Arts and Crafts | Operation Home

This is gonna be an Ikea hack kinda week. I’m just feelin’ it. So, I’m gonna ride that feeling to Happinessville.

Remember this cabinet?

I briefly referenced it in this post. We originally purchased it to be our media cabinet for the living room. And it was purchased during this time period, when I was highly confused about what furniture and layout would work best in our oddly-shaped living room. I’d erroneously convinced myself that we needed a teeny media cabinet since the room is smallish. But, honestly, I never really liked the darn thing. Sure, we needed something. But, it’s just so… Blah. And boxy. And brown. I tried to jazz it up with the spigot faucet knob from Hobby Lobby. I even painted the back panel on the inside grey and navy for a splash of color (although, it’s kind of hard to tell). Once we adopted our current media cabinet, ole’ plainface here was demoted to the front room where it’s been holding down the fort ever since.

Now, although this cabinet isn’t my fave, we never really had a reason to part with it. After all, it’s the perfect size for its current home, it provides storage and is a good place to keep our cable/internet/modem/router thingie thanks to the glass door. I was just never particularly excited by the sight of it.

So, the other day, as I was doing a yoga video in the front room, I completed one fateful upward dog, glanced at the cabinet and exclaimed “EUREKA!!!”. Yoga must’ve brought me clarity or something. Unexpected bonus, right there. I realized that the cabinet simply needed a bit of organic detail. Something rustic and curvy to offset the plain, square lines. And, the detail needed to allow our wireless modem to still function. So, preferably something meshy, with holes. “CHICKEN WIRE, YOU FOOL!!” I exclaimed. How had I never thought of this before??!!

So, I hit up Home Depot and grabbed a roll of chicken wire for just over six bucks…

Once I got home, I removed the door from the cabinet and took off the door knob….

I measured the window, allowed about another inch on each side and the cut my chicken wire down to size with some wire cutters…

I did my best to flatten out the chicken wire by bending it against the arch (caused from it being rolled up). It was easiest if I stepped on it while bending it in the opposite direction with my hands. Then, I used my trusty staple gun and stapled the chicken wire to the inside of my door…

I will warn… Chicken wire is feisty stuff. I highly recommend wearing protective gloves. My hands got scratched up all over during this process. After attaching the chicken wire, it looked like this….

Which, I liked.

But, then I decided that if one is good, two must be better. So, I cut out a second piece of chicken wire, but in the perpendicular direction to my original (so that the honeycomb shapes were turned 90 degrees). Then, I stapled the second sheet over the first…

I trimmed all of the excess chicken wire around the edges, reattached the door and handle. And I was left with this….

A little side-by-side before and after action…

It’s exactly what I was going for. A bit of rustic detail in a more freestyle pattern to break up the blockinesss of the cabinet. It gives some subtle interest and style. All for under 6 bucks (if you consider that I still have chicken wire left over for other projects).

Even Lucas liked it….

So, anyways, this project was quick and easy… it took under an hour to complete and I couldn’t be happier with the result.

Also, on another note, I’ll tell ya’ll….. I’m getting excited about the bathroom. I finally found fabric for the shower curtain, so now that I’ve gotten that, a paint color has been chosen and I’m hoping to get my paint on next weekend. YEAH!!!! Fingers crossed and knock on wood that all goes to plan. 🙂

When last we saw the so-called play-zone in Lucas’s room, it looked like this…

Quite the zone, right? Heehee! Well, this area has been on our to-do list for some time and we finally got a start to it. One thing that was very important to us in moving forward with this wall was making sure that the beautiful wood trunk that Joey’s dad made was the main attraction, front-and-center. I mean, look how gorgeous it is….

Stunning, right?

He made this FROM SCRATCH. It’s something that will hopefully be in our family for many generations. I absolutely love the details on top when the trunk is closed, but because we’ve been using it as a toy box, it’s pretty much stayed open from the get-go. My goal in organizing this wall was to instill enough alternate storage so that 1) Lucas’s toys would still be easily accessible to him and 2) we could empty the toy box enough so that the trunk can be closed when Lucas isn’t actively playing.

We tossed around the idea of open shelves and shelving units, but weren’t really sure what we wanted. And honestly, open shelves and their climbing potential had me a little nervous after this experience. Then, during our recent trip to The Mothership (Ikea to those who dont already know), we checked out the Expedit line of storage units. We liked that we could customize our unit of choice with drawers, or leave the shelf cubbies open, and they had a variety of different shapes and sizes to choose from. We played around with a few different ideas, like these totally not-to-scale renderings…

Option #1:

Option #2:

…both of which required two 5-shelf units and one 4-shelf unit. Rather than spend hours deciding at Ikea, we decided to simply buy those three items and determine their final arrangement at home.

Once we got everything unloaded, I began by assembling the two larger units. But then I got to this point of the instructions and froze…

What do ya mean, we can’t hang the long shelves on the wall???!!

That’s how they were displayed in the store so we assumed that that was an option. Which meant adios, Option #2. So, option #1 it was. At this point, I rushed to open our smaller unit’s box to check the instructions. And we were good to go. The 4-shelf unit could be hung on the wall.

Once assembled, I placed the tall shelves next to the toy box…

…And realized that adding the 4-shelf unit above the trunk would be too much. A bit too heavy visually (and literally if it ever fell). So, this is when we decided that we would DIY two simple shelves between the units instead. We haven’t gotten there yet, but soon. I’m thinking that I might white-wash them so that the wood grain shows through.

As for the Expedit shelves, I decided to add a splash of green behind them for a little interest. I’d picked up a test pot of Valspar’s Jungle Thicket for $2.98 the last time I was at Lowes and also had an Oops paint that was a chartreuse green color. I couldn’t decide between the two right off the bat, so I decided to paint some test swatches. First, I used a light colored prismacolor pencil to outline the opening of my shelf…

Then, I painted about one square’s worth of paint between the lines…

I replaced my shelves, stepped back and immediately realized that Jungle Thicket was the victor. The Oops paint appeared way too yellow. So, I used a small roller and paint brush and applied three thin coats of paint within my rectangles….

Once it was dry, I moved the shelves back and anchored them with heavy-duty anchors to the wall. Then, Lucas struck a pose…

And, we filled the shelves. Me and Lucas. Together. He was so cute. He talked to himself as he did it. “And this is gonna live there…”, “And this car goes here…”. It was awesome. He really loves his shelves. I’ve caught him on multiple occasions, just pulling stuff off and putting it back. For FUN. I hope he keeps this up indefinitely. Well, the putting-up part anyways.

Here are a few finished pics…

The green background is more obvious in person than in these pics. We stashed his train tracks in one of the bottom white boxes and his Legos in the other. His favorite books and puzzles are now easily within reach, and his model cars that he loves to play with look nicely displayed when they aren’t in use. The top baskets hold “needs supervision” activities, like paint, clay and other arts and crafts stuff. And then, of course more “Pop” art on top…

So, next will be creating the shelves between the units. Then, maybe I’ll finally get a move on the license plate wall. I don’t understand myself sometimes. I have everything I need for that project (and have for months now), and yet I’m constantly putting it off. I’m starting to annoy myself. Maybe getting on the play-zone part of the room will provide the motivation I need. Fingers crossed.

So, tell me about some fun ways you’ve organized the toy-zone? Any fellow Expedit users? Any tips to share? Anybody else procrastinating a project?