Garden Box

Last summer I had a small garden where I grew a few tomatoes and some spices.  I would have had more produce if a rabbit hadn't come along the night after we planted and ate all the lettuce.  And then, Herschel (our dog) decided that the tomatoes looked like something to play with or eat so every time one would get nice and big and red he would bite it off the plant.  I would find beautiful, red tomatoes laying all over the yard with bite marks in them....Herschel. 

the culprit.....

So this year Sean suggested we make a garden box to shield it from the animals and we thought we would put some lattice around so Herschel couldn't get in.  

 The finished product!

It's been completely successful in keeping out the critters and Herschel!  We've had tons of tomatoes, basil, parsley, and cilantro!

Baby J's Nursery

We finally finished Baby J's nursery!  We are all set to meet Joshua whenever he decides to get here (an we are sooo ready).  Of course we did a lot of things ourselves and redid things to save money but it turned out exactly how we hoped!

 We found a rocker from goodwill for $30 and recovered it, saving it from the faded denim.

 We also found this dresser at a garage sale for $30 and painted it and bought new hardware.

Our "guest book"

The wonderful shelf that Sean built!

Baby Nestor is on the way!

Our wonderful friend Julianna Ryan took these amazing maternity pictures for us.  We are about 37 weeks now and are counting down the days until we will get to meet our little baby boy for the first time.  

visit her blog at www.silverliningsboutique.blogspot.com

Nightstand Refinish

For a little extra storage in the baby's room, we took a nightstand (that we got for free from a friend) and refinished it.  Refinishing and reusing furniture is quickly becoming one of our very favorite things.  Anyone who has ever shopped for and/or bought furniture knows that quality stuff does not come cheap.  So, every chance we get with a free or low cost piece of furniture that we need, we take it!  We've always been able to redo it and use it.  Check out what the nightstand looked like when we got it:

It is another piece of solid wood furniture with some old school hardware (right up our ally).  Below is the end result after sanding, painting, and getting new pulls for the drawers.

I mean, how sweet is it to furnish our baby's room with a FREE nightstand and a $30 dresser?!?  We're really excited that it came together the way it did.  Stay tuned...more projects (especially for the nursery) to come!

Painting Stripes on a Wall

For the baby BOY's nursery, Casey found some fabric (pictured to the right)

and decided to go with Navy Blue as one of the main colors we use throughout the room.  Of course, one of the first things I did was get the painting out of the way.  Casey had the idea to do stripes on one wall- the wall where his crib would be-and leave the other walls the solid Khaki color they already were.  After some anal-retentive measuring and calculating by myself (Sean), I figured out how to evenly space out 4 Navy Blue stripes alternating with 4 Khaki stripes.  You can see it measured out here:

Once everything was all measured, taped, and prepped, I began painting in the stripes.  The pictures below show the succession on stripes as they progressed.

After all the stripes had been painted with TWO even coats, I pulled off the tape and, voila!  One huge key was the tape we used...Frog Tape.  Most people use the blue tape when painting.  However, the green Frog Tape has edges that don't let paint leak through or run.  I made sure to press the tape hard onto the wall to seal the lines well.  You can see below that the lines really came out sharp and clean.  

With the stripes painted, we were ready to start moving some furniture in and really get the room ready!

Refinished Dresser

In true Nestor fashion, we always do our best to get something we need for way less than full price.  As we've been setting up the baby's room, we've been on the prowl looking for furniture at lower cost that we could fix up/refinish to look the way we like.  As we were out at garage sales one Saturday, we came across a real wood dresser (so we knew it was quality) that was in great condition.  Check it out below.

Note the fantastic throw-back style hardware.  The best part (by far) about this dresser is that, after some bargaining, we walked away with it for $30!!!  If you can tell me where to get a better deal than that, let's just say I'd like to be your best friend.

The first thing we did was to take off the bulky knobs it sits on.  We also took off the hardware with plans to replace it all.  The tricky part here is that we needed to fill those previous holes before painting.  After a lot of sanding to get some old finish off and down to the bare wood, Casey decided on a Navy Blue paint to match the other stuff in the baby's room.  You can see the finished product below.  It really looks great in the room and (even though it's kind of tough to see) it really goes well with the stripes on the wall.

Do you have something you'd like refinished?  Let us know!  You can email us at sweetlynested@gmail.com.

Custom Closet Shoe Shelves

One huge selling point in our house was the amazing space in our master bedroom, bathroom, and closet.  Before we got our comfy bed, I used to take naps in the master walk-in closet because it is just that spacious! Thankfully, Casey has a great mind for making use of space without just filling it up with things.  For example, in our closet, we have this little bumped out space seen below.

We haven't really had a great place to put our shoes in the closet.  We mostly just scatter them about on the floor near our clothes.  Casey, with an idea of how to use this space, came to me one day and said, "You know what would be great?  Some shoe shelves in the closet would be great."  Whenever she says something like this, I just take it as a challenge being issued.  What I heard was, "Sean, I want shoe shelves and I'm challenging you to figure out how to do them."  Well, game on!

I got started measuring, cutting, and figuring out just the right angle for the shelves to hang from the wall.  The first step was getting all the back wall supports in place and spaced out.  (Side bar:  Casey had just gotten me a nail gun for Father's Day and I was pumped to use it for the first time with this project!)  I just popped these guys in with a brad nail and then screwed in the center right into the stud.

I made sure to cut all the back supports and shelves 3/4 of an inch shorter than the length of the wall so that I could add a piece of plywood along the side of the shelves.  The ceiling is exactly 8ft in our closet, so a 4ft x 8ft sheet of plywood was easy to rip and fit into place.  As you can see below, I got the bottom shelf in place with the plywood alongside it.  I used brad nails along the side of the shelves (going through the plywood) and along the back going into the support beams.

The shelves are made of composite board because I had extra hanging around (I would usually use more sturdy plywood, but composite board will hold up well since they are only being used for shoes).  To attach the front molding, I simply cut 1x3 boards to size and used my handy dandy nail gun to secure them to the front of the shelves.  Once all the shelves were assembled, I nailed them in place starting at the bottom and working my way to the top.  I added a toenail to the front right corners to anchor the shelves into the existing wall as well (provided some more stability).  

 After a long time painting (took two coats), the shoe shelves were finished and ready for use!  What do you think?  This was the first thing I had built without any plans to guide me!  I was very pleased with the way it turned out.

Note that I get the top 3 shelves and Casey has the bottom 6!

 Because of the angle I took the picture, it doesn't really look like the shelves are spaced evenly.  I promise the are!  Too bad I don't have great photography skills!