Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Krate and Barrul

One of our favorite stores to browse is Crate and Barrel. Both Meredith and I love a lot of their furniture, but a lot of it is also out of our league financially.

What's the solution? Knock-offs! Our strategy now is to find some great designs there and make it ourselves.


Project 1: Bathroom Floor Mirror

The Target:

Parsons Floor Mirror
$429

The Solution:

White Wooden Floor Mirror
$80 for mirror, $40 for wood and paint = $120
Savings: $309


Project 2: Dining Room Table

The Target:


Hawthorne Dining Set (Discontinued, similar Provence set pictured)
Table: $1,999 + 6 Chairs: 6x$399 = $4393

The Solution:

Breadboard Style Dining Set
Wood + Supplies: $100, 6 Chairs: $800 = $900
Savings: $3493

We bought the chairs from Unfinished Wood Furniture, and had them finished. (Chairs are still above my skill level) The table is solid pine, somewhat distressed, and should continue to distress with use.

The best part of the table project was the source of the wood. All the wood in the table except the legs came from the stash of wood my grandpa had collected over the years. My grandma recently sold her house, and there were stacks and stacks of wood planks left in the garage. I took some of the less warped pieces, and used part of it to make a table that should be in our house for years and years.


Project 3: Office Armoire

The Target:
Hideaway Home Office Armoire

In progress. This one will be more different from the source than the others. We want the style to match the dining table, since it's in the same area, so it'll be more rustic than the pictured one.

Monday, June 19, 2006

Unwanted

Today is my first morning with nothing stronger than Advil in my system. Not feeling great, but I think I'm improving slowly and steadily.

So, I drove off to the office, not really looking forward to sitting there all day. When I arrived, I unlocked the front door and let myself in. I put away my lunch in the fridge, and went to my office, only to find it locked. Our offices are never locked, and I don't even have a key to it.

After looking at my coworker's office next door (unlocked, naturally), it looked like a pretty simple mechanism. I tried every card in my wallet that I didn't care about messing up the edges, but I couldn't manage to pick it. So, here I am at home to work rather than having to sit there in the hallway two hours until the person with the keys arrived.

I guess they're not that eager to have me back.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Recovery

Well, things are a little happier now that I'm on my painkiller schedule. Waking up was pretty painful, though I did sleep through the night ok.

Apparently, I was pretty entertaining yesterday when coming down from the anesthesia. I guess I let Meredith know that the assistant for the procedure was Canadian three or four times, and kept insisting, "I'm fine!".

I didn't get the chance to post about it before the appointment, but I ran in the "Run For The Rainbow" 5k in New Albany on Tuesday. I missed out on a personal best by about 30 seconds, but having just started training again, I was pretty happy. It certainly wasn't for lack of effort - it was probably the hardest I've run in a 5k, but my body just wouldn't quite let me sprint in the last couple hundred yards.

The Day After

Owwwwwwww.

That is all.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Spring Pictures


Here's our walkway. Our daisies looked pretty sad over the winter, but are exploding now! We also put in some solar powered lights in the flowerbed.




Snapdragons in a field of petunias.




Delphinium after the rain.




Daisy ready for its close-up.

Monday, June 12, 2006

Like Pulling Teeth

Quite literally.

This Wednesday, I get to have all four of my wisdom teeth removed. Anyone out there have horror stories (or even better, "it's not so bad" stories) I should hear?

Got a bunch of other stuff to catch up on as well. I had a novice fencing tournament a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, only three people showed for my division, but I did finish in second place. I missed out on the gold medal by one touch, losing the final bout 15-14.

Also have some new pictures around the house to show, but those will have to wait for now.