IKEA hack

I heart IKEA.  Always have.  There is a sort of cult following of IKEA that I totally need to join. I’m already mixing the Kool Aid to serve alongside IKEA Swedish meatballs and am considering changing my name to Grundtal. 

I recently came across Aubrey and Lindsay’s blog where Lindsay did an awesome IKEA hack inspired by Style At Home.  A quick Pinterest search brought up some awesome hack ideas.

Like this one:

http://www.houzz.com/ikea-rast

Or this one:

The Paris Apartment

These dressers are pretty small but perfect as nightstands.  They’re solid wood and only $34.99!  Time for me to give it a shot and this was the look I tried to achieve.

Style At Home September 2008 (image from http://aubreyandlindsay.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-things-began.html)

Since my nightstands looked like this I didn’t have much to lose:

From a distance it may not look bad but get up close and you’ll see it was Kai’s chew toy when he was a puppy (so yeah we’ve been living with these in this condition for almost 6 years).
Don’t judge me.

I picked up 2 Rast Dressers from IKEA.  I’m pretty sure Rast translates to ‘awesome potential’ in English because while they may look like this out of the box, they’re actually solid wood and begging to be turned into something amazeballs:

First I had to assemble these bad boys. 

Anyone who has assembled anything from IKEA knows why they include this picture in their directions:

I used some leftover primer and trim paint from our bathroom renovation (which I promise I’ll show you as soon we figure out how to fix the awful permanent damage our glass contractor did in the room yesterday) and some leftover conditioner and stain from our DIY reclaimed wood console table project.  I primed (1 coat), painted (3 coats), conditioned (never skip this step), stained (2 coats) and poly’ed (3 coats, sanded in between) on these suckers.  I tossed the ugly knobs that came with the dresser and added some antique brass ring pulls. 

         

                    

It was that easy.  A solid wood nightstand for $34.99 + the cost of hardware!

Shared with: Between Naps On The Porch Beyond the Picket Fence

Image via

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Themed Birthday Party

My middle child, Brady, turned 2 last month which got me reminiscing about his 1st birthday party which was based on one of our favorite books, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

I made the invitations using green card stock and attached the circles with brads. Yeah it was a bit overzealous but hey at least I didn't have to make many!

I bought Chinese lanterns from Oriental Trading Company and grouped the green and red together and hung them from a curtain rod using dental floss to look like a caterpillar.

We served wraps for the adults and PB&J and Fluff 'n Nutters for the kids.

We served and labeled the food to go along with the story. 

My super talented sister, Melissa, made the cake.  Seriously isn't she amazing? 

 There was "Caterpillar Juice" for the little ones...

 ...and "Butterfly Juice" for the not so little ones!

Gift bags filled with butterfly and caterpillar treats and crafts.

And a sign to celebrate the man of the hour!

Shared @ Tip Junkie

Viva la Mexico!

1st vacation without the kids. I think I may throw up :) See you in a week!

I'd Tell You a Joke About Mayonnaise but I Don't Want it to Spread

I made a pretty awesome discovery today (well I didn't actually discover it so much as I read it in This Old House).  Not awesome as in "I cured cancer" or "I figured out the tax code" (no I haven't filed my taxes yet, don't judge me) but more of a "well shoot isn't that neat" kinda discovery.  Mayonnaise removes water rings on wood furniture!

This is the 'before.'  It isn't a true before because I tried it once before I took any pictures.  It was full of water rings and very discolored.  There were 2 deep ones toward the front of the table that lingered after the first application:

I covered the water rings and let sit just long enough to put the baby down for a nap:

 Then I wiped the mayo off and used the remaining residue to wipe down the rest of the table.  Added benefit is that it revitalized the rest of the wood.  I then wiped the surface down with a wet rag to get rid of the mayo smell (not a good scent for a living room).

 Voila!  A revitalized, water ring-free table!

It turns out this crazy condiment also cleans crayon from walls (but not kitchen cabinets which I did try), fingerprints from stainless steel (success) and kills head lice.  I didn't have try this last one thankfully.  Little boys smelling of mayo is the last thing I need.

So anyway give it a shot on your own water rings!  Not curing cancer but pretty cool nonetheless!

Post shared at: Someday Crafts

Oops He Did It Again

One renovation always leads to another (because why do just one big reno project when you can do four?).  Demo'ing our master bathroom meant moving walls, heating elements, removing closets, etc. which left us with big gaps in our carpeted hallway.  Oh darn, we'd have to replace our gross carpet with the cherry hardwood we installed in our master bedroom last August.  Last weekend Sean worked tirelessly again (hence the Britney reference) by ripping up the carpet and the billion staples that held it in place.  I laid down rosin paper over the sub floor and 5" plank by 5" plank, he installed a shiny new floor.

Our master suite is a little tough to explain.  It was an addition that was originally 2 bedrooms (1 pink and 1 purple of course) with rotted windows leaking into our family room and topped off with an avocado green, laminate bathroom.  It has a separate staircase leading to it and is connected to the original 2nd floor of the house through a walk in closet connected to the baby's room.  It's weird and we're attempting to make it 'less weird' but 'less weird' will be as good as we can get it thanks to some structural issues.

A view from the top of the stairs into our current master bedroom. The boxes of hardwood are sitting in what is now our bathroom (we bumped the bathroom out a few feet) and that wall just to the left of the boxes was a closet we knocked out to make the bathroom and the hall at the top of the stairs larger.

Before:

During:

After:

A view from the hall into the old bathroom.  The door to the left was the closet/crawl space that isn't there anymore (that's where the new bathroom ends).

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During:

After:

A view from the new master bedroom into the hallway at the top of the stairs.  The two openings are from when the space was two bedrooms.  It is all open now.  There were a lot of doors in that tiny space.  We removed seven doors.

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After:

 A view from our new master bedroom into the hallway. You can see how narrow and dark that space at the top of the stairs was.  The door to the left is the door to the walk in closet that connects the addition to the original 2nd floor.

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A view looking up the stairs.  The wall at the top was pushed back a few feet to open up the space.

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Now we can finally walk out of our bedroom and not have to wear shoes out of fear we're going to get a splinter or step in a stain of unknown origins.  That's always a fun day in the Martin house.

Husband of the Year

It’s official.  Close the voting.  My husband has already locked up Husband of the Year. 

When I originally came up with the bathroom design I didn’t know exactly how we were going to accomplish all of it because a lot of it was uncharted materials for us but we usually figure it out as we go.  One of the aspects of the design called for a wood paneled tub apron.  I know, I know.  Wood in a wet room?  Mama wants a wood paneled tub apron, mama gets a wood paneled tub apron.

I priced out wood paneled aprons at a few places and they topped $1K.  1) Not in my budget and 2) the style/color of the panels wouldn’t be custom to match the vanity we already had.  I’m not spending that kind of money for something that probably wouldn’t match.  Back to the drawing board.

My non-carpenter husband casually mentioned on Saturday that he was going to go to the lumber yard to see about building the apron himself.  Now he is the most talented DIY guy I know but carpentry is an art that even he’ll admit it wasn’t one of his top talents.  I wished him well but knew in my head that this was going to turn out very badly.  There would be a lot of long afternoons spent in the garage.  There would surely be a lot of colorful language.  We’d end up spending lots of money in materials and we would have decided after the fact that it would have been cheaper/easier to DIY.

He returned from the lumbar yard with all his materials, excited about the project.  I nod, smile and wish him well.  We bathe the boys and put everyone to bed and I decide to call it a night as well.  He then retreats to the garage to build me a tub apron.  He did it!  True wood paneled, tongue and groove style.  Seriously the thing is a work of art.  Now to get the correct stain formula to match the vanity... 

He worked all night long, so as to not take away from his weekend time with the family, finally climbing into bed at 4:58 AM.  The first of the kids woke up 52 minutes later and he got up with them without a single complaint.  He then took 2 out of 3 of them to church that morning, took them to the park in the afternoon and made dinner…and have you seen him in a tool belt?  I digress…

Seriously Sean, stop, you’re making me look bad.  Well maybe 5 more minutes...

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After!!

P S A: Citronella Torch Oil & Kids

We break from our regularly scheduled programing to bring you this very important public service announcement on a common household poison.  Citronella fuel oil poisoning and kids. 

Two years ago this spring my family was out enjoying the first nice, spring day of the year.  We had spent the day dragging our patio furniture out of winter hibernation and were getting ready to head to a BBQ.  In the blink of an eye our son Matthew, 21 months old at the time, climbed up on patio chair, reached for a decorative citronella fuel oil lantern we had on the table and brought it up to his face.  We’re not sure if he thought it was a toy ball or a sippy cup or what he was trying to do with it but the oil spilled all over his face.  He immediately began coughing. 

 

Unsure of what to do we called my physician father who told us to immediately head to the ER.  My husband rushed him to Bryn Mawr Hospital while I stayed back with our then 4 week old son, pacing nervously.  Sean called me a little while later and said they were going to transport him via ambulance to the ICU at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and that I needed to get there.  I remember him sounding so matter of fact on the phone, almost robot-like, probably due to shock.  I began running around the house trying to get things I’d need.  His stuffed doggy would make him feel better.

I had to take my newborn son to a friend’s house because I didn’t want him around the germs of a hospital.  Her house is 2 miles away and I’d been there many times before but I was in such a haze that I kept getting lost.  It felt like a bad dream I couldn’t wake up from.

I arrived at the Emergency Room to find a swarm of people around my baby.  He sat on Sean’s lap with IV’s, crying.  After some debate between the doctors at Bryn Mawr and CHOP the decision was made to put him under and intubate before transport.  Seeing that procedure performed is something I never want to experience again.  We sang Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to keep him calm and then he was unconscious.  Just hours prior he was running around our deck while we listened to the Phillies on the radio and now he was laying unconscious in a hospital bed.

CHOP sent an ambulance, a doctor and a nurse to pick us up.  I rode with them.  It was surreal.  My baby was unconscious in the back of an ambulance.  Please God, not my baby.

He was brought into the ICU, a flurry of activity around him.  I stood off to the side while they worked on him.  Eventually the team dissipated and I was left holding my baby’s hand.  Unconscious, looking like he was napping like I’d watched him do a hundred times before.  Except this time there were tubes coming out of his nose.  Machines helping him to breathe.  Wearing nothing but a diaper so they could easily work on him.  A kind nurse made sure that his stuffed doggy was always sitting on his shoulder, right next to his face.

They had to keep administering drugs to keep him from waking up in a panic and vomiting the chemical.  We got used to the hourly chest x-ray’s.  We became too versed in the ability to spot the haze of the chemical in his lungs on the x-rays.  We watched his stats on the machines, praying the numbers wouldn’t go down.  We’d listen and ask questions to the team of doctors that would come around and talk to us like we were in a Grey’s Anatomy episode.  They said they were confident he would be fine but he had to remain sedated and intubated for a few days because with citronella poisoning the child can look fine initially but their health could decline in a matter of hours.  It was a painful waiting game.

We didn’t sleep, we didn’t eat.  Sunday came and went.  Monday came and went.  No real improvement on his x-rays but thankfully he wasn’t getting worse which was a positive sign.  Finally on Tuesday it was decided it was probably safe to wake him up.  The first thing he asked for with his scratchy voice was his ‘binky.’  Our baby was back.

By this point we started taking turns giving each other breaks.  We acted so strong in the bubble of the ICU but after those elevator doors opened and dumped us out into the fresh spring air, seeing life go on around us with the bustle of activity in the city, reality sunk in.  We weren’t dreaming.  Our lives were almost destroyed but miracle of miracles, we got our baby back.  

By Thursday his lungs were clear and we were free to take him home.  Those days in the hospital felt like both an eternity and a flash at the same time but we were finally home.  Matthew is almost four now.  He has made a full recovery with no residual damage.  He is a miracle. 

This story is always difficult for me to tell but one I believe needs to be told in order to prevent this from happening to another family.  The director of poison control at CHOP told us Matthew was the first of many cases of citronella fuel oil poisoning they would see that season.  Why had I never heard of this before?  We had child locks, gates, locked up the cleaning products, locked up the medicines.  I consider us good parents.  I’ve heard it so many times before and it is true, it can happen to anyone and it can happen in an instant.

Through all this I was given the gift of perspective.  It sounds so simple.  A healthy little boy and the perspective to enjoy him, his brothers and our life together.  It has changed the way I parent, changed the way I react and changed the way I live.  2 year old tantrums?  Whatever.  4 year old whininess?  Bring it.  I was blessed with 3 healthy, happy, energetic little boys and I couldn’t be luckier.  So hug your babies close and enjoy every miraculous minute.

Some technical information on the dangers of citronella oil:

Citronella fuel oil is one of the most dangerous household chemicals you can have in your home.  I'm just a parent, not a doctor so I can't get into the specifics about which ingredient(s) is the culprit but my main goal is to spread the word that this common household substance can be extremely dangerous.   Torch lamp fuels are often packaged in containers that resemble plastic apple juice bottles yet can be very toxic if ingested or inhaled, causing severe lung injury and even death.   When aspirated into the lungs, citronella fuel oil coats delicate tissues with toxic vapors, causes chemical pneumonia, and can trigger fatal pulmonary arrest.  We all know to keep the bottle the oil comes in out of reach of children but many homes have tiki torches or table lanterns containing the oil that are accessible to kids.   Toddlers are notorious for climbing and pulling up on things.  They can pull a tiki torch down, splashing the oil on their face or grab lanterns full of oil that looks like apple juice on patio tables (just as dangerous unlit).  Keep these items stored when not in use and keep a close eye on kids when they are out. 

Please pass this story along to anyone who may benefit from this information.