Another Office Chair Refinished
02-18-2012
If wasn’t too long after my office chair was painted that Ellie was pleading for us to find one for her side. We did a little searching and I was extremely surprised by what she picked out. I took the lime green seat cushion off too soon but here she is in all her beauty; We took a risk buying…
Thrift Store Mirror….Repainted
02-17-2012
Quite a while ago, Ellie brought home a thrift store find that she was super excited about. The original location for this treasured find was right above the apothecary console. She quickly painted it and found out that she didn’t like it. It’s been sitting in our attic ever since. On a bored Saturday afternoon, I decided to dust it…
Boxed Cushions with Welting – Part 1
02-16-2012
When Tommy built our L-shaped window bench in the kitchen last Spring, I broke out my mom’s sewing machine and cut up an old memory foam mattress to sew some make-shift window cushions using cheap, solid brown fabric that I bought from JoAnn fabrics. Emphasis on the words “make-shift.” One of my big projects this winter has been to replace my…
Office Chair Refinished
02-08-2012
Thanks for your help in making the decision for us to refinish the thrift store chair that I bought. It was a unanimous vote to paint the chair white and maybe add a cushion to it. It was a pretty simple process. I sanded down the whole chair to rough it up enough to allow the paint to stick. It…
DIY Ballard Inspired Shelves
02-07-2012
Our walls were in need of a little something something. Ellie really wanted some additional shelving for storage/organization. If I were to put up shelves, I wanted some symmetry….which meant we would need 4 shelves total to accomplish both of our goals. Call me Mr. Cheap-o, but I wasn’t comfortable with spending $50-$100 on shelves that I could build with…
Back to Bare Bones
02-06-2012
I told Tommy over the weekend that sometimes I feel like our family room is the red-headed step child of our house. It’s the room we spend the most time in, and the room we never feel is complete. I sold the window cornices I built this fall, so our windows are back to naked. A few options we have…
Our Weekend Projects…
02-05-2012
Did we mention that we are weekend warriors? i.e We both work full-time jobs during the week and the only time we have to get things done around the house is Saturday and Sunday. Yup…..we are somewhat normal people. Right now, we both have a couple little projects in the works that we will hopefully be posting about later on…
iPad Stand
02-04-2012
With a his and hers double work station, I needed something to stake claim on which side was mine. Ellie’s side is complete with sewing machine, craft items, binders, and more. My side just had a bluetooth keyboard for my iPad. Early on the construction process I decided to build a little iPad stand. I stumbled across some inspiration via…
Simple End Table
01-31-2012
Not much detail here. I whipped together a little end table for a client. They wanted something to match their bench. It’s 28″ x 17″ x 17″. I planed some 2×4″s down to 1″ thick pieces, created a bottom shelf at 1″ from the bottom and the second 18″ from the bottom. Here’s some pics.
Sawhorse: Steel Wool Aged Technique FAIL
01-28-2012
I went from super excited to super bummed in the matter of 24 hours. I was real excited to try out a technique that I’ve been hearing about for awhile to make new wood look aged. As in….gray/weathered. The making of this concoction is Apple Cider Vinegar and a piece of steel wool. You simply pour your apple cider vinegar…
Sawhorse: Paint and Distress
01-26-2012
The inspirational picture of our double work station was this fun teal/distressed look. We decided to simply copy that as best as we could. Once the desk was constructed, details can be found here, it was time to begin to finish it. I sought guidance and direction from my lovely wife, Ellie, for picking out the color. We bought a…
Need Advice….Should We Refinish This Chair?
01-24-2012
Slowly but surely, we’re making some progress on our home office. It started by the building of this double work station. The most pressing need has been for new chairs. I’ve been eyeing some pretty awesome (and expensive) chairs from places like Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn; Needless to say, I was real excited to find this little gem at…
New Popular Post Menu
01-23-2012
We’ve added a new page to our site listing all of your favorite posts categorized by room. Feel free to browse around. If there’s a specific post that you think should be added….let us know. The new page is in the top menu or you can click here; http://tommyandellie.com/?page_id=2903
Sawhorse Double Desk Details
01-22-2012
One of the rooms in our house has sat literally empty for quite a while now. We didn’t have any furniture for it and we also didn’t have a clear sense of what we wanted the room to look like. The one thing that we did know was that Ellie needed some work space to set up a sewing machine…
Tommy and I are in the process of renovating our home office, and one of the first projects I tackled was designing some desk lamps to go on top of the new work station Tommy built. I used a couple of different resources for instructions on how to recover a lampshade. The two I found most helpful were from: Young…
Chevron: Human Energy or Furniture Energy?
01-19-2012
Well….I decided to try my hand at refinishing an old antique piece of furniture. The last couple visits to my favorite antique shop and to Habitat for Humanity Restore, I came across some amazing pieces of furniture priced low. I didn’t buy them and have been kicking myself for not scooping them up. So, I set out to find a…
Three Rounds of Poison Ivy and a Fence
01-18-2012
When we first looked at the house, I saw tons of potential. I saw an amazing foundation for us to make a house our home. The one thing that worried me was the backyard. Saying that it was pretty neglected is an understatement. The back property line was filled with overgrown ivy, weeds, poison oak, and fallen pine tree branches….
Farmhouse Table Extensions….Must Do.
01-17-2012
If you’ve stopped by our blog out of an interest in building yourself a farmhouse table…..you owe it to yourself to build the extensions that go along with it. Even if your current room doesn’t have enough room to handle a longer table, this is a table that will last a long time and you’ll be kicking yourself for not…
Sneak Peek….Details Later This Week
01-16-2012
Here’s a little teaser shot of my project from this last weekend. We are slowly putting together our home office….and this is just one of many pieces to the puzzle. Ellie’s been working on some things as well…..not it’s just a matter of having enough hours in the night or time on the weekend to get things checked off. I’m…
Bermuda, Jamaica, Ohhhh I Wanna Take Ya
01-16-2012
Clearly, we are talking about islands today. Kitchen islands. When the house was built in 1985, I’m not sure if the architects envisioned a kitchen island, but in April of 2010, I did. The vast open space consistently said to me “if you build it, they will come.” How could I ignore such an impulse? I began researching all the…
