We Built This City on Wheat and Ore...

We've had a few chances to break in our new, awesome, ginormous farmhouse table.  The first occasion (of course) was a game of Settlers.  No better way to christen a table than with my new favorite song "We Built This City on Wheat & Ore," (sung to the tune of Jefferson Starship's classic 80's hit, "We Built This City.")

Since then, we've updated the table a bit.  I found the gold bowl in the Ikea As-Is section for $4.  It is supposed to be a sort of table, and came with a big metal stand that was broken.  I knew I just wanted the bowl, so the broken stand didn't phase me.  (If you haven't shopped in the as-is section at Ikea, you need to!  They sell floor models, extra random things, and broken/returned items there for cheap, cheap, cheap.)

We've also dropped the chandelier so that it hangs right over the table.  You can't tell in this picture, but it's not centered over the table... A little annoying, but not a big deal at this point.  We'll definitely be updating that chandelier eventually.  Whether we'll replace it or just paint it is still up in the air.

And then we've added these cherry-esque stained chairs.  They're loaners from one of our friends who doesn't have room for them at his place.  We have yet to finish the Ikea chairs we've halfway-stained... and we still plan to build a bench for one side.

Now would someone remind dear old Mother Nature that it is May 1st?!  It should not be snowing... especially because my car has been kicked out of the garage by the great cabinet takeover...

Project: Dining Room Table

It's done!  Grant worked long and hard on this table (with very little assistance from yours truly) and it's finally done!  We used the plans found at ana-white and used fir boards from Home Depot to build the table.

We love the size of it.  It's 8 feet long and about 4 feet wide.  We're going to build a matching bench for one side and finish oxidizing our ikea chairs for the other side.

The table turned out darker than we originally planned, but we love it anyway! I especially love that certain parts that didn't take the oxidation as well as others, making it looks natural and uneven.

A view from above.  I think the dark wood really warms up the space since almost all of the color in there is light and/or neutral.

Sir likes it.  He's been placing random objects on top of it for the last few days.

Here's an example of the uneven parts of the table.  Love.

And the knots on the top made for some interesting unique spots as well.

Cutest.

A few weeks ago, we also bought these upholstered chairs for the ends of the table.  The legs are black but I don't mind.  Either that, or I'm just too lazy to change them...  Does the reason matter...? They'll probably stay black :)

So that's the scoop!  With chairs finished, a bench built, and a little decoration, it's going to look awesome.

February 4th: Progress Report

No big projects to report today.  Instead, just a few pictures of projects along their way.  

First, hanging pictures... not my favorite.  All these frames have been stashed away in various locations around the house so we laid them out to take inventory.  I've gotta be honest... haven't hung any yet...  It's hard to hang art/pictures/etc.  when there's not much furniture to base them around...

Next, table progress.  After a failed attempt to straighten out some warped boards, Grant decided to just nail them down and sand it flat.  It's taking quite a while so we may go out and buy a cheap planer.  T.B.D.  We also learned that wood filler does not oxidize... so we've been sanding off excess filler so we can re-oxidize and even everything out.

Sander-face.

It's going to be awesome.  Oh, we also bought some upholstered chairs for the ends of the table.  On sale- woohoo.

And last of all, we just got this baby in the mail.  Found it on sale, of course, and I've got some fun projects planned for it.  (Both are not Grant's favorite projects... but this is a give and take partnership, right honey?!)

DIY Canvas Art

It's done!  I'm ridiculously excited about sharing this project.  We've been working on ideas for DIY Canvas Art for a long time.  We knew we wanted to do a huge quote but weren't sure which quote we would end up using.  Of course, we seriously considered many, many Nacho Libre quotes, but settled on this one, "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."

Do you know where this quote is from?!  Well, originally it is from a poem by Arthur O'Shaughnessy.  (Sweet name, dude.)  But we love the movie that made it famous.  We also love that this quote will be a reminder to Will, (and to us, of course), that our lives can only be as amazing as we dream them to be.

**Okay, now recognizing that this post is insanely long...  I'll find a way to shorten my posts... in the future... eventually...

Click through for the looonnngg thorough tutorial...

Progress Report

Here's a glimpse of some of our projects in progress!  First, we're working on a dining room table.  Grant built the whole base and we've oxidized it to create the stain.  We've been stalled on the tabletop because the boards we originally bought were too warped to use.  We've purchased some new boards that will hopefully fit better, so now we just need to finish the tabletop and then seal everything.  We're also staining some ikea chairs to match.  Then, later we'll build a bench and get some upholstered chairs for the ends of the table.

In order to get an idea of how everything will look, I've been learning some new photoshop skills.  We're still undecided on the upholstered end chairs, but I've put the table, Ikea chairs, and the bench into a (rough) projection photo for the dining room.  Yay!

And we've also got this little surprise cooking!  Can't wait to get it done and post about it.