DIY Dog Water & Food Dish Stand

Hello!

Since my last post was for the cat people, I decided it was time to share one for the dogs.

Something we have discovered with four dogs (!) is that we need large dog dishes for water and food. Otherwise we find ourselves refilling them every couple of hours. Nobody got time for that! We also found out early on that they like to dump their water dish all over the floor. Which is especially problematic with a little one that thinks it's really cool to spread wet foot prints throughout the house. (Okay...they are really cute wet foot prints) A stand/holder for the dishes is a must.

However, they don't make stands for large dishes. About 10 years ago, my husband made a stand for our large dishes, but that was starting to look pretty darn rough. It was time for an update. I decided I wanted something that was open on the bottom so we could clean up any water drips. I also wanted something that looked nice. It was a pretty easy process to make this stand, so read on, grab a couple of supplies and get it done!

Supplies

Piece of plywood (Long and wide enough for both dishes to fit. Most home improvement stores have pre-cut wood so you don't have to buy a large piece of wood if transportation or cutting is an issue)

Table saw/circular saw (to cut the wood to length as needed)

Jig Saw (A jig saw with the ability to do some scroll sawing is helpful because you can adjust your angle as you go along)

Drill & Drill Bit (The big should be big enough that the jig saw blade can fit through the hole)

Sandpaper

Table Legs

Stain or Paint

Sealing Layer (Polyurethane)

Dog Food/Water Dishes

Directions

1. Cut Wood to Length

The first thing was getting the piece of wood a correct length. You will want a couple of inches around the dishes so you don't compromise the wood as you cut the circles.

2. Trace and Cut Circles

Once you have the wood cut to the correct length, you will need to flip the dishes over to trace around the lip of the dishes. Once you have traced around the dishes, you will need to account for the lip. Make a second circle within the larger circle to make a smaller hole so the dish will be held up. Erase the larger circle to avoid confusion.

To cut the circles, first drill a hole on the smaller circle towards the inside. This hole needs to be big enough that a jig saw blade can fit within the hole. Cut on the line in a circle. You may need to take it slow in order to make the curves. Repeat with the second hole.

3. Sand

Use some sandpaper to sand off the rough edges around the circle you cut out. Also sand down the rest of the board so it's smooth and ready for finishing. You can also use the sandpaper to round any sharp edges.

4. Stain or Paint and Seal

You can stain or paint the board/legs (which ever is your preference). Once you are done, you will need to seal the board and legs several times over. This surface is going to get some major moisture either from drool or water. Follow the directions on the label which usually includes a light sanding between layers.

5. Attach Legs

Using the appropriate hardware (the package will indicate what hardware to purchase) to attach the legs you purchased to the board. You're done!

DIY Couch Cushion Fix

Long time, no talk huh? Life has been crazy especially with cold and flu season upon us. I feel like I’m one more sick kid away from making my children leave the house in hazmat suits with a Purell shower waiting at home. 

Anyways, all those sick kids made it woefully apparently our couch wasn’t equipped for long days watching Netflix. Some background on our furniture. We bought a couch and two accent chairs from a local furniture shop about three years ago. The couch and one chair are the “Best Furniture” brand and the other chair is a “Pallister” This post has nothing to do with the Pallister chair. That thing looks amazing apart from cat induced thread pulling. (Cats are dicks) 

However, the other chair and couch did not fair as well in our home. After about a month of owning them, the cushions looked all sorts of lopsided. I contacted the local furniture shop and apparently the long time owner had decided to retire, and they were in the middle of some ownership changes. Translation: no one had any advice or offered any solutions to the lopsided cushions. I supposed that’s one downside of locally owned (although I feel like it’s really the exception not the rule).

Flash forward one year later, and the couch has pretty much fallen apart. The springs in the main part of the couch fell out completely. At that new development, I call the the local furniture shop, and they offered to come look at it. They had completed the ownership change and seemed to have their act (kinda) together at this point. So, they came over, flipped the couch over to look at the bottom, and the frame literally fell apart in their hands. They picked up the pieces and took the entire thing with them. 

They ended up completely rebuilding the frame and brought me back a like new couch....except for the cushions. Those pesky cushions were now out of warranty. I decided before we bought a completely new couch, it was worth trying some DIY on the cushions especially with a completely new frame and fairly nice upholstery. 

The fabric covers were in pretty good shape. The spring cores were surrounded by a foam cover which also seemed to be in pretty good shape. Once I opened up the foam cover, it was pretty clear why they were so uncomfortable. (And every single cushion was like this!)

So each spring has a "pocket" holding it in place which are attached with one another to create a grid of sorts. However, the material that was used to make these "pockets" is the same fabric as those $1.00 reusable shopping bags. In what world would that fabric decision make any sense? Some brilliant guy was like, "Hey, let's save some money and make this with fabric that is $0.01 per yard. I'm sure that cheap fabric will do great under high tension from springs." (Imagine that I am rolling my eyes high enough to make myself dizzy)

At this point I had a couple of different options I considered. I could completely scrap the cheap fabric and attempt to make my own pockets from a much higher quality fabric (I was thinking some sort of home dec fabric I had sitting around). I didn't love this option because it would mean extra sewing and I wasn't real confident in my ability to make them look uniform. I could just try to mend the current crap fabric, but I knew that would only last so long. After playing around with everything, I decided to do a hybrid approach. 

The first thing I did was get all those tangled springs back into a pocket. I used some upholstery thread (translation...higher strength) to hand sew each pocket in order to keep the spring in place. I stabbed myself with a needle about 200 times, but I got it done. 

After each spring was in the correct place, I took a heavy duty corduroy fabric I had sitting around to wrap the springs. Good thing about them being inside the cushion is the color and design of the fabric doesn't matter. My thought was this fabric will keep the springs in place by not allowing them to pop out the top nor out the side. So, I saved myself from making a completely new fabric structure, but still had the entire spring form wrapped in much higher quality fabric. 

After I had the spring forms fixed, I had to put them back into the cushion foam structure. I quickly found that the fabric and foam had been stretched far enough out of shape that the spring form wasn't enough to fill the space. I grabbed a bunch of batting and shredded foam to refill around the spring form. I put the batting around the spring form so you wouldn't feel the springs and then used the shredded foam around the sides of the spring form to fill out the cushions. 

Over-all the project wasn't too bad. I only had to buy the batting and foam which was around $50.00. I had the thread and fabric already. It took me about one night of three or so hours of work to get one cushion done. I had four cushions total to fix, so in about a week I had the couch in tip top shape. 

DIY Kids Wall Art

Hello!

Our sweet baby girl is growing like a weed. We were working on the nursery right up to her arrival. We still have a couple of things to finish before I can do a post about the nursery, but there's one special art project I thought I would share separately. 

Right before our son was born, my daughter and I did a similar project (Click here for the post). The concept is pretty simple. You cut out some vinyl. You can do this either with a machine (i.e. a Cricut or a Silhouette), with contact paper and an Exacto knife, or purchase precut letters or a phrase. You put the vinyl either on top of a white canvas or an existing painting. Then you paint on top of the entire surface. When you remove the vinyl letters, you have a burnt out image where the vinyl was. I've done this one other time for a piece of artwork for my daughter's room as well. (Click here for the post) So, this concept certainly isn't new for my blog, but I'm particularly happy with how this version turned out.

This project is perfect for kids because they can be as messy as they like, and you still get something coherent in the end. 

For this project, I used a canvas left over from artwork I used to have in my office. (click here for that post). Before I applied the vinyl, I added some aqua and pink to the painting over the purple sections so the colors showing through would match the room better. 

I cut out the vinyl words using my Silhouette. I applied them to the canvas and then gave my son and daughter paint colors that contrasted well. I told them they could do whatever so long as they covered the entire surface. They used paint brushes, paper towels, and their hands to get the entire thing covered. In my 3 year old son's case, he also painted the entire drop cloth under the painting. 

With the paint still wet, I look the vinyl off with tweezers. If you let the paint dry, there's a chance that vinyl will be stuck to the painting. I did a bit of clean up with a small paintbrush where ever the paint bled under the vinyl.That was an interesting endeavor to find the matching paint colors for such a colorful painting.

The final step was to hand paint some flowers on the canvas. The art was ready for our wildflower inspired nursery. 

 

Gone Junkin': Brookings Junk Jam 2016

Hello!

It's been quiet on the blog lately, because it's been very not quiet at our house! Our baby girl, Hattie, made her appearance last week, so it's been a beautiful mess around here. Not only do we have a new baby in the house, but two kids were starting school too. In fact, my husband had to leave the hospital to take our daughter to her back to school night. So, forgive the tardiness on this post!

Before Hattie made her appearance, I got to attend Junk Jam here in Brookings, South Dakota. There were a ton of fun booths. If you frequent the blog, you know when I lived in Iowa, I used to frequent these type of sales. I was super excited to see one being held so close to our home in South Dakota. There were some local vendors present that I have previously featured on my "Small Buisness Saturday" feature, but there were also some new vendors I have never seen before. Here are three of my favorites.

The event was organized by Funky Junk. They had a great booth with both finished signs and furniture and some untouched vintage finds. I also picked up a new "blessed mama" shirt that fit my pregnant belly. It was a huge hit at the OB office. You can visit Funky Junk's Facebook page by clicking here.

Another booth I am in love with is Dusty Decor by Tamara. Her furniture painting was on point. I loved the colors, and the finish was super professional. I loved LOVED this bench. It was already snagged by another customer, but I did leave with a super cute Fall sign that I'm looking forward to hanging on my front door once the leaves change color. Check out her Facebook page by clicking here.

 The show had a good vibe with food available for purchase and a band playing while you shopped.

The third booth I just loved was by Renewed out of Orange City, Iowa. Their stuff was really unique to a junk sale. There was a good mix of vintage finds, painted/finished furniture and some truly unique automotive themed projects. I just loved the car fronts. I'm thinking one of these would be super cool in my dad's new shop. The mustang front had real working front headlights. Check out their Facebook page by clicking here.

It was a great event, and I hope they hold it again next year!

Ugly House: New Office Reveal

Good Afternoon,

To answer your burning questions, no baby isn't here yet. Also, I have not finished the nursery. However, I did finish my new office area (with much, much help from the husband), so we're getting closer to converting the old office into the nursery. Baby has a schedule induction in a week and a half, so we're going to finish that nursery this weekend!

To give some background, here's my old office after I completed painting, making a new desk, etc. I liked my office quite a lot. There was plenty of room for all my craft stuff and my work related items.

However, to be honest it became the dumping ground of the house. Oh, people are coming over? Grab a laundry basket, pile all the random stuff from around the house and put it in the office. When we started round two of renovations of our upstairs, the office became the storage garage for all the random stuff that we needed to move out of the living room/kitchen/hall closet. So, for a few weeks my office looked like this. It drove me insane.

We had thought about bunking the baby with the sibling of the same sex. After all, my husband roomed with his brother when he was a kid and both of them turned out somewhat okay. The more we thought about it though, the more we realized that especially in the infant stage, we really needed a separate room for all that baby gear. Plus, sleeping babies and crazy loud siblings aren't the greatest mix. I started to think about my different options and decided that creating an office space in a little used play area was the best use of space in our house. The kids never used the area to play. They would just grab toys and take them into their rooms or upstairs. So we downsized the toys, moved around some things and we had a empty(ish) area to build an office.

I have a lot of craft stuff. I use most of it, so I couldn't see myself downsizing my stash too much. (That being said I probably filled over 5 garbage bags when I was moving the stash, so did a fair bit of downsizing) So, having storage options was a must. We also didn't want to break the bank creating the office space since we are in the middle of renovating upstairs. We decided stock cabinets were the best option for my office. So, step 1 was painting the walls of the basement a man cave friendly color, and step two was painting the stock cabinets we picked up at Lowes.

Half of the basement is a family room/man room area for my husband's leather chair and hunting pictures, so I had to pick a color that I liked, meshed with the rest of the house, but still fit in with the wood and leather. My solution for that problem was "Perfect Greige" by Sherwin Williams. I paired with that "Bunglehouse Blue" also from Sherwin Williams for the cabinets. I feel like both colors blend well with his rustic manliness downstairs and my farmhouse feel upstairs.

Using stock cabinets wasn't overly difficult; however, you do quickly realize you get what you pay for. It's worth it to invest in some better screws to reassemble the doors (the ones that come with strip very easily). You will probably need to do quite a bit of sanding to smooth out the rough finish. I removed all the doors and drawers and used my paint sprayer to paint. Then I just painted with a roller on the boxes. During an evening with a two hour tornado warning (!), my husband and I hung all the cabinets.

We priced out getting a regular laminate countertop, but for a bit less, we could make our own. We used plywood as a base and then used poplar in a unique design on top. Once my husband cut all the pieces and wood glued them to the plywood, he sanded the ever living heck out of the top since the pieces didn't all quite sit flush.

Lots of clamps, heavy paint cans and weights to hold down the boards as the glue dried.

Before sanding. You can see the tiny lip that appeared between some pieces.

After sanding everything was nice and level.

I stained the top using "Dark Walnut" from Minwax. We did a very small bit of wood filler in between each board, but I would probably skip that step if I did the project again. The wood filler doesn't take stain well (even the kind that claims you can stain it) so I had to go back through and touch up everywhere that was lighter with some oil based brown paint or more stain.

See that light spot right at the top? That's the wood filler not taking stain.

The final step was a couple coats of Waterlox (just like our countertops, which you can read about here).

I'm quite happy with the final product and it has tons of storage. I organized everything with plastic bins and chalkboard vinyl labels, so I can easily see what I have. My husband rolled his eyes that my office for "work" was 90% cabinets filled with craft supplies. But hey...he's got all that hunting stuff, so I don't feel so bad about my wall of cabinets.