Bless This DIY Mess

Check me out on The Old House Web!

Tue, 2 Feb 2010 17:19:46 -0500

Hi, strangers! After a long holiday hiatus, I’m back in the saddle and thrilled to announce that I'm a new contributing writer for The Old House Web! I'll be posting about two articles per month, and perhaps more if time allows. I’m super psyched!

A few people have asked if I'm going to continue with this little houseblog in addition to OHW. The answer is a hearty “Hell yeah.” I've decided to devote this site to essays about our DIY journey and photos of our progress (latest pics here, BTW), whereas my OHW stories will focus on the nuts-and-bolts of renovation and restoration. (Check out my first article, "4 New Uses for the Tiny Clothing Closets in your Old Home," here.)

Speaking of my obsession with organization, I'm fixing to clean up this disastrous DIY mess of a blog and ditch this bleeping iWeb template once and for all. A redesign is sure to be a time vampire, but dammit, I'm sick of envying all the cool kids with their cool blogs that accommodate fancypants stuff like italics (ooooh!), categories (ah!), and more than one photo per blog post (*wistful sigh*). Once I’ve got everything ironed out, posting should be a lot easier, so hopefully I'll manage to do it more often. This every-other-month business is just pitiful.

Hope you’ll forgive a little more radio silence while I figure all this out. Looking forward to catching up with everyone soon, perhaps using a few fancy, italic letters. (NO MORE SHOUTING! YAY!!!)

One blessed mess

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 15:56:11 -0500

Christmas arrived early at the DIY Mess. On Thursday, our kitchen renovation won Best Green Renovation in the Share Your Project Contest, reeling in a $100 Home Depot gift card. To boot, the good folks at repair-home.com moved us up to the next round: finalists for their $1,000 grand prize! (You can vote for us here by December 15th.)

And THEN….

The very next day, one of my posts was named the winning entry for The Old House Web Blogger Contest. That means a $250 Lowe’s gift card under the tree, plus an opportunity to become a paid contributor to The Old House Blog!

Could a writer-slash-DIY’er possibly ask Santa for anything more?!

We can’t thank enough: repair-home.com, Home Depot, Old House Web, Lowe’s, and all of you wonderful readers who were kind enough to vote for us.

Also, huge thanks to Lucy O’Neill and the rest of the OHW gang for going above and beyond. As they put it, “the level of blogmanship was so high” that their contest-judging duty was a real doozy, so they finagled additional gift cards for two more super-deserving contestants: Oh! Apostrophe, a self-described “silly Northern girl” who fears no cast-iron tub; and DIY Diva, whose crown-moulding skills bespeak badassness to which I can only aspire.

Excellent call, OHW. And rawk on, fellow ladybloggers.

Again, huge thanks, and warm holiday wishes all around. Bless our DIY messes, every one!

Making my cupcake stand, and baking the cupcakes, too.

Thu, 3 Dec 2009 10:21:26 -0500

Last month, we hosted a baby shower for some dear friends of ours, and I went all out on the dessert. After perusing the Interwebs for inspiration (many thanks to Two Kids and a Wedding, Craftynest, and Design*Sponge), I came up with my own spin on the DIY cupcake stand.

I picked up a staircase spindle from Construction Junction, my local architectural salvage place, for $5 (guess I’ve had spindles on the brain lately). I stripped, sanded, primed, and painted it, then had Dylan chop it up. I bought a plastic platter and matching plates from Target, then attached everything using a waterproof epoxy putty. Finally, I caulked the seams. (More pics of the process here.)

Then I made chocolate cupcakes…. Well, okay, I actually used a mix. But the mint buttercream icing was from scratch (Martha Stewart’s recipe here). That stuff was time-consuming as all get out, but crazy delicious.

The dad-to-be is a designer by trade (shout-outs to Bearded Studio), so I had him whip up some cupcake toppers, which I cut out and attached to toothpicks with tape. The result was almost too cute to eat, but we managed somehow.

Big bucks! No whammies!

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:12:08 -0500

Today, OldHouseWeb.com announced the finalists of their big blogger contest, and guess who made the list: yours truly! I'm tickled pink and totally honored.

Dearest readers, please have a look at the six finalists' excellent entries and vote for your favorite—or, better yet, vote for mine. Winner gets a $250 Lowe’s gift card AND an opportunity to be a paid contributor to the Old House Blog.

I know, right? How freakin' cool would THAT be?!

Also, if you haven’t already, do click around this fantastic site for old homes and the masochists who love them. There's a wealth of information: product reviews, suppliers, how-to's, green guide, gardening, architecture and design, forums, and of course their blog.

Vote for us!

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 17:56:46 -0500

We've entered our kitchen in the Share Your Project contest, a promotional event for a nifty home-improvement Website, repair-home.com. PLEASE vote for us. There's a cash prize, and Momma needs a new pair of everything (e.g., lighting in place of that wire dangling from the ceiling).

Dust to dust (and dust and dust and dust)

Mon, 2 Nov 2009 10:22:42 -0500

They say Eskimos have 200 words for snow. Lately I’m feeling like there must be at least half as many occasions for the word dust. What would you add to this list?

DUST STORM: A dense, orbital-sander-propelled cloud that spreads from room to room, fogging the air, choking your lungs, and coating everything you own.

DUST DEVIL: What you call your significant other when he/she creates a dust storm and forgets to put a towel under the door to the attic—the place now-formerly known as the Clean Storage Area.

PIGPEN DUST: Dust that wafts off of the skin, hair, and clothes of dust-storm survivors.

DUST MOP: The matted muss that is your hair.

CHICKEN-LITTLE DUST: Ceiling-sanding dust. You really do feel like the sky is falling when dust mixes with the salty sweat of your brow and drips into your eyes.

DUST TO DUST: A dusty mess so unholy that it sends you into an existential crisis.

MOTHER DUSTER: The expletive you mutter to yourself beneath your mask as you clean up said unholy mess.

META DUSTING: When your cleaning rags, Swiffer pads, cleaning solutions, and vacuum cleaner are themselves so filthy that they, too, require a rigorous dusting.

DUSTIN’ OFFMAN: Your dazed, dust-covered alter ego whose brain is so fargone that all he can do is mutter, “No, no, definitely not. Definitely not clean.”

ABOMINABLE SNOW DUST: A dust pile so thick your shoes leave tracks in it.

DIASPORA DUST: Dust that clings to the soles of your shoes and migrates to every corner of the Earth, or at least the house.

SISYPHUS DUST: When emptying the shop-vac bag creates—you guessed it—a dusty mess (this one inspired by Kathy of The Sow’s Ear.)

DUST-COLORED GLASSES: When dust clings to your window and makes it seem as though your entire world is a powdery, post-apocalyptic mess.

DUST MIGHT: What enables you to rally and clean your house. For the five. Millionth. Time.