Garage revealed

Plan your progress carefully; hour-by hour, day-by-day, month-by-month. Organized activity and maintained enthusiasm are the wellsprings of your power.

                                                                                                             Paul Meyer


This, I'm discovering, is the key to getting something finished. I am excellent at the inspiration and planning stages of a new project, but I lack in the follow-through-till-its-done department.

I spend more time looking at ideas on Pinterest and other people's blogs than getting down to the business itself.

What I need is to plan, then act, and most important of all, not stop until it is done.

With this new self-awareness and a renewed commitment to live in a tidy organised home where I can find a pair of scissors without losing my sanity, I have completed one area of the garage revamp.

When I say 'I', that should be a 'We', I could not have done this without The Bloke.

The whole project took quite a long time, because despite my best intentions, I was side-tracked by a wardrobe revamp half-way through! You'll see the wardrobe in a later post. I am beyond excited about having that completed!

But back to the garage.





   Drum roll please....




the finished area

 and a little reminder of the horrific beginning.   


words fail me...truly

How we got there...

First step was to THROW AWAY THE JUNK! This step cannot be over emphasised.

I bought the plastic 60L storage bins from The Warehouse, after seeing a design I liked on Pinterest. Once I had the bins, The Bloke and I were able to design a made-to-measure storage unit that would store all our bits and pieces in an orderly (and findable) way. I took the opportunity to add in a craft area which moves this activity away from the dining table.


Next we bought the pre-cut boards from Bunning's hardware store, the number of boards being determined by our plan. Just make sure you both count and agree on the number, as somehow we came back with one too few. Seriously annoying.

Then Miss B went to work pre-painting the boards. I highly recommend this step, even though waiting to start putting them together is really hard. For a few of the boards we skipped this step and it made painting at the end much more time consuming as each rectangle had to be painted instead of one flat plank.

Miss B pre-painting the Hardi-planks (plain pre-cut boards from Bunnings)

The Bloke cut the shelves, and using a router,  made a cut out for each shelf. He slid the shelves into place and used screws to reinforce them. He made four units like this, then attached two units together to make two complete double units. I wanted the craft area to sit between the two units for symmetry and to give the craft area a sense of containment.


the first unit put together

 To give the unit that lovely solid look, The Bloke attached 20mm x 10mm facia to the front of the unit with nails. This is a tip I gleaned from The view along the way blog  and it makes a huge difference to the finished look without a big cost.

I then went around with the hammer and punch to knock the nails in for plastering. If you haven't done this before, it is super simple. Line the punch up with the nail, then bang it with the hammer until the nail sits just below the surface of the wood. Fill the indentation with plaster, wait for it to dry, and sand off for a nice smooth painting surface.

facia nailed in place

                  

 hammer and punch

                                      

plastered and ready for sanding.

With the first of the twin units completed and attached to the wall, I painted a top coat of creamy white paint with a small roller. This was the most tedious part, and again I was very glad to have undercoated (most of) the boards before the unit was assembled!

the finished unit

 Along the way I found a few additional items for use as hanging storage. I painted the lot the same shade of white as the shelving unit, (and the wall too) this helps tie the whole area together creating a cohesive feel.

cheap (read ugly) wooden shelf from the charity shop for $2



        a single draw from an old set of draws too damaged for use, I levered off the front
facia and handle then sanded and painted it.

Both units were attached to the wall, and a store bought wooden counter top situated between them for my craft area. I wanted a counter top wide enough to lay out fabric etc. This countertop is the same type we used in the kitchen unit, so I was able to account for the size in the design.

The counter top is 600mm deep, and 2200mm long. I sat at a chair to check the height would be right for me to sit and sew here. I reused some cheap shelving we already had, and another old chest of draws that was surplus to requirements in the main house for additional storage.

I would like to paint the draws and units white to match, but that will have to wait.

the craft area with a place-holder top

 Then it was a matter of mounting the shelves, putting away all the craft supplies into the draws, and attaching the counter top once all the painting was complete.

\

    the single draw with some tin pails from the charity
shop $1 each, a ceramic egg holder (free from a neighbour) for beads and a glass jar for paint brushes.

Painted wooden shelf

huge glass jar (charity shop again!) for wool

A small fault in the design...where's the power socket???

Yes, don't forget to plan a source of power for sewing machine, hot glue gun, etc. I'll have to run a long lead over the top of the unit and down the wall instead.

the craft area

everything in its place.

I am so happy with how this area turned out. Most of all it gave us the confidence and skills to
tackle other areas of our home.

A revamped desk for Miss B's room

I've been looking for a desk for Miss B's room.

And I found a super cute retro wooden school desk from the 70's or 80's on an auction site in New Zealand called trademe.

It needed a little work.

So to work Miss B and I went. The first step was to clean off the dirt and spiderwebs and stickers. Miss B was happy to deal with the stickers, but the spiderwebs were Mum's job.

Next we sanded off the felt tip marks and sticker residue. I used an electric sander because I had one, but hand sanding would be just as good.

 Its already looking better.

I decided to undercoat with some budget all purpose white paint I already had and then to spray a top coat with gloss white so there wouldn't be brush or roller marks visible.

I rolled as much of the undercoat as I could then used a brush for the corners. As it is going to be subjected to the rough and tumble of Miss B, I did three lots of undercoat, then a light sand.

After the undercoat had dried I used this brand of spray paint ( this can says clear gloss but I used the white gloss for this project).

Two coats of top coat and the job was done. This is the finished article.

The stripe on the side is a light effect, I swear!
Miss B is delighted and so am I. The whole project took 3 days but it was worth it. All Miss B's art and stationary supplies fit under the lid which lifts up. A great bonus in the never-ending battle for domestic organisation.

See you next time.

How to turn an old wood bookcase into a stylish classic.

February garage month seems to have extended into March and on into April.


As it is taking so long, due to work and life getting in the way,  I thought a smaller project to revitalize my sense of achievement was in order.


 I have an old pine bookcase that has been in almost every room in our house at one time or another.  It's last incarnation was  in my wardrobe. However The Bloke has been set to work in there after a bit of blog surfing inspiration, so the bookcase has moved by default into our upstairs lounge.


The problem is that it just doesn't go with the decor and it looks frumpy and tired. Not to mention it seems to be a junk magnet where everything that doesn't have a defined home ends up, so it's messy too.


I'd had enough of looking at it and decided to take action.


Off to my second home Bunnings hardware store for some white gloss spray paint I tottered.


I used a paint with a primer and top coat in one.

This is the brand I used. I chose gloss white.

This is the bookcase when it was in my wardrobe.

I cleaned it really well but I didn't sand it back first, and I didn't undercoat it. Just sprayed the gloss white all-in-one primer and top coat. If I was doing it again, I would undercoat with regular white interior/exterior paint, as it would be cheaper. 

This is the first spray coat going on. 

I just kept adding coats until I was happy with the coverage. I did three coats in total. 

Here is the finished article

Then comes the fun part...styling.

and there it is, a classic white bookcase. See you next time.

Winter sunshine

It's winter down-under in New Zealand. The last week has produced gale force winds, horizontal rain and a sudden drop in temperature that sent us running for our winter woolies. Today the clouds and rain departed and the winter sunshine returned. It seems such a fragile and fleeting thing, that sunshine, and somehow all the more delightful because of its fragility. Outside we went, past the farmers market full of shoppers, past the cafes full of people drinking coffee and breakfasting, down onto the beach. The dog was apoplectic with joy, running around in circles chasing her tail and anything else that moved. The children laughed and ran barefoot on the sand. I walked and breathed in the sun-warmed air and thought about how blessed I am.

Amazing how a bit of sun can reinvigorate! So while the great cull gets underway, I thought I would share a recent bit of kitchen DIY. When we remodelled our living space downstairs, opening up the multiple tiny rooms to make a larger open plan area that would feed out o the deck and garden, the old kitchen no longer fit. There wasn't money in the budget for a brand new kitchen, so we bought a kitchen for removal off the Internet for next to nothing. Just bare in mind that cheap second hand kitchen = functional but ugly. I've struggled along for quite a while with this unattractive and uninspiring kitchen with inadequate storage space. Most of my crockery and pantry items lived on two mismatched bookcases against the south wall. Then one day while cruising Pinterest, I found this (scroll down 5th to last picture), pinned by The Vintage Wren. It was exactly right. A bit vintage, lots of glass and white, and lots of orderliness...perfect.
"Quick" I said to The Bloke, "we're off to Bunnings". Two weekends later the bookshelves are gone, replaced by ...

while there is a bit left to complete it, the improvement both practically and visually is vast. Now back to the culling...