Vacation is over.
Seriously?
Okay, fine. FINE. Back to normal life and blogging regularly and—to quote Louis CK—the whole “spectrum of responsibility” that comprises life.
Oh, how I miss the beach. Just look at these photos.
Don’t you miss it, too?
(You do.)
So, when one returns from vacation and successfully accomplishes the requisite 17 loads of laundry and misses the beach a little too acutely, the best thing to do is a project. Does one have time for this? No. Exactly.
Before vacation, I started to think about how I will manage storage in my grandmother’s—my new—kitchen. There is a lot less storage there than in my current beloved—dated-but-spotless—kitchen. I thought a nice little shabby-chic inspired shelf along the side of the refrigerator would be a good fit for mason jars and pretty serving dishes. I hit the consignment store and found nothing but bought 4 used books. In light of the fact that I already have so many to-be-read books did I need more books? Yes. I did. We need never question that. I found a bunch of totally cool but overpriced shelves. I mean, I am not spending $65 bucks on a shelf that is slightly but charmingly dilapidated and painted over with a pretty shade of paint. C’mon—what do I look like? So I dragged the kids around to some antiques shops and they LOVED it. No, they didn’t. They were just barely tolerably, as was I so it worked out perfectly. Also it was lunchtime. (I’m not a great mother.) But I suddenly was inspired by some old wooden crates. Wouldn’t they look lovely stacked together and lined with oil cloth? YES, THEY WOULD!
So, I found some old crates—for $45 bucks each. Are you kidding me? C’mon—what do I look like? Then at Jeffery’s Antique Co-op Mall I found a couple of crates for $5 bucks a piece! What?! Yes, I am totally serious. When I told Steve (not his real name) about my find, he said, “So, now you have 2 crappy crates you paid $10 dollars for.” He is just jealous of my expansive frugality and impressive originality with home decor. Also my vocabulary.
I already had a crate from Ocean Spray—Steve’s (not his real name) nonno owned cranberry bogs in Plymouth County and this was one of his boxes.
Although we have 27,000 boxes of nails, of course not one size was right. So, I took everyone down to Rocky’s Ace Hardware with the promise of squirt bottles all ‘round—because why wouldn’t that be an incentive?—and got me some nice little squat nails. (The second photo illustrates the use of the wrong sized nail. Don't do that. That is a cautionary pic.)
I nailed those crates together and voilà! Rustic shelf! And look how beautiful my green tea latté looks on there!
My local fabric store does not carry oil cloth, so I bought some pretty heavy cotton and whipped up some lovely shelf liners. This whole thing: less than $20 bucks!
Can you stand it?
(You can’t. That’s ok, though.)
Please share your (weird, or not) DIY projects. Maybe someday I will tell you about DIY sunscreen. (By the way, do NOT do DIY sunscreen.)