I can see the finish line...

This week proved to be a challenging one.  Many many many assignments were due this week and so sleep came second to those demands.  I tell you though, hard work pays off.  Only two weeks left until presentations and I'll be done with yet another quarter.  I'm in the 24th mile of my metaphoric marathon.  I just have to keep running.  I know I can do it and I'm going to give it my all.

Here's the scanned assignment my design partner and I stayed up doing till 4 and 5 am this week for our Senior Healthcare studio. I did the perspectives and my partner did the elevations.
 

Reception Area Perspective

Living Room Perspective

Reception Elevation

 Living Room Elevation

Crate to Ottoman

A couple of weeks ago, I did a little dumpster diving and found a crate.  I was lucky to find one that would fit into the trunk of my 10 year old Mitsubishi, so I brought home my new find.  It sat in my trunk for a while as I contemplated all the possibilities and potential for this crate to be something useful and creative.  Could it be a wall shelf, an herb garden, a nice piece of wall art?  My head was whirling.

As I was watching TV with my family one day, I was wanting an ottoman really bad to put my feet on.  We recently moved into a small townhome, so what I needed had to fit certain dimensions of our tiny family room.  Low and behold, the crate was the exact dimension I was looking for.  I hopped over to my favorite store, Home Depot, and bought four legs and black gloss spray paint.

I went to town on that crate then realized I can have an upholstered top on it easily.  I tried out a new store (to me) called Mesa Sales for the upholstery foam.  Best prices in town, I tell you and they cut to size!  I was also able to find the fabric I wanted at Home Goods.

I'm so happy with the results, as long as I can keep my husband from putting his shoes on the top.  This project has helped me embrace the industrial look of design in my house.  I'm wondering what I can think up next.

Yellow + Stripes = Love

I got this wonderful piece from my neighbor after she set it out on the curb with a FREE sign on it.  A black widow got to it before I did, but my husband quickly solved that problem. So it sat in my garage for about a month or two and was actually serving its storage purposes, but my husband wanted it in his office.  

We decided to make his office the December project around here (which will be posted as soon as it's done) so he cleaned up his office as soon as I started sanding the shelves.  Obviously I'm still a little new to blogging about my projects because I didn't think to take a before pic until the first coat of paint was already on. 

My hubby picked the color.  I had to replace the back panel (which was really fun demo work for me :) so we came up with a cool idea of painting stripes on the back.  He even helped me with the taping.  Working with color is taking me out of my comfortable neutral bubble.  I welcome the challenge!

After we paint the whole room (the same gray as the stripes) we'll be ready to place the furniture and accessorize.  I'm so excited!  Thanks again Stacey for the shelf!

One more week and I'll be one quarter closer to having my Interior Design degree!  Only 8 more to go. *sigh*

Guests and Projects

I get so excited when we have guests coming over that I find the motivation to change things in my house.  There's a particular project that I've been wanting to do, but my husband hates moving furniture and equipment around so it's been put off for a very long time.

 My entertainment center is a big of an eyesore to me.  It was put together out of necessity when we moved in over a year ago.  I hate seeing the wires behind the TV, it looks like the monster in the room and it is constantly disorganized. I've had a new configuration in my head for a few months now, but never had the motivation to do it.  Apparently it takes guests coming in from Utah for me to find that motivation.

My mother-in-law's best friend was in town this week and my husband offered to make dinner. (He's my live in Bobby Flay. I'm so lucky!)  So the day that everyone is supposed to come over, I text my husband to see if he would be mad if I changed everything about the entertainment center.  He said as long as he didn't have to do anything it would be fine.  I put the phone down and went to work.

Four hours later and a break to pick up {B} from school, I was done.  Unfortunately, I couldn't finish the floating shelf above the TV before our guests came over because our drill doesn't have enough torque. (A new drill is on the Christmas list this year.)  My father-in-law came to the rescue with 2 different types of drills for us to choose from.  So after everyone left, I finished drilling and accessorizing so I could take this picture before I went to bed.

 The old shelf with doors needs to be taken somewhere else, but I'm glad the project got finished.  I feel much better when I watch TV now that everything is organized and I can display pretty things in a much nicer less messy way.

On account of finishing projects, here's another beauty I finished and posted to craigslist today!

 If you're interested in buying this, here's the official post:

http://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/fuo/2603966385.html

Now I'm off to enjoy the rest of my Saturday (aka finish homework before Monday morning's class)