Catch Up

Well, as usual... I suck at posting once school starts!  It's been an interesting year so far.  I have some super sweet students, and some super challenging ones, too.  It's neat to see how much progress so many of them have already made. 

This is my attempt to catch up... you could also call it a camera dump.  Or just a picture dump, since quite a few of the pics are from my phone!  Apologies if the quality is lacking, but I just haven't gotten around to taking any nice photos.  

Over the summer, I moved our DVD cabinet up to the office so it could be with the 2 others that match it (excuse the Chrismtas pic...) and replaced it with this little chest.

It wasn't in the best shape,

but after some sanding, paint, & poly, it fits right in. 

 

 The yellow lamp was a little much on the yellow chest, so I gave it a coat of black spray paint.  I'm not sure I love the black lamp & white shade... so we'll see.  It will probably change.

Before I put the paintbrushes away, I also painted a mirror for the hallway bath (also known as Boston's room).  Mom & I found the mirror at a consignment store; it was originally black.  I tried spray painting it a blue shade, but it just wasn't the right color.

I picked up a sample tub of a color closer to the teal in the shower curtain, and it was much better.  

While on a painting roll, we also painted the interior of the front & side doors black.  They looked fine white,

but I really love the contrast of the black!  

I also made a fun gift for a friend's bridal shower using this awesome flickr collection of letter pics.

It was fun to make and I really liked the result, so I made one for us, too!  It became part of our new hallway gallery wall.

The last project I took on before the school year began was finally making some sort of window treatments for the office.  After lots of thought (like 2 years worth), I finally decided to make cornices/pelmets for both windows.  

I knew I wanted orange & white fabric and finally found some I liked at ufab (best fabric store ever).  After debating how to make the boxes themselves, I finally decided to use purple foam insulation board from Home Depot (I wanted something lighter than wood, but a little more sturdy than foam core, which I've seen quite a few bloggers use with great results).  I love how they turned out (although again, excuse the phone-quality pics).

Right now, we are working on a project that I thought we wouldn't tackle for awhile, but hubby surprised me one day by starting it!

I'm so excited; I always thought it would be the perfect place for a banquette/window seat!  Plus, it will give us a little extra storage, which is always nice.  Stephen added some trim and is working on painting it white.  Now it's my turn to sew the cushion... should be interesting!  It'll definitely be the hardest sewing project I've undertaken so far.  

The plan is to shift the table over (and move the light over as well), 

then add some sort of sideboard or buffet on the right wall for even more storage!  Yay.

So how's that for a crash update!?  It'll do for now.  My plan is to try to post a little more often, even if I have to make them short and sweet.  We'll see how it goes!