86'n It

This is probably the most fun project we've ever done. Plus, completely needed and functional.

To be frank: the girls were ruining our beautiful dining room table. Even with huge placemats, the wiping was taking a toll on the edges and the finish.

My Mother-in-Law gave me a really amazing microfiber table cloth. Messes just bead up on it and it is completely washable. But it is white and SO nice that I didn't want to start using it everyday. Because our table is an odd shape 37" wide by 109" long, getting one in another color would cost me over $60 AND I'd still be washing it at least twice a week.

So I started asking online and searching. People suggested oilcloth and that's when I hit the motherload. A type of oil cloth called Chalk Cloth. It works just like a chalk board, but it is vinyl-impregnated cloth! Wipes up like a dream.

I ordered 4 yards from Fabric.com and with a coupon, it cost me $37.33 including shipping. The funniest thing is you have to "prime" it before you use it. This involved Franca and me in our PJs rolling this whole thing out in the living room and coloring it with chalk. It was a blast.

Coloring the whole thing!

Fun, until I had to clean chalky footprints from the rest of the house!

Chalk outline! (Like how she half-wears her PJs?)

That was great, but not as much fun as Marc and Franca have been having with it actually on the table!

Good times!

Grover, Chewbacca and Yoda.

Cookie Monster & Kermit.

The best thing about it is the color and finish. It's a very nice matte black and shows "patina" just like our counter tops. Pretty perfect match!

Marc finished sorting, purging and moving in his office stuff, so stay tuned for the reveal!

In other news, this is Day One of potty training with the girls. I need a Lysol bath already. Wish me luck.

So while I patiently wait for Marc to finish moving his stuff into the office so I can do that final reveal, I got a bug and decided to makeover my closet.

I have the only walk-in closet in the house and I NEED it. (I don't have a dresser and any other storage.) I *used* to be somewhat of a clothes horse. Here are the nitty-gritty "befores":

Ugh.

Neat shoes and purse hooks above the door!

Room for a small stool to sit on and use to reach the upper things.

AHHH. That's better!

I do still need to get a better system for the belts and scarves that are clogging up that bottom row. Suggestions?

The most astounding thing? I now only own 39 pairs of shoes! Down from a high of +73 pairs.

I think Marc is a little jealous. His closet is a pit and Franca's is pretty horrible. This didn't take me long, so I might be motivated to do their closets an afternoon next week.

The best thing about this all? It was TOTALLY FREE! I didn't buy anything. We had it all in surplus parts and paint. Well, I did have to get a little creative when I realized I didn't have a full size roller and couldn't leave a sleeping Franca to go buy one. Oh well...

<--------this is how we roll. ;)

Marc bought these Enje roller shades from Ikea, oh let's say over 4 years ago. We just put them up in the renovated office. Before I do a full office reveal post (we are *almost* there), I just wanted to share some minor, easy mods I did to the shades.

Lots of really awesome bloggers have used and cut these shades to fit. (Manhattan Nest,  Door Sixteen, The Brick House)  Sadly, the trim on our window doesn't allow us to mount on the inside, so we had to go with the outside mounting. (I hate so much of the dumb trim work on this house!)

Here are two small modifications I did:

The blinds come with these big, ugly warning stickers about the cord being a  strangulation hazard. I was tempted to peel them all off, but after I patiently tried, I decided it would take me over 30 mins to get each off completely. We have 7 windows. I don't have 3.5 hours to spent peeling stickers.

Before - Big ugly sticker. The stickers are located on the bar at the bottom of the shade. This bar is removable. So I just removed the bar and flipped it around. It's not perfect, but the stickers are almost all hidden from view!

After - No sticker!

Along with the warning about the strangulation hazard of the shade cord, Ikea also has a big, ugly piece of plastic that is used to anchor the cord to the wall to prevent a kid from getting their head in there and strangling. Marc thought we didn't need them, but being a worrying mom I didn't want to do without them. I can totally see Franca standing on a piece of furniture to get up there to the cord.

I did not like the look of the big ugly plastic piece though, so on a trip to Home Depot I picked up a package of eyelets for $0.98. I screwed them into the window trim, opened the eyelet slightly to let the cord in and BASTA! cord is contained and not a strangulation hazard!

I finally got busy on the dollhouse and ordered some exterior improvements.

Thank you to the commentor who suggested miniatures.com. That site is the bomb! And thanks also to the one who suggested dollar stores. I tried 2 with no luck. ;(


I ordered a large working double window, 2 small windows, a front door, roof shingles, siding and gutters.

I keep saying "we" when I talk about this project, but then don't let Marc have any input. It is terrible, but I figure I'm the one with the dollhouse-playing experience (or at least experience that I will admit to!). So there.

I started demo tonight. Exciting!

Adulthood: Not always what it is cracked up to be.

Our 4 year old, $600 dryer needed a new $300 main computer board. AGAIN!
(First time was under warranty so we didn't pay for it.)

We would have just had it fixed, but we didn't trust that it would not happen again in 6 months and we would be out the full cost of the dryer. So we decided to just sell it and get a new dumb one. One that more closely resembled a tank.

Here is my rant:  Does everyone else not remember that our parents had the SAME washer and dryer the WHOLE TIME they were growing up? These things used to last 20 years. Now you are lucky to get 5 years.

 I  don't need 50 choices on how to dry my clothes. I don't need my dryer to steam my clothes. (Seriously. What exactly am I doing in my clothes that they need to be fumigated?)  In short, don't need a dryer smarter than I am. 


I need a machine to blow hot air and spin.


No computers. No triple sensors. No flux capacitor (ok, that I made up).
But honestly.
Hot Air + Spin = dry clothes - $300 repair.

So, Franca and I did some post-nap scouting yesterday. We spotted a very alluring $699 Maytag 2000 series fancy-schmancy one at Sears for $399. Oh the lure of the deal.... But no. Stay focused. Tank. I need a tank. None of the other 3 places we tried had much either on clearance or of the tank variety. Bummer.

Franca and I convinced Marc to accompany us today back to Sears where we spotted a very basic tank. The Kenmore 6002 on clearance for $396. It's exact twin sat three feet away marked $459 on sale from $528. Apparently, someone had opened the wrong box and now they had two of these on the floor, so they put one on clearance. Hmmm, not having to dispose of a box and save $63? SOLD!

I'm feeling pretty good about this new pairing. The previous set looked like brother and sister and now there is a little exotic laundry romance happening down there. Hee hee.

I was going to add that the new dryer reminds me of my childhood, but that just felt weird after that last sentence up there.

Anyway, now I'm headed down to dry the 4 mattress pads and 4 sheets for Franca's crib. (Does anyone else's kid go through spurts of peeing through the already-up-a-size special nighttime diapers? Geez! At least she's hydrated I guess.)

Or maybe I will.

This is how I paint our divided light windows:

Like a mess.

And not just because I am messy, but because it is the easiest way. Having now painted quite a few of our windows, I realized that trying to not get paint on the glass by being extra careful is futile. Taping is even worse because you spend all that time taping and then, because these windows were built by hand in 1920 and are imperfect, you still get paint on the glass.

So this is my method. I paint away messily. Then I brake out my handy scraper and scrape away. (Believe it or not, getting more paint on the glass makes it easier.)  It works better when it is cold outside and not too moist. Both of which it is today. So why can't I bring myself to start scraping?

Me and this little scraper guy.

About to become BFFs.

Again.

Wish my sanity luck.

The only saving grace is I think I'm going to upgrade to Window 7 from XP tonight which will require a lot of waiting around in the office. Anyone on Windows 7? Like it? We actually had to BUY a legit copy which about killed me.

Because then Franca would find out about her birthday present. I'm going to renovate my old dollhouse for her! I always thought my Dad made this for me, but my mom is saying that my Grandfather did!
We are currently hiding it in the storage room. She doesn't even know it exists. Here it is in it's sad state. I really played the bejeezus out of this thing when I was little.

I'm thinking of adding some windows and doors, new carpet and painted floors, new wall paint and furniture. I think I'll buy the bathroom and kitchen sets and then try to make the rest. I used to be very handy at whipping up furniture for this little place, so I'd like to retry my hand as an adult. I'm also going to go pretty sparse on the furnishings in case she too wants to built and add more later.

Here's a basic bath set I found.

 I've been looking for inspiration and haven't had too much luck. There are TONS of modern dollhouses out there but they are of the omg-don't-touch-that-let-alone-play-with-it variety. (Sorry, I can't spend $120 on a modern dollhouse sofa!) There are also lots of VERY traditional looking dollhouses and furniture out there. Now, while I don't expect Franca to develop a love for an Eames mini chair,  I also don't think she needs to play with wingbacks and a fainting couch.

While I'm putting it all out there, I'm also not a big fan of plastic furniture for this type of dollhouse. For the Barbie dollhouse, yes, rock that big plastic bubble chair. When I was a kid my favorite part of this dollhouse was that it seemed so much more real than the rest of my plastic toys. The baby highchair was brass! The dresser was wood! I think at some point I had little ceramic plates. It was like my own, real little world.

That's all to say, I think I'll go for a style similar to what I like but softened and fun. Here's my plan for room layout, and because this blog is called 86n' It,  little demo.

If you know of any awesome "modern" kid friendly dollhouses or dollhouse furniture please leave me a comment!

Thanks!

We made ridiculous amounts of progress this weekend. I'm currently tying at our new desk in our freshly painted room. Painting the included 7 horrible windows. UGH.



Color scheme is SW-7024 Functional Gray on the walls (matte), SW-7023 Requisite Gray on the trim (semi-gloss) and 2134-20 Ben Moore Midnight Summer (matte) on the trim. (Yes, the functional and requisite look almost the same, but with the lighter requisite in gloss, it appears even lighter on the trim.(

We are in the process of moving in, installing window blinds, scraping paint off of window glass (OMG), and lot of other finishing tasks.

Here is a photo of one of the challenges of this task. Bad plaster. At one point, the window above this must have been leaking. Ugh. We have since re-flashed the roof, so it doesn't anymore, but we still have to fix this.