Christmas 2013

Casa de Carle went a little bit vintage this year when decorating for the holidays. Ian and I spent a wonderful afternoon at Brown's Emporium Antiques in Independence as well as a little antique shop on the Independence Square and found a cute selection of vintage Christmas ornaments. We put them all in a little bowl passed down to us from Ian's aunt and uncle.

 

We also searched every nook and cranny at Brown's Emporium to find the perfect vintage cookie cutters to place on our little tree in the kitchen. We had a blast picking and choosing just the right ones!

I saved the best for last. I found a cute wooden Christmas tree on Pinterest that I really liked. 

I showed it to Ian, and voila!

A Place to Sit: Restoring a Park Bench

Jen and I make a habit of going to the West Bottoms on the first full weekend of every month to look at the shops that are only open then.  Usually it is vintage, antique or re-purposed stuff.  We found the two sides of an old park bench made out of cast iron.  I thought it was a waste that they were selling them for garden art separately.  I wanted to save them and Jen said go for it.

One of the sides before the magic happens.

 The two sides had a lot of rust showing and the hardware was rusted.

Rusted

The first step I took was to take off the rust with a wire brush at the end of my drill.  It took about two hours to get all the nooks and crannies.  Then sand it down with two different grits of sand paper and wipe off all the rust particles left.
 

Safety first eyes and ears. 

A hard part was to remove the bolts that had rusted.

I used a little bit of this, but wasn't getting anywhere so...

I moved on to using this.

Next it was to give it a good coat of paint to prevent it from rusting again.

Primer:

Finish coat:

After I prepared the sides it was time to cut the slats.  I decided to use cypress for the slats.  It is naturally weather resistant and I like the chestnut color of the wood. 

Cypress

(Next few sentences below are boring but important steps.  Feel free to skip.)
I needed 12 slats.  Nine of those slats were going to be the same size and since I had nothing to go off, figuring out the width was a bit of trial and error.  I decided on making them 2.5 inches wide and 48 inches long.

The other three slats had to be a different size because two were fitting around the front curve and the last one was on the back curve.  They ended up being 1.75 inches wide and 48 inches long.

After cutting them it was time to drill the holes.  I made 1/4 inch holes 3/4 inches in on either side.

 I needed to round the edges of the boards to ensure comfort for the tooshie.  I used a hand plane that has a 1/4 inch round over on each of the slats.

(Next sentence is another boring part, but yet again important to avoid splinters in unwanted places.)
Then it was time to sand and if you know me and sanding there is no love for it.  I used 80 grit, 120 grit and 220 grit to finish it off.

Finally it was time to put it together.  After doing research I noticed that most benches have a middle bracket.  It holds the slats from moving too much and then a metal bar going from one side to the other to keep it up right and not slanting one way or another.

I had no idea what I was going to do for this at first, but it came to me thinking back about when I was helping Dad  make a bunk bed for my niece and nephew.  Dad had used a piece of sturdy aluminum, but yet we could still drill through it.  That was what I needed except not as thick because it needed to be molded to the form of the slats.  I went down to True Value (I go there for most of my workshop needs mainly because they have great customer service and the price is right) with my dilemma and Michael set me on the right path.  I was able to buy an aluminum metal bar, shape it to the form of the slats, and drilled holes through the aluminum using drill screws.  I attached the slats to the sides, fastened the center metal bracket, and  screwed the metal bar from one side to the other with help from Jen.

Center bracket

Bracket reaching from one side to the other.

At this point there is no plan to put a finish on the cypress.  It is supposed to age to a gray that is supposed to be nice.  If it does and we don't like it I can always sand it down (yippee) and apply a clear finish at that time.

Here is how it turned out.

Finished

Preparing for maiden voyage.

A great place to ponder greater things in life.

Not such a great place to take a nap.

Summer Staycation 2013

Last Monday our house looked like this.

By Wednesday, it looked like this.

On Friday, I had to literally STAY in the house because all of the doors and windows were covered in plastic.  I could hear the painters moving ladders and could see the paint spray on the plastic.  It was not until late afternoon that I was able to get a sneak peek of the new color.

By Monday, this was what our house looked like.

Nine Is So Fine

Ian and I celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary on June19.  The day started with a delicious breakfast at The Big Biscuit.  With our bellies full, we headed to Paint, Glaze, and Fire Ceramics and Coffeehouse in Leawood, Kansas.  The traditional wedding anniversary gift for nine years is pottery.  We had reserved a table at Paint, Glaze, and Fire and came with a design in mind.  We sat amongst the mothers, grandmothers, babysitters, and young children and got right to work.

Ian applying the first base coat.

Ian carefully sketching.

Getting ready to write n-i-n-e in cursive.

The sketching was the easy part.  When it came to tracing over our sketch with the paint, that's when the project got tricky.  It took us three tries to get it just right.

Happy Ninth Anniversary

After our pottery adventure, we grabbed a bite to eat at Houlihan's.  Our meal was on the house since it took them over 20 minutes to bring us our food.  It actually took them 20 min and 58 sec.  We weren't going to be too picky, but the waitress came right up with our food and said it was on them!

Later in the evening, we headed to The Independence Square and sat on the terrace at Cafe Verona and enjoyed a delicious dinner, half-price wine, and a complimentary dessert.  It was a wonderful day!

Cheers to nine years!

Casa de Carle Craftsmanship

A while back, Ian and I were perusing the aisles of Target and stumbled upon this entryway table.

The size was perfect for our entryway, put the price was not perfect for our budget.  Ian made a few measurements and took a few pictures and voila!

Over Spring Break, I gave it a few coats of paint and we purchased the knobs at Anthropologie.

The best part, we saved about a hundred dollars with this DIY project!

For the past two years, I have enjoyed decorating our fireplace mantle for the holidays.  I think that it looks its best at Christmastime. 

I love how the white window stands out against the dark bricks.  Thankfully, we had another old window up in the attic.  I painted the trim white on this window, and then painted a tree onto the window.  The finishing touches were two love birds.

 

I found this cute little saying on Pinterest, and Ian turned a king and queen chess piece for the trifecta!

Any Home Can Be A Castle When the King and Queen Are in Love

Finally, over the Easter weekend, we added three new pieces of furniture to our front living room.  It sat empty for the first two years.  We just weren't sure how we were going to decorate the room.  Then, we found this while shopping for a lamp at World Market.

Ian had the great idea to put a drafting table in front of the bay window.  It is a perfect fit.  It fills the space without blocking too much light or the air vent.  We saw some industrial-looking shelves that we really liked, but decided to sleep on it.  We thought that Ian would be able to recreate the shelves at a fraction of the cost.  However, when we woke up the next morning, we decided that the metalwork on the shelves would be hard to duplicate and made this purchase.

We finally have a vision for this room.  Our design style is industrial.  We hope to add some leather club chairs in front of the fireplace sometime in the future.  This room also needs some lighting options.  Until then, we'll continue to watch HGTV for ideas and inspiration.  We have enjoyed scouring the vintage stores downtown for industrial finds.  We found these two items earlier this summer.