George’s parents came to stay with us one weekend, so we used that as a catalyst to get some much needed projects done around the house. There’s nothing like your in-laws coming into town to kick your butt into high gear. 

First off was our record storage. I looked all over for a skinny credenza to hold our records, but I came up short. Nothing was long enough, or it was too wide, or it was too expensive. This piece is right when you come in the door, so it needed to be quite narrow, but it also needed to hold our vast collection of records. I had seen people use cement blocks as shelving before and I liked the look, but I didn’t want it to look crazy-industrial. To tone down the blocks, I painted  them black. All total we used 10 cement blocks and two 10 ft. shelving boards. This was plenty strong.

We then put felt pads under the the bottom blocks, so it didn’t scratch the floor and we used liquid nails to connect the boards to the blocks. This was one of the easiest, least expensive DIY projects we’ve done to date, but it makes me feel so much more organized.

The next project we completed was our dining room banquette. We had planned for the dining room to have a bench for a long time, but we just hadn’t got around to building it. First I ordered 5 Waddell 15 inch table legs and the matching hardware. I then painted the legs. George cut down the boards for the seat and I painted those as well. He then braced it together underneath and voila! A banquette! We also hung a vintage light above the table. I’ll probably try to find or make a cushion for the bench, but other than that, we’re done with our little dining nook.

It feels good to get some projects done– even if we needed the fear of judgement to help us get it done. Haha!

As always, our list is still long and somehow keeps growing, but our house is finally starting to feel like a real home and not just someplace we squat. 😉

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