Monday, March 14, 2011

The Nook...Semi-Revealed

After 3 weekends of work, the nook is finally done. 

And by that I mean, STRUCTURALLY done.

It is by no means where I want it to be yet.

I haven't decorated the walls.

I haven't finished the pillows.

But we officially have somewhere to sit.

And we officially have somewhere to eat.

Which by Techy's standards would mean that it is done.

Oh to be a man.

And not care about such silly details as decorated walls or pillows.

But I thought I would take this opportunity to show you where we've come from compared to where we are today.


And sorry, but this is as good a before as you are going to get...

A picture of us coloring Easter Eggs 2 years ago.

But to be fair, it hasn't changed much since then....

It needed SOMETHING.

So we started with a little bit of this....


Very carefully, I might add. 

I wanted to be able to reuse the trim....

But then I searched out my own personal stud to help with the heavy labor portions....



And he helped me build some boxes...or you know he built them without me...whatever....



And then he tested them out...


Sometimes he likes to pretend like he's high faluting with his fancy Arby's Christmas Stemware, circa 2004.

But then we had to get some wood to cover the boxes.


Let me just tell you, this dude LOVED us.

It's funny how every Home Depot employee avoids the line at the saw....

Techy's tenacity came in handy, when he followed this guy around until he came and cut our wood for us.

Only to take it home and realize our measurements were ever so slightly off.

Undaunted, we moved ahead covering the boxes.... 


And realized that we have never been so thankful for the fudge factor that trim allows for.


Next we measured our lids and positioned notches to hold the lids on....

Which may or may not have required me to climb in the boxes and mark the corners.



But it was totally worth it, since our lids now fit perfectly, with no shimmying.



Then came sanding, woodfilling, caulking and priming.



Also where I fell in love with wood filler.

A little helpful tip that you are probably well aware of, but that I didn't know until last week....

Wood filler is extremely user friendly, sandable and paintable.

Caulk is totally paintable, but totally not sander friendly. 

Meaning I really only used caulk for corners.

Everything else got a healthy dose of wood filler.

Now back to the action.

Or the non-action.

Because I didn't take ANY pictures of the upholstering process.

But it involved alot of foam, stapling, batting, and every last square inch of the denim fabric that I bought 2 years ago for $2.00 a yard.

Not to mention the buttons I covered. 

Which may or may not have caused a few less-than-choice words to slip out of our mouths when they kept falling apart while we were trying to sew them on.

Yeah.

Techy just LOVED that.


But in the end, they were so totally just what I was looking for! 

Now all that's left is making the pillows, decorating the walls, covering my chairs for the outside edge (high chairs have to go somewhere, ya'll!!!) and hemming up my rug (the binding makes it an inch too long, so that should be fun).

Sorry for the teaser pic, but really, it was all I could get as I was running out the door this morning.

Trust me when I say it turned out better than I could have ever hoped! 

2 comments:

Roberta said...

Great job and you must be so excited to have it almost done ;) Nothing beats custom...especially when you do it yourselves. DH and I built our own island in one our homes and we had such a feeling of accomplishment afterwards. All the great comments we got also helps. Have a great day. Fondly, Roberta

Sarah said...

Another reason why I plan on paying you to decorate my new home. A. mazing.