Baby Danilo's Pallet Toy Box

We are so excited that we have so many friends that are having babies. Not only because we get to swoon over the tiny little hands and feet but that we also get to make them one of a kind, creative gifts.


A few weeks ago we made our friends newborn, Lucas, a name coat rack for his room. You can find it here if you missed it. We had such a fun time making it that we were really excited to make baby Danilo's blanket box.


We had some left over pallet wood from other projects and put them the good use. We made sure to clean and sand down the wood really well to make sure the wood doesn't splinter. We had to be sure to make it as smooth as possible.


After building the frame with 1x2's and MDF for the bottom, we cut and attached the pallet wood. It took about three coast of grey spray paint and two coats of poly to smooth it out.


I love the details of the "D" and the spaceship. We popped some casters on and voila!

An Amazing Solution for Dry Hands and Feet

I don't know about you but the winter is extremely harsh on my sensitive, Irish skin. With all of the building, woodworking and painting we do, my hands continually get worse and crack. I usually resort to using Aquaphor but it tends to make my hands greasy and I can only put it on before bed, with gloves.

I recently found out about O'Keeffe's Working Hands and Healthy Feet creams and they have been such a life saver lately. Since we both have full time jobs that require us to interact with a lot of people daily, we just cannot have dry, cracked hands when we are shaking clients hands - not professional!

Since we love it so much, we have decided to offer a tub of Working Hands, a tub of Healthy Feet and an O'Keeffe's t-shirt to one lucky winner. Trust me, you will want this to get through the rest of the winter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


You can find O'Keeffe's creams at local stores (check here for retailers in your area) or online at Amazon, Home Depot, Lowe's, Target and Walmart.
This post is sponsored by O'Keeffe's.

Inspiration Monday

The beauty about inspiration is that it can't be right or wrong.  It's about personal perception.  Keith and I are constantly sending pictures to each other of things we want to make, cool ideas we come across and what we want our dream home to look like.  We thought we would share some of them with you. We hope they provide you with a creative spark, as they have for us.  Let us know what inspires you.

These beams!

The Hudson Company

This entire kitchen is stunning... the brick, the copper hood, the ceilings, the FLOOR!

Uniques Home Design

Refinishing antiques rather than painting

Two Twenty One

This adorable, fun cart

Emily Clark

These adorable DIY concrete planters - I sense a little concrete fun this spring

Elle Decoration

Industrial Pipe Curtain Rods

When we moved into our house last September the two projects we wanted to get done immediately were to change all of the locks and to put up window treatments. Well, over a year later and we still don't have all of our window coverings installed - but we're getting there. 

A big part of the delay was trying to determine exactly what we wanted to do. Window treatments aren't cheap so we wanted to be sure what we choose was going to be something we would really love.

Deciding the window treatments for the living room was an easy decision. We wanted to be able to have complete privacy (especially since our front porch looks right into our living room) but we also wanted to be able to allow as much light in as possible - so, blinds were a must. 

We installed the living room blinds knowing that we would eventually add window treatments once we figured out how we wanted to style the room.

The main room that has been the biggest problem for me has been the dining room. It's probably one of the most used rooms in the house, after the kitchen and the living room, and it overlooks our backyard and our neighbors backyard on the side. When I'm in the room I feel like I am in a fish bowl. We have four large windows, all currently exposed, and neighbors close enough that they could probably see in. 

Since moving in we have been doing some work in the dining room (we'll post about the room transformation in the future). We skim coated the walls, added wainscoting, built our dining room table, refinished chairs and painted the walls. It's taking a long time because we keep doing work little by little. 

Now that all of the walls were painted we were ready to talk about the windows! 

The one thing we were sure of were the curtain rods. We knew that we wanted to make them from industrial pipes. Here's how we did it...

MATERIALS:

Note: measurements may vary depending on window width. The window we used is a double window and 74" in width. 

 (2) Pipes = 3/4" x 36"

(3) 3/4" Floor Flanges

(1) 3/4" Tee

(3) 3/4" x 1 1/2" Nipples

(2) 3/4" 90 degree Elbows

TO ASSEMBLE:

1. Start with the flanges since they attach to the wall and will be your base
2. Connect the nipples to the flanges
3. On two flanges, attach the 90 degree elbows. On the third, attach the tee
4. Then attach all three flange sets with the pipes (flange/elbow sets will be on the ends and the tee set will be in the middle). If you are using curtains that slide onto the pole attach them now. If you are using curtains with rings you can attach them once the poles are screwed into the wall. You will have to be sure that all three flanges sit flat on the floor because they, of course, need to sit flat on the wall.
5. We spray painted the assembled rods with Rustoleum's Metallic Spray Paint in Oil Rubbed Bronze to give it a cohesive, finished look.
6. Time to hang! This does require a level and I suggest starting with the flange/tee in the middle so you can be sure the rod is centered on the window.

We had these sheer curtains lying around and I thought they would look airy and allow a lot of light to still come through the big windows. After putting them up, I'm not in love. They're much too short and they don't frame the windows the way I would like. They do the trick of providing us with some privacy until we determine an option we like better. 

Any recommendations?

Lucas's Name Rack

One of the most rewarding things we get to do is make a piece for a good friend.  Especially when that friend just had a beautiful baby boy.

I wanted to create something original but at the same time, practical.  After trying to find inspiration online, I was striking out.  I knew I wanted to do something with his name on it but not your typical baby gift.

Just around this time I had come into some great pallet wood.  There was one piece in particular that stood out.  I am all about making things even and neat (it’s just me…I am OCD like that), but nothing about this piece had those features which was intriguing to me.

I think the fact that it isn't symmetrical is one of its greatest attributes, especially for this project.  It had such great character.

I started by sanding down the piece to ensure there were no splinters, especially since this is for a baby and may likely be put in his room.

Next, I put on a pre-stain conditioner and let it set for 24 hours.  When I returned the following day, the conditioner had really brought out the texture in the the wood.

I sanded it down, once again, to remove any fibers that were lifted from the conditioner and then applied a natural stain.  I wanted to keep the original look of the wood as much as possible.

At this point, I still didn't have a vision for the final product but then again, I usually never do. My vision usually develops and changes as the project does.

What helped me with this project was thinking of what I wish my 2 year old son would have.  Since Avery has made a pastime of throwing his coat, clothes and basically everything else on the floor, a clothing/coat rack could be a nice thing to have.

I choose the simple font of the letters because I didn't the attention to be taken away from the interesting detail of the wood. You can pick them up from Michael's, or any other craft store. OK, now I was seeing the project start to come together!

I wanted the letters to stand out from the board a bit to create a more three dimensional look.  The other important thing was that this piece needed a touch of color.  Not much but enough to add some vibrancy and life to a piece with otherwise neutral, and mostly natural wood, colors.  Adding the blue and pallet blocks served both purposes.

To finish off the piece, I added D-hooks to the back for easy wall hanging and hooks beneath each letter so Lucas can hang jackets and baseball caps in the future.

We are now offering this piece on our Etsy shop and can be customized in a ton of ways!

Toddler Art Desk

Our little man loves to draw and color (but seriously, what two year old doesn't), so when Avery and I came home one day to find this awesome little desk waiting for him in the middle of the living room, he was ecstatic! He ran to it, started pointing and screaming "wook mommy, wook!" Keith created it with a chalkboard top and ample storage for chalk, crayons and coloring books. It is the perfect little addition to our living/play room. 

It has been sitting in our living room ever since (a good year - I know, embarrassing), unfinished because I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with it. It wasn't until baseball season came along that I knew exactly what to do - Yankee colors, of course! Avery is following in Keith's footsteps with his fascination and love for baseball. He sees the Yankee logo and screams "baseball!" It tugs at his daddy's heartstrings. 

We were having a project filled weekend this fall and decided to finally tackle finishing the desk with the help of my sister. A little paint and poly, and voila! 

Since then, we have built and designed several other desks for friends and clients along with the chairs and benches. We offer color/design customization and can adjust the size based on the age of  your child. The desk's shown have been used for children 2 years - 5 years. You can find them on our Etsy page.