In My Spare Time

i found this website on another blog. http://knockoffwood.blogspot.com/ is totally amazing! i love looking through all the plans and imagining what they would look like in my house. so with all this extra time on my hands i decided to build something. the only problem is i don't really have any tools. so i bought a circular saw. i know, what was i thinking? it's a pretty powerful tool and can do some serious damage to wood and me. it freaks me out. i always heard "measure twice, cut once". well, i measured like 4 times and cut once. i cut wrong. a lot. i figured a little bit here and there wouldn't make a huge difference right? wrong. i will be getting my wood cut for me in the future.

here is most of my lumber. still some trim to go.


so, i live in an apartment. not a tiny one but definitely not one with building room in it. so after josh left my kitchen turned into my "shop". it was very stressful. it turns out there are many other little tools i needed to make the job easier. like clamps to hold the wood while i glued and hammered. i was definitely working up a sweat. i started at 9:30am with a therapist coming at 11:30. plenty of time right? not with a baby crawling all over your construction area. there was a lot of yelling and one very black and blue finger. i have never blackened a finger before and am still not sure how i did it with only 6 inches of hammer space but what can i say, I'm gifted. it got a little tricky to hold the nails with my hurt finger but there was no way i was stopping. part of the way through josh called. em wasn't happy that i was talking to him and crawled over and puked right on my bookshelf! on purpose. she looked right at me after as if to say "that will teach you"! i finished the bare bones construction just as the therapist arrived.

here it is raw.


they i started to cry a little. it looked horrible and was even more rickety. i had just wasted some much time and money on a bookshelf that was supposed to be better then one i could get cheap at the store and i had failed. luckily ii was to weak to do what i wanted to with it (which was pound it into a million little pieces). after letting it sit for a while i had another look. i guess it was because of the glue setting and such but it is a lot more sturdy now. i also met my best friend. wood filler. i was able to fill in the 1/4 inches here and there where my cutting skills lacked. after a little sanding i felt a lot better.


i decided to let Isa pick the paint since it was her bookshelf. little did i know she had such...interesting taste in paint. after several break downs on both out parts we settled on these colors. I'm not sure if you can tell but the shelves and side are "Ariel's Song" and the trim is "Underwater Dance". cute if i do say so myself. i couldn't paint with em around so after the girls went to bed i painted up a storm. it needed two coats so it took a while. totally worth it when i saw Isa's excitement this morning. she told me i could put it in her room and put the books on it but that "she had some ideas of her own for decorating it".







i have enough lumber for one for em too but i have to let my finger heal first. i hate leaving projects half finished but one is about all i can handle right now.