook back in November & I didn't know what I wanted on the walls???? Guess what? Five long months later, I figured it out! I tossed around ideas like black and white canvas portraits of Olivia, or framing her artwork in crisp white frames, but decided I already had those in the dining room. So it was time to get creative. I wanted something just as awesome as those built in's & something unique, like Olivia!! Over those five months I was able to see how Olivia "lived" in there. What she played with most & what toys needed to be more accessible. I came to realize the kid loves babies and books!!! Her books were shoved in one of those cabinets and stayed in complete chaos because she was constantly getting into them. So we decided she needed a bookshelf. I thought about floating shelves, then had visions of her hanging on them. Scratch that, next idea. Shelves made from wood pallets or the "spice rack" shelves as seen on Pinterest, but those didn't really go with the white and pink theme, or the "unique" factor I was looking for. I was about to give up and just head to Ikea to buy a floor bookshelf, when I ran across this image on Google:

I was in LOVE. Isn't this an amazing piece???? I'll give you a moment to swoon. Ahhhhhh. IT'S SO PERFECT!

However, the price tag of $850.00 (available at Nursery Works) resulted in my jaw making a huge THUD as it hit the floor. There's no way my dear sweet husband was going to let me spend that on a freaking tree. I was so sad, because once I saw this tree, I knew nothing was going to compare. I HAD to have it, this was my WOW factor. 

After looking around some more, and coming up with nothing as awesome, I picked up my jaw & presented my idea to Mr. Awesomepants, being fully prepared for the "look", the one that says "Lady, you are off your rocker." But instead, he responded with "I won't buy it, but I'll build it." YAAAYYYYYYYYYYY! Happy dance time!!! 

Now, how the heck are we gonna do it? Mr. Awesomepants already had a plan, as he usually does. The tree above is metal, and we were wanting to use wood. So here's what we (he, whatever) decided. 

Buy 4 or more large sheets of 3/4" MDF and cut the tree out of each one, then glue them all together. That would make it solid and deep enough to hold her books. 

Once we bought the MDF (at Lowe's for about $35 per sheet), I pulled out my projector and hooked it up to my computer to display the image of the tree on the MDF to be traced. I found an image that was "straight-on" of the tree, instead of an angled picture like above. Once that was done, he got to work cutting. 

After he cut one sheet, I took that piece to trace onto the rest of the MDF sheets. It took him about an hour to cut each one, using a jigsaw. He cut four and we decided to test it out. Just our luck, a standard size book wasn't going to hold with just 4 sheets. Boo. 

Now, we are still in the process of building this beauty, so we're thinking about 2 more sheets will do it. So that means $70 more in materials then another $20 in PINK paint was putting us at an extra $90. Luckily, I'm all about pinching pennies, a reason Mr. Awesomepants picked me ;)

We had HUGE square pieces of MDF leftover after cutting. I put them all together and they made another whole piece of MDF. YAY! So I traced it out over those pieces and instead of gluing them to each other, I will glue them to a tree that's already been cut. That "puzzle tree" will become an inside piece, and you'll never know the difference. $35 SAVED! 

Check back soon, as we will be finishing this project in just a couple more days!! In the mean time, here is what a cut piece looks like! If you have a good eye, you probably noticed we made ours just a little taller, so that her PB chair will fit nicely underneath the tree. 

UPDATE: May 2, 2013

Alrighty, so last night, I glued all 5 of my pieces together, including my "puzzle" tree. Guess what? It's still not deep enough. Blah. So I headed back to the garage (and our back porch) to sift through our scrap pieces. I found enough pieces to make 2 more trees! Yay! So that will make 7 trees total & 5 1/4" deep. Fingers crossed that this will finally be deep enough! If you are following this post to try to make your own, I really encourage you to buy 4 pieces, then use scrap pieces for your middle trees, it's a good way to stretch your dollar. Now, if you are planning to make this for standard, novel size books, I really think 4-5 would be fine. But kids books come in such crazy sizes. Anyway, here's picture of the "progress" we made last night:

 

Yes, I am in my living room! We tried the whole, work outside thing & that was a bust. Princess Olivia is stuck up mommy's rear end, unless Shrek is on! So I laid a big sheet down, turned Shrek on, and got to work!

Back to the tree: here are my 5 pieces glued and clamped together. We used regular wood glue and left it clamped for a little over an hour, and it was completely dry.

UPDATE: May 5, 2013

I finally got Mr. Awesomepants to work on the tree today. He says this is his least favorite project, & honestly I don't blame him!!! It has definitely been a learning experience, lots of trial and error. I hope that you all are learning from our experience. We cut out one more "puzzle piece" tree today, and FINALLY, that made it deep enough to hold her books! WOO HOO!!! We were so excited. NO MORE FREAKING CUTTING!!!!!! Ok, one more cut. He cut out a little notch on the bottom so that it would clear the base moulding and sit flush on the wall. Genius. 

 Finally, it was time to move on to the next step: Sanding.

Here's what it looked like. Needless to say, my tree needed a little work. I sanded for about 10 minutes & decided that was going no where fast. Plus, my sander wasn't going to be able to get into the little angles, which meant, not everything would be smooth & flush. Grrr. So, I called in Mr. Awesomepants for a little brainstorming. HAHAHA ok ok in reality, I went and took a shower & told him "FIX IT." By the time I got out, he had done just that :) Love him.  Off to Lowe's we went. 

Spackling. DUH! ($8.00 at Lowe's) At first, I was just going to fill what needed to be "evened out". But as I went on, I decided to just do the whole tree. Why not? It will guarantee that it's all the same & I won't have to worry if the paint will look different on each surface. Once it dries, it's time to do a light sanding & then paint!! I see a light at the end of the tunnel!! 

If you are going to attempt this, be prepared to put $900 worth of labor into this project!!!! Thank God for Mr. Awesomepants. 

UPDATE: May 7, 2013

Sheesh. Are we ever going to get this done???? For the past few days we have been helping my best friend make some custom barn doors for her kitchen. In between, I swear I have been trying to give my poor tree some attention. Here's a quick update picture. I'm ALMOST done covering it in spackle! Stay tuned, I promise I'm going to finish SOON!

You can see one of the areas that I haven't finished yet, compared to the spackled section, and what a difference!!! We ended up needing to buy the LARGE tub of spackle to cover the entire tree, so don't even waste the money on the small container, it only covered a few branches. 

UPDATE: MAY 12, 2013 (Happy Mother's Day!!!)

Oh. Em. Gee. It's been almost a week since my last update on the tree! I finally got the entire tree covered in spackle, and started sanding it smooth with a fine grit sand paper. Apparently, I didn't do the greatest job, as far as sanding, before I started with pink paint, and it looked like CRAP. I don't do well when things don't go my way, so in stepped Mr. Awesomepants to fix my mess up & keep me from jumping off the ledge. But first, here's a picture of my mini helping :) 

He sanded REALLY well, added more spackle where needed, and sanded some more. During the process, we realized that it wasn't going to be PERFECT. Unless we re-thought the entire tree. And I wasn't willing to do it. So we decided to go with white paint, as it would hide the imperfections better than the pink. 

Finally! We are DONE. Well, okay, not completely. It's not attached to the wall. I'll show you how we are going to do that tomorrow, because that's when we'll figure it out! ;) I hope you all had a FANTASTIC Mother's Day! I know I did!!! 

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering.... Our recommendation is saving your money and time & buying the darn tree!!!! This thing was a pain in the rear end!

UPDATE: May 13, 2013
It's attached! Woo Hoo!  We used these brackets, attaching it to the back of the tree, and then into the wall. Be sure to drill it into a stud for maximum stability!

The moment you've all been waiting for!!!! Here's the reveal!

So??? What do y'all think??? I think it looks fantastic, and you can't even see the brackets where we installed it. I used my handy Silhouette to print out stencils for the cute little birds. I painted them on, but you can use vinyl as well. 

So all in all, I couldn't be more pleased with the final product. The total cost for this project was about $160. That included 4 sheets of MDF, the spackle, hardware & paint. Pretty darn good compared to the $850 to buy it, but I think that your time & labor is worth something, & trust me, we put way more than $850 worth of labor into this tree. If you've got the time & the patience, I say go for it, and send me some pictures too! Just be warned, this is NOT an easy DIY. I appreciate you all being patient & sticking it out with me!! That's a wrap on the Tree Bookshelf!

DIY Built In Reading Nook/Storage Bench

Okay folks, we aren't quite done yet, but that's not going to stop me from posting! Let's do a progress report, shall we? Here's the before.... kind of. I forgot to snap a real "before", before Mr. Awesome ripped out the floor trim. So I guess, call that step one, rip out floor trim. We didn't rip out the carpet, because we knew that the unit would be open on the bottom. However, if you plan to have a closed bottom, it's best to rip the carpet out too & then tack it back down. That part may require a professional to come out and re-stretch.

What a mess. But how much do you love that ceiling??? HA! It took me probably 2 weeks to complete, and now I'm going to cover it up. Hindsight: probably should have painted that first, but we were too excited to begin putting up the towers. Check out the walls, so BARE, minus the cubbies that we decided to mount to the wall. Another plan, not thought through. Whoopsy! So we covered step one; step two involves getting your 19 month old entertained long enough so that you can help your Mr. Awesome cut the huge, heavy MDF boards. This is most definitely a 2 person job! How do y'all like his bow? Our made him wear it, and I gotta say, she didn't have to try too hard. He's such an awesome dad.

Anyway, back to the project, here is a picture of the sides of the towers, the most important pieces you will install, so don't skimp on the nails. These two pieces hold a lot of the weight, and keep it all together!

Nailing the side of the soon to be storage tower into the wall.

Okay, so one side of the tower is installed, time to do the other side right? Wrong! You need to cut all of your shelves first, because the shelves are going to be what attaches the two "walls" of the tower together. Once the shelves are cut to size, drill out your pocket holes to prepare them for install. They're like $30 at Lowes, and it looks cleaner and more professional. Which is our main goal as a DIY'er right?

Pocket Holes for Shelves

To help Mr. Awesome, I held up the other "wall" side of the tower, while he screwed in the shelves. I only wanted 3 cabinets, because I wanted them to all be tall enough to hold Olivia's big toys such as her race track and her shopping cart.... or her daddy.

If you look on the right side of my overgrown man child, you'll see that we put trim on the outside, versus the untrimmed left side. It gives it a finished look, and also a place to install hinges if you plan to do cabinets. The trim is just 1X2's.

Just another cute picture of our little mimic - Oh and Mr. Awesome working.

Ok, shelves are done, so put the rest of that trim up! Just cut it to size and install. Pretty easy. Once the trim is up on the towers, you're ready to move on to the window seat! Yippee!

Stay tuned, I will post more information and pictures this evening!!!!

Ok, so I obviously didn't post the pictures that evening. Oopsy. This was right before Thanksgiving, meaning my in-laws were headed in! So we had to get BUSY and get everything complete and clean the house so people don't know how we really live. ;)   Anyway, I do have more pictures to post, but hey, you've waited long enough, so here is the final product. The paint was still wet when my in-laws walked in.... No, I am NOT kidding.

I wasn't able to get any wall decor up, and honestly, I'm still not positive what I actually want hung up. Anyway, those are faux doors on the bottom, but the top lifts up for storage. We found that we would have more space this way.
For the doors, Mr. Awesome cut some wainscoting to size and notched out some 1X2's for it to slide into. I am LOVING it. The cabinets are freaking huge and all of her toy's fit somewhere. I can't wait to get her kitchen in there and add some wall decor! Oh, and I'm going to redo a vintage chandelier!! I hear a new project in the works!!!

A big BRAVO to my husband. I love you and your awesomeness.

UPDATE:

DIY Farmhouse Table

There she is, in all her glory. It took a long time to get to this point, but totally worth it! It was a fairly simple project, it just took FOREVER because when you have a 19 month old, everything takes forever. We were only able to work on it about 3 hours a night, and on the weekends, so it took us about 2 weeks to complete. Ok, and maybe I decided to stain the entire bottom half and then sand it off and pick a different stain. Whatever. ;) But she looks exactly like I wanted her to. I love her. And don't mind my two empty frames. I want family pictures in those and we haven't had time to actually take them! Oh and see the wall moulding? Yep, my husband is handy as a pocket, he did that too! It's fairly simple, but if you guys would like a step by step on that, let me know!
SO! What does it take to get to this point? Let's get started. Here's everything you'll need (well at least the items that we used):

• Sander
• Pocket Hole Jig (Optional, but extremely useful)
• Wood Glue
• Clamps
• (5) 4X4X8 Posts (Ours were Douglas Fir, because that's all we could find)
• (4) 2X4X8 (We used Pine)
• (6) 2X10X8 (Again, Pine. All of these depend on how long/wide you want your table)
• Circular Saw
• Table Saw
• Miter Saw
• Drill
• Impact Driver
• Screws
• Stain of your choice, We used Ranch Oak by Wood Classics (Our final choice anyway)
• Wood Conditioner (Optional, but highly recommended)
• Polyurethane

Seems like a lot of saws right? Well, you'll need every one of them. So beg, borrow or buy one! Let's start with the top. You will need all of your 2X10's for this part. Be sure to measure how long and how wide you want the table. Ours is 7 foot long and a little over 4 feet wide. Cut all of your wood to size and start drilling out your pocket holes so that you can attach the pieces together. Once that is complete you're ready to screw them together. Put a little wood glue in between each piece and clamp them together for extra security, and begin screwing it together. We put about 6-7 screws on each piece. Same goes for your end pieces. Here is how it looked after this step. He's pretty proud, as he should be.

He's Handy as a Pocket

Now you're ready for the base! Get one of those saws out, it's time to notch! I didn't take too many pictures, as I hadn't really planned on blogging, but I have a very unflattering one shown below with our nephew that kind of shows what we did to notch, how to remove the excess, and that I need a tan. Super easy. Cut a bunch of times in a row, rip it out, sand smooth (nope I didn't sand, but I thought it sounded appropriate).

Little Helper

Here's how it should look put together. Awesomeness.

Notched, to look awesome

Once the frame is built, time to put it all together! Before putting it together make sure you will have enough room to get it through the door. This is one heavy table!! It's solid wood, so just keep that in mind! Get your pocket hole jig back out and get busy! Once it's put together, you are ready to stain. Unless you are putting it together inside the house, then it's better to stain before she's all screwed together. I recommend sanding, at least the top, and then putting a coat of wood conditioner on so that the stain takes evenly. In my experience, it worked great on the pine wood, but not so much on the douglas fir posts. Luckily, we chose a dark stain so it's not too noticeable. Once you're done with the conditioner, you're ready to stain. I found using an old rag, and not wiping the excess was easiest. I used two coats. After the second coat dried, I started on the polyurethane. Warning: This is the tedious part! I used a nylon bristle brush and you have to go SLOW and steady. Definitely read up on how to properly apply, otherwise you will end up with a bubbled mess. Once the first coat of poly dried, I sanded extremely lightly with a fine grit paper, then applied another coat of poly. This part is optional, but I chose to do it. I wanted it to be durable and stand up to everything my family will throw at it on Thanksgiving. The picture below is before any poly. I think it looks dull, the polyurethane really makes it POP! Totally worth the headache!

Pre Poly

Once the polyurethane is dry, you are ready to move her in! Congratulations, you have just built your very own heirloom to pass down to future generations. Don't forget to autograph it! This is the bottom of the table, and oh look, you can see our pocket holes :)

On the Bottom of the Table

A little more info on the room and table:

• Curtains: Lowes, $30/panel
• Charger Plates: Hobby Lobby, $1/each (I got them half off)
• Chair Covers: Bed Bath & Beyond, $9.99/each (Don't forget your coupon!)

The Chairs that we used were from our old table, we just covered them!

Good Luck! Be sure to post pics or any questions if you intend to tackle this awesome DIY!

Olivia's Toy Story Birthday Bash

Alright, let's do this! I've had a couple people tell me to post the pictures from Olivia's Birthday Bash!! So here goes! Unfortunately, I didn't take as many as I'd like, and I'm SO sad that I didn't get one of the table with everything on it. I worked so hard on this party, and it was an absolute blast!! It was worth the hard work, but I think I'll just do a bounce house party next year! ;)

Her Invites that I made in Photoshop

Water with "Jessie's Cactus Juice Labels, made in Photoshop

Centerpieces for Guest Tables!

Food Table, Missing her Cake and the Lime Sherbert Punch, aka Alien Juice!

Blowing out her candles!

Favor Table with the CLAAAAW - and The sign says "Thanks for Joining Us! We are Eternally Grateful!"

We Had a Photo Booth Too!

Pizza Planet Rocket - Downloaded from Internet & Pieced Together (TWO DAYS PEOPLE!)

The Frames were "Toy Story Facts" that I placed around the party. Super fun!