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Another Big Bite

Another Big Bite

Tag Archives: boys room

A Light of Global Proportions

31 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by anotherbigbite in Fixing Up the House, I'm a Crafty Mo' Fo'

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

boys room, diy, globe light, kids room, light fixture, light fixtures, Remodeling

Another Big Bite - DIY Globe Light3

Another Big Bite - DIY Globe Light2

Finn’s room has been done for quite some time, but the one thing we never got around to doing was updating his light fixture.  Finn’s was a builder’s special and hideous.  But, the light fixtures that I like are expensive…  I hate boob lights and they are seemingly the only affordable flushmount in the world.  Which is why we ended up DIYing a light fixture for him.  We had a lot of fun making his pin map, and this seemed like a logical direction to go in for his overhead lighting.

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We started with a cheapie setup from Home Depot; a 4″ glass shade holder and a 8″ glass globe; which set us back about $15 total.  The holder got a nice coat of oil-rubbed bronze spray paint (which was from previous projects).

photo 1

We had silver and black vinyl lying around from a project that Nathan had dreamed up (and still has yet to come to fruition – surprise!).  I printed out a world map and got to cutting out each continent out of black vinyl.  I attached the landmasses to the vinyl with double stick tape and then got busy with my handy little embroidery scissors.  (A gift from my mom on my 21st birthday; proving that I had a mean DIY streak even then.)  I’m sure black contact paper would look just as good.

I eyeballed it for the continent to globe ratio… This globe aint going to win any cartography awards.  I started with North America, and by the time I got to Antarctica, I had to shrink it down to a quarter of its actual size.  And it is still swimming distance to Chile and Australia.  Little did you know arctic conditions now exist in South America.  Penguins have been spotted in Argentina.

photo 2

Oh dear god, someone get me some moisturizer…

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Once the continents were cut out (Russia in three pieces), I got to sticking and smoothing.  Wrapping a round object in a flat sticker is a pain, and it didn’t turn out perfect by any means.  There is a healthy crease through the middle of Africa and Russia is a major cluster fuck; I’m sure there is a meaningful political allegory in there somewhere.

But once it was up, even Russia’s problems weren’t noticeable.

photo 1 (1)

I cut a compass rose out of the silver vinyl (in 12 separate pieces) and we stuck that up first.  Nathan whipped out the compass on his phone to make sure north was really pointing north.  This, ladies and gents, is why I married the man.

Nae wired in the freshly painted fixture and we loaded it up with a CF bulb.  I’m not sure how wonderfully the vinyl countries would hold up to the heat if we had an incandescent in there.  Once the shade was on, all that was left to do was touch up the little screws that held the globe in place with some black paint.

photo 2 (1)

Even though I have checked three times with the compass and twice online – I still think the east looks weird on the left. The fact that it is on the ceiling must be what throws me off.

Finn has informed me that “I sure do like my new globe, Mom.  But I’m mad at Dad for taking away my Legos and I’m not telling him that I like it.”  So that is a plus, I suppose.  Even if we would have had to buy all the supplies we used, I doubt we would have spent more than $25.  Which about the cost of two fugly cheapie light fixtures.

Another Big Bite - DIY Globe Light

Another Big Bite - DIY Globe Light4

It is ten times better than that ugly mushroom lamp that was up there to begin with.  And two hundred and twelve times better than a boob light.

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Finny’s Room Has Been Featured on Apartment Therapy!

20 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in Fixing Up the House

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Tags

apartment therapy, boys room, diy, kids room, loft bed

Finn on Apartment Therapy

Say whaaaat??  Yes, indeedy, Apartment Therapy has featured Finn’s room today! Dude, why am I all a-flutter in my belly?  Because AT is one of my daily go-tos and I just about died when I was scrolling through this morning…. And there is a room in my house.  Yippee!

If you are curious about how Finn’s room all came together; take a gander here.

Big thanks to the folks at Apartment Therapy!

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Finn’s Big Boy Room – Put a fork in it; it is DONE!

18 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in Fixing Up the House, I'm a Crafty Mo' Fo'

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

bedroom, before and after, boys room, decorating, diy, home, house, kids, kids room, loft bed, remodel, renovating

1finn1This weekend, we put a few finishing touches on Finn’s room.  I was super stoked, but I still was searching for a rug to hide the fugly carpet (which is not on our list of priorities to replace).  After heading to Ikea on Tuesday night, I snagged one of my top contenders for $35 from the As-Is section.

And now, with the rug down, the room finally feels done!  Here is what it looked like when we moved in…

Before...

Before…

And this was the other side of the room…

IMG_5362And now:

1finn4

There are a few minor pieces of trim that we are still scratching our heads about exactly how to address (like the small gap between the wall and rock wall and the toe-kick at the bottom of the rock wall), but everything else is totally complete.

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I put tiny curtains up under his loft to give him a little fort to hang out in.  It also has been employed as a stage.  And a reading room.  And a hideout for doing things Mom doesn’t let you do, but now you have a secret hideout to do it in.  Like giving your Lego men a bath in a cup of water.  And spilling it.

The Lego table was originally parked under his USA map (see the full rundown on that project – my favorite – here), and the closet was supposed to house his dresser to free up some floor space.  Oh, I measured twice to make sure it would fit – and it did with lots of room to spare.  Only I forgot to think about making sure the drawers would open once it was inside the closet.  Spoiler alert: drawers didn’t open, and it moved back to its original spot.  Now that it is there, I think it anchors the map much better than the Lego table did.  Finn’s made sure the map doubles as a cork board of sorts…

1finn3

The frog donning a Batman costume was TOTALLY Finn’s idea. Bah-rill-yant.

We also found a new spot for the rhino head I made him a few years ago.  The rhino keeps his Disney pins safe.  And I was sooooo happy to hang up the sign with his name on it; my dear friend from Spokane made it as a piece of decor for Finn & I’s baby shower years ago…  (Miss you, Great and Powerful Peggy!)

1finn12Hands down, the best part of the room is the bed.  It is mega sturdy (all four of us have been up there without the slightest creak or wiggle) and Finny has a blast climbing up the wall to get in and out of bed.  I think we have successfully planted the rock climbing seed for little Alice…  She whips up that baby like a spider monkey.  She has a bit of a problem getting down, but we’re working on it.

1finn8

1finn9

1finn11I did a little digging through Nae and I’s old road trip pics from years ago, and decided to meld one of the shots from Sequioa National Park with a favorite literary reference.  A match made in Tolkien-nerd-road-trip heaven.  Finn also gets lots of use out of the little shelf underneath it…  It is just out of reach of Alice’s destructive little fingers and makes a great spot to keep his latest Lego creations safe.

1finn5Now that it is done (99% anyway), I am itching to get going on Alice’s room.  My mom is coming to visit in a week…  Ikea is begging for a mom-grandma-kids shopping trip.

1finn2

But for now, I have a few weeks to clean up all the tools stashed upstairs.  And to plot my next move for Alice’s space…

Just in case you are curious about our process, check out the room in-progress here, here and here.

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DIY Kid-Friendly Pin Map

20 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in Fixing Up the House, I'm a Crafty Mo' Fo', On the Road Again, The "Joy" of Parenting

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

boys room, diy, geography, kids room, map, parenting, pin map, road trip map, Travel

Another Big Bite - DIY Pin Map1Ump…  Hey, over here!

Yeah, pardon me, just getting back from a trip – it was to a place called Off the Face of the Earth, and while we were busy, we got lots done.  But now we’re back on our regular schedule…  I think.

Finn’s room is going swimmingly!  The bed is 95% complete; we have trim work to do and then it is DONE.  While Nathan has been plowing away on all the woodworking, I’ve been breathing down Nae’s neck to get it done finishing up some of the smaller projects; getting art hung, touching up dinged walls, digging things out of storage so they can finally be put up… You know, the usual “easy” stuff.

Another Big Bite - DIY Pin Map

I would be lying if I said I was a big help in the construction of the bed; it’s all been Nathan.  The one project that was truly a joint effort between the two of us was Finn’s map.  We love to travel, and have been living like gypsies since he has been born.  Also, the fam is scattered to the four winds, and wrapping your noggin around how far it is to Grandma’s house is an intangible concept when you are four.

And one needs to know how far it is to Disney World.

We have a pin map for the whole family, but map tacks and foam board are not what you might think of as “kid-friendly.”  Finny needed something on the sturdy side, and he hasn’t been to all the places that Nae and I have.  That, and our map is kinda ugly.  This one is pretty.  Which is really all that matters to me some days.

This baby started out as a 4’x8′ sheet of 3/4″ thick plywood.  We needed a few sheets of plywood to make Finn’s bed, and this fit into the project quite nicely.

photo 1

I started out with a printout of a US map and traced it on to a transparency so I could use the overhead projector I rescued from the garbage for the first time.  Only problem is, I haven’t actually laid eyes on a transparency in the last decade. I DID happen to finish off the box of spinach that morning, though.  I did what any hillbilly resourceful person would do and traced my map onto the lid of the spinach box.  Problem solved.

photo 2

Since Nae knew he would be cutting the map out with a jig saw, I traced it backwards.  When you use a jig saw on plywood, it gnaws out the top layer of veneer, but only on the top of the sheet.  On the backside, there is a nice, perfect cut.

photo 3

Once it was done being cut out, (a process that was tedious and mind-numbing for Nathan – it clocked in at over an hour and a half), Nathan sanded the edges while I taped off the edge behind him.  I love seeing the cross-section of the plywood, and I’ll be damned if I was going to paint it.

photo 4

By the time I got to Michigan, my eye started twitching.  Crimeinitly, taping that SOB was a pain.  Nathan and I moved out on our own together when we were WAY too young, and we called Michigan home for six months before admitting defeat, tucking our tails between our legs and shuffling back to our respective parents’ houses.  Growing up is a bitch.

“Fuck Michigan,” I pronounced to Nathan as he was sanding Maine’s Northern coast.  “Fuck Michigan for when we were nineteen, and fuck Michigan because I can’t tape the edge.  There are too many damn curves.”

“I felt the same way when I was cutting it.  Yes.  Fuck Michigan.”  I love this man.

Also, fuck Florida.  Over the course of sanding, taping, painting, tracing and hanging, all four of us managed to get nailed in the head with the Florida-weiner.  Its only saving grace is Disney World, I tell you.

photo 5

After it was painted, I flipped on the projector one last time, lined the good-ole-U-S-of-A back up and traced the state borders lightly in pencil.  I wanted to be able to put pins in the right spot – so I needed to know where the borders were, but I didn’t want to see them unless I was up close.  Tracing over them with a white paint pen did just the trick.  The state lines don’t pop, but they are easily viewable up close.

photo

For real, it is crazy that my little man has been so many places in his four years on this earth.

Instead of map tacks, we opted to pound giant nails in.  They are in there GOOD – they do not budge at all – and I don’t have to worry about little people unwittingly placing us on some non-existent road trip through Kansas or North Dakota.  The nail heads got a shiny coat of red paint.

By the way, in order for a place to warrant a tack/nail, we had to have spent the night there or done something exceptionally memorable or unique to that particular location.  McDonalds doesn’t count.  The Corn Palace does.  I CANNOT WAIT TO TAKE FINN TO WALL DRUG.

Another Big Bite - DIY Pin Map2

When it came to hang it on the wall, we killed two birds with one stone by drilling screws in all the places that Finn has lived.  Turns out Ohio, Colorado, Washington and Illinois make a pretty nifty span for such a task.  Nathan thinks we need to move to San Diego for a very short stint so the map is REALLY SCREWED IN THERE, but it isn’t moving anytime soon.  I suppose there is something poetic in all of this  – this being held together by all the places you call home – but the sentiment is lost on me after all the work we’ve been doing in the last few weeks.

map1

And surprisingly, Finn is really good at geography.  Holy shit, he knows right where everyone lives, and which “home screw” is which…  He clearly got his father’s sense of direction.  I get lost on the way to the mall.

Maybe, just maybe, if my parents had gotten me a map at a young age, I would be the same way.

Wait.  Nope.  My dad’s brilliant idea to get me a globe one year for Christmas when I was seven made no other impression on me than, “Reaaaally, Dad?  A GLOBE?  For CHRISTMAS?”  I was such a brat.

And maybe Finn feels the same way.  Now I totally understand why my Dad got me that globe.

Another Big Bite - Happy Trails!

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Progress in Finn’s Room

09 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in Fixing Up the House

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

boys room, decorating, diy, finn, home, house, kids room

As normal folks are mowing their lawns, doing laundry, fixing dinner or bathing, Nathan and I have been working on Finn’s room every chance we get.  Every time we start one of these projects, I am reminded how overly optimistic the two of us are.

Three days?  Muwah, ha, ha, ha!  We’re clocking in at a week now, and the bed isn’t quite finished yet.

1finnsroom2

It is about 90% functional at this point, though.  The bed is up, it is stable and safe, but we have lots of trim work to do.  We have to paint the railing and permanently install the climbing rope “safety net.”  And we are anxiously patiently awaiting the arrival of the rock holds we ordered online…  For now, Finn is climbing up a makeshift ramp until they are installed.

He’s only wiped out once.  Huzzah.

The good news is that his duvet cover is done.  The Lego Man pictures are up (which are just prints of our Lego family from last month).  While Nathan is at work (and he has been working A LOT), I am going to town getting all the little things together.  The kids and I have made two trips to Ikea to gather supplies; hooks and tables and little lamps…

Hooks…

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And tables…

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And lamps…

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Oh my.

Another jam-packed week makes it apparent it will not be finished by Friday, but it won’t stop me from trying to pull it all together.  In vain.

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