Projects

A few weeks ago, Wesley heard the term "nesting" and has been using it incessantly ever since.  Before becoming preggo he just called me crazy with all my projects.  Apparently now that I am in my delicate state we have to use a more appropriate term. 

"Nesting" it is. 

I ordered a kit over the internet a few weeks ago.  You know, the mailman delivers several boxes that contain thousands of pieces of wood with incoherent instructions and little pictures to tell you the 427 steps to follow.  You get to build, stain and finish the bookcase according to your desires.  Technically, I think you're supposed to follow the directions until the end, but I figure after the main part is built, you can take some creative license with the rest of the project. 

I ordered two bookshelves and one cabinet to house the television for our living room.  This is one of my many attempts to create more storage in a teeny-tiny house. 

We have brown walls in our house, and I knew the bookcases would also be brown after staining them.  To add a bit of 'pop' (how's that for a technical decorating term?) to the bookshelves I, along with my trusty sidekick, sister E.A., added a tin backsplash type thing.  (I'm sure you can follow that last sentence, right?  Clear as mud.) 

See?  Now it makes total sense with the picture, right?  We went to the kitchen section of our friendly neighborhood hardware store (i.e. drove 1 1/2 hours to find a store big enough to carry this item) and found these plastic sheets of faux tin.  They came in rectangles that were three squares x four squares.  We could trim off excess sections with an exact-o knife.  We laid out the pieces on the thin plywood backing that came in our kit for our dry run to make sure everything was kosher and then spread caulking/adhesive over the back of the 'tin' and front of the plywood and smooshed them together.  We laid them out flat on some sawhorses and let them dry overnight. 

Whala!  Genius, we know.  Actually, not to brag, but I'm pretty proud of how well E.A. and I's 'hey, this works in my head, let's give it a go' project went.  And to answer a common question, yes, there really is texture to those little plastic, tin-looking squares.  They have raises and grooves just like a normal tin tile would.  Again, pretty proud of us.  Sorry, I'll stop gloating in a minute......

I try to work on assembling bits and pieces of these bookshelves and cabinet every evening when I don't have a meeting or other obligation.  It is more time consuming than I was originally anticipating, but I am still quite glad that this is the route we chose to go.  And by 'we' I mean me.  Wesley agreed to whatever would make me shut up the quickest.  Apparently in this 'nesting' phase I seem to drive him up the wall with incessant questions about his opinion on all these projects.  Whoopsidaisies.  I'll try to add more pictures soon.