by Amy | May 14, 2013 | Blog, The Art of Projects, the house
Dear Mr. Gorbachev,
I tore down the wall.
So it’s almost 9pm on Monday night and I haven’t had dinner. {Strike one.} And I haven’t seen yesterday’s episode of Mad Men. {Strike two.} I’ll show you progress on the second floor renovation…before I strike out all together.
I had an amazing crew of 5 friends and one visiting mother {a friend’s, not mine}. And one awesome contractor. Together, with professional guidance we tore through my wall and made one nice sized master bedroom. Here’s what I started with:
To clarify, that’s two rooms. One is blue, yes…very blue, I know. We used it as an office. The other room is the “master” bedroom. It’s pink. Pink floor, pink walls. I took this photo from the very corner of the room. I drew in those fancy white arrows to show you what wall was torn out.
Now…if you missed the previous post when I talked about ripping down the closet wall…you should go read that now.
1. Demo started bright and early on Saturday morning. That’s Darell. He’s starting in on the wall with a giant sledge hammer, nbd.
2. My house is old. So, go figure, the wall is old. We we a dirty mess from ripping out all the plaster and lath.
3. I’m very bummed this photo is blurry, but I love it anyway. As you can see, the girls were posing for a photo…leaving the boys to work.
4. Once we tore into the wall, we realized that there was originally a door connecting these two rooms. I just can’t figure out why. If you have any inkling why a doorway would connect a bedroom and a very small room {that had a closet of it’s own at one point}…let me know in the comments.
5. Good bye old closet!
6. Hello new closet!
I was so amazing how quickly we got the wall and debris out. It took about 90 minutes total. I told you I had good help.
This picture cracks me up. At a certain point there really wasn’t anything left for us rookies to help with. So we were pretty much just standing around telling awkward stories while Darell did the skilled work.
So now that all that is done, where does that leave me? Good question. I’m doing a lot of the easier tasks myself. Easier…meaning they don’t take years of industry experience. Not, easy like…easy on the body, un-time-consuming, or won’t make you sweat.
That means I’m piecing in hardwood between the rooms. Putting a thin coat of mortar over the chimney, which became exposed after removing the wall. I’m mudding and texturing all the drywall. Oh, yes and resealing the hardwood floors. And of course, doing the fun jobs like painting, picking finishes, installing a closet organization system and moving all the furniture back in.
Remember. The due date on this whole thing is June 8th. {And I’ll be gone 7 days of that…Florida calls to me…} I really hope I can make it. Who am I kidding…I’m Amy Allender. Of course I’ll make it.
{I hope.}
I’ll keep you posted.
Amy
by Amy | May 9, 2013 | Blog, The Art of Projects, the house
I think we all have an Achilles Heel. Mine is board games. I may have alluded to it a few weeks back when I told you about Mall Madness. Really, though, you have no idea how much I love games. I love them. All of them. Not like, “Oh, I love to have game night.” Every night is a game night. Derek plays games with me all the time. When we first got The Game of Life we left it set up on our table for two weeks. We just kept playing it over and over.
We love games.
And cards. I hate to think about how many decks of cards we own. It’s a collection of its own.
Anyway, I’ve amassed a sweet board game collection. The problem was that all my precious games were hidden away in the back of our coat closet.
And for a collection as sweet as this, the back of the closet just wouldn’t do. So I made a new home for my games.
Back in 2006 my mom’s office was getting new furniture. This bookshelf was given to Derek for his college house for free. Since then it has moved five times and is on it’s last leg. When I took everything out of the office to start renovating, the bookcase was up there. The books are now stashed in the basement until next winter when we finish the basement. Until then I figured I’d either throw this piece of junk away, or pretty it up and try to get another year of use out of it. Being cheap, I did the latter.
After a coat of paint and adding a few extra nail and screws when it started to totally fall apart, I had a new place to stash my games. All of them.
I totaled them up last night. And you won’t believe this. We own 58 games. I could host a game night every week for a year and never play the same thing twice. Yes, they are all fun. Yes, I’ve played them all. They range from the common {Monopoly, Life, Checkers and Chess} to the obscure {Pipeline, Punchline, Hoopla and Picture Picture.} I have vintage games, discontinued games, new games, card games, easy games, hard games, word games, party games. I just love games.
So, just tell me when you want to come over and play.
Amy
by Amy | May 7, 2013 | Blog, The Art of Projects, the house
Have you ever dealt with carpet glue?
Me either until just a few days ago. Now it’s my new arch enemy. I’m vowing here and now never, ever, ever to allow anyone ever, anywhere to use carpet glue in my house. It’s just the worst.
By now you probably know that I’m in the midst of my upstairs renovation. If you missed my intro post, read that here. Things are coming along. But I’ve really hit a road block. You guessed it: Carpet glue.
See, here’s the thing. Our house was built in 1911 and has beautiful hardwood floors. But over the century that has past between then and now those floors have been covered. The downstairs hardwood was unrepairable. {See the brown carpet here.} Pink asbestos backed linoleum stopped us from restoring it. {See the pink here…I’m not even making that up.} Instead we covered it with a fresh update. {See that here.}
The second story held more promise. When Emily and I ripped out the master bedroom carpet we uncovered that beautiful hardwood. The salmon pink {no joke} carpet was held down with a tacking strip around the edge…so it came up swimmingly. The hall was the same. But the office is a different story.
Here’s the office before we took anything out. Yes, very blue, I know. Very soon the wall dividing the office and master bedroom will be gone and I’ll have a bedroom that can actually fit all of my furniture inside. (more…)
by Amy | May 6, 2013 | Blog, Crafts, The Art of Gathering, The Art of Projects
I’m so excited to be showing you some highlights for a baby shower I threw yesterday. Not only was it fun, it was super special because it was a shower for…not one…but two babies! Yes, that’s right, twins!
The best part of any shower {for me at least} is picking the theme. And boy, did I go threw a long brainstorming session before choosing a theme for yesterday’s get-together. I mean, how often do you get to celebrate two babies at once? To make things even more exciting my friend Kim is expecting one of each. A boy and a girl!
After lots of list making, and learning that the nurseries will be decorated in a jungle/monkey theme I decided on “Two Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.” Okay, okay…enough of the chit-chat. Here’s the highlights.
I started with these custom invitations:
Then my awesome-amazing-wonderful friend Emily helped me create a fun afternoon full of monkey business.
1. This was our killer dessert table. I made this Go Bananas banner with scrapbooking paper. The letters were made in Microsoft Word. I drew a gray circle and added each letter within a text box. I printed them from home, cut them out and taped them to the banner.
2. During the shower we split into two teams for a Banana-Grams face off. Each team had to make as many baby themed words as possible in 4 minutes. The team with the fewest letters leftover wins.
3. Emily prepared all the food. We tried to keep the non-dessert foods healthy, so she prepared chicken salad and veggie trays. I hung some quick and easy tissue paper pom poms from my light fixture for a little pazazz.
4. On the dessert side we put together a banana split bar. Complete with all the fixings.
5. Emily made this amazing monkey bread. I’ll be honest. It tasted like I was eating magic.
Guests spent time writing notes to the parents-to-be on diapers…to lighten the mood of those late-night changings. I was so pumped when i found these Luvs with monkeys on them.
Our second game was created by yours truly. On one side was a list of 25 famous pairs. Guests had to fill in the missing half. They ranged from Milk and {Cookies} to Ginger Rogers and {Fred Astaire}. The second list included 10 celebrities. Guests had to choose five that are actually twins. {Did you know that Vin Diesel is a twin?}
It was such a fun day! I cannot thank my partner in crime enough. Isn’t Em just adorable? She’s the best.
Hope you got some good ideas!
Amy
PS–This party is partying at these linky parties.
by Amy | May 3, 2013 | Blog, The Art of Projects, the house
Please, oh please tell me you’ve seen the movie “Fried Green Tomatoes.” It’s a 90’s classic. And you know how I feel about the 90’s. {FIY I love the 90’s.}
For those of you poor suckers who haven’t seen it, I’ll give you a brief…very brief overview. And a tip: Go rent it. It’ll only cost you a dollar.
Iggie Threadgood is a rough and tumble tom-boy living in Alabama in the 1920’s and 30’s. She isn’t ladylike and she has no desire to be. She is courageous and mighty and adventurous. Whenever she does something really brave {like rescuing her BFF from an abusive husband} she yells “Tawanda!” Or “Tawanda, the amazing Amazon woman.” I don’t know the backstory on that, but that’s just what she says. Later in the movie a present day Cathy Bates yells Tawanda while she rams her car into a punks vehicle at the grocery store and when she tears down a wall in her house.
Tawanda!
It’s a very hear-me-roar phrase.
Anyway. As you can see from the photo, I’ve started another project. As I alluded to in my post about the chair and the Gliffy program. This is my biggest undertaking to date. And I’m totally in charge. Which is fun, but stressful and challenging all at once. Ready?
I’m renovating my 2nd floor. What does that entail? Lemme tell you. Removing two walls, expanding the guest room closet, framing a master closet, refinishing hardwood floors, learning to texture plaster, framing a new master closet, framing a new wall…and of course painting and finishes.
I told you it was big. But don’t freak out. I’ve enlisted help. I’ve hired a professional to help me get the big wall down. He’s coming May 11th. And somehow I’ve suckered lots of friends into helping get walls out, carpet up, and debris to the dump. Man, I’m blessed.
The prep is well underway. My sweet, darling, lovely friend Emily has been husbandless this week. Her sweetie was off doing some training. So she volunteered to hang out with me…Tawanda style. Together we’ve ripped out a closet wall and removed nearly all of the carpeting that needs to go. I really should mention that we took that crappy closet wall out mostly with roundhouse kicks. Yep, because we are that awesome.
Our biggest helper is her dog Ellie. {Panda has been hiding in the basement. She doesn’t like dogs or loud noises…it’s been a rough week for her.}
So, things are good. You know it’s been a productive week when trash day looks like this:
I’m calling this demolition therapy. You like? Oh, and I should mention one more thing. I’m on a timeline. My family will be up to PraCan to visit June 8th…so all the work {yes all} needs to be completed by then. Tell me one thing. Amy I totally crazy, or just a little?
Have a great weekend. I hope yours includes less carpet glue remover than mine will.
xoxo Amy
by Amy | May 2, 2013 | Blog, The Art of Projects
This is it! It’s not perfect. Not by a long shot. But I did it and it’s finished. I reupholstered this chair. I learned a few things…and I had a good time doing it. Such a good time, I just might tackle that other chair that is begging for a redo. But that will have to wait until the fall.
Just to remind you…here is the before and after. I’m pretty pleased. It’s not falling apart. It’s fully covered {with fabric from this millennium, no less.} And it’s sooo much more comfortable that it was before. Coming soon…a big long post on how I did it.
Amy
by Amy | Apr 30, 2013 | Blog, The Art of Projects, the house
Remember when I told you about my recent project overlap? Well…both are done. Yes, I am a certified Project Finisher. {I think we should have T-shirts made for all of us who are…} Today I’m showing off my beautiful built-in cabinets. Last week I painted the inside of the cabinets a lovely, poppy teal. I love the added color!
You may know that I’m a bit of a scaredy-cat when it comes to bold color. Inside my house I tend to stick with white, white and more white. Only off set by light subtle neutrals. But this is my summer of adventure, so I went bold. The inside of cabinets is the perfect place for a bold touch. It’s a small space and since it’s enclosed the darkness will help tone it down a bit.
Getting the job done was pretty easy. I primed with the best primer ever: Bulls Eye 1-2-3 Zinsser. You can read my rave about it here. Then I painted. To be honest, the toughest, most time consuming part was taping off all the glass. Remember to use these tips if you take a project like this on yourself.
Now, you wanna know something awesome? Who am I kidding? Of course you do. I painted all the color using only a sample carton from Sherwin-Williams. Which means this makeover only cost me $6!! {Since I had tape and primer on hand.}
If you love the color…it’s SW’s “Intense Teal.”
Now, you really want to see a change? Let’s compare the way the dining room looked when we first moved in….and the way it looks now. It’s so extreme! I simply love it.
Tomorrow I’ll show you how my chair turned out!
by Amy | Apr 29, 2013 | Blog, Devotional, The Art of Faith
I teach the high school Sunday school class at my church. For the past few months we’ve been going through the book of Revelation. A task that was pretty intimidating for me as a leader…since the book itself isn’t exactly a summer beach read. My co-leader, Ben, just finished our last lesson yesterday. A few weeks back, though, I taught a lesson on Chapters 15 and 16. I hadn’t known exactly what to say, or what portion of the text to focus on. But as I studied the words the Holy Spirit took hold of my heart and showed me what to zero in on: Responding to bad times.
If you ask me there is no book of the Bible that describes worse days than Revelation. As my Dad would say, “Sounds like a bad day at the office.”
There are plagues and beasts and wars all over the place. If you haven’t read it in a while, I’ll refresh you. After a short bit the believers are taken away from the Earth, leaving those who have not put their faith in Jesus. Time goes on and things really take a turn. Angels line up with bowls of wrath…ready to be dumped on the world. Yeah, not a good day at the office.
So the wrath starts coming. Boils break out on the skin, salt water turns to blood, fresh water turns to blood, the sun’s heat is unmasked from the Earth making things hot and dangerous.
From the text it seems obvious what is happening. God is working. He is making known His greatness. He is bringing the justice He has long promised. In my mind, the natural thing to do would be submit under the wrath. Acknowledge the Lord and repent. If I didn’t believe in God…you bet your burnt buns that’d get my attention.
But that is not the reaction we see in Revelation. Chapter 16 tells us that the people blaspheme His name. They refuse to repent. Others curse the name of the Lord.
I can just imagine the world…going to hell in a hand basket years from now. Technology that we’ve never dreamed of is in the works, science has come leaps and bounds. And between the two…science and technology, the people of the Earth can explain away everything that is happening. They can blame the water on red algae, the heat on weather patterns. They take these awful hardships with an even stonier heart.
As much as I wish this was true, being a Christian does not mean your life will be sheltered from trouble. There is no easy fix for hardship. Difficult, draining, even tragic moments will crop up in this life and there is nothing we can do to stop all of them from happening. What we can do is control our view of trying times. We can allow tragedy to turn our attention back toward the Lord. Let it soften our hearts. We can trust that evil, awful thing that happen in this life are not always created by God…but they can always be used to glorify Him.
At then end of a day full of hardships we have a few choices to make. The first is whether we choose to grip on tight to the trouble, own it and make it our own…or whether we will turn the hardship over to God with open hands. Knowing that He can spin even the darkest of moments into an opportunity to show His glory.
The second choice kind of wraps its tendrils around the first. We chose how to respond. With anger, lack of faith, and curses toward God, like the folks in Rev. 16…or with a grateful heart and a submissive spirit, allowing even natural disasters to cause us to wonder at the hands of God. If we believe the latter, we can take heart, knowing that we serve a God who is just and merciful to those who love Him. Because at the end of it all, at the end of Revelation, the plagues, the beasts, the hardships…they all had to happen to bring about a greater end: a restored world where nothing will ever separate those who love God from Him again. An Earth where we dwell together with our Savior and hardships no longer exist.
Amy
