Bed of Storage

The first month we lived in our home, Alex built a king-sized bed frame for our room. We had decided to downsize during the move, using our previous bed in the guest room and buying a king bed for our room to accommodate two cats and a dog.  (Little did we know, the occupants would soon include another 40 pound girl!)  For reference, the mattress was from Tuft & Needle, and we have loved it - although I think my hip issues may have escalated with my side sleeping on the extremely soft surface!

This worked well, but as we settled in, we realized that more storage would be needed. I went through several design options with my shop supervisor and we decided on a simple pair of frames with deep drawers.

Using 3/4" plywood cut into ~24" widths at the lumberyard (two from each 4x8 sheet of plywood), we cut two boards to length for each side of our bed, then three dividers and two ends from ~16" widths (three from each sheet). We used L brackets to hold the frames together and to support each of the interior dividers. These guys were heavy just as boards, so when the frames were built, they were solid. They lived in the "walkway" of our room for about a week while we plotted the next step.

The support system Alex had built on the original bed included a 2x4 frame, similar to an interior wall.  The 2x4s were covered by 1x8 boards, and the legs were made out of additional appearance boards of narrower widths.  We decided to reuse some of the previous materials in building the frame for the center of the drawers.  Two of the boards were cut down to the length of the frame and anchored to the backs of the dividers and end frames, ~ 1-1/2" below the top surface.  Additional boards were cut down to the right length for our mattress to fit across on top of the "slats" resting on the ledger boards.  At the head and foot, the slats were secured into the two sides for safety.

This was also the day we started painting our room! It only made sense for the bed to be pulled out from the wall before assembly, and we took this opportunity to clean really well behind the headboard as we were not clear how easily we would be able to remove it. Thus far, that has not been my burning desire.  We finished the painting the following weekend, and it has been one of our favorite decisions so far in this home.








We found that the drawer frames could be used as cubbies while the drawers and trim pieces were addressed.  Andy and I cut down some underlayment, previously used on the slatted frame, to use as backing for the drawer cubbies, and I crawled under and hammered them in.

This winter when we pulled out our warmer clothes and outerwear, I strategized putting summer things away under the bed as we only need to access those twice a year for the changeover and it should be as easy as possible instead of my ear warmers being MIA into November...  The clear bins we use for clothing storage fit under the bed with a little breathing room, and I also stashed our summer comforter and pillows in space bags there as well near the opening for easier access.

Resaling!

So, if you know us, you know I don't like to pay much for things.  Which is a bummer, because we also like things that are nice! What is a girl to do?

She's going to scour the internet and her surroundings for the best quality she can find, and only occasionally shell out for fancy stuff.  Also, she's going to marry up.  Kidding! Alex was doing ok but not a fancy man when we met and got situated.  I assure you, can show some photos of his clothing choices.

Anyways, this place does not have great storage for entertaining, linens, multiple seasons of clothing to suit winters of -40 and summers of 90+ humidity, so we've been getting creative. After a lunch with some of the best ladies in town, I wandered on further out to a mythical resale shop espoused by Kim and Scott of Yellow Brick Home, Jubilee.  No, I didn't take Alex. Then, he would have to tell me no in person (worse for him) and would also have the ability to tell me no (worse for me). And would have taken up a whole seat in the car!

I was on the hunt for a hutch for the dining room, to help in storing serving pieces and glassware.  Our wall shelves are great, but I'm not sold on storing our wedding flutes, antique wine glasses, and just generally anything we need to drink from on a shelf that is suspended in air and has not passed its trial period yet.  I found a number, and emailed my aunt at her work address to show the photos.  RE: IMPORTANT!  She must be ready to commit me.

Anyways, I narrowed it down to things that would fit on a specific wall, and that were tall or very tall.  One of my only tried and true tips: the taller the better, for storage in small spaces.  After a lot of back and forth with my aunt for advice and Alex for final say, I came away with way more than the hutch.  Whoops!

The other things were all of good use: a wooden stepstool that I am currently refinishing to dedicate for use in our closet/for Ny to get up on the bed, two rocking arm chairs that we have been trying to figure out the future of (so comfy!!), and a sleeper sofa that was a bust space wise but worked out for our friend Andy.  However, 3 out of 4, or 4 out of 5, is not a bad success rate.  The chairs have been living in the back two feet of our garage space since March, but we'll figure it out eventually.

When it came home, I was excited like a small child with a new toy, and we immediately dismantled our older oak hutch to move elsewhere.  I cleaned out the drawers and all of the interior surfaces with a quick furniture polish - it was in such good shape, no refinishing was required.

We moved it to the intended wall, where it fit almost perfectly, because I had finally wised up and took measurements during shopping! I lined the drawers and loaded it up with our wine glasses, table linens, and dish towels immediately. The lower cabinet doors became a home for our canned foods from last summer - so much room!

We did choose to do a couple of things to tune the hutch up.  First, the upper cabinet was missing the glass shelves within the side cabinets.  I made a cardboard template to get the exact measurements for the unique trapezoidal shape, and Ny and I took it to our favorite, Kim's Clarendon Hardware.

John had the glass cut within the day, and at ~$12 for the glass and cuts, this added four additional shelves of space for wine glasses, etc.  We also picked up two bulbs of the correct size at Kim's as they had a special base, and found out that the lights in the upper cabinet were actually on a dimmer - so fancy!







I wanted to love the hutch in its original state, so much - but the hardware finally got to me and I took to the internet.  We did like the golden tone of the original with the red undertones in its wood, so opted for a deep bronze to replace the drawer pulls and cabinet handles.

As the drawer pulls were spaced 3", it was easiest to just choose a style in that size.  Ultimately, we ended up back at Amazon for these Lombard Franklin Brass pulls, which were listed as ten for $17, and added onto our next order.  We loved the first package in person, so went ahead and ordered a second set of ten and yet another for an upcoming project.

Bano!

If you give a girl license to paint a cabinet, she will notice and redo the caulk in the room, then move forward on the wall color, and fixtures, and..... Bam! Presto chango!

Mr Alex and I considered a number of paint colors for our bathroom - exhibited in the mirror, here.  We knew it only really had to suit us, and that the brushed nickel fixtures hanging around were not our favorite things, but not the worst option available in the world.  We also determined that a tall slim towel cabinet was not a longterm solution, and that the bathroom wall cabinet was not in the best location.  This is fine, I had just thrown it up there when we moved in so things would have a home, and knew it wouldn't live there forever.

So, I took the cabinet down, stored it in the living room (classy!), and had things everywhere.  That's how we knew it needed to go back up.  While Alex was away seeing his other wife in Austin (aka business travel), I took to the walls.  I removed the fixtures, all hung with anchors of varying types (including a pair intended for concrete? that held up a four-inch glass shelf), cleaned the walls, slapped up some patches and painted our bath.  We chose Sherwin Williams Spa, in Behr Paint and Primer in semi-gloss, and it is gorgeous in our well-lit, small bath.  In bright light, it's a cheerful blue, but in low light and the evening it's more sea-colored. The teal is a perfect complement to our subway shower, as well as our Sea Salt cabinet, and closely related to the ceramic knobs we added. Basically, as close to one of those beachy bathrooms as one can get, without adding seashells because we have real things to store in here.

I was able to pull this off in an afternoon, as this type of Behr can be recoated in two hours.  I rolled most of the wall space, let it dry and stuck the paint tray and roller in the fridge, then painted the trim with a sweet little Wooster shortcut brush (fantastic for ladies with small hands) and rerolled at the two hour mark.  I did recoat the trim above the shower so we could resume normal life activities, but left the rest for when we know what is going on in here, someday, someday, someday...

Alex tested out his new tool belt while rehanging our wall cabinet and fixtures for towels, etc.  He estimated it made him five times faster because he was able to move forward without putting things down and needing to find them again.  The struggle is real.

The remaining plans involve adding shelves for odds and ends, and possibly updating the light fixture to something old and cruddy that should be loved for what it is.  Or something new that serves us better than the builder-grade mirror and round globes even my grandpa thinks are "dorky."  His words, not mine.

Dining and office updates

During the planning phase of the kitchen refresh, we tested out a number of colors.  I usually do some narrowing of the field, then Alex looks things over and we discuss and I harass family members for help etc. These six samples were the result of two rounds of sample acquisition and I am so glad we took the time to live with them a bit before taking the plunges.

Alex was kind enough to stop at HD for the paint and it's been kind of hanging out around our place since September, to be honest.  We chose the middle of the top row for the kitchen, and the far left of the lower row for the dining room and potentially other areas.  I put up swatches of the two around the rooms we thought might coordinate, and we decided that the dining room and office could both be yellow to help them feel larger and keep us energized.

We decided to add some wall shelving and to downsize furniture wise in both of these rooms, and plotted out a course of attack.  We had a lovely baker's rack in the dining room that held plants, teas, and serving dishes, but it took up over 16 inches of floor space depth wise, and was 3 feet long.  Our dining table is non-negotiable in this room, and hutch holds our wine glasses, adult beverages, and heavy jars of canned foods, so we decided the rack was the best option to leave.  Craigslist turned up no buyer, so it was picked up by the kind folks at the Brown Elephant, a resale shop we love (ok, Jenn loves, Alex cringes when he is drug into) that benefits a great medical group.

The office contained a desk our movers called "Big Bertha" and took all four seriously strong men to move it.  I loved it for storage capacity, but finally had to admit there was just not room for it in our 11X12 office that serves as Nyobi's entrance and contains the exterior door as well as access to the furnace in our utility space and our fuse box is in the middle of a wall. I would spend hours organizing the workspace, only to find it buried a day or two later and we just couldn't justify the space occupied (44 inches wide, 24 deep) for how little it was being used.  We had some wall-mountable cabinets stacked on top of the desk and decided to pull the trigger and hang them with the exit of the desk.

I list these kind of related projects together because this is really what Alex has to work with.  I insisted we do all of these basically at the same time, my brain insisted we paint the walls before hanging these new shelving options, but we had to dispose of the desk before that could happen.  We spent several hours disassembling drawer mounts for potential reuse, and smaller subsections from the large frame.  We had also ordered a really cool little circular saw for small cutting jobs, and it made short work of cutting some of the non-cutting surfaces, and made friends with our beautiful shop vac.  After these pieces were removed, we stacked up the pieces on our deck, hillbilly style, and got to work prepping for paint.

To the left is the first wall in our dining room - without anything else going on it is BRIGHT and sunny in daylight.  The baker's rack had been living in the corner next to the window for reference.  The two photos to the right are of the office (at night), obviously the curtains will be changed out and we have some additional plans for the middle of the room that don't involve the remnants of a desk Alex describes as having been "constructed through use of occult forces." 







A lot more has been happening, but this is the kind of non-exciting, unglamorous preparation that goes into our decisions and we wanted to put it out there that our place is often in disarray while we work on things.  Painting is not high on Alex's list of fun activities, but it is such a game-changer on space and we are on a mission to get the lame flipper gray out of here and on with our lives.