Hiding things in the walls, part 3

I'm hiding treasures in the walls again. It's like the funnest thing I can think of.

Our basement stairwell had been open and wall-less for many months now, after our leaky pipe plumbing problem. It was old splintery wood and kind of crusty, to say the least. The plumbing was replaced in December, and, lucky for us, the mold/mildew was only on the plaster and lathe, which has been long gone. Safe to say everything had plenty of time to dry out over the past few months. Time to close things up!

But before my dad hung the drywall, we slipped a collection of artifacts inside for future residents of this house to find (if they destroy the walls). An informal kind of time capsule.

Anticipating this hiding, Elise and I created a commemorative painting a few months ago when 2014 was still fresh and new (to let you in on just how slow we are moving around here).

The rest of our package was pretty impromptu and included some more pre-school art, a few 2014 coins, a copy of our community newspaper, and a random assortment of plastic toys we didn't mind parting with, including no less than four SpongeBobs.

See more things I've hidden >>

Working on a workspace + etsy dreams

Last fall, we closed in an old garage door that led directly into our basement. It was non-functional and not at all insulated. Frigid in the winter and I swear you could feel the wind blowing through.

Old boarded-up garage door (November 2012)

Other than making it more energy efficient, the main reason for fixing up this space was to turn it into a workspace-slash-studio. A dedicated space for painting, building, taking photos, etc.

Wall up, pre-drywall (November 2012)

The last time I showed this space here, there wasn't even drywall up. It's up now, but like the rest of the unfinished basement, it's not taped and mudded. (A previous owner started finishing the basement, but didn't finish finishing the basement.)

So I'm starting to create my basement workshop. Looking at these photos, you probably wouldn't have guessed anything had been done at all. Really, it's not so pretty at this point. But considering what it looked like not even a year ago, I am allowed to call this progress.

I was going to paint this concrete wall behind the work bench white to freshen things up, but. It's already sort of a white-washed light grey, and I have grown to love the chalky texture so I'm keeping it the way it is.

Even though it looks a mess, things are coming along. It needs more organization and some prettifying, but I'll get there.

You may be wondering why I need a workspace like this. I'll let you in on a little secret: I'm currently working to start my own etsy shop. All my legal start-up paperwork is in order, and all I'm doing now is using every spare bit of free time I have to make things. It's slow going, though. Given that I'm on mom-time, my free time really doesn't add up to very much.

I'm not quite ready to show my wares here yet, but I will divulge more soon. I'm trying to act all confident and business-lady-like, but truthfully, the thought of opening this shop is making me so nervous for all the normal reasons. (What if nobody likes what I make? etc.)

Any etsy shop owners out there with tips or advice on calming those fears? I've read just about every article out there about opening a shop and I feel prepared, but still the nerves won't quit!

Replacing an old garage door with a wall

Our garage door to wall transformation is nearly complete. Complete enough to show you some progress shots anyway.

We initially planned to hire this job out, but after asking my dad what kind of contractor I should call, he sort of just took the job on himself. Yes, he's great. No, I'm not sharing him.

He started by ripping out the old door, door frame and the flimsy insulation, leaving a giant hole in the house. That hanging plastic was there just to block the wind some and keep the debris outside.

The end of day one was looking a lot like this.

We decided to do a wood frame wall rather than a stone or masonry wall for one main reason: weight. The weight of cinder blocks or poured concrete would have demanded busting up the floor plus part of the driveway and pouring deep concrete footings to support it all. More work, more money, more trouble. Nope, a stud frame wall will do just fine.

But one thing we could not do without was adding a window. It's what I wanted most out of this project: natural light in a dark and dingy basement. I'm hoping to turn this space into a work area, so it was a necessity. The long and skinny 2 x 6 foot window was special order from Lowe's for $160; I was surprised it didn't cost more.

I wasn't completely sold on the idea of having a small patch of siding on the house, but there are not a lot of options for weatherproof exterior materials. Plus introducing a fourth material to the existing stone/brick/siding combo would probably have looked just as weird. So we used the same approximate color and style as the top and the back of our house.

The clay color also blends into the stone foundation color so from far away, it doesn't really draw attention to itself.

After some calling around to various to-the-trade siding distributors, I finally located the same(ish) siding in stock at Home Depot. Imagine that. (FYI, not all Home Depots carry the same siding color or profile in-stock, so if you can't find what you're looking for at one location, try another or check stock online. There's a good chance it's different.)

We still have to add some trim around the edges of the opening and then paint the wood the same tone as the siding, but with everything already weatherproof enough for winter, those jobs will probably have to wait until next spring.

And the inside?

The inside is still not complete, but that's OK. It tells you how bad it was that I can look at this unfinished wall and think it looks great.

If this photo is looking a bit wonky to you: the window is level, and the floor is not. The floor is actually far far from level. But that's an issue for another day (or never).

The view is nothing amazing, but look at that light! It's not a dungeon anymore! The natural light still catches me off guard when I go down the steps.

I mentally budgeted between $1000 and $2000 for this project, so I'm excited it only added up to about $420 with DIY labor. More money to spend on something else!

See the before pics >>

Next up: Closing up a garage door

Introducing our next renovation project: closing in this ugly and useless garage door.

If it were functional, this door would open up directly into our basement. That is, if you were to you walk down the basement steps, boom: you see where the car would be parked. Even if we wanted to use this space to park a car, I don't think it would be safe or up to modern code (i.e. exhaust could get into the living areas too easily).

We actually had a pair of these metal doors when we moved in, but we replaced the left one (that opens into the actual garage) with a modern thermal door and opener. But back to the door on the right...

It's old and thin aluminum. Somewhere along the line, someone tried to seal up the door on the inside to shut out the cold, but did a crap job of it all.

A couple of sheets of insulation board and a can of spray foam insulation isn't enough to keep anything warm. Not only is it not airtight, it is so thin, you can easily talk with someone outside through the door.

So after four and a half years of living with this makeshift scenario, we're finally going to replace the door with a real wall. A radical idea, I know! More details to come as we figure this whole thing out.

Ugh. Sometimes I feel like all we do around here is fix the weird and poor choices made by previous owners of our house. Anyone else in the same boat?

Update: Project complete! See the new wall here >>

Office / sewing room mini-makeover reveal

It took me a while, but our office is finally re-assembled and ready to show you!

Overall, I know it doesn't look that much different from what was there before. All of the furniture and artwork went right back where it was. Might be uneventful, but it works well in this configuration and I wasn't looking to do a major overhaul.

So what did change? The walls went a light shade of aqua. Well, three of them did anyway. I kind of underestimated the amount of paint it would take, so the fourth wall got white instead. Plus the marred ceiling got a clean white coat of ceiling paint. All the paint was leftover from other projects. So that didn't cost a penny! It has certainly lightened up the space and the semi-gloss finish bounces more light around.

The most notable change other than the new office chair was nixing the cubby shelf I used to have above the sewing table in favor of some cuter storage. I finally hung up the house shaped shelf I picked up thrifting two years ago (!) as well as a small printers tray I nabbed earlier this year to make the spools of thread easier to see. And I added a new chalkboard. More on that in another post.

I also went through every box, bin and drawer to get rid of all the excess or unnecessary things. And I caught up on my filing (boring) and shredded a bunch of old documents. Feels good to be organized!

Everything's so tidy and neat, makes me want to get sewing! I may or may not have started on another quilt. OK, I did. Instagrammers get sneak peeks! Follow me @lansdownelife if you are so inclined.

Simplify: Living with too much stuff

Something came over me about a month or two ago. I'm not exactly sure where it started. Maybe with cleaning out Elise's closets before I painted them. Slowly, I started tackling one small space at a time. A drawer here, a box there. Removing anything expired, unnecessary, redundant. If something didn't belong, I moved it to a better home.

And then, I intensified. I wasn't just doing mini organizing projects. I was on a mission to rid the entire house of unnecessary things.

Like many people, I struggle to find balance between having stuff and having too much stuff. Keeping what we need to be prepared versus being paranoid.

It's easy enough to remember to purge your clothes closet or the kids' toy box or the pantry, but what about that kitchen gadget drawer? Or maybe the toolbox? (Mine seems to be the place where IKEA allen wrenches go to die.)

Do I need two pasta forks? Three bottle openers? Eleven sports water bottles?

What about three hammers? (I'm not even sure where the third one came from.)

Do I need three staplers when I probably staple something once every six months?

Or could someone else be using this stuff?

I've slowly been going through the house on small area at a time. It's going to take a while to complete, but I think it's worth it.

I'm not ready to go full tilt minimalism; I love stuff way too much. It makes a home feel cozy. But I am ready to simplify. I don't want to hold onto things only for "just in case" moments anymore. I don't need to hold hostage perfectly useful items just because I'm too lazy (or paranoid) to get rid of them.

I don't want this house to turn into one of those old houses with the basement packed to the gills where everything comes in and nothing goes out. I want it to be lean and well organized. Efficient. I want to know what's in every box, drawer and closet. And I want the things we are keeping to be things we actually need or want. No hidden crap.

So where did the stuff go?

We spent a few Saturdays on the donation circuit. I don't have photos of all the things that have left this house. This process has been so gradual that it didn't occur to me to document it bit by bit.

• We took old light fixtures and some drywall scraps to the Habitat Re-store. Plus some weird plumbing parts that were in the garage when we moved in.
• Books, CDs and DVDs not worth selling on Amazon went to a charity book fair donation box.
• An old computer, a printer, old cell phones, one very old and very dead iPod, and two huge bags of wires went to an electronic recycling event.
• A giant stack of junk CDs (outdated software, CD-Rs) and jewel cases got dropped off for recycling at Best Buy.
• We donated a barely used cat bed and other pet items to the humane society. And some old sheets and towels. (Never throw that stuff away!)
• A scratched non-stick skillet that I no longer used (but somehow couldn't bring myself to get rid of) finally went into the recycle bin.
• I let a couple of magazine subscriptions lapse and blew through the nearly two-foot tall stack of back issues. So long, Elle Decor. I won't miss your elitist tone. And Martha Stewart Living? I have a feeling we will meet again someday. I'm actually thinking of letting more of my subscriptions expire as I'm forever behind on reading.
• And there were more than a few trips to Goodwill.

And we were able to sell some things too!

• My husband took one of his old, unused tennis rackets and got cash for it at a sports resale store.
• I sold a few pieces of gold and silver jewelry I didn't want anymore. (Nothing fancy, just some necklace charms.)
• And we sold a handful of random items on eBay. (Did you know you can list items for free now? Still have to pay fees at the end, but not if the item doesn't sell.)

We also made an effort to use up gift cards and gift certificates. At this point, I think we only have a couple left, and while I guess logically that should make me sad, I think it's a good thing. Because we used them and kept the cash in our wallets.

And we're still purging.

I still have to go through much of the basement and the office. (Ugh, holiday storage. For someone who barely decorates for Christmas, I sure do have a lot of Christmas decorations.)

I'm going to purge many of the recycleables I've been saving (hoarding?) for future projects. I have to remind myself: there will always be more glass jars, there will always be more cardboard boxes.

I'm even going to venture out and put some things on craigslist. (And I'm a craigslist hater. Mainly from being repeatedly stood up by flakey buyers years ago.)

Incentives (trading the stuff for different stuff)

Eventually, I would love to turn some of our unfinished basement into finished space or at least pleasant-to-be-in space. You see that silver wall at the back of this photo? That's a closed up metal garage door with a hodge podge of insulation on top of it. But really, it's about as insulated as an open door. We're hoping to finally take care of that in the coming months.

I also got the idea that if we could sell any of our excess, we would put the money toward new countertops and appliances for the kitchen. (Our appliances are at least 18 years old and are showing their age.) I don't know when that will happen, but it's an extra incentive. We like to play those little savings games around here. So far, we've accumulated around $250. (I guess the money could also go to repair the basement wall, but it's more fun to thinking I'm working toward new countertops than cinderblocks.)

Anyone else living with too much stuff? How do you keep it all under control?

Update: Con-Tact paper as privacy film

It's been almost a year since I used clear Con-Tact paper as privacy film on our basement windows and I thought I'd give an update. I get a fair amount of hits about this project and just wanted to encourage anyone who has been thinking about doing it. It's held up extremely well and looks as good as the day I put it up. Try it! It's a great, cheap alternative to pricey window film!

Found, repurposed and handmade artwork in our office/studio

I'm really happy with the way our office turned out. It's kind of a catch-all, but I think all the elements work together and it gives me the opportunity to show off a lot of things that didn't fit in elsewhere in our home.

I've had this vintage metal sign in every one of my post-college apartments, so I was glad to finally display it in our house. Like many of my "antiques," I got it from my grandpa, but I'm not sure how he came about it.

The plank above the desk looks to be part of an old shipping crate. It was originally a shelf in our bedroom closet, and when we ripped out the existing rod and shelves to install a closet system, I discovered the address written on the underside. No date on it, though. I love the thick painted handwriting and the peeled off label.

These next two items are mixed-media paintings that I did five or six years ago. I don't do much painting (for art's sake) anymore, but I'd like to get back to it sometime.

This is a portrait of my parent's yellow lab, Haley (next to some old letterpress blocks).

And this one is Nixon, of course. For a while, I was fascinated with the idea of preserving personal memories in paintings, though I don't think many of those ideas came to frution. But this is one that did. When I was little, my grandpa used to have a poster of Nixon in his basement, his teeth looking like a hockey player, blacked out with electrical tape.

I don't know if this is true, but it's what my grandpa told me. His parents lost a lot in the Depression, so the phrase was surely more descriptive of that than of Nixon, but I paired the two ideas anyway.

The Siamese cat light on the desk is a vintage 1950s TV lamp. Early televisions were very dim, requiring all the room lights to be turned off. Enter the TV lamp as a way to bring in some ambient low light to an otherwise dark room. Very kitschy.

This mailbox was on the front of our house when we bought it, but we replaced it with something bigger that could hold magazines and packages. I saved it because I like the envelope shape and thought it could be a cute place to stash stuff.

Office/studio: Functional and fun

I've slowly been working to transform our basement office/studio from a cold, dysfunctional, disorganized mess...

into an inviting, inspirational and fun space for studying and creating. It's a mis-matched look, but I think all the pieces came together really well.

This room truly is a compilation of leftovers and things that didn't fit elsewhere in the house. The record player table is an old unused end table that was saved from the dumpster and painted. The small black box holding records was formerly a printer stand.

The sewing machine table was once a dining table in small apartments. The red chair was a madeover dumpster find.

It's so nice to have two clear workspaces available. Dan's been using the desk quite a bit while he's doing MBA classwork.

Much of the artwork and accessories were still in boxes from when we moved more than two years ago.

The only recent purchases were the "Make Art" print and the Nelson repro clock (a TJ Maxx find).

I wasn't crazy about the stain color on the closet doors, but once I got the sewing machine table in and the plank of wood above the desk up, the closet doors didn't stick out as much.

All the red accents just sort of fell into place without any effort.

I debated whether or not to re-paint, but ultimately decided I didn't want to waste my time. The wall color is super drab. (I think previous owners of the house must have color matched the paint to a beige outlet cover plate. Not kidding.) But I was able to brighten the space with art instead of paint and I don't even notice the beige now.

I still want to change out the computer desk and bulky gray desk chair, but the space is organized, functional and a whole lot more pleasant than it was before.

Stay tuned for a later post with details about some of the artwork.

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Read more posts about the office.