B is for building

Lots of it. In fact, if you hear the sound of power tools coming from our fenced-in porch at all hours of the day and night, don't be alarmed. It's just us, doin' what we do best-well, at least doing what we are learning to do pretty darn well. It's my fault really-I started it. I usually do, not that Adam needs much to get him started-he truly loves to build things and has learned enough over the 4 years of our marriage to become a much-more-than-decent carpenter. Our place in D-town had a beautiful changing table/bookshelf that he built when our small son was on the way (I stained it when I was about a week & a half away from giving birth and got scolded by a friend of ours...hey, I was outside! It was well-ventilated!); and a shelf in our bathroom he built because he couldn't stand my girl-clutter any longer. He worked long hours in the youth room at the church with a friend of ours and another young man (who's dad is a carpenter...good tips there!) pouring his heart into building a fun, modern, place for "our" kids to hang out.
Then we moved in here. And our box spring didn't fit up the stairs. And I told him I'd had enough of sleeping on the floor in college...so we started to look, plan, and scheme. Oh, but first he built a book shelf based off of one I'd seen at Super Tar*et-I would've probably just bought that one, but he wanted to make a sturdier one; and it's truly much cooler than the one at the red & white store would've been. And very needed, since the amount of books we now have seems to have increased exponentially in the past year.
But the bed.
We looked at some big furniture stores around here, talked about what we liked (thankfully, MOST of the time we have the same taste!), and decided we didn't want to spend $600- 1000 on a frame we could make (ok, he could make-but I helped!) ourselves. I remembered a website I'd found on my friend Jill's blog (thanks, friend! It's quickly becoming my new favorite blog!) and hopped on to look for a plan. Came home from California. Found it. Bam. Done. Built it in a day, including shopping for the supplies. Took a bit longer to finish it (ie, paint it & then distress it) because of general chaos in our lives; but here it is! With the paint, primer, screws, wood, etc-cost us just about $100. NOW THAT I LIKE. Super sturdy; high-quality look; low(er) budget. I.love.it. and it is soooooo much more comfortable than sleeping on the floor!! But the best part? Working at a project like this with my hubs. Seriously, it's so fun to build stuff together-mostly because WE have so much fun together. It's quickly becoming one of my favorite things to do with him-the planning, the designing, the measuring, the cutting, the building, the painting...you get the idea. There are lots of things we enjoy doing together; this is just a new hobby we're learning about. And something we can do without the kiddos-although Pax does love to "help". On a compleatly differnt note-isn't our quilt gorgeous? I take absolutely no credit for it. My aunt made it as a wedding gift; it's all hand-quilted (seriously boggles my mind..). She asked me when we got engaged what colors I wanted; it was Adam's idea to use our wedding colors. We finally got it last spring, and it was totally worth the wait. I love the contrast with the red.

.....and for those of you who are waiting to see Pax's finished birthday present-It's coming. It's done, actually, and he's sleeping in it (yes, it is a VERY COOL BED too) I just have a few more details to paint on it-- and I cannot show it to you until it's totally done. Thankyouforyourpatience.Haveagoodday.