Naomi, Sage – Author at Plaster & Disaster

January 11, 2016 | By Naomi and Sage |

Blog Anniversary: Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Plaster & Disaster

Happy almost one year birthday to us! As we mentioned in our dueling cabinet post on Friday, we launched this blog one year ago tomorrow and are thus devoting this week to celebrating ourselves and how ~~somewhat competent~~ amazing we are.

Stay tuned for Wednesday’s post where we’ll reveal all the horrible images that also resulted from this photoshoot…

We do our best to share who we are here on the blog, but it can sometimes be hard to fit in personal content when we’re producing so many extraordinary projects and providing such brilliant commentary. But, guys, this is 2016 and this is the year that ~~women~~ this blog can really have it all! So to close out our first year, here are a few things you may-or-may not know about us:

(And, lest you think this is all about us, please be sure to make it to the bottom for a very short survey to tell us a little about you!)

Did You Know …That We Only Talked 3 Times Before Deciding to Launch a Blog Together?

We jumped into this blog thing quickly. We met about a year and a half ago when Sage joined the nonprofit where Naomi worked, and we quickly scoped each other out. Over group drinks just a week in, we discovered that we both like DIY and home improvement, and both read blogs. We decided to get lunch together, which turned out to be an awkward, rushed affair over cold sandwiches in the lobby of the building. But we persisted and went out again for sushi, which is when we haphazardly decided that it was a good idea to launch a blog together.

Sage already had a blog, but didn’t post regularly and was ready for something new as she was just purchasing her first home. Naomi had a relatively new home and had been reading blogs for a while, with an internal monologue that sounded like your a-little-too-tipsy-relative at a modern art gallery: A brazen “I could do that!”

We got to work right away: picking a name, buying a domain and theme, and working out joint tone and content. We really barely knew each other, and it is really very lucky that we’ve ended up actually liking each other, and, importantly, like working together. (On Wednesday we’ll share our many secrets to success when it comes to running a blog with a friend/random stranger.)

The sunflower that Naomi put on Sage’s desk to welcome her on her first day of work, which Sage inexplicably took a photo of even though she didn’t know who Naomi was or that a blogging adventure was about to begin

…That We Are Freakishly Similar?

Part of the reason we felt comfortable starting a business together so quickly is that we quickly realized how similar we are. It is uncanny and, to be honest, was a little frightening.

The obvious similarities are a love of home improvement, DIY, reading blogs, and writing. Within those things, we have very similar tastes and read a lot of the same blogs. (In our warped brains this is sort of like having a lot of friends in common.)

But, beyond DIY, there were even more strange similarities. We were both born and raised in New England, are the same age, and both have one sibling, a brother four years younger than us. When we met, we were also working at the same organization, doing similar jobs, with nearly identical job titles (one word different). Now we work in different organizations, but still both in the non-profit sector.

We both celebrate the solstice as our winter holiday. Neither of us listens to much music. We both hate parking, talking on the phone, and parking while talking on the phone. Neither of us ever drinks enough water. Both of our Moms hate cilantro, and both of our Dads like it. We both think that we’re both hilarious. We communicate almost entirely in sarcastic remarks, and yet always understand what the other one actually means. We both hate waking up early, but will do so if a thrifting or school pillaging excursion requires it. We both looked really great in a dress from Anthropologie one time, but Sage graciously let Naomi buy it.

We could go on…

ooting a School - the "raucus" crowd gathers - Plaster & Disaster

Getting ready to ransack a local high school

… But We’re Not Actually The Same Person?

It’s true! As hard as it may be to believe, there are actually a few differences between us. We think they’re pretty significant. For example, Sage doesn’t like tomatoes, while Naomi does. Sage trains for marathons which Naomi would find akin to torture (and has enough trouble hearing about them from Sage all the time). Naomi tends to use blue and red in home decor, while Sage tends toward turquoise and pink. We recently discovered that Naomi can do Magic Eyes and Sage cannot. Also, Naomi’s hair is darker, and since Sage recently got a haircut, Naomi’s hair is a little longer, too. So you see, we’re really very different on some fundamental levels.

When we first met, Sage didn’t drink a lot of coffee and Naomi did. But Sage now drinks a lot of coffee, too, so we guess that’s not really a difference anymore….

…That We’re Not A Couple?

You might be reading those opening sections and thinking, wow, what ~~a cute~~ an insufferable couple! You wouldn’t be the first. A lot of people have assumed that we’re a couple because we have this blog together, but actually we’re both living very happily with our respective partners – Sage’s husband Sam and Naomi’s boyfriend Brad.

Actually, this is another similarity! We both have been with our current partners for the same amount of time (about 8 years). And, there is also some controversy in both of our relationships about when “the dating” officially began.

It is a little out of the ordinary to have a blog with someone when you’re not in a couple or otherwise related. Check out our post on Wednesday for our thoughts on how that works!

…That Only One of Our Partners Reads the Blog?

Despite this blog being about both of their houses, only one of our partners actually reads the blog. Can you guess which one? (Share your answer in the survey at the end of this post.)

…That We’ve Never Missed a Post?

We post three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, and we’ve never missed a post! We have taken a few pre-scheduled breaks for the holidays, and there was that one time that someone incorrectly scheduled their Wednesday post for Tuesday, but otherwise we’ve stuck to our schedule.

We’re really proud of this. Both of us have full time jobs that can get hectic and ~~substantial~~ not-nonexistent social lives. This post schedule is a significant commitment for us, and it feels like an achievement that we’ve been able to meet it for a year.

…That We’ve Made $375 So Far?

In year 1, Plaster & Disaster made … about $375 dollars. This isn’t nothing and, importantly, covers the costs of operating the blog (though obviously not the cost of the home improvement projects we blog about). In our first year we’ve been really focused on generating interesting content, and not so much on making money. But we’re certainly hoping to grow our revenue in the coming year. Here is the breakdown of where the money comes from:

As you can see, not all of the money comes from the blog operations directly. A lot of blogs these days are experimenting with other revenue models, whether that is selling e-books, craft kits, or products.

However, we did work on one project together this year that has dwarfed our other revenue completely. We unfortunately can’t talk about it yet, but when we can rest assured that we will share all the details we possibly can. It has totally transformed our revenue picture for the year:

Hooray for solvency!

…That We Don’t Accept Sponsored Content?

We have a blanket rule against sponsored content here on the blog, and always will. That means that we don’t accept anything – money, products, promotion – in exchange for writing about something. It’s not what we like to read when we read blogs, so it’s not what we want to share here. (Check our our policies to learn more.)

…That We Try to be Brutally Honest About Disasters?

When we were brainstorming at the outset about what we wanted this blog to be, at the top of our list was that we wanted to be totally transparent about what goes wrong and what doesn’t look good. It’s easy to read blogs and feel like your home is an ugly mess, but the reality is that in most homes it is a mixed bag.

This has taken several forms. Sometimes we write about projects that don’t work at all, mistakes we made, tips we learned the hard way, or things that go wrong along the way in a successful project. Sometimes we tell funny stories about taking on something and failing, or share the disasters that we’re trying to ignore in our homes, or what is actually going on behind even our prettiest photos.

This can be hard to do. Not that we don’t want to share, but because it can feel like an insubstantial or useless post to just say “well, this didn’t work” or “this was just okay.” We put the word “disaster” right in the title to help us keep to this commitment.

… That Our Former Co-Worker Named our Blog?

Speaking of the name, ever wonder where “Plaster & Disaster” came from? We had a lot of trouble thinking of a name. We knew that we wanted it to include something about honesty or DIY not going well, and something about home improvement or projects. We had some not-so-awesome contenders:

The Unvarnished Home
Paint It ‘Til You Make It
DIY Disclosures
The Imperfect Home

Fortunately for all of you, we asked our co-worker Stephanie (the same Stephanie who we gave advice for a patio makeover), and she came back with “Plaster or Disaster.” She has an unreasonable hatred of ampersands, but we took her creative genius, popped an ampersand in there, and called it a day. Thanks, Stephanie!

Ideas for an affordable patio makeover -- Plaster & Disaster

Congratulations on naming the blog, Stephanie! Now let’s do what we do best: really awkward photoshoots.

The 2016 Plaster & Disaster Reader Survey

Now, tell us about you! We’d love to learn a little more about our readers, what you’d like to see in Plaster & Disaster, and whether you are any good at math.

(Sharing at DIY Like A Boss, Pin Junkie Pin Party, and Tip Me Tuesday)

January 8, 2016 | By Sage and Naomi |

Blog Anniversary: Salvaged Cabinets, Two Ways

Are you guys as excited as we are to celebrate the one year anniversary of Plaster & Disaster?!?!? The correct answer is “yes.” A year ago this coming Tuesday we kicked off our co-blogging adventure by making over a pair of thrift store lamps two different ways (you know, because there are two of us) — and so we thought there was no more fitting a way to start our anniversary celebration than with another dual makeover.

Here’s what we shared with you as our first project ever:

We clearly blew everyone away with our incredible talents, creativity, and unyielding sarcasm, and the rest is history.

Today we have a slightly larger project: the two wall cabinets that we salvaged from a science classroom in that school we pillaged last spring:

From the moment we saw these we knew we wanted to each makeover one of them in a different way, and so we did what any reasonable DIYer would do: put them in our basements for 9 months and then finally hauled them out to get cracking.

As is often the case, we both had similar initial ideas for what to do. But we wanted to share two different projects with you, so we had to duke it out. As in, we had to fight over who got to put tapered mid-century legs on theirs. Naomi won out on that fight…shall we see what she did?

Naomi

OK, Sage may be thinking that I got the better deal (I did get to put MCM legs on mine, after all), but what she’s forgetting is why she gave up that crucial advantage: she got to keep hers natural wood.

When we pulled these off the wall, we were both totally into the nice tone of the natural wood. But, actually, I think painting this thing was totally the right call. The wood – on mine, at least – was in pretty bad shape. There were nail holes all over, and it was covered in splatters and streaks of paint from the school. Here are a few obligatory shots of the damage to appease the “never paint wood” crowd:

However, the inside was in better condition, so I decided to just paint the outside so some of the original wood tone would still be visible.

But first I had to take care of the top, which was unfinished (this was a cabinet intended to hang high on a wall, like we found it). I just slathered on a coat of wood filler and sanded it down to a smooth surface.

It took two coats with sanding in between, and used like a whole tub of wood filler.

It didn’t end up being perfect, but it was a whole lot better.

I also had to fix one of the shelves, which was falling apart. I just gave it a little wood glue and clamped it back together overnight.

As desperate as the bloggesphere is for another wood painting tutorial, suffice it to say that I painted the cabinet. Actually, suffice it to say that I cleaned, sanded, cleaned, deglossed, primed, and painted the cabinet. It took a while.

I used Benjamin Moore’s Advance paint in a satin finish. I tried out this paint before in my makeover of a little set of drawers, where I used it on the inside of the drawers. It dries slowly, but “settles” more like an oil paint to a smooth finish that doesn’t show brushstrokes, and is also a lot more durable than standard house paint, making it ideal for painting furniture. (These aren’t sponsored comments. We don’t do those… I just like the paint.)

I went with a warm, mustard yellow. I’ve always coveted pretty yellow cabinets on pinterest and in catalogs, and this was my shot! To make picking a yellow easy, I went with the same one that I used on all of my interior doors: Benjamin Moore’s Yellowstone. It is a little more muted than the cabinets of my dreams, but I use it so abundantly and recklessly throughout my house that it strikes a good balance.

I also polished up the hardware, which had taken on a gray/green hue, with some steel wool. I had no idea what sort of finish was lurking under there, but it turned out to be a kind of coppery color. Works for me!

And, as Sage mentioned, I got to put adorable little mid-century legs on it! I bought four basic ones from Home Depot, listed as 4″ but really more like 3.5″, but who’s counting.

Aren’t they cute! I eyeballed a stain color to match the wood tone of the inside of the cabinet (Minwax Golden Pecan ended up just about perfect) and sealed them with a coat of poly in semi-gloss. They were easy to attach with their matching top plates, although I did successfully trick Sage into coming over and doing the work on 3/4 of them.

I also convinced Sage (by threatening that we’d be late for dinner if she didn’t help) into putting the cabinet door back on. Doors had fallen off of both of our cabinets while we were ~~carefully salvaging~~ wildly pillaging them from the school, and Sage had already successfully gotten hers in place. It seemed like it was pretty tricky (it involved a tiny screwdriver) but ended up working out in the end.

I was excited to use this piece in my dining room, where I could certainly benefit from more storage and organization. The spot under my windows was taken up by a long table that I bought for $10 while in college. It was a perfectly acceptable solution, but the open storage underneath made the room always look cluttered.

My new cabinet looks so much better!

The paint finish turned out nice and smooth, and I love the color. While it is on all of my interior doors, we actually didn’t have it in the front rooms of the house (the dining room and living room) at all, so this is a great way to tie the whole house together.

It also provides just the kind of storage that I need, allowing the cook books, vases, and wine bottles that were previously jammed into the white built-in to be on display.

And can we talk for a moment about how cute those little legs are? This won’t be news to most people who read blogs, but they are really very cute. All little, and leg-like.

In all, I spent about $45 on paint and legs for my cabinet makeover. (The cabinet itself was free, and I already had stuff like the wood stain and steel wool on hand.) Not bad for a new long-term piece for the dining room!

And now a few more self-indulgent shots demonstrating how much I love my new-to-me cabinet:

Sage

Since Naomi won the “put mid-century legs on it” battle, I had to come up with something totally different to do with my cabinet. I actually have plans to use it in my kitchen makeover, but saying “just wait for a few months” didn’t seem like an adequate contribution to this post so I figured I would do something quick and inexpensive in the meantime. My project took a grand total of 60 minutes (including time to run 3 miles) as opposed to the time consuming paint job that Naomi took on, so I think I came out ahead even though she has adorable little legs on hers.

So what did I do that was so fast and cheap? As you know I’m a big fan of mod podging fabric to things — as a way to add color and interest, it’s much less expensive than wallpaper and much quicker than painting. For this project, I decided to decorate the back of my cabinet with patterned fabric and then leave the rest a natural wood tone (the wood is a bit orange-y for my taste so if this were the long term plan I think I would have stripped and restained it…just use your imagination to pretend I put in hard work here).

The only thing I needed was a yard of fabric and mod podge (the mod podge I already had on hand), so the whole project ended up costing just $9.99. The fabric I picked up from Jo Ann’s during a 50% off sale (which seems to be happening every single time I go there):

First I needed to cut the fabric to size to fit in the back of the cabinet. I’d measured the rough dimensions of the cabinet in advance to make sure that one yard would be enough fabric, but I went back and remeasured to get the exact dimensions.

I marked these onto the fabric:

Then I used a straight edge to draw out the dimensions onto the back of the fabric, marking my cut lines with a sharpie.

I knew from my stairwell transformation using fabric that the best way to get a clean edge without any fraying is to first coat the back of the fabric with mod podge and let it dry. It really works like a charm and I highly recommend it. Rather than wasting a lot of mod podge and time coating the whole back, though, I just brushed mod podge along the outline where I would be cutting.

I left it to dry for about 3 miles 25 minutes while I went for a quick run, and then returned to make my cuts. It was super easy with the mod podge creating a firmer cutting surface without any fraying whatsoever.

My only piece of advice is that if you don’t want to drip sweat all over your fabric, you might want to cool down first. Details.

Next I used the mod podge and my foam brush to coat the back of the cabinet. I brushed mod podge on the first 1/3 of the cabinet back, laid down my fabric, and smoothed it out before repeating with the next 1/3 and the next. I worked in smaller chunks like this just to be sure that the mod podge didn’t have a chance to dry before I laid the fabric down.

I was able to smooth the fabric very easily with just my hands, and then once I was done I weighed down the corners with paint cans just to make sure they dried firmly pressed.

I didn’t do much to the outside of the cabinet (since I do plan to reuse it for another purpose down the road), but I did take the time to pry off some excess pieces of trim that had been attached to one side.

The last step was to haul it upstairs and style it for your viewing delight!

Obviously I styled it as a bar because a) bar carts are HOT right now (not as hot as dala horses will be, but still), b) the glassware allows the fabric to remain the star of the show, and c) styling bars is super easy because all you need is a bunch of wine glasses and booze, which I have aplenty. Oh and if you’re wondering about the cork art, I made that a long time ago in our apartment when we had a little bar area, and it’s just been sitting around our house since we moved. It was so excited for its day in the sun.