Platform Bed: Part 1

We have had quite a bit of rain the past few days her in the ROC, which has caused some problems for us. With the break we had in it today, we cleaned out all of the junk in our gutters, sealed some of the edges, and noticed the debris sitting on top of the roof. My husband and I have decided that that huge maple tree, as lovely as it is, needs to go. We need to prolong the roof of our house, and to do that, we are going to dig deep into our pockets and have someone come to remove it. This will open our back yard up to a lot of sun and give us piece of mind that it won't fall onto our home or our neighbors home.
We decided that today we would start our next big DIY project to personalize our home. We have decided that the bedroom set that I have had for the past five years will stay in the bedroom downstairs and be our guest bedroom. We are building a king sized platform bed all from scratch to go in our master suite upstairs. It will take a lot of time and patience, and is a little costly, but it's a project that we both can work on together and spend some quality time with one another.
Today we started working on the base. If you are going to undertake this project on your own, I highly recommend figuring out where you are going to put the frame because most of it will need to be built in place.

Materials:
* Six 2x10x8's
* 1 box of deck screws (1" should suffice)
* 12 metal joints
* Foam brushes
* Stain of your choice
* Polyurethane

Tools Needed:
*Miter Saw
*Circular Saw
*Power drill

Step 1: You first need to cut the pieces of wood into the sizes you need. Simple enough. We went ahead and had the fine people at home depot make the cuts for us for the pure fact that we needed to fit it into my accent hatchback to get it home. We had two of the 2x10x8's cut to 69" and the other four were cut to 65". The scraps are going to be used for support beams.
                   

Step 2: Figure out what pieces you want to use that you will see on the outside. These are the ones that you are going to stain. We chose to have a few with eyes and knots to give the piece some character.
             We simply propped them on top of some benches we have in the yard and put paper underneath to protect them. If you have some rough edges, you might want to sand them down a little bit, but the pieces we chose were nice and smooth so I chose to skip that step. Don't shake the stain up before you open in, open the can and stir it. if you shake it, you are going to get a lot of bubbles in the mix and it becomes sort of a pain to use. With a foam brush, distribute the stain evenly to apply a thin coat. The thicker the coat, the longer it is going to take to dry. Let that dry and then you can decide if you want to apply another coat or not. The dry time really depends on the humidity. For the first coat, it took about 2 hours. For the second one, it took about 4 hours. We actually decided to move them onto our side porch because the dry time took longer than anticipated.

                                    

Step 3: Once the stain is dry, apply a coat of Polyurethane. Again, the dry time is really dependent on the brand you use, so closely follow the directions on the can.

Step 4: Assemble. We haven't gotten this far because we are still waiting for everything to dry but I will be updating this section when we start to build it.

Cost of materials for base only:
$100.00

Finally!

We have been in our new home for almost 2 weeks and as much as I would like to say we are loving every moment of it, I am close to being a dead person I am so exhausted! We closed on the house on the 7th and it was raining every single day we had to move. We spent 2 entire days moving everything, then spent that entire Sunday cleaning our old house and moving over the last of the little stuff. The hubby took a few days off of work to work on things that need to get done so we can actually live in the house. Gutters were overflowing with debris needing to desperately be cleaned out. He moved a washer and dryer into the basement. Demo'd a large concrete laundry tub and installed a new lighter plastic tub and the list goes on.
With my job and hours, the first day I was able to do anything was on Saturday after work. I'm sure you can guess what my first project was... GARDENING! I was so excited to get my hands dirty! The previous owner had lined gardens with these wonderful rocks, which gives the backyard a natural feel.
I spent quite a bit of time weeding out a lot of unwanted plants.

We brought some of our plants over from our old house because I just couldn't seem to part with them.

 

I found out very quickly when I was digging holes to plant everything was that the roots from the enormous maple tree in our backyard were going to prove to be quite the challenge.

I was able to recreate my old garden but was able to add new components. Instead of using red mulch as I had in my previous gardens, I decided to go with black mulch this time around.

I transplanted different types of Hostra that were on the property to fill in my garden a little bit.

 

And voila! 

Total Project Time = 3 hours

Total Project Cost= $115.00

5 Days Until our Move!

Moving day is so close I can almost taste it! My husband and I have been busy packing so that we can make the transition to our new home as easy as possible. We have enlisted a number of people to help us with our move and you have no idea how grateful I am to have people actually willing to help move all of our stuff from one place to another especially since it has been so hot and humid this past week!
We have run into some kinks in getting an actual closing date because our attorney's office was taking their sweet time. Listen, I know I didn't go to school and get a big fancy schmancy degree in learning how to be a douche bag, but I know that New York State is one of the only states that requires an attorney for you to close on your house, and with that, it doesn't take a genius to get the job done. I'm sorry that you take on too many clients that you take an entire month to contact the attorney of the seller to get the damn title, but if I'm basically giving you 600 bucks to do just that, I expect you to get it done in a reasonable amount of time, especially when our broker has been riding your ass! Rest assured, I will not be recommending you to anyone, ever... Ok, I think I'm done ranting for now.
We are closing on our new home this Friday, barring any other problems..**knock on wood** We will be signing paperwork in the morning, getting the keys and the first thing we need to do is order a washer and dryer. I don't know about you, but I have become spoiled in the fact that after years of having to waste my time in a Laundromat to watch my clothes to make sure no creep steals or throws my laundry on the floor, I can just throw my stuff in, walk away, and take care of things that need to be done around the house. Time is a precious thing for a lot of people, and I certainly don't have much of it at this moment in my life.
Today we moved everything we packed up in the basement up to the back porch to make things much easier so we can just grab and go. This is 1/3 of our house. The other 1/3 of the house is the attic which I have just about everything packed and ready to go. Tomorrow i have off of work and have decided to pack up the kitchen. I have purchased paper plates and cutlery to use for the few days that we will be here. I know that this is wasteful, but with my hours, I don't have the time or energy to do it when I get home from work this week..it's just not happening.
I am excited to move for many reasons. I'm not a big fan of my neighbors. After I got home from work yesterday, my non English speaking neighbors were blaring their music and yelling at each other up until 10 at night. All I could tell myself was just a few more days! Also, seeing how everyone is home all of the damn time and doesn't work and it's not just that they are on vacation and probably easily spending my tax dollars on Twinkies and potato chips and popping out kids left and right..just pisses me off and I just can't stand looking at people like this anymore...or the fact that the cops are at the rental property across the street from me every day because of a domestic dispute... It will be a relief to live in a neighborhood that cares about their property values, that is out working hard, that cares about education and cares about how there hard earned money is spent.
Joshua and I are getting some great ideas to do for our DIY home projects and I am so excited that I will soon be getting to share these ideas with anyone that actually reads this blog.
Joshua gets to have his man cave in the basement while I will have my woman cave upstairs. One expensive project that we will be undertaking it adding on an entire bathroom up in the master suite.
My goal is to increase not only property value, but increase the appeal of the entire upstairs space having a fireplace, walk in closets, and a spa like bathroom with contemporary flare. In order to get this project underway, we will hire a plumber to come in and give us an estimate on how much it would be to get water upstairs. We really don't mind doing most projects ourselves, but plumbing is not something we want to mess with and we need to be sure that everything is done the proper way so that we don't end up having leaks which can cause a significant amount of water damage and could cost more in the long run to fix then just paying someone knowledgeable to do the project in the first place.

The following are just some ideas I have found for inspiration for my dream bathroom. I love the natural stone on the walls with the wood panelled floors. I like the idea of the wood privacy wall which we can install to keep the toilet separate from the rest of the bathroom. I love the contemporary elegance of a glass bowl sink. There are many kinds of bowls that you can special order to meet your wants. You might spend a pretty penny on them, but I think it would be well worth the expense.

 

 

So below you have sort of a walk-in closet leading to the bathroom which is going to be perfect for how the entire layout is set up in the upstairs. Add in some sleek pocket doors and I think you have yourselves a winner.

 

I just love love love this type of soaking tub. I love the idea that the hardware isn't attached to the actual tub itself like most soaking tubs are. Go with something like this in place of a clawfoot tub, you can save yourselves 500 bucks. When choosing a soaking tub for an upstairs space, make sure the flooring can handle the weight of the tub and the amount of water that can fill it. With something like this, you have to be very careful in doing your research and I will be writing more about this as we get the project underway =)