I've had some free time to sit around and dream up new house projects lately, but not enough energy to work on them. As my husband finishes up work on our new house, I'm coming up with little projects to decorate and furnish it on our budget. There are some things I definitely can't do - like, say, make a couch - and we'll just have to wait until we can afford a comfortable couch that hasn't been sitting in our carport for 3 months. But there are a lot of other little projects that I think would be a lot of fun and that I hope I have time and energy to work on during my maternity leave.
1. Window pane photo display. We took a bunch of old, oddly shaped glass windows out of our old house, that we are saving to build a mostly-glass shed/greenhouse someday. One of the windows is smaller than the rest - about 3' x 4' - and I think it would make an amazing frame for our wedding photos. I'd like to strip the paint off of the trim and stain it or paint it with diluted paint in a rose pink that would still show the wood grain underneath and just warm up the natural color of the wood, which is in pretty good shape. Then I'd like to back it with a piece of plywood, which I would cover with leftover fabric from my wedding dress (my mom made it, so I have a fair amount of the fabric lying around). I would then mount a whole bunch of enlarged photos from our wedding on the plywood, and secure the window on top of it. I wonder how heavy this would be to mount on the wall . . .
2. Photo Album. I have been planning for a while to make a photo album for our wedding photos. I'm planning to make the covers out of heavy cardboard covered in wedding dress fabric and paste the photos on card stock inside. I always prefer pasting photos to nice paper to enclosing them in plastic. I just don't like the feel of those plastic pockets, and it doesn't give you the freedom to arrange your photos however you want. I'll tie the whole thing together with the ribbon we used as an accent for my wedding dress.
3. Bench and Bench Cover. I'd like to have one of those nice long benches in the entry to our new house and has tons of room for dirty boots underneath - I think my husband actually manufactures dirty boots, there are always more of them! - and a comfy surface to sit on. I think I'll commission the manufacturer of dirty boots to actually build the bench, and then I'll sew a nice long pillow to go on top. I'm thinking one of those ones with the little buttons that give it the nice gathered look.
4. Chalkboard. I already have a nice key rack to hang in the entry. I'd love to add a chalkboard that sort of matches it for us to write important numbers and make to do lists. The key rack is made from an old washboard which has seen better days. Luckily, we also have a pile of old wood sitting in our back yard that I think would match it pretty well. My idea is to paint a piece of plywood with chalkboard paint, then frame it with the distressed wood, including a little ledge for the chalk, which I would then oil to sort of match the wood of the washboard.
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