Written on October 15th, 2009 by Peter2 comments
My parents bought these end tables right after they first got married in 1977, the year of the first Star Wars film. We decided that they needed some updating. The form of the tables–their basic lines and structure–were pleasing, and we also liked the glass on top, but we wanted to find some way to unify the whole thing. My darling fiancé had the idea to wrap the bottom shelf in a fun patterned fabric.
{Unfortunately this is the best picture that we have. It’s really more a a during photo.}
The first step was preparing the wood, which meant sanding off 30+ year old stain. I’ve done this with an old desk my grandparents gave me. Not sanding furniture that you want to fix up is a big mistake, because skipping this step makes you miss out on the beautiful texture of old wood, which is what furniture used to be made of before the days of Ikea. Sanding the furniture made me closer to it in some strange way, like I was connecting to it on some empathetic level. This experience all sounds very poetic, but the emotion involved was likely the result of delirium caused by the 100+ degree heat on our back porch, in addition to the fact that we did not own an electric sander. We now do.
We then primed the tables with Kilz and painted each one with an eggshell color in satin finish. I learned I do not have the delicate touch required for painting tables. Four years of art school down the drain.
We took the cool and quirky patterned fabric that we found at The Common Thread, and covered the bottom shelf. After securing the fabric using our staple gun, we reinforced the shelf from beneath with metal brackets and screws.
We are really pleased with the results. It has changed the entire feel of the room and has made it lighter, with a fun splash of color. The tables are more unified as objects now, because looking through the glass is actually an engaging experience now, as opposed to before, when the bottom shelf was a dingy, woven wicker. Most importantly, it was fun to work together on imagining and then crafting objects from our space into things that no one else has. Even if we had unlimited income, I would still want these tables in our house.
Look how great it looks next to the shelf we made.
Théo thinks he did all the work.
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People who make dog beds must not own dogs. We love our puppies but if they’ve taught us anything, it’s that dogs are gross. Our little Pomeranians have sensitive stomachs and like to eat just about everything they can get their tiny little mouths on. Tearing up their bedding and getting sick from eating things like their bedding have dissuaded us from buying them a fluffy dog bed. Instead, we’ve decorated their crate with aesthetically unappealing, half-eaten old towels. I know they want something more comfortable because every morning, after they go out, they run inside and throw themselves on a pillow. The problem is that we need something water-proof and, well, dog-proof. This weekend, while strolling through Tuesday Morning, we found a really inexpensive dog bed.
Here it is sitting against the wall. (Please forgive the image quality. A digital camera will be our next big step since ours is obviously on its way out.)
It didn’t come with a water-proof liner but we knew that with a little work we could puppy-proof it ourselves. Here are the step by step instructions. If you’d like to do this at home, you will need the following items:
- One dog bed
- One plastic drop cloth or other type of large plastic sheeting
- One stapler
- One sheet that you are comfortable donating to your dogs
- Blankets that dogs have already sleep with
First we removed any tags that could be harmful to the dogs if they managed to get to them. We then covered the dog bed with a plastic drop cloth in the same way that you would wrap a present.
Here I am folding the edges like I would wrap a present. This doesn’t need to be perfect since you will not see it in the end result.
Staple as you go to secure the plastic. With our dogs, the fewer stray bits they have to chew on, the more likely it is that the product will stay together.
After you’ve wrapped the dog bed, flip it over so that any staples are on the bottom of the bed–far away from your sleeping little ones.
Now, take your sheet and wrap it around the bed. We chose to use a fitted sheet so that it would be more difficult for the dogs to dig up the loose ends and chew on them. Here is Théo, our youngest, checking out his new bed.
Finally, put the dog bed into the crate and cover it with their old blankets. Since the dogs have already been sleeping with the blankets, they will recognize the familiarity of their scent and perceive it to be a safe place. Here is our end result, minus the dogs’ familiar blankets, since (as I mentioned before) they’re pretty gross.
What do you think? The whole project only takes a few minutes and now we know that when they get sick in their crate, we’ll be able to clean it up without throwing the bed away. Now, if only we could get not to chew on their blankets…
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UPDATE: Choosing the planner that we did was a huge mistake. I could not imagine having a worse wedding planner experience than the one that we had with Barbara from Barbara’s Brides. After the wedding we emailed her about our complaints. She answered us in a way that was rude and at times mocking. We have since reported her to the Better Business Bureau. I will write about the full experience later and update the post with a link to our full review.
I did not want a wedding planner. Peter and I wanted to minimize expenses and, frankly, I used to want to be a wedding planner, so why would I hire one? We continued planning when a million questions started to arise–questions that I’d never thought about. Will we need to book extra time for set-up and clean-up or would our allotted time be enough? When do you send save-the-dates? Which vendors do you book first? After a million “I don’t know”s, hiring a wedding planner seemed like the best option; but even that decision opened the gates for more uncertainty.
We started by making a list of the things that required help. The list showed us that we mostly wanted a day-of coordinator who would answer our questions along the way. We didn’t need anyone to attend meetings with us, but the idea of having someone check our vendor contracts for sneaky clauses was really appealing. The list helped eliminate unnecessary services and reminded us what we needed when we were in the middle of a meeting. It’s tempting to get excited and start saying,”Yes, that’s great!” but when the estimate comes in at over $6,000, it’s time to bring yourself back to reality.
We took our list to the computer and compared it to the services that planners offered. We were initially attracted to some of the less expensive planners but quickly realized that what seems inexpensive up front often requires so many additional fees that they end up costing the same amount as one of the seemingly expensive planners. Peter and I looked for signs for experience. Things that keyed us in to modern planners were developed websites and blogs. I wanted someone who paid attention to detail and I felt like someone who didn’t care enough to make their website look attractive was missing the obsession with detail that I wanted. A blog is not essential but I feel like it separates some professions from their competitors by showing that they care about staying on top of the changing world.
Once we’d whittled down the list we began to send out emails to set-up meetings with the planners. Anyone who did not answer within 48 hours was cut from our list. It sounds harsh, but we wanted to make sure that the person we hired cared about my business and could answer the questions in a timely manner. After the list was even smaller, we set up all of our appointments in a week’s span. It was an intense week of planners but Peter and I are both so busy that we knew if we spaced out the time in between all the planners that they would start to fade into one another.
When we arrived at the meetings we took notes and came prepared with a lot of questions and they definitely noticed. We asked about Sunday discounts (some offer them). We asked about their experience. One confessed she’d only planned 20 weddings in three years while some of her competitors had planned over 1,000. We asked if they drank when they were at weddings, to tell us a horror story, what they usually wear, if vendors give them kickbacks, and if vendors offer discounts to their brides. *If the planner takes vendor kick-backs, RUN away. She won’t have your best interest at heart.*
One semi-misconception is that planners are a lot of money but, in my opinion, they’re a lot like insurance. If you pay for them and everything works, then you feel like you could have lived without them. But if something goes wrong, then you thank your lucky stars for them. They can also provide you with enough discounts that they make-up for the cost of hiring them. When a planner told me that no one was offering discounts these days I took it as a sign of her being disconnected with the industry. A good planner can get you discounts. Many of them admit to it and I’ve seen it with my friends’ planners. The recession is persuading more vendors to give people a deal, because they’re desperate for business.
If a planner alludes to the fact that she would drink at a wedding then it’s a huge red flare. Planners are there to work. You’d like everyone to have a good time but at the end of the day you’re completing a business transaction.
Again, the things that were important to us may or may not be important to you. I wanted someone honest and experienced. If a planner told me that nothing ever went wrong when she was working at a wedding then it sounded like a lie. I wanted to know that things had gone wrong and that they’d been able to fix it, because what would they do if (and when) something goes wrong at our wedding?
After the meetings, we called their references, asked about them on forums like The Knot, and also asked other vendors about their reputations in the industry. It turns out that girls on The Knot usually love their vendors while they’re planning because they want to feel reassured that they made the right choice but vendors who have actually worked with these professionals really know how they compose themselves in front of guests.
In the end we went with the planner who told us that the color lavender runs the risk of being tacky (unless we use a more gray looking lavender–which we will do), had planned more than 1,000 weddings, and had seen so many things go wrong that she’s now ordained and carries a script with her so that no mater what, the wedding will go on. Plus, we just liked her. She wasn’t cooing over me and saying things like, “OMG!! This is so exciting!!” She was there to do her job and I respected that. A planner can be the best person in the world but if the sound of her voice makes you want to scream (This happened with one of the planners we interviewed) then she’s not the person that you want around you throughout one of the most important days in your life.
What about you guys? Did anyone else opt to get a planner? How did you choose?
If you’re in Austin and looking for a planner then I DO NOT recommend Barbara from Barbara’s Brides. See the update above.
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