An Ikea Friheten Sofa Comes to Live in Our Basement

The Ikea Friheten: it’s more than just a sofa with a difficult to remember or pronounce name. I feel like most of my posts for the past….two years or so start out with me being like, “hey–remember that thing I meant to get done way back a million months ago but then didn’t get around to until now?” Yeah, so, … Continue reading

CATastrophe in the Basement: Relatedly, Sleeper Sofa Shopping

I’m going to have posts coming at you like crazy this week! For a few reasons: I have two sponsored posts this week because….when it rains, it pours? Because I’m bad with timing? Anyway, that means I feel compelled to get more non-sponsored posts up as well, to help me better manage my complex emotional relationship with American capitalism. And … Continue reading

Basement Floors, et. al: A Few Updates

I’ve been asked a few times now about how our basement floors are holding up; I always answer people in the comments, of course, but it seems like it’s probably about time to do an actual official update now that we’re a few months in. But I didn’t want to have a post that’s three sentences long, so I’m tossing … Continue reading

Basement Movie and Game Room AGAIN: The Final Reveal!

Update 3/26/2017: you can see some updates to the room here. To review: we first started working on the basement back in the fall, as part of a Fall in Love room makeover that we did with a bunch of other bloggers. We only had six weeks to work on it then, and we managed to get a functional room … Continue reading

Baseboards for the Basement (also, SNOW!)

There were a lot of projects in the basement where I was worried that we were in over our heads and things would go terribly wrong–hanging doors, painting the floor, putting up the plank wall–but then all of those things went really well. I wasn’t worried about the baseboards at all. It seemed really straightforward. We just bought pine planks … Continue reading

DIY Giant Shelves for the Basement

*denotes affiliate link I feel a little…slow motiony about house stuff lately. Like, for example, these shelves. I posted a picture of the almost finished shelves on Instagram like two weeks ago, and then it just took forever to get them all the way finished. (And then actually writing the post is taking me ANOTHER forever). Incidentally, the same sort … Continue reading

Painted Upholstery on Vintage Shell Chairs: A Basement Update!

This chair makeover marks an important turning point in my life: between the completion of this project and a few drop offs at the thrift store, I no longer have a stash of chairs in my garage waiting to be painted/reupholstered/etc. and moved into the house! I feel relieved and a little empty. I bought these chairs off of Craigslist … Continue reading

DIY Modern Birch Table from One Sheet of Plywood

post contains affiliate links Update, 11/1/2015: A couple of people have contacted me to let me know that the link to Popular Mechanics isn’t working anymore (at least as I’m writing this). Someone was able to find the plans at this site, though, luckily! If the PM link doesn’t work, check it out here: http://www.woodworkcity.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/plywood-table-plans.pdf ….we’re hoping to eventually draw … Continue reading

DIY Projector Screen for less than $20

Today I present easy to follow instructions for making your own DIY projector screen! I have to say, the whole process of buying and setting up a projector is, for me, very mysterious and difficult to comprehend. I feel like the more I read about it the less I understand. So I came across a lot of tutorials out there … Continue reading

Our Basement Movie and Game Room: Fall in Love

We had six weeks to finish a room in our basement as part of the Fall In Love series with 17 other bloggers….and the big reveal day is finally here! Room makeover deadlines are funny things. It became clear pretty quickly that there was no way we’d really be able to finish finish the basement room, so it was more … Continue reading