Industrial boys decor

We finally got the railing put up in Mr. T's room. I love how it brought the room together. I was always nervous of the boys climbing up the ladder to get to the loft. Now they have a little more protection. They love LOVE! this little nook. They plan, imagine, read, and if mom doesn't catch him, naps up there. It has been great to burn some of that never ending boy energy.
Check out what we did with the rest of the room HERE.

Home Depot has become my second craft store. I am always looking for fun and creative ways to use something different to decorate the boys rooms. You never know what you will come up with down the plumbing aisle.

My next Home Depot inspired project is the deck....Gonna build and tunnel and slide into a relaxing and function outdoor retreat. You'll have to be patient to see it though. It won't be until fall. ;-)

Raingutter Bookshelf Boy Style....

Who would have thought the local Home Depot would be as good as a craft store? When you are looking at home decor for a bunch of boys who are not sports minded you tend to get creative. I find myself walking down aisles at Home Depot wondering what I could do with all sorts of parts and pieces. I used pipes on a ladder, sheet metal for a coat hook, now.....

A raingutter for a bookshelf. Basic metal was the cheapest and happen to be just perfect to go with his room.

Grab some tin snips to cut it down to size, 10 feet was just a bit too long.

Now to enlist the help of dear hubby...again.....

We screwed it into the studs....

Now just add some books.

And maybe some fun magnets to hang his artwork from.

So what do you think?

Dear hubby thought I was crazy when I explained what I pictured for this room but now he rather likes it. He said he can finally grasp what I was saying. I knew he'd come around and see things my way. hehehe!

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Ladder for a Loft....

I finally got a chance to make my library ladder for Mr. T's room. We had to change things up a little bit in the end but here is the step by step.

I started with a couple of 1x2's of hardwood.

Sand around the edges to smooth them and round the corners.

They were pretty smooth so just a touch on the surface was all it needed.

After that it was time to drill the holes. I clamped them together so the holes were sure to line up.

I marked the holes 12 inches apart after starting about 7 inches from the bottom. Then just drilled through both boards.

Dear hubby stepped in to paint them. On to the assembly.

I used 3/4 inch pipe as the ladder rungs.

Then we put a cap on the end of each one.

I had hoped to have the ladder roll along in front of the closet doors but things just didn't line up like they needed to. We decided we liked it on the wall next to the closet anyway.
We lined it up with the studs in the wall but we used 18 inch pipes and since studs are usually on 16 inch centers only one side lined up. With the ladder needing to hold the weight of the boys going up and down we really needed both sides secured strongly. On the other side we added brackets that could hold 100# each.

Dear hubby helped screw it in while I held the ladder up.

I love it!

And the boys ALL love it. They have been up and down all weekend.

One happy boy up in the loft, one mom nervous. Yep time to get on that rail to prevent them from falling!

Painting for a boy

I have been looking at this....

blank walls for a year now. I finally decided on colors. Those are the samples I was playing with on the wall. They were inspired from a volcanic flow picture.

Now to get Mr. T to pick up all the Legos....

Blank walls.....time for a transformation. Of course the first color is......

Blue.

This was the first time I have used the green paint tape. I have to say I love it!

I wish I would have had this when I painted strips in our old house.

Just look at how crisp those lines are! 

Yep, I am stuck on green paint tape.

So how did the room turn out?

Keep watching. More to come later this week!

Chalkboard Clock

I'm a little late of this post but sometimes projects just don't work out the first time, right?!
I saw this clock idea in the newspaper and thought it would be perfect for my sons astronomy room. You know we are a bunch of nerds at our house. I thought this was sooo cool. My boys take after dad. Numbers just click for them! They excel in math and science. I am always amazed at what they can figure out in their minds. Me, yeah, well, I have to write down 2+2. Really. You think I am kidding- ok maybe just a bit but math is NOT my forte!

So here is my fantastic clock. My son thought it was pretty cool too.

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I picked up a simple wood circle from the craft store and the clock innards. I used chalkboard paint but you can just use black paint too.

After the paint dries I had to prep it with chalk for the chalkboard paint.....

When I was done I had a nice surface to play with.

It was a good thing I tried with chalk first. Not all of the equations were shown on the newspaper. Some of them were a bit long for the size of my clock too. Remember how I love numbers. Yeah, uhm, well it took me a few tries to get the right equations on there. Thankfully the chalkboard was perfect for erasing over and over and over..... again.

This is what I ended up with. Not bad. I was proud of myself....until dear hubby got home and dear son who follows in his dad's brain steps.....more on that in a minute.....

My only problem with the chalk was I couldn't spray a finish on it. I tried several different tricks but the chalk just washed away. I ended up painting over the numbers with antique white paint. It still had some flecks of chalk so it retained some of the chalk writing effect. 

So proud of my project, I sprayed it with a nice coat of sealer then left it to dry. 

That evening I showed it to my sweet hubby. 

"Look at my project honey! What do you think"

Yeah, it didn't take him long to point out my mistakes.

Can you find them?

Each number is suppose to be the result of the equation right?!

Apparently I got some of my equations wrong. 

48 divided by 6 is not 7.

When I finished painting the numbers I made the 4 on 64 a 9, thus not resulting in 8.

And the 9 on 109 should be 8.

See I told you I wasn't number savy.

At least we he caught it before I put the clockworks in place. 

Back to the sander, painting and finishing it off.

What can I say the right brain just wouldn't let the left work.

The end result is fantastic. Thanks boys for keeping mom on track!

What do you think?

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Scrabble Tile Boys Decor

I have been wanting to do this project for quite a while. I am thrilled to have finally been able to. It is a simple one and doesn't take too long....

Scrabbled Tiles for Mr. T's room. Not bad for a $2 craft eh?!

So here's the low down on how to do this....

Grab your paper and pen. Start jotting down descriptive words for what you want; girls, boys, bathroom, whatever. Then you have several words to play with. Pick the ones you want and plan your scrabbled board out.

Then stop by your local Home Depot. Head to the back of the lumber section. They usually have a cart with wood scraps in them. This is called the "cull" lumber. It is unusable in building but they know us crafters can still use it so they spray the end to mark it and sell it drastically reduced. My Home Depot sells it for $0.67 a board. I grabbed a couple but only needed one good size piece.
These are 1x2's.

Measure off to make a square then make your cut.

Repeat

Repeat

Repeat...

Keep going until you have all the blocks you want.

Then head over to your trusty sander. Sand off the grean and smooth the corners just a bit.

Ohh, and don't forget to get that blanket that should be in the van nice and dusty so you have to wash it before it can be used again......

I cut my letters from black vinyl with my cricut and "George and Basics" cartridge. The letters are 2 inches and the numbers are 1 inch. I didn't paint my wood at all. Just apply the letters and numbers.

Oh, and don't worry about number values. Google is a great tool! Here they are....

• 2 blank tiles (scoring 0 points)
• 1 point: E ×12, A ×9, I ×9, O ×8, N ×6, R ×6, T ×6, L ×4, S ×4, U ×4
• 2 points: D ×4, G ×3
• 3 points: B ×2, C ×2, M ×2, P ×2
• 4 points: F ×2, H ×2, V ×2, W ×2, Y ×2
• 5 points: K ×1
• 8 points: J ×1, X ×1
• 10 points: Q ×1, Z ×1

I finished it off with a matte finishing spray. This helped to seal the wood too.
Now, how to hang them.

If you haven't used Command hooks yet give them a try. I love these (and noones paying me to say so) I use them all over my house, especially around the holidays. They are easily removable and I don't have to worry about holes in my walls.

I opted for the velcro tabs. They can be placed entirely behind the wood tile but I can still get to them when I need to change things up a bit.

See, you can't even tell what's holding the tiles up.

Beautiful!

Dear hubby likes it a lot. He said that if I was going to do so many great projects he should have finished my craft room sooner. Uhmm, YEAH!

I think it's time to add some color to little mans room. These tiles would really pop on a Navy wall!

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