Sage – Author at Plaster & Disaster

Today’s post is about my new little black dress shelf. Every woman needs one.

You may recall that one of the items I snagged when Naomi and I pillaged that local school (totally legally) was an adorable wire shelf with awesome lines:

We found it in one of the science classrooms, and I was immediately smitten. Here I am making my escape with it, while Brad tries to push a wheelbarrow with a flat tire full of garden tools and logs:

And here it is balancing totally securely on top of the car:

After all that effort, though, it’s been sitting patiently in the basement-hoarding-pile-of-doom waiting for some attention. Fortunately, I finally decided to get my act together and paint it.

The first step was to sand down the wood handles (which I planned to stain) — they had a few different colors of paint flaking off of them:

Here they are sanded clean, which you could see if I knew how to focus my camera.

Next was the joyful tasks of sanding off the 3+ layers of paint and rust on the rest of the shelf. There was red, gold, silver, rust spots, and I even spied green in a few places.

The rungs on the bottom had some metal burrs on them that were too tough to sand off:

I decided to use my dremel and a grinding attachment to smooth them out, which worked pretty well. It was also a great way for Sam’s sister to learn pretty quickly what things are like at our house — she had just moved in a few days earlier, and when she came into the sunroom to see what all the noise was she found me sitting on the couch wearing safety goggles with sparks flying off my dremel.

With those steps complete, it was a relief to have finally exposed all the metal underneath.

Next I used painters tape to cover the wood handles, and gave the metal a coat of primer and then a coat of some bright green spraypaint that I had leftover from the two-tone cane chair project. I thought that a bold color would look cool with the details on the shelf.

But I changed my mind after one coat — the color distracted from the amazing shape of the shelf, and I realized I needed to go much simpler (which Naomi had suggested all along…she always knows best).

So I followed up with a few coats of high gloss black spraypaint instead:

Glossy black metal shelf -- Plaster & DIsaster

Yep, I totally just spraypainted right onto the grass. The dropcloth was tied up with another project, and our grass at the back of the yard is terrible and needs to be mowed anyway. (And I’m lazy)

And then finished it off with a coat of clear glossy spray. Now the details of the shelf can be the star of the show.

Lastly, I stained the handles a dark brown with some minwax stain I had on hand (“Espresso”).

I will say that this project took a lot longer than I was expecting — sanding and then painting all the thin rungs took so long. But in the end, I’m so happy with my (free!) little black shelf.

I love all the little details and wanted to photograph every single one from every single angle.

So what do you think, is the Little Black Shelf (LBS) the new must-have item of the season?

(Sharing at Tip Me Tuesday, Create Link Inspire, Totally Terrific Tuesday, Two Uses Tuesday, Create It Thursday, Thrifty Decor Chick’s October Before and After, and Link Party Palooza)

It’s here, the day we’ve all been waiting for! That’s right, this week is the one year anniversary of our homeownership adventure — a year since Sam and I signed the papers, took on the biggest financial liability of our lives, and became first time homeowners.

Wait, you haven’t been waiting eagerly for this day to arrive? You didn’t even know it existed? Well then I guess it’s a surprise celebration — isn’t that the best kind? (Not if you’re me and hate surprises, but maybe for some of you.)

ANYWAY. It’s been a year since we assumed ownership of this lovely home:

It was a harrowing homebuying process that involved the sale teetering on the edge of catastrophe right before we were supposed to close, the seller refusing to move out on time, our lease on our apartment expiring, and living in a hotel with our cat for two weeks at the same time I started a new job waiting to see if the seller would ever sell us our house already. So when the sale finally went through, we were unbelievably relieved. So relieved that we painted our living room that very same day.

Often I feel like we’re moving so slowly on the house — there is so much work to do, and with both of us working full-time, a limited budget, and some other time consuming hobbies like running marathons and writing a pesky blog, there’s just only so much we can tackle. So today I thought I would put together a “before and now” of how things looked a year ago, and how they’re looking today. Maybe that will make me feel a little better about what we’ve accomplished in a year…or maybe it will just remind me of how much more I want to do.

Let’s start with the back, which is where we enter the house:

Projects included: Taking down the unused satellite dish; weatherproofing the address sign we received as a gift from a friend; sprucing things up with new patio furniture and flower beds; and planting a hedge that hopefully will eventually enclose the open side of our back yard. Also, we spent about 4 months doing nothing outside but shoveling and trying to chip ice off our roof during the snowiest winter in Boston’s recorded history. We picked a great year to become homeowners!

Stepping inside the back door, we’re in the sunroom. We’ve done very little work here besides moving in furniture we already owned.

However, one thing we did do was switch out all the exterior locks in the house for Schlage keyless locks. It’s been 11.5 months since we installed them, and we’re still loving them.

We do have grand plans for making over the sunroom eventually — Naomi gave us some great advice on the space last winter, but she’s subsequently revised her suggestion to involve knocking down the wall between the kitchen and sunroom to create a huge eat-in space. We love the idea, and assume she will be paying for it?

Next, we enter the kitchen. Again, another space we haven’t updated that much:

Mostly we’ve made minor decor updates, including chairs that Naomi and I got when we pillaged a school this past spring. Because who doesn’t want electric blue chairs to match their electric blue counters? Changes in this room hinge on that idea of knocking down the back wall and connecting the kitchen to the sunroom, which we’re working on getting a quote for to figure out if it’s even within the realm of the possible.

Okay, so far it’s seeming like we haven’t done too much. Let’s move along to the living room:

This is the room we painted on our very first day in the house — like, we signed the closing paperwork at 9am, showed up at the house, and immediately started painting while the seller continued to move out some final things.

Main projects included: Painting, buying a craigslist sectional, and putting up a gallery wall; adding an amazing thrifted chair that I beat out Naomi to take home with me; adding another amazing chair I scored at the Brimfield Antique Show and refurbished with new straps and polish; moving the rug to tie in the new seating area; building shelves for the cats to play on; and adding mid-century side tables.

Next up, the hallway. Oh, the hallway. How much time have I spent in thee painting.

Projects to totally transform this space included: painting the walls and trim; removing the doors on the narrow pantry and painting it a bright color to create colorful built-ins; painting all the wood in the stairwell and then adding color and pattern to the stair risers with fabric (yes, fabric); and adding the final touches in the form of largescale art with DIY frames, three new light fixtures, and a colorful front door. Whew.

Off the hallway is Sam’s study.

This has been his room to do whatever he wants with, and so far that has entailed putting up a hammock, filling it with plants, and nicknaming it his “solarium.” There are also some posters I gave him for Christmas. But we’ve finally decided to undertake a collaborative redesign of it as our next big project, so stay tuned for all the fun! 🙂

Then we have the bedroom:

This was the second room we worked on after the living room, and projects included: painting it and styling it with DIY art and accessories, and then building a large wooden mirror to add some color.

The last room on the first floor is the bathroom.

We painted the walls and ceiling a very dark blue, changed out the towel bars for hooks, and added inexpensive art with DIY custom picture mats.

And up the stairs we go! Here’s how that view has changed:

How refreshing. On the left at the top of the railing is my craft room, which we also use as a second guest room (and is the primary guest room right now since Sam’s sister is living with us in the other guest room):

It hasn’t changed a whole lot, it’s still painted as though a watermelon exploded in the room and the walls are covered in the unmistakable ramblings of a teenage girl (presumably the seller’s granddaughter). But at least I cleaned it up from the horrible state it was in a few weeks ago when I realized we would actually have company staying in it. We’re holding off on doing too much to it as we get a better sense of some possible renovations up there — we have dreams to add a second bathroom, which would involve adding a dormer to the roofline. We’re working on getting an estimate on that work to see how long we need to save for first.

On the other side of the landing is the guest room (where Sam’s sister is staying right now):

This was our most recent transformation, which included painting the walls, ceiling, and doors; repainting the yard sale dresser a rich emerald green and adding new hardware; sewing inexpensive curtains; adding a map mural wall; rewiring and installing a plug-in overhead light; and finishing it off with some other colorful and functional accessories and art.

Lastly, we have the basement. This is broken into a few different spaces. First is the area I’m currently using as my workshop, though we have plans to turn a different corner into my workshop soon:

The major changes to the space included organizing all my tools, moving over a metal shelf for some vertical storage and knocking down a poorly-constructed wood shelf that hung from the ceiling, and the most exciting part: moving in the tablesaw that my father gave me when he upgraded the tools in his own woodshop.

Then there’s the laundry area, which is unchanged (except that we unpacked those boxes, I swear — I’d take a new photo to prove it but there’s currently an in-process project sitting there that I don’t want to spoil for you):

And then there’s the scary hoarding area, which is what we’ll be converting into my workshop…things have gotten significantly worse over there in the last year. But I’m working on cleaning it up, I promise.

And lastly, the best corner is our home gym:

We made over the space with fresh white paint on the dark wood paneling, gym equipment purchased new and from craigslist, full-length mirrors, and a colorful picture ledge for some of our favorite racing photos. We also have a TV and Apple TV, which are essential for all those terrible winter hours spent on the treadmill.

So that’s what’s happened in a year! While we still have a long way to go and it seems like the work is never-ending (and our house was in decent shape to begin with), I feel good about the progress we’ve made. Please tell me the second year of homeownership will be a bit easier than the first? I can’t wait to see what we’ll be reporting on Day 730!