Crib Skirt and Curtain for Baby's Room
We had a different crib skirt when Allie and Rachel were babies, but it was one of very few things that Buddy has destroyed. I'm not sure why, but he decided to tear it up. I had in mind that I wanted to make a new one, but it wasn't a high priority. One day, we went to Goodwill to look for cheap sheets that we could put up in some of our windows to help decrease our heating bill, and we found a cute sheet that I figured we could use for a crib skirt. I can't remember how much it cost, but I know it wasn't more than $3.00, which is a great price for that amount of fabric.
I kept it pretty simple and just did a straight or flat crib skirt, with the material hanging down on just three sides. I was pretty happy with how it turned out.
I had extra fabric, so I figured I'd make a curtain to match. We had been wanting to put curtains up, but the windows are an odd size and we couldn't find exactly what we wanted. So this was the perfect opportunity. Being my first time making a curtain, I've learned from the experience. It isn't perfect, but I'm happy with it. It will serve its purpose and is still pretty cute.
Thank you, Grandma Terri, for the cute quilt that goes well with all of the different colors.
TV Stand
We got a great deal on a TV on Black Friday 2012. We did not, however, have a TV stand. For the past year, we had just had it on the brick in front of our fireplace. We were nervous to have it that low with our kids, but they did surprising well with leaving it alone. There were a few instances of coloring on it with crayon and touching it, but it never really got hit by anything or knocked down.
We originally figured we'd buy a TV stand off of Amazon. We earn Amazon money through doing surveys and Swagbucks, and we almost had enough to purchase a stand that we liked. Well, it was the design we liked. We didn't love that it wasn't hard wood. Then we learned about the skill that one of our friends has. Sarah is great with woodworking. I talked to her about the possibility of making a TV stand with her help, and she was all for it. We knew that lumber could be expensive, but figured it would end up being about the same price as an MDF piece that we could purchase. We wanted it to be solid, so we planned on making it. We just kept waiting for the right time (in the budget) to purchase lumber. Then we were blessed abundantly.
Jared's work received two LARGE crates that had transported equipment. No one else wanted them, so Jared got to bring them home. We got a lot of lumber for free! I knew it was good lumber, but I was a little skeptical about all of the nail and staple holes that was in the wood. But we figured we'd go ahead with it.
One of the two crates we got from Jared's work
I came up with the basic plans for the TV stand, basing it off of one at Target and plans from Ana White's site. Jared then took those basic plans and drafted up detailed plans for us to use.
We needed some plywood for the top, bottom, and back of the TV stand, and we were blessed again by coming across a listing on Craigslist for free plywood. It was definitely not the prettiest piece, but we figured we'd try to make it work. We still had to buy another piece of plywood and some wood for trim, but our overall cost was dramatically decreased by being blessed with so much free lumber.
You may or may not be able to see how warped the piece of plywood was. Here, our friend and her husband (who is actually seen) were helping us cut it with their table saw.
Before getting too big, I helped with measuring, cutting pieces of wood, sanding, and putting a few pieces of wood together. Our friends became foster parents, which is awesome, so the scheduling of working on our piece became a little bit tricky. We had planned on getting together on a Thursday to finish putting it together, but then they surprised us by bringing the assembled stand to our house on Monday night. I almost got teary from gratitude. My back had really started hurting in the few days prior, and I had wondered how well I would be able to help, but I wanted to get it done. So I truly could not express how grateful I was and still am for the time and work Sarah did to assemble our TV stand.
Having it in our garage, it was now time for finishing it. As I mentioned above, my back was not feeling great. My belly was definitely larger, and I was very uncomfortable. I wanted to be really involved still, but I was also happy that Jared took over and finished the stand. He sanded it all and then prepared it for staining.
We had seen a fire distressed TV stand on Pinterest, and we thought we would incorporate some of the burning effects. Since the top of the stand was plywood, we decided (from the suggestion of our friend's husband, Mike) to burn the edge well so that the bands weren't as plainly visible. We also just did some minor burning along the other edges. Here are some pictures of the burning we did. We used Sarah and Mike's little torch. We really were blessed to be able to use so many of their tools.
After burning the piece, it was ready for the stain. We chose a dark walnut from Minwax. After a few coats of stain, we polyurethaned it, let it dry, and it was ready to go.
The Finished TV Stand
Organizing Girls' Shoes
Everyone knows how quickly kids go through shoes. Well, I had let the shoe situation get a little out of control. I had shoes out that were too small for Rachel, shoes that were too small for Allie and a little too big for Rachel, shoes that were just a little too big for Allie, and of course shoes that were the right size for each of them. Finally, I decided I was going to tackle the problem. It became a project that I started but couldn't finish right away due to a lack of bins. And then the girls decided that the bins were perfect for playing with, emptying shoes from some of them or just putting toys in with shoes. But I eventually got more bins and finished. The bins then promptly went up into a closet so that the girls could not play with them.
Allie wanted a picture with the stack of bins, and of course her baby and kitty had to be in the picture, too.
Refinishing Dresser to Sell
Around the same time, which was near the end of summer, we purchased two used dressers that we figured we could refinish. We considered using one as a TV stand, but ultimately decided against it. It was not solid wood but MDF. It was beat up some, too, so we knew we had some work ahead of us. We got it for $27.00, if I remember right. We forgot to take a before picture, but we were pretty happy with how it turned out. We sanded it down, primed it, painted it, and coated it with polyurethane. We definitely learned as we went, especially about painting furniture. Spray paint is the way to go, at least in our opinion. We also used spray polyurethane. Oh, and we also replaced the hardware. And here is the final piece:
Refinishing Dresser for Girls' Room
The second dresser we got was a true hard or solid wood piece. It needed to be refinished, but we were excited to be able to stain it. Again, we forgot to take a before picture, but below is a picture of the finished piece. We are using it in Allie's and Rachel's room. It is mostly full of Rachel's clothes. Her clothes were previously in the baby's dresser in the baby's room, so once this dresser was done (which was completed only in the first week of January), I could put baby clothes in the dresser in the baby room. Rachel was excited to have her clothes in a "new" dresser.
When taking a picture of the dresser, the girls insisted that I take a picture with toys on it. They then proceeded to put down some ads from the mail with some of their dinosaurs on top. I snapped the picture below, and they were excited to see it.
Upon seeing the picture, they were disappointed that they were not in the picture. So I then got the following picture, which is actually quite cute. You can see the new color of the girls' room, a light purple that Allie picked out. Painting the room was another project that we undertook and accomplished in the last few months.
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