Tag Archives: DIY

I Married Superman

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Last night I emailed the image below from Target, to my husband John.

Some of you may remember that our original building plans for the the extension also included adding an en-suite bath for the master bedroom.

In the beginning

Adding the bath meant that we had to steal a few feet from the master bedroom for a corridor leading to my space. Along with the extension, the master bedroom got a new look as well and part of that involved new bedroom furniture. While we did not have to do such a major renovation or build out, this space has gone through a fair amount of change as well. Part of that change involved redecorating. We are down to just one or two changes in the master before it’s complete and the bedside tables are a topic of conversation lately.

Since John is so good with building things, we have talked about how he might build the bedside tables and occasionally, as I have about 599 times over the last nine months, I’ve emailed him examples of things I like from the internet. Some of my favorite resource sites during the renovation have been places like, Young House Love, Design Sponge, and the always inspiring, Poppytalk. In addition, Design Therapy, Bloom Studio, and Apartment Therapy gave me tons of ideas as I was planning my space.

Last night as John was checking his email, I heard him say, ‘You must be joking!’ I knew when I heard him that he was talking about the bedside table and went to his study in time to hear him say, ‘I can’t make that!’ Of course, I had not really expected him to make it, but was only sending him another in a long series of images that had caught my eye.

Now to fully explain the title for this post … a few weeks ago, John ordered a pulley with the intention of hauling a five and half foot unvented hot water tank up into the attic (loft) to provide hot water to the two new en-suites. When he suggested that he and I could lift it up through the smallish opening for the attic space using the pulley, I thought to myself that it might be a difficult task, but being my father’s daughter and having never shirked from heavy lifting, I thought we would manage, especially when John said our next door neighbor would help if necessary.

A few days after that conversation, I came down the corridor from my studio and noticed the attic door was open and the pull-down stairs pushed way back out of the way. When I saw that I knew immediately that something was up and up it certainly was. It seems while I had busied myself with something out of hearing range, the pulley had been delivered and John had used it to hoist the cumbersome tank all by himself. I was both shocked and impressed to find I had been living all this time with … Superman! That man continues to amaze me.

The Real Worker Bee

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Now while I would never think of John as just a worker bee, (which would make me the queen, right) he is definitely the one who makes things happen here. As an example, do you see those hats on the wall … last Saturday I said quite casually, ” What do you think about a long wooden strip here with pegs to display my special hats from home ? ”  A few hours later, I was putting three generations of my family hats on a lovely hat rack made by a man who makes me feel like all I need do is ask.

I loved hearing about your projects yesterday and would like to do a post with links to your blog or include a photograph of your projects here at GOTJ. You decide, but I think it would be fun to have a community Show & Tell page. If you’re interested, leave me a comment below and I’ll be in touch.

Believing Can Make It So

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The Before Picture

This chair belonged to John’s parents. He inherited it after they died and has had it for about 13 of its 25 years. The chair does not really go with the living room as it exists now and John would tell you that he has never been in love with it. In fact, we tried to give it away to his niece Liz and her partner Tom when they decided to move in together, but they politely declined citing lack of space. They are in their mid twenties and I think perhaps having something that looked like a ” grandma chair ” was not what they had in mind for their first place together. Since John didn’t mind the idea of giving it away, he was also okay with me using it in my new space.

Feeling that my new studio needed more than just the daybed or desk chair for sitting, I decided to update the chair and make it a bit more funky. It had a faded polyester velveteen fabric that was a rusty, orangey-red color and several people pointed out that it fit the color scheme for my space. I felt like it needed reupholstering so I set out to make it happen. As is my way, I believed it was possible to do it myself.

It sat in the living room for a while with my fabric choice, a lime colored shade of green draped over it, and later in my developing space as it was being finished. When friends and family stopped by to have a look at our renovation/extension progress, they would see the chair and I always mentioned that I was planning to reupholster it for my studio.

I cannot tell you how many people said, ” Oh, you know how to reupholster furniture …” or something similar. Well, I did not know how to do it having never done it before, but like many things, I never assumed for one minute that it was beyond my ability. My response to those who asked was usually, ” No I haven’t, but I can work it out.”

I did consider that being a tufted chair would make it a bit more difficult, but the hardest part was taking the old tacks and staples out. After John watched me digging and yanking staples for several nights in a row, he encouraged me to give it away thinking it was too much bother. Suggesting that I quit in the middle of a difficult project only motivates me more. It’s like one child saying, ” Go on, I dare you …” to another child.

He walked into my studio space last night to find me hard at work on my chair and after seeing the tufting, said with some surprise how good he thought it was looking. My goal in sharing this story is two fold, one is my excitement in working it out for myself and the other is to encourage others to take a chance on trying new things even if you don’t know how it’s done. I think believing you can do it will often carry you along while sorting out the details of how to do it.

My ” new ” chair is almost complete and I will be back in a few days with some photographs that show the steps I went through as well as the finished product.

I would love for you to share an example of something you did that people questioned was possible or perhaps a project you have been considering.

You Say – We Say

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England and America are two countries separated by a common language.

~ George Bernard Shaw

I’m sure everyone has heard the expression, ” You say to-may-to, we say ta-mah-to.” Here in the UK, it is still almost a daily event for me to have a bit of word wrangling with John over how different words may be pronounced. It’s interesting how we can be referring to the same thing, but saying it in different ways leaving room for confusion at times.

We just work it out generally, but there are times when it’s too funny not to share. One example that still makes me smile was when John and I were watching his granddaughter, Jersey Girl (JG) while her parents were away for a few days in Spain. Right before they were expected home from their trip, I called out to JG from the kitchen and asked her to please pick up the living room as her parents would be home soon. What I heard back was, “Pardon?” a word that had become a frequent refrain over the previous days whenever she was having trouble with my accent, pronunciation or phrase usage. A moment passed and then I heard her say, ” Do you want me to tidy up my toys? ” and I was reminded once again of all the ways we may speak the same language, but say things that have very different meanings.

Another example occurred when John came to see me in America. We went to Home Depot, a DIY store in midtown Atlanta because we were working on a few home repair projects while he was in town. The midtown Home Depot has a large customer base in the gay community and is generally pretty busy with lots of people around to help you if you need assistance. After searching on our own for what we needed, I began to look around for a salesperson to help us. Having absolutely no success with this I muttered something along the lines of…” not being able to find someone when you need them, ” to which John said in frustrated voice,” That’s because they’re all outside having a fag! ” My immediate response besides my eyebrows arching to the ceiling was to say very quickly, ” Shhh, you cannot say that here!” Of course, he meant that all the sales people were outside having a cigarette, but still….

Another adjustment was one that I had to work out over the phone during the early stages of our initially long distance relationship when John spoke about his granddaughter pulling faces.  I remember thinking, pulling faces… and visualizing what this might look like. It took a bit more conversation to discern that he meant making faces as in silly, funny ones. JG is a champion face puller having done so since before she could speak so that now if you even point a camera in her direction you may get a series of photographs that look like the ones below.

These were taken from a distance in low light and then enlarged so the quality is not the best, but you’ll get a good sense of what I’m talking about when you see them. Also, you should know that I had no idea that she was creating a different look for each shot as my completely unaware expression indicates.

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The last two faces are my favorite funny ones that she “pulls.”  In case you’re wondering how JG learned to make such interesting looks for photographs, the one below is her mother practicing for the day when she’d need to teach her own daughter how to get a laugh with just a look.

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