Sunday sharing!

This weekend is beautiful in Austin and that means outdoor projects. 

We've been very excited to start a deck project out back and as always with the Walkers, well David, that means a DIY project. Why hire someone to do the work when you've got all the tools to do it yourself?

Currently our back patio consists of a  concrete pad immediately adjacent to the house but with very little sprawl to allow for a dining table or just space to be. And also we have a lot of trees and the grass immediately next to the concrete just doesn't grow. So there is typically a lot of mud. 

This is the before. 

David is in the beginning stages of pouring the footings. Hence the forms. And concrete is being poured today.  The footings will be the structure that will make the deck nice and sturdy. 

Work in progress. 

Bowie as spectator. 

Bowie burying his chewy under a footing. He's a regular little mobster. 

And here's a belly bump pic for the week. 33 weeks. 7 more to go. 

Happy weekend projects to you all!

three funny pregnant moments, just today

These all happened today, and I had to share.  Enjoy.

1.  I went to Lowes instead of Home Depot JUST because the restrooms at Lowes are closer to the entrance.

2.  The shoe department employee at Nordstrom had to buckle the strap on the sandals I was trying on.

3.  I made a separate trip to the gas station after the grocery store to buy beer for David, because there are less people to judge me.  But I really don't care.        But I do.

Think of what happens weekly in my life.

Happy Sunday!
xo

Kitchen Office & Nail Head Tack Board How-To

When we re-arranged our guest bedrooms to make room for baby Ellery, we lost our office.  Granted, we could have crammed a desk into the guest bedroom, but I'm not a fan of cramming.  And I like having a dedicated guest bedroom.

So, one night David and I were brainstorming as we often do, and he offered up putting a desk, a furniture piece, in our kitchen where our bar used to be.  Well then that brought up the discussion of where our bar would go, obviously.  But after some thinking and re-situating, we found the solution.

Move the bar to another area in our living room.  We have the perfect place.  And instead of a furniture piece to be our desk, make a cabinet style kitchen desk.  David put the plan into action, finding a great cabinet maker to make the cabinets, and then had them painted, and we installed ourselves.

This was the before.

And this is the after!



The paint is the same as what is at the fireplace wall paneling.  (The wood cabinet manufacturer from our kitchen went out of business, so that wasn't an option.)

The worksurface is from Ikea, butcher block, cut down and sanded.  We cut the worksurface down to only about 20" instead of 24" or even 30".  We just don't have the depth there because our kitchen table is right behind this chair.  But overall, this depth works great and is all we need.

Our personal file folders are in the bottom drawers and we can stash SO MUCH STUFF in the cabinets and drawers.

The cubby holes are great for bills, sorting tax stuff, and just odds and ends papers that we would like handy.

The tack surface was a definite must.  1} Because we had to move the light switch to accommodate the upper cabinets, and in David's doing so we had some patches we didn't want to have to spend the time to make look perfect.  2}  It just finishes it all off  3}  Its super handy and organizes the things that we want to be able to reference all the time.

The undercabinet light was a surprise add by David and it looks very "hot" in this picture, but gives a nice warm glow to that area.

Here's how I made the NAIL HEAD TACK SURFACE

{MATERIALS]

- Homosote type material from Lowes (cut to your specific size)

  (Its really an insulation type material, black in color, and comes in 4' x 8' sheets and is located in the lumber area, specifically insulation aisle.  Costs about $10 per sheet, and if you are super nice to one of the employees, they will cut it down to size for you!)

- staple gun

- thin felt lining fabric (to give a little padding and hide the black color of the material behind your fabric)

- your preferred fabric

- nail heads (all kinds of finishes and sizes, and can be purchased from JoAnns or fabric stores)

- hammer

- ruler/pencil

{HOW TO}

1.  With the cut to size insulation material ready, we covered it with the felt first, then the fabric, making sure that we were pulling all sides even, etc.  David helped with this.  Much faster and probably more effective if you have 2 people participate in this step.

2.  Then, I used a ruler to make a light pencil line, the thickness of the ruler, from the edge.  (Using the ruler as a straight edge guide was much easier than marking off exactly 1" or 2" from the edge.)

3.  Then from each edge I started marking off 1/2" dots with a pen.  I had to test out this spacing with my 3/8" nail heads first.

It looks like a lot of nailheads, and it was, but once you get the rhythm, it goes fast.  Any angle or slight misplacement off that 1/2" mark will make a bigger difference to your eye than you'd imagine, so attention to detail is key.  But the fabric we used (linen) was very forgiving.  And sometimes you had to just guide the nailhead into "straight" with your other hand as you hammered.  But like I said, after a while, you get the hang of it.



So that's it!  Our newest project to make our home ever more efficient and refined.

Soon to be posted to the blog, professional photos of our house.  Yes!  We have some new adventures under our wings as of the beginning of the year, and we needed some professional photos of some of our work.  More to come on that.

Have a great weekend and a great Superbowl Sunday!