How to Make a Cork Trivet

Once upon a time, I made these.





















And this:

I started out making the corkboards for myself, and then as gifts.  At some point, my friend Lisa and I decided that we would try to start a business.  We emailed wineries and asked them to send us labels.  Some sent us a sampling of 5 or 6, and some sent us boxes or rolls of leftover labels. Thousands of them.  We went to local restaurants and asked the staff to save corks for us.  We enjoyed making the rounds to retrieve our corks, and to have dinner and a few drinks.  It was fun, but never very profitable.  I figured it took me about 10 hours to make a corkboard, and, priced accordingly, they didn't sell like hotcakes. 

Fast forward ten years to my basement:

Those are 66 quart containers.  I haven't had a lot of time to make corkboards, so I tried to find a quicker way to use up some of my cork supply.  Alas, the cork trivet.

It looks nice on the countertop when it's not in use, but it's also functional.  And easy to make. 

I bought a 60" x 8" x 1" board, and had it cut into six 10" pieces.  I stained them with some ebony stain I had lying around, and then gave them a coat of polyurethane.

I used wood glue to attach the corks.  Be careful to let it dry for a couple of days before you lean it against the wall, or the corks will slide. 

They make great, personal birthday or hostess gifts!  If you want to make one, and you need some corks, I have a few to spare.  Someday, I'll make some more corkboards and tell you how I do it.

Two New Rooms- Almost

Since we first stepped foot in our house, as potential buyers, I have wanted this wall GONE.

Yes, the one that doesn't belong there. The radiator sits where an outside wall originally stood.  Sometime in the 80s, the kitchen was expanded, and so was the bedroom above it.  But someone got tired and didn't want to move the radiator, so they left a partition.  And then put down carpeting over plywood on the new half of the room. 

We bought the house anyway, and three and a half years later, my loving husband knocked down his first wall. And then patched the drywall, and mudded and sanded (and mudded and sanded, and mudded and sanded).  And this past weekend we painted the room a very nice Benjamin Moore Standish White. (It's actually 75% of that color, because we were worried the real deal was too dark.)  Doesn't it look great???

The second room had the same carpet and plywood combination, but no extra wall, fortunately.  This is what it looked like before we moved in.

And this is what it looks like now, after we stripped the carpet and painted with a soothing Benjamin Moore Par Four.

Tomorrow, the floor guy is coming to lay down the hardwood.  By this time next week, we will have two finished rooms, with furniture in them.  I can't wait!

An Unlikely Pair

The first forsythia blooms appeared today.

And, inside, the Christmas cactus is blooming.

 Like many New Englanders this time of year, I guess it's confused.

The Teak Chairs

These were another amazing Craigslist find:

$10 for the pair.  I removed the old fabric and washed the cushions (laundry detergent, gentle cycle).  There was a chance the foam would have come apart in the wash, but it didn't, and I felt better knowing the cushions had been somewhat sanitized.  And then I covered them using...  bathroom rugs.

I'm not going to lie.  It was a bit tricky.  I had to trim the fuzzies around the edges where they touched the frame in order to reattach the cushions.  If you get too close you might find some spots that need work.  But, overall, they look great, and I particularly like the view from the back.

With the new end tables in the picture, I'm not sure how my vision for the living room is all going to come together.  I'm working with quite a mix of styles.  Here's the currently very crowded living room:

 

It's a great room with a lot of light.  The old love seat will be replaced by a new sofa I've picked out (I'm waiting for some kind of sale or incentive).  I made that ottoman out of a coffee table, which I'll tell you about another time.  I was planning to try my hand at reupholstering the wing chairs some day, but I'm not sure when that will happen.  We need window treatments, and some new lamps.  The lamps that are in there now are just temporary and very cheap looking up close.  The TV spends summers on the porch.  I had thought it would be nice to enjoy fires and a movie or a game, but we never sit in here, because it's not quite comfortable yet.  We want lots of seating because we tend to have lots of guests at once, but we also want to enjoy the room more regularly.   

I've been playing around a little bit at Olioboard, where you can upload your own images, and pull other images in from outside sources to imagine and plan your room. 

When I have some more time, I'll add some new lamps and roman shades and pillows for more color and texture.  Any suggestions?

Furniture Miracles

If you have wood furniture, you're going to love this stuff. 

I use it all the time on our family room coffee table, which sees a lot of activity and gets dull and scratched on top after a while:

I thought I would give it a try on the Henredon end tables I picked up the other day, because someone (ahem, Mom) is insisting that it would be a crime to paint them.  Here are some before shots:

And some after shots:

 

  

 

There are still plenty of dings, but it does give the finish a brighter shine, and darkens any scratches or small nicks.  I am still not sure that I'm not going to paint them, but they look better, and it was worth the 20 minutes of effort.  (When I use it on my coffee table it takes 30 seconds, but there were a lot of angles and corners to get into.)  I am also concerned that if I don't paint them, they're not going to coordinate very well with the teak chairs in the living room.  I'll tell you more about them tomorrow. 

Starting a Vegetable Garden

This will be our second year with a vegetable garden. Last year, I tried to research and prepare, and I finally read somewhere, "Stop thinking about it, dig a bunch of holes, and see what grows."  So we did.  We wanted to start small, but were surprised when the garden center would not sell us one zucchini plant, but required that we take three.  The same with the cucumbers.  We were able to unload one of each on my in-laws.  Then we planted one of each in their alotted spots, and the remaining two in a shadier spot, with no soil prep, no compost.  It'll be an experiment, we said.  And, wouldn't you know, they grew!  Not as well as those in the sunnier spot with nice compost and soil, but they grew.  We had plenty of cucumbers and zucchini all summer.

This is what our 2010 garden looked like:

cucumber	tomatoes	peppers	basil
zucchini	zucchini	parsley	thyme
	cucumber	oregano	sage

Crowded.  We are going in a little bit more prepared for 2011.  We have the experience of knowing that we can grow things, and that we could probably do a better job, but if we don't, we're still likely to get some reward.  I've purchased the Vegetable Gardener's Bible, which has already lived up to its name.  Edward C. Smith (I hope he doesn't mind if I call him Ed, because I do) is our fearless leader.  We do what he says.

Ed is a big proponent of raised beds.  He says we don't necessarily need to build frames around them.  We should dig about a foot deep, and then mound more dirt on top, about 8 inches, so the roots will have a plenty of room to grow down.  With mounds (or raised beds), you can supposedly grow more in a smaller amount of space, with narrow spaces for walking between wide rows of plants.   This is our plan, using that advice: 

		Butternut squash
Leeks		Cucumber		Zucchini
Spinach		Garlic		Tomatoes
Arugula				Peppers
Beets		Shallots		Eggplant?
				Basil
Potatoes		Carrots		Parsley
				Dill

We are doubling our garden in size, which means we have to start digging soon.  We are in zone 6a in coastal Massachusetts, and our last frost date is around May 15. Ed says we could start planting seeds for things like beets, arugula and spinach as early as this weekend, which is 3-4 weeks before last frost.  That's not going to happen, though, because we've got to paint one of the bedrooms this weekend before the floor guy comes next week.  More on that later.

Craigslist Score

My obsession with Craigslist might be a little unhealthy.  But just when I think I waste too much of my time looking at other people's junk, I find gems like these.

I love the shape, and they're a nice size.  They're made by Henredon and are now mine for a mere $25.  I picked them up from a woman at Harvard this morning who is moving to California and getting rid of some of her favorite things.  I promised to give them a good home.  Maybe they would look good on either side of the sofa I've been stalking for our living room.

Or they would make cute nightstands for the guest room.  They're a little banged up, but I think I might paint them.  My limited experience with stripping and staining furniture has been a complete failure thus far (more on that another time), plus there seems to be a veneer on top.   Centsational Girl has some wonderful examples of colorful pieces here.    What color should I paint them??