Ta-Da!

Remember this not-so-little "beauty"? My found treasure left behind by the previous owner of my house...

... nice detail though, and lots of potential.

I really debated what to do with the frame, but it came down to a cork board or a chalk board. Although a chalkboard would be really cute in this frame, I'm not sure I would get much use out of it... so I decided to go with cork. At first I was worried I wouldn't find a big enough piece of cork, but eventually I found a roll at the hardware store (oddly, the rolls I found at the craft stores weren't big enough!)

I started by cutting the paper backing off of the picture... by the way, there was a price tag on the picture... $130!! After removing the paper I found staples and staples and staples. I ended up pulling out 46 of them! Overkill.

I cleaned up the frame with some paper towels and light cleaner and started painting it (Parchment White, of course). I wanted to make sure to cover all the details without lots of globs of paint, so I used a sponge brush, then dry-brushed with a paint brush, which meant the paint dried faster, but it was pretty thin, so I ended up doing about 3 coats, I think.

Meanwhile, I cut a piece of cork to match the size of the picture. The mats and picture were all glued together, otherwise I would've tried to salvage and reuse the large mat. I glued the cork to the back of the mat, put it all back together, and used a staple gun to staple it in place... using far fewer staples this time.

Here's a shot of the detail now... Much, much better, yes?

... and here is the finished product!

I hung it in the living room, just to take the picture, but it will be going into my newly remodeled office/craft room (which is far from being furnished and decorated), but I just couldn't bear to pound a nail into the wall yet (check that out here and here).

Anyway, I'm happy with the finished product! I think it's probably the prettiest cork board I've ever had. Woohoo!

What do you think?

I am tickled pink to be linking up again with DIY Day @ A Soft Place to Land! Please go check out all the amazing projects over there! I look forward to DIY Day every week!

I Could've Died! Part 2

When I wrote about my near-death experience earlier, I didn't mention that the facilities guys were actually working in my office BEFORE the thingy fell. Here's that drama...

The other day, I had noticed this yucky brown spot on my ceiling, right above the door. Yesterday morning when I came in, it appeared the spot had grown overnight. When I pushed on it with a pencil eraser, it seemed soft.

Uh oh. I prayed it wasn't some toilet upstairs leaking.

However, that prompted a work order and soon the plumbing guys showed up. They were actually working right next to the light cover that later nearly killed me. (My guess is that they had jarred the light just enough to loosen it?? Who knows. The thing fell hours later.)

My coworker is convinced that one of the plumbers has a crush on me. She told me that when the plumbers arrived, she felt she needed to leave the room to allow us "to flirt with each other." Apparently, unbeknownst to me, she proceeded to tell everyone else in the department about this. They were all abuzz about it later.

Anyway, once the light thing fell, the office manager et al., started saying that plumber guy was "too busy flirting" with me to do his job right. I think someone also said that he probably just wanted an excuse to come back. Some excuse.

Now I not only need to deal with PTSD, but also with endless teasing about the plumber's crush on me. Which will add to my trauma.

I Could've Died!!

See that gianormous grid thingy? That thing covers the fluorescent lights here in our offices. Note how big it is.

So why isn't it on the ceiling, serving its purpose, you ask?

Good question.

IT CAME CRASHING DOWN YESTERDAY, NEARLY SLAMMING INTO MY HEAD! I could've DIED! Or been very seriously lacerated!

I was sitting at my desk, just like I am now, just about to finish up some paperwork at the very end of the day. Seriously, it was about 5 minutes until we close up and people don't typically stay long after "quittin' time." So I'm working, I'm feelin' good, gettin' things done, when I hear this sort of quiet ka-chunk. I barely glance up before this thing is swooping down, barely hanging by a corner! It slams into my computer (sitting on my desk) and then suddenly it is not hanging onto the ceiling at all. Thank goodness for my lightning-quick reflexes. I am barely able to grab it with a finger or two so it doesn't fall onto my computer monitor. Cripes.

I go over to the health waiting area/front desk where our office manager is and tell her what happened so we could get a work order put in before she left... and she didn't believe me! (Why don't people ever believe me when these things happen?) So I lead her, an office assistant, and the 2 nurses back to my office to show them what happened and finally they a) believe me, b) exclaim and worry about my health and well-being, and c) assure me everything will be just fine. My student intern kindly pointed out that had I been hit in the head, I may have lain there unconscious and bleeding for who knows how long, since it was the end of the day and people were leaving. Thanks for that.

I think I have PTSD.

Pardon My Dust...

All right. I finally have some pictures to share of my big renovation project! Hooray! It's actually not finished yet, but I think the transformation is pretty dramatic already. Let's take a look, shall we?

A while back I wrote about how I decided to strip the wallpaper in my office/craft room/potential 2nd guest room. Here's a shot of the "accent wall" in the room:


Nice, right? I took a close-up so you could appreciate the detail! The other walls were covered with something a little less obnoxious, but unfortunately, I was so darn anxious to rip it off the wall, I didn't take any pics! Anyway, as I started ripping the paper off, I discovered some sweet wood paneling. I had no idea it was under there. I would've just painted that and left it alone, but there were some tricky spots and problems... and let's not forget there was all this wood trim covering some of the seams that didn't fit together so well. Nice.

Under the paneling... plaster. Probably the original plaster from 1918 or whenever. Cracked. Falling down in parts. Not good. We started ripping out the paneling... here's a shot...




This next shot is probably the trickiest part of the whole room, the dormer ceiling. And, it was in pretty rough shape, though you might not be able to tell. I'm pretty sure there was a closet there or something.

I also must say that the previous owner of my house LOVED paint. LOVED it. So almost every single door in the house is painted, usually the same as the room inside, and the same as the hallway on the other side. Which means a lot of work sanding, priming, and painting the darn things to get them the way I want them... I won't bore you with those pictures now. But here, is what the room looked like today! (sorry if it's a tiny bit blurry)

Much better, yes?! I should've taken this picture a little more to the left so you can see the closet again, but I couldn't remember exactly which spots I stood in before...Oh well. I'm sure you get the idea! Dramatic, I think.

Obviously, it's not finished. My mom and dad will probably come back again next weekend, so we can finish sanding and then start priming (at least). I hope to have all the trim and doors painted and ready to go. This feels like it's taken forever and my mom and dad and brother have worked so hard to help me! They're such troopers! Thanks guys!

Until next time...

A Sense of Whimsy

I've been trying to decorate my office, but it's been slow namely because I'm trying to save my money and a lot of my office things are packed in boxes in storage!

But the other day, I found something amazing. I was in our printer/supply/mail room and as I glanced at my mail tray on the wall, I saw something behind the door. I moved the door slightly and began to see what appeared to be a piece of framed art, perhaps a tranquil landscape with lots of green trees, some water, and a hazy sky. Hmm, interesting.... I pulled the door back a little more to reveal art that surprised me and made me smile. I instantly fell in love and thought about taking it for my office. Since I was the only one around (and new) I wasn't going to just "steal" it, even though I thought, "It's behind a door, in a tiny room where no one actually sits, and clearly it won't be missed." But I left it. And forgot about it.

Then yesterday I found it all over again! I went into the room, glanced up at my mail tray, saw the edge of the frame and just had to look again. Yup, still made me smile. Yup, still loved it. Later, I pulled my coworker in and asked her if she knew it was there and if she thought it was weird that I loved it. Well, she didn't know it was there. And she loved it too! She told me if I didn't hang it in my office, she was going to hang it in her office! Of course I nabbed it. It turned out that K-Dog even liked it and would've put it in HIS office, had he known about it! Score!

So here it is... my newly found whimsical piece of art:
What do you think???

Image from of art.com by Michael Sowa