Plaster & Disaster

Ready for a super easy and inexpensive project that works for anyone with a smart phone? Great!

Meet my phone. It’s a fine phone. In fact, it’s kind of snazzy because it’s yellow. But the case has seen better days.

All I needed to remedy the situation was a clear case (I got one for really cheap on Amazon (affiliate link — read our policies), but just make sure you get the right case for the phone model you have), a free paint swatch from the hardware store, scissors, and an x-acto knife. You could pick any color paint chip you want, but you’ll probably pick turquoise because it’s the best color ever.

Step #1: Trace the outline of your phone onto the back of the paint swatch.

Step #2: Cut out the shape you’ve traced.

See if it fits in the back of the case, and trim as needed.

Step #3: Use your case to identify where the hole for the camera needs to be.

Step #4: Trace the outline of the hole on the back of the paint swatch, and cut out the hole with an x-acto knife. You might need to do some touch-up with little scissors, if your x-acto knife is as dull as mine.

Step #5: Put the paint swatch inside the case, facing out, and then put your phone in. Rejoice about your new, colorful, $7 case that can be changed up at any time.

You’re welcome, internet.

(Sharing at Your Turn to Shine Link Party, Link Party Palooza, One Project at a Time, Friday Favorites, August Before and After, Tip Me Tuesday, Merry Monday, Weekend Re-Treat Link Party, and Think and Make Thursdays)

Our dread of broadcasting the totally strange quirks of our homes all over the internet is really only alleviated by the opportunity to make over-the-top pun titles for these posts. So thank you for bearing with us.

Through our disaster confessionals we talk about the parts of our homes that are not exactly “blog ready.” In past posts, we’ve shared some big gaping holes in our houses and about the various gaps that we deal with. Today, we want to talk about our garden sheds.

These sheds are not exactly what you’d expect, a good reminder not to judge ~~a book~~ our sheds by ~~its cover~~ what you see at first glance.

“My Shed Isn’t Actually My Shed” – Sage

At first glance, my shed is pretty run of the mill.

But it does have a few special qualities. For instance, in addition to the main entrance, there are also separate entrances for smaller inhabitants.

It’s also nice and big, which is perfect for neatly storing things.

Yeah, it may be a bit of a disaster zone. Plus let’s not forget that behind it is our “leaf and rock pile of shame.”

The leaves we inherited from the previous owner, the rocks we added ourselves when we built our hedge.

Also when I went to take the photos for this post I realized that part of the corner trim is coming off on one side. Oh well.

But my favorite feature of the shed is that we only own half of it (specifically, the front half). Oh yes, as we were in the process of buying our house we discovered an ongoing land issue that the seller had neglected to disclose to us whereby a different person owned a strip of land about ten feet wide and hundreds of feet long that runs along the back of our property and a string of five adjacent homes. It overlaps the end of our driveway (as in, the place where our driveway connects to the street, which seems like important land for us to control), the back edge of our fence, and the back half of the shed.

The City was in the process of foreclosing on the strip as we were buying the house because the owner had failed to pay taxes on it for like 30 years, and now the City owns it and doesn’t want to sell it to us for some unfathomable reason (we don’t think they understand what it looks like — it’s a bunch of driveways, trees, and half our shed plus 100% of our leaf and rock pile of shame, and is literally only ten feet wide).

So anyway, that’s a fun property dispute. We’re just hoping that our shed doesn’t become collateral damage. Where would all the animals live? (Hint: in the crawl space under the sunroom…but that’s a disaster confessional for another day.)

“My Shed Isn’t Actually A Shed” – Naomi

As I shared in my yard tour, I really like the look of my shed from the outside. It looks like a cute tiny house, with windows, white clapboard, and a shingled roof.

DO NOT BE FOOLED. You get your first sign that all-is-not-as-it-seems as you come around to the entrance and look at it more closely. Why is the door jutting out, and why is there a broken chimney hanging off one side?

Still, it looks pretty innocent, so let’s go in.

Who knew that a house this small needed to have a separate foyer?

I could see that being pretty inconvenient for bringing gardening tools in and out.

The shed is actually a sauna! It is heated by a wood-burning stove, and has nice benches built for up to five people to relax in comfort.

It actually smells really good, as it is entirely lined with cedar. The stove is backed by a wall of slate to protect the wood from the heat. It could use a good cleaning but is totally cute.

… Or, rather, it is totally cute once you take away the rusty pots and pans that the previous owner left behind.

We imagine that he used them to heat pots of water to create the humidity that a sauna needs.

The benches are well made. We’re currently putting them to their highest and best use for garden supply and miscellaneous tool storage, all of which we moved out of the garage while we do projects in there.

We’ll move them back when we’re done.

We NEVER would have thought to build a sauna in this shed, but now that we have it, why not?! Eventually we’ll fix it up – clean the stove, move out the rusty artifacts, fix the chimney, put something down to cover the plywood floor – and then we’ll have our own personal sauna. Or at least a really awesome winter clubhouse.

Phew, it feels good to get those facts out in the open. We have a long list of embarrassing home disasters we’re still working up the courage to reveal. Tell us some of yours, and maybe we’ll be emboldened!