New Life For That POS Footstool

You know the one.  Just a quick refresher:

It took way more than a coat of paint and a new top (see previous post) , but, well, here's the after:

Tada!   Blurry photo, sorry.  I'm not using the damn phone camera anymore, I apologize for all the crappy pics.

It's repaired.  It's black.  It has a bigger (and structurally sound) top.

And it's covered in music!  :D  (Can you guess which room it's going into?)

This is all sheet music from my musical exploits in the SCA.  So, it's Medieval stuff, mostly canonical, with a couple of popular love songs of the day (various days);  and where there are visible lyrics, they're in Italian and French.  Because: nerd.  

Plain ol' decoupage, nothing fancy.  Homemade medium (craft glue +  water, sealed with polyurethane).

via

And la piece de resistance?  Well,  I was thinking something like this, but for storage of music books and small musical instruments, instead of plants.


What ended up happening was more of a "fishtank on a table with junk in it."

...yeah.

It just needs some cool decoration.  And a more organized method of music storage than "just dump it all in there for now."

Update soon. :)














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Meanwhile, In Living Room Land

This week, I have lots to do in the living room.  I'm finally making that day sofa cover, and I'll get to talking about this "new" couch I've alluded to in the past few weeks.  I'm also juuuuust about ready to start re-arranging the entire thing.  You heard me. The entire. Thing.  You'll see.

In the meantime, some inspiration pictures, which also serve as hints:

via Pinterest

Decorology

Pinterest

Apartment Therapy

Living Room Music Area Post-Script

You know what's missing from this picture? 

1.  This: 

Ibanez AF75 full hollow-body archtop, "red sunburst"

2.  And this:   

my keyboard needs a nice table

:D

Last Post of 2010!

After the All Most-Of-It-Encompassing List of yesterday, I thought today I'd revisit my very favorite projects of 2010:


Living Room Paint Job
July

• love, love, love the color, and the way it sets off the dark wood tones and bright teals/turquoises
  

Meditation Corner
August

• pretty, soft, comfy, peaceful, dedicated space

Laundry Room Reno
September

• so tired and afterthought-y before! So fresh and pretty now!

before

after

Tool Cart
November

• damned useful!

 
Guitar Rack
December

• damned useful! 
• also displays attractive instruments instead of big banged-up cases, and brings a bit more of my "other" passion into the look of my house - how could there not be music here?  <3 

See you all on the flip-side!


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Wildebeests: Guitar Rack (Part II)

Before: 

+

After:

 

Much better, yes?  

 

This is what the black pipe insulation was for.   If it looks like the pegs are spaced differently, it's because they are:  we have two different types of guitars that need to go into this rack, with different body widths.

Of course, they're not 100% secure like this:  the weight of the guitars + the angle at which they lean makes this a very stable setup, but in order for this to be cat-proof we need...

 Dog collars.  No, seriously:  3/4 black nylon dog collars with plastic click-locks, affixed to the back of the top of the rack, which will wrap snugly (and softly) around the neck of each guitar.  Just in case.

I'm also going to hang a plastic file folder container off the back of this unit, to store music, books, and bits and pieces like tuners and pencils and cables.   

Yay!  

After the rack was done, Kress and I had one more project:  putting a strap on my guitar, which is the acoustic in the first "after" picture.  That doesn't sound like a big deal, until you consider two things:  

1. I had to drill two holes in the guitar, in order to install "buttons" (pegs) that a strap attaches to, and 
2. my guitar is thirty-seven years old.   

I just about had a freaking heart attack, but with Kress' steady hands and calm reassurance, we got the holes drilled without incident, and I didn't die from fright.  Plus now I can play standing up.  :o)


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Wildebeests: Guitar Rack (Part I)

Remember the old desk I broke down the other day?

Yesterday the largest piece - the desktop - got cut into pieces...

...which got put together into one of these:

It's a guitar rack - or will be when it's done. :)

Obviously the first order of business was the stain - namely, that each piece was already stained on one side. 
I used Liquid Sander on those bits (I love that stuff), making three passes to make sure the clear-coat was dissolved and that I'd be able to re-stain without sanding (which: YAY!)  I stained the whole piece over again in the original color, blending the old in with the new into one seamless coat;  then gave it a second coat in a lighter, orange-maple-y color to warm up the wood tone a bit (the deep walnut-y brown I used was a bit...flat). 

There were still a couple of places that need touching up (because I got glue on the wood and hadn't realized it, argh!), and the whole thing needed a light sanding and a final clear-coat.   But while the first couple of layers cured, the next step was to stain all the other parts to match:

These pegs will be wrapped in this foam pipe insulation (it looks gray here, but it's black) and attached across the top cross-bar of the stand.  The guitars' necks will rest between them just like in the picture I linked to above.  Only the flat end of each peg will be visible, so I didn't have to do much staining.  You can see what the maple stain looks like on bare wood here, though. 

Same deal with the longer bars that will be inserted into the bottom "box" part of the unit, on which the bodies of the guitars will rest.

Tonight, pegs and bars get installed, as well as other parts of the stand that need to be cushioned with foam to prevent damage to the guitars' finish and strings; I'll also attach feet to the bottom of the unit to keep it from scratching the floors in the house.


I'm done with the power tools portion of this event, but I managed to use nearly every single one that I own:

• Jigsaw:  to cut out the curved/angled side pieces
• Table saw: to rip the cross-braces across the bottom and back out of what was left of the desktop
• Sander:  ...I bet you can guess this one, lol.
• Dremel:  most of the desk had been nailed together with a nail gun, so that the nails didn't show on the outside, but when I pulled the wood apart, I had lots of them sticking out everywhere.  I removed as many as I could; but some I couldn't pull out, so I just cut them off at the surface of the wood as close as I could get with wire snips.  I used the Dremel to grind down any remaining nail stubs so they wouldn't be in the way, and so that they wouldn't snag and scratch anyone reaching into/through the finished stand.
• Compound mitre saw: to cut the dowels for the pegs and lower bars to length
• Drill:  to screw the pieces together

...that's everything but the router.

Finished piece tomorrow!  :) 

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Weekend List

I did manage to get a curtain up behind the computer desk to conceal the computer cords, but it needs some adjustment, and the cords themselves still need wrangling, so I don't have "after" pictures yet.  I'll do that tonight, though.

I also did a bit of de-cluttering around the living room and dining room, moved some art around and added a new piece, and re-arranged some of the musical instrument storage. 

So that's what's up next in here for this week - stay tuned.  Hope you're having a better Monday than I am! ;)

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Another Fake Post

You know what ELSE is wrong with this picture?

(other than the fact that I haven't done anything with it in days)

It has a guitar in it.  As in, ever since I moved my guitar in here - it looks so cute in the corner, doesn't it? - I haven't picked it up to play.  Not ONCE.  I thought, "It's not like I can't just walk into another room and get it when I want to; and I could use the extra space and a little de-cluttering in the living room." 

HAH!  Not. Once. Gonna hafta move it back into the living room, and clutter be damned!  "Out of sight, out of mind" =  BAD. 


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