Giant script name

I had a clean slate after I finished painting Eleanor's room. It was great. I had taken down everything and I planned on nothing going back up for a little while, until I could think about things. I knew I wanted her name up on the wall somewhere, but I didn't really want to go with anything that was out there already. Then, one day, inspiration hit. I realized I wanted to cut out her name in some kind of script font in one big piece and hang bunting behind it. I really don't even know what made me think of it, but I went for it.

First, I had to think about how to get a template. I ruled out free-handing it almost immediately since I wanted it to be script and I just don't have the skills to do that, especially since there were 2 of the same letter (I figured being consistent would be a big problem). I thought about using an overhead projector and asked on facebook if anyone knew where I could get one. There were some ideas, but then a friend offered to print it on a large format printer, so that was taken care of. If that's not an option for you, I'm betting there's a way to print something that big in pieces using Photoshop or Illustrator or their free counterparts, Gimp and Inkscape.

The total size of the template was about four feet across and eighteen inches high (give or take). I taped it up in place to see how it looked and I loved it. 

Once I confirmed that the template was the right size, I took it down and taped it to my 3/8" thick mdf and traced it, then removed it. Handy tip: use a yardstick or other straight edge to correct any tracing mistakes made on a straight line.

 Then I jigsawed it out. The employee who helped me at Home Depot gave me another really great tip- he recommended laying my board on top of a thick sheet of styrofoam laying on the floor and cutting through both. I'm so glad I bought that styrofoam. Trying to maneuver this big sheet around on sawhorses and supporting the parts I had cut out would have been a real pain. Plus, now I have this styrofoam for all my jigsawing needs.

Another tip: make sure you get a jigsaw blade for cutting curves. They're daintier than ones that are for mostly straight lines and it really makes a difference with how sharply you can turn.

After it was cut, I used my Dremel with a coarse sanding drum to smooth out any rough spots around the edges, then sanded it lightly by hand. Finally it was just priming and painting and I was done!

Except for hanging it. I used these: 

and a laser level to make sure it was hung nice and straight.

And then...

Ta-da! I love it a lot.

Indoor cat door

This may seem like a weird thing to some people (or maybe an obvious thing, I don't know), but putting a cat door on our storage room door was genius.

To explain, when our basement was unfinished, Danger (the cat) could just run downstairs to get to her litter box and her food and water. We had a door at the top of the stairs with a chain lock on it, so I would keep that on but the door open and Danger could slip through that little 6 inch gap and my daughters could not. Our stairs looked like this,

{These are some freaky steep stairs, folks.}

so it was really important to make them inaccessible to our toddler.

Well, I started thinking about how I would handle the littler box and the cat food as we got closer and closer to finishing and one day it occurred to me that we could just put a cat door on the storage room door to cut off toddler access to those things (Eleanor is still 2 or 3 inches away from being able to get an actual grip on the door knob, so a closed door will be enough of a deterrent for awhile yet). I wouldn't have to worry about having the door open for Danger and closed for Eleanor. Brilliant!

The installation was very straight forward and simple. I followed the instructions that came with the cat door we got (it was this one) and basically just found the center of the door, traced the shape of the cat door so it would be centered, then cut it out with a jig saw and screwed the door in. So simple.

My jigsaw lines weren't perfect, but the cat door has that little casing bit that covered them up. I'd do a whole hallway shot, but right now the hall leading up to this door is so full of junk that if I backed up much farther the cat door would be obscured by boxes. Hooray!

So, now that I've shared my genius plan, what do you think? Would you have cut a big ol' hole in your brand new door? 

Got a jigsaw!

Mike got me a jigsaw for my birthday because he's awesome, so I put it to some use yesterday.  I used sheet moss over drywall.  I was going to use wood, but then remembered the drywall that I had gotten from Home Depot for free a few days before.  I needed about a 6"x6" piece for a patch in our living room, and when I asked if they sold it in pieces smaller than the sheets, the guy just gave me a piece a couple feet square that they were going to throw away.  So, the patch is done, and the rest of it was just the right size for this big letter J.  You know, for Johnson.  I already had the moss and the burlap for hanging, so it cost nothing.  I free-handed the letter- it's an imitation of the Elephant font in Word.  I think I'll embellish it a little more, add some little blossoms or something, but I love it plain, too.  Jigsaws are awesome.

I added this little bit to the new bookcase after I did that letter.  I've had the moss forever, I think I just forgot about it.
And now-I'm so proud of this- the newly repainted kitchen!  True, I did paint just after we moved in, so it hadn't been 2 years since I first painted, but I hated the color.  I just wanted a tan, but the tan I chose, as it turns out, had very strong red undertones.  It looked pink.  I gave it a year to see if it would grow on me, but last fall I decided I would be repainting.  So I finally got to it last week.
Before:

 During:

 After:

 I took the before picture in natural light, since that's when it looked the least pink.  In the second picture you can see the contrast between the two paints and my awesome laundry board nook.  I've had the door off of that since we moved in- somehow it didn't get painted when it had the chance and it just ended up in the garage forever.  But it's finally back on- much better.  And I'd been dying to use chalkboard paint, so it worked out perfectly.  And I've put flowers in those little planters on the table now- red poppies.  The pail next to the laundry board cubby is to hold chalk and an eraser.
I've started my first quilt.  Pictures to come.