The powertools are packed away for now

The bookcase is done! You might need superhuman strength to pull the drawer out, the drawer bottom is at an angle, and I have a toddler's ice rink in my garage (more on that later) but it's done!

And I gotta admit, even though my staining job is much to be desired, I LOVE it! And consequently, anyone that ever comes to my house needs to go on and on about how awesome it is or we won't be friends anymore.

I was a tad bit frustrated on my last post when I considered turning the bookcase into a tribute to Jerry Lee Lewis' Great Balls of Fire but when I couldn't find the lighter fluid, I persevered. When you're working with a deadline there's just so much added pressure that I will never do that to myself again. And this time I mean it.

I also tackled two other projects I wanted to have done before Thanksgiving: I reupholstered my headboard and turned the body-pillow that's been under my bed for 6 years into a back support fuzzy wonderland.

Having made the headboard a couple of years ago, I thought that reupholstering it would be a snap but low and behold nothing is a snap in my life because did you know this? I didn't know this, but when you buy fabric by the yard, the width of the fabric varies? I even looked on the tag to see if it said anything about width but apparently you need to be apart of the "in club" at JoAnn Fabrics to know that some fabric is like 60 inches long and some is 40 inches. I did not get the memo on that.

Unbeknownst to me, I used the 60 inch fabric when I originally made the headboard and when attempting to reupholster it, I got the 40 inch stuff. No dice.

I'm hoping my jimmy-rigging of securing the bottom with iron-on glue works because I'm ready to call it quits on all my home improvement adventures. Luckily you can't see the bottom and for the most part, it turned out pretty great!

The bookcase fiasco wasn't quite as easy of a fix of adding iron-on glue but at the end of the day, I'm still happy with it.

Our first major set back was we had a drawer built and we had a drawer box (frame) built. Enter first dilemma: drawer does not fit into drawer box.

So after a string of inappropriate language, we set out to take apart drawer to make it smaller. Then once we've cut everything down to fit, we're reassembling the drawer and SNAP! the wood actually snaps in two. Dilemma number two.

We have to glue boards overnight to redo the broken piece. Which really wasn't such a bad thing because it's an excuse to call it a night before we do anymore damage.

The next night we're both cranky and cold (yeah an unheated garage in Minnesota is not the best place to build things in the winter). I'm at my usual post: using the sander while Adam is using my archnemesis, the nail gun, to get the drawer put back together when another string of profanities comes from his side of the garage. I survey the damage: one side of the drawer bottom is completely square while the other side is about an inch too high, making the inside of the drawer have a 15 degree angle. Dilemma number three.

At this point, my desire for perfection has completely evaporated, so screw it I'm cold and I'm hungry, I can live with a drawer that has a 15 degree angle. Dilemma solved.

A few days later, it's sanded and stained. The last step is to clear-coat it. Oh lordy, I'm so excited for clear-coating: it's the very last thing before we're done! We can come home from work and do nothing but watch our shows! Thank you clear-coat step!

Adam's at the store getting the Thanksgiving fixings while I'm busy applying the clear-coat. The next thing I know, the full can of clear-coat slips out of my hands and in slow motion I watch it fall. Here is where I wish I could tell you that I had ninja-like reflexes or had a Matrix moment where I caught the falling can but any sensei would band me from the dojo because I did not catch the can as it fell, instead I froze in place as the slow motion "nnnnnnooooooooo" comes out of my mouth and the can bounces off the floor and spills everywhere.

Clear-coat is the glossy, smooth finish you add on the wood to protect it and make it feel nice and smooth. I now have a 3 foot circle of nice and smooth, glossy finish on my garage floor where children can come over to ice-skate. In my garage.

I had a deadline of Thanksgiving to have this done and technically it was done by then but because the stain and clear-coat was having a tough time drying in our cold garage, it had to stay down there for Thanksgiving. Because I’m so modest I made everyone come down to the garage to see it. I couldn't help but feel a swell of pride as my family members stood on the stairs shivering giving me the necessary compliments of how great it looks for them to be able to return to the warm house because let's face it, teeth chattering or not it is pretty awesome.

Week 2

Ok so I'm this close to using my project as firewood.

There have been so many setbacks that I don't have time to tell you all about them right now. But we're still nowhere near being done and I'm just so frustrated that I could scream.

I've been busy trying to get everything finished by Thanksgiving and I feel like so far the only progress I've made is the confirmation that my husband is one of the most patient people I've ever met. He hasn't left or murdered me yet even though I do awful things to him like quietly let him take control of the nail gun because I keep doing it wrong, or after realizing that the shelf portion is 6 inches shorter than I wanted it to be, he graciously goes to the store to get more wood.

Speaking of going to the store to get more supplies, this might end up being the most expensive thing in my house.

Seriously.

No joke.

Suddenly paying Ikea $99 for something that would take a half hour to assemble doesn't seem so bad especially when we've been working on building this everyday for almost 2 weeks. When you see the finished product, you will laugh at how long it's taken me. I mean, a big ol' belly laugh to see something so tiny and basic has taken me 2 weeks. Ridiculous.

I've been cursing that anawhite.com website everyday since the start of the build, so she and I are not friends at the moment. We'll see if I change my tune once it's done and in my living room. Right now, I'm thinking that's a pretty fat-chance.

But I still have all my fingers, eyes, toes and am still married. So I guess if I was being positive I'd say it's a success. But let's be real here, it's me. I'm 5 minutes away from dousing my bench with gasoline and roasting some marshmallows.

Two more powertools down.

We're now on day 6 of the project and so far we have.......sanded wood.

I've attempted to use two more powertools and yes I still have all 10 fingers intact. Unfortunately, I can no longer say that I haven't drawn blood because somehow the wood assaulted my knuckles so there has been some bloodshed.

I've conquered the sander but it wasn't exactly my favorite for a couple of reasons. We live in a frozen tundra- I mean, Minnesota, so it's too cold to have the garage door open which means it gets really dusty when using it. I feel like I'm literally chewing the air since there's so much dust. Plus it's super loud (I don't even like to vacuum because that's too loud for me). And using a sander is not as easy as you'd assume because you gotta actually put some muscle behind it. I thought I could just hold it and it'd ya know do it's sandy thing but no, I need to work at it- which I found to be very disappointing.

The next tool I've attempted to master is the nail gun. Yeah, me and the nail gun don't so must get along. But in my defense I'm going to blame-shift a little onto my husband who thought that giving me a 2 minute lesson on how to use a nail gun powered by an air compressor was a long enough tutorial before turning me loose on the actual project with gun in hand.

He's holding the two pieces together that need to be nailed and I start shooting away, thinking "how hard can this really be?" Well, apparently there is some finesse when using a nail gun- finesse which I have yet to develop.

I had two nails miss the 2nd board completely, so they have taken up a permanent residence sticking out of the bottom of my drawer. The nails that did go through, kind of went in at an angle so they're not really holding anything together- but again, that's not really my fault. He wants me to hold the gun level, but the problem is to hold it level I'd need to crouch down and be eye level with the shooting surface.

Um, holding a WEAPON tool that I've seen take out countless bad guys in movies, and you want me to get eye level with it? ....... Yeah, not gonna happen.

So the end result of my 30 second introduction to the nail gun is me having a drawer bottom that's not exactly flush with the sides. Meaning, if you loose an earring in the drawer, that puppy is gone forever.

Unfortunately I didn't realize just how important accuracy is when it comes to using nail guns and building things. I'm not really an accurate/detail/fine tuning kinda person. Folding clothes for example, when I fold them there's no lining up seams or straightening out pockets beforehand, it's a rapid succession of fold-fold-fold-done, which makes me NOT great at building things. When Adam folds clothes the seams are lined up and the wrinkles are smoothed out as he goes- definitely paying attention to the details which makes him GREAT for building stuff. Now if only I could get him to finish the project, while letting me take credit for it....

I guess my first line saying that all we had so far was sanded wood was a little misleading because not only do we have sanded wood, we have 3- count them 1,2,3 boards nailed together. The boards are not nailed together nicely but hey, they're nailed. I'm hoping that very very soon I can report that we have at least part of something actually built.

The project has begun.

It's begun.

I've started building my project. So far, I've learned how to choose the best lumber, use an electric drill, a miter-saw and glue boards together.

A-ha!

Busted!

Shame on you.

I know darn well that just now, after reading that I was using powertools your anticipation of "ooh, I bet Mandy got hurt somehow. This is going to be funny...." went through your head as you rubbed your greedy hands together with excitement, didn't it?

DIDN'T IT?!?

Jerk.

Anyway, even though you're hoping to read something funny about my demise, I'm currently in possession of all 10 fingers and the total number of times I've drawn blood is ZERO (as of right now).

My mother-in-law was sweet enough to anticipate my blunders she sent me a lovely care package containing safety goggles, gauze and medical tape "just in case."...Hmm, I wonder if I should be offended....

My original plan was to build that bench I told you about. It's a "beginner" project so I figured that would've been perfect to start out with. My friend and I were going to build it together but after fine tuning our plan she backed out when she realized how much work it was going to be. Which is fine, really, it’s okay. I totally hate her now.

I decided to scrap the beginner project and move right into an intermediate project since it'll be a more functional piece. I was able to enlist my husband so I was thinking that even though it's an intermediate project, it'll be a piece of cake with his help since this is totally his thing.

Wrong.

Not a piece of cake.

Night #1: we spend 2 hours at Lowe's (the only home improvement store to shop) getting supplies. He informs me a 1x12 board actually measures at like 1x11¼. WTF!?!? Don't call it a "1x12" if it's not really 12 inches! At this point, I'm pissed at the woodworking industry as a whole and would like to have serious words at the yahoo that decides to call a 1x11¼ board a 1x12. The liar.

We're in the midst of picking out the boards when it hits me that my shelf that's supposed to hold my 12x14 scrapbooks are going to be way too short (see previous paragraph, I'm still too angry to reiterate), so we modify the plans to make the shelves bigger. He tells me we're going to have to MAKE each piece of wood bigger by trimming them and then gluing them together. Uh.....okay......??

We move over to the Handle aisle where it takes me 10 minutes to settle on the handle for the drawer. Who knew this would be such a stressful decision?? It was just too big of a decision for me to make on the spot so I buy 2 different ones so I can decide later.

We then move on to the Stain aisle for another decision I have to make: pick a color. Oh lordy. They don't have the exact color of stain that I’ve manifested in my head so I consider calling the stain company to describe in great detail the color I'd like, but instead I settle on a different color. That night I wake at 4:30 in the morning with the feeling of pending doom- I know the color of stain isn't perfect- I don't even know if I like the color I picked! Ugh. Why couldn't the stain company give me more color variety to choose from- or at the very least ask my opinion?!? Ugh. My life is so difficult exasperated arm over my eyes.

Night #2: he teaches me how to use a miter-saw and table-saw. After 30 minutes of this, I’m bored and ready to suggest that we just go and buy the bookshelf. But because I know that suggestion would cause my husband to blow a gasket and, more irritatingly, cause the words “I told you so” to be spoken, I persevered.

I measure and re-measure to make sure my cuts are perfect. Everything was going along swimmingly. I just finished cutting a board into the three 1x18 pieces I needed when Adam politely asks what size I just cut. I respond, “the 1x18’s.” Silence. “Uh, you were supposed to cut 1x18 ½” Dang it! I measured that stupid wood three times before I cut it into perfectly measured 1x18 pieces so now I've ruined the whole board. We'll need to buy another one.

Night #3: We continuing cutting and gluing pieces together- who knew that they didn’t sell wide pieces of wood, that you had to glue them?? Not me. Had I known, I might not’ve chosen a project where every stinking piece of wood needs to be made bigger than whats sold at a store.

I look around the garage (my building area) and see that we have all the wood built for the drawer/bench part but with one lone piece of wood left, how are we supposed to build the entire bookcase?? Now, I know I ruined one piece but either I was grabbing the wrong pieces of wood each time or we somehow forgot half of our wood at the store. Who knows. All I know is we have a lot of work ahead of us even after we buy more wood (all new wood for said bookcase will also need to be trimmed and glued. Oh joy.)

Three nights and so far we have……wood. Nothing is built. We have glued pieces of wood together to make them the right size and that's it- nothing more.

Seriously. Check back next month because I’ll still be gluing wood and hopefully still brag about keeping all 10 fingers intact.

These ain't your momma's cookies

oh.
my.
word.

I like my Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies as much as the next guy. I didn't realize that there was room for improvement for homemade chocolate chip cookies because I mean really, who am I to challenge Tollhouse's infinite wisdom?!?

That was until my friend Sue, found this recipe on one of my favorite websites, allrecipes.com and in comparison, Tollhouse's original recipe can suck it. Yep, I said it. Suck it.

I don't know if I'll ever use Tollhouse's recipe ever again.

Now if you're one of those Salmonella-be-damned kinda girls like me, you'll take one bite of the dough and just know that the days of your mom's original recipe cookies are over, because they ain't got nothin' on these. Nothin'.

I slightly modified the original recipe so if you want the original recipe, you can fend for yourself on allrecipes.com but here's my version.

And most importantly: You're welcome.

Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
  
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 (3.4 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix (I used French vanilla)
  
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt, set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Beat in the instant pudding mix until blended. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour mixture. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips and nuts. Drop cookies by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Edges should be golden brown. Be careful here, because the cookies are so soft that it's tough to really determine when they're done. Mine were undercooked and by my standards that's okay but it's not for everyone.

Getting a little carried away with being a hostess

Last week I was informed that this year I will be hosting my family's Thanksgiving dinner because it's going to be "smaller than usual."

How much smaller do you ask?

Smaller by one person.

Yep, one.

I was nominated to cram 14 adults into my little townhouse for a sitdown Thanksgiving dinner because it's not usual number of 15.

Because I'm a bit of a worrier, I've had all the normal Hostess thoughts "where is everyone going to sit"....."What should I make for dinner"...... "I really need to clean the house before people come over"....

Ya know, the typical stuff we women fret over when people will be coming over to your house for the very first time.

After having those thoughts I've subsequently had many other not-so-normal thoughts about what projects I should take on before the holiday which is 3 weeks away.

Here's what's gone through my head as rational home improvements that I could tackle before good old Turkey Day:

"Well gosh, 14 people? I'm going to need more chairs. Oooh, that anawhite.com site had cute upholstered chairs that didn't look too hard. I know, I'll make 4 of them."

"And if I'm going to make those, I should really make that cute bookcase I want to make for my living room since it'll look so much nicer than the Target cupboard we currently have."

....."and really, if I'm going to be staining the new bookcase, I might as well make the 2 new end tables I've wanted to make- just to make sure the stain matches."

"And I've never really liked the color of my headboard, this would be a great opportunity for me to reupholster that like I've always wanted...."

I was noticing the pit in my stomach and tried to figure out why my body was suddenly super stressed out.

Oh could it be that I've mentally assigned myself the task of building enough furniture to furnish a house??

Needless to say, I don't think I'll be tackling any of the above projects before Thanksgiving- well maybe the headboard (that's the easiest). I'm still hoping to do the bench I told you about last week, but I need to slow my role with rebuilding every piece of furniture in my house.

Slowing my role didn't so much happen when I was in church this morning because all I could think about was adding shelves to all of our closets for more storage space so we can clean out the closet of our office. Which may or may not have included mentally building a new closet organizer.

I told you last week, when I find something to obsess over love, I have a tendency to over-think it so much that I love the life outta it- literally smother the life outta it. I'm like Lenny from Of Mice & Men when I get a new project to love/think about it. {Lenny voice} "I just want to hug it and love it..."