Heirloom Drop-leaf Table

There is not much to say about this table, except that I love it. My grandma ("Anna") gave it to me when I was in college and it acted as my dining table and desk in my little studio apartment. It has lived in about every room in my house (I move furniture around a lot) and is currently in my kitchen. It's just a great little table and can be extra seating if we have a lot of guests over. It might go to live with my sister for a while when she leaves home (if she needs it), so it is a good little family heirloom. Thanks Anna!

Project Post 21: Heirloom Bookshelf (after)

This post is sort of an (informal) introduction to a post series I'll be doing from time to time on heirlooms. So while this included in the Project Posts Series, it's also Post #1 in the Heirloom series too:)

I've mentioned before (especially here and here) that I love family heirlooms, and am honored to have the ones that I do. They are very special to me, because family is very important and something to be cherished. In the weeks and months to come, I'll periodically be highlighting certain family heirlooms that are special to me. 

The bookshelf I showed you two weeks ago (that belonged to Tyler's maternal grandparents) is finally finished and in it's permanent resting place (until we outgrow this house). That alone is hard for me to commit to (I change the furniture placement often), but there is only one place that makes complete sense for it to go in our home. I know this because over the last week I have placed it in every possible spot it would fit in our house (no comments from my husband or parents please). You can see the before and during pictures (I painted it) in this post, and here are the after pictures:

Heirloom Bookshelf: Before & During

I love family heirlooms. I am big on them..and I have a very generous family who loves giving and sharing things. I have a LOT of things from relatives (past and present), and I treasure every one. I know that is cheesy but it is real. Being a girl, I am drawn to heirlooms and things for my home, but guys think differently. My husband has a shop full of tools that belonged to his dad and grandad that are very special to him, but the thought of having any other type of family heirloom never crosses his mind. When he was helping move some things at his grandparents' home last year before it was sold, he brought home this bookshelf. I love it - it's very tall which is great for our tall ceilings. It's very sturdy and a very unique shape, but the best part is that we didn't have anything from that side of the family - and now we have something from all 4 sets of our grandparents.

I am in the process of refinishing the bookshelf, and very eager to be done and enjoy it as a permanent living room fixture. It's taking a while (It has taken 5 coats of paint and I only work on it during naps and some at night - so it will take me a few days to finish it), but I will be done soon and share some after pictures. For now, here are some before and during snapshots. Some were taken at night and some in the morning, so that's why the lighting is crazy - that and the fact that I just say that to cover not being a very good photographer. I like to leave that to the professionals... :)

Project Post 15: Pipe & Pallet Clothes Rack

I titled this as a project post, but I'm not going to give you step-by-step instructions on how to make this. Partly because it's self-explanatory, and partly because I wasn't around for the assembly because it was a gift for me and done in top secret :)

I know you've seen these around - they are in a lot of retail spaces right now.

{Galvanized pipe rack at J. Crew Factory store}

{Black pipe rack at Nordstrom in the toddler department}

{Black pipe rack at Nordstrom in the toddler department}

I snapped these pictures with my iphone and sent them to Tyler, telling him I wanted a variation of this. We have some old pallets and I wanted a pallet base with casters, so it would be easily movable (instead of the T'd-off base seen above)(that's not really a term but I bet you know what I mean).

After I saw these, I searched Pinterest for something similar and got a lot of results. Here are some that I pinned to my "projects" board:

Original sources here (in respective order): Rack 1, Rack 2, Rack 3, Rack 4, Rack 5.

And here's mine, complete with snapshots of it out in the middle of beautiful scenery, because that's how everyone photographs their Christmas presents, right? Totally normal.

It's just made with 3/4" galvanized threaded pipe and fittings, and boards from an old pallet. We had a few old pallets that my dad gave us and Tyler picked the best-looking planks from them to use. These have a few holes in them, which I love, and the color is great too.

{Merry Christmas to me! :)}

{....and just because the scenery was beautiful....}

Project Post 10: Eyesore No More

You've heard me talk about "the list" from time to time. One thing towards the top of the list is an entertainment center or media console of some sort for our living room. Our tv is hung on the wall, so instead of an actual console, I'm looking for more of a buffet-sized piece. But in the meantime, we don't have a proper piece to store our cords and tv garb/accessories, but it is now much less of an eyesore than it has been. For almost two years, our tv cords have been hanging, naked, exposed for all to see. You can kinda see what I mean in this (very blury, taken-with-my-phone) picture:

{They are partially covered with one of those cheesy plastic cord "hiders," but you get the point}

Since we will be having a birthday party (!!) in a few days with several people at our house, I decided now was the perfect time to do something with those hideous cords, since I knew we wouldn't be running out to throw some money down on new furniture just for this occasion (although we did do some other major things, like plant a few trees, get a truckbed load of mulch, etc..:)..more on that later). I am sure my husband appreciates this.

I didn't get a shot of the wall before he took the tv down (he didn't warn me before he did it) - but here are a couple "befores:"

Then out came the drill and the hole saw and 5 minutes later we were in business. Why did we stare at this mass o'wall cords for 21 months when this project took 5 minutes to do? We will never know, but I am very happy it's done. We're ready to party, Levi!

Remember when I mentioned my philosophy on furniture to you? This little drop-leaf table is one my grandma gave me when I moved into my first apartment in college. It was my dining table.

Project Post 9: Old Porch Post Ledge

It all started with this ledge that Pottery Barn debuted about a year ago in their catalog.

Here she is in all her glory:

{Image via}

{Image via}

From the moment I saw it I knew two things: 1) This is what I wanted for our large empty wall in the living room to be a focal point and display family photographs, and 2) I would not be paying $400 for it. Since that time, Pottery Barn has come out with a few more similar ledges (pictured below) and I have been brainstorming about what to find/buy/build/make to achieve the same level of satisfaction, purpose, and happiness that I was sure the PB ledge would deliver.

{Other Pottery Barn ledges - above images via}

When we took our mini-vacation to Canton, this was one of the two major things I was looking for (the other being our coffee table). No, I didn't expect to find anything exactly like this during our 7-mile trek around First Monday, but I did expect to walk away with at least some sort of inspiration for the project.

On our second day there, it was actually Tyler who found what we ended up buying to make our ledge. We walked past a vendor who had just a bunch of neat old junk and a big fan (it was 110 degrees and every time we stopped, we propped Levi up in front of a fan), and he also had a bunch of old iron porch posts - the kind you see on a lot of older houses (at least here in Oklahoma you do). There were a lot of neat-looking ones in all different colors, but most of them were too heavy for us to carry back to the trailer, which meant they were too heavy to screw to the wall and hold anything up, too. So back to the idea - it was Tyler's idea to buy one of these posts, turn it horizontal on the wall and put a thick piece of wood across the top of it (where the post almost acts like shelf brackets). I pictured his vision and loved it..although what we ended up with is probably different than what he originally intended. For example: he probably meant for us to use a 2x12 for the wood and in my head I was thinking like a 6" chunk of cedar used for a mantle (I won). Here are some pictures to document the project (there were several steps involved and we took our time, stretching the project out over a few months):



{Porch post, before Tyler cut it down}

{We cut the post and wood down (they were too long for the wall)}

{Just getting an idea of what it'll look like once assembled and hung}

{The sanding, staining, and sealing were my jobs - this is mid-sanding}

{After it was sanded, I brought it inside and vacuumed it}

{Here she is, all prepped and ready for staining}

{I used Minwax stain in Dark Walnut, after seeing them use this color on a project at Young House Love}

{After staining, I sanded down the edges and a few spots}

{Sanding to "weather" the edges a little}

{Next step - I applied a coat of satin polyurethane}

{After the coat of polyurethane}

At this point, the piece of wood was exactly like I wanted it. It was beautiful. Next, Tyler hung the post part on the wall, then he placed the wood on top and screwed it to the post. For added safety, he used some of the iron "scroll" left from the part of the post we didn't use for added bracing, acting like brackets. You'll see them in the finished photos below. I LOVE how it turned out. Here is the big reveal:

{Notice the extra scrolls we used as brackets}

{There are a couple of spots on the wall we'll have to hit with touch-up paint, just act like you can't see that!}



{Close-up of the post - again, ignore the spot we nicked}



There you have it! Everything "on" the ledge is stuff we already had. It will get changed out from time to time...and since we don't have a fireplace, this might act as our mantle for Christmas stockings.