Here’s one of the reasons why I’ve been kind of missing from the blog recently…

Our master bedroom is tiny — 10 feet by 11.5. Our bedroom set has been around for a while — like, oh, 30 years or so. And it’s large, the proverbial “wall of oak”:

We’ve talked about a new set, but we’ve always decided there are other priorities. More and more, though, I was ready to do something. With Laurie headed up to Seattle on another trip, it seemed a good time to try to surprise her.

I didn’t quite make it — because of work and some other time issues, when she got back, it wasn’t quite done, but it was close. Over the last week, I finished it up, and today, with laurie’s help, we redid the bedroom, pulling out the old headboard, shampooing the (oh god, I shouldn’t have looked at what that pulled up) carpets, re-arranging things and putting in the new headboard I’ve built:

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The headboard is made of African zebrawood, finished in danish out, framed in black-painted poplar, and upholstered in a hunter green upholstery. Total cost for building the headboard was between $600-700, and with the new side tables and lamps, the total project cost was about $900.

My first project that involved upholstering stuff, and I think it worked our pretty well. The new headboard only sits about 4″ out from the wall, which allowed us to rotate the bed 90 degrees, and relocate the chests together on one wall. The end result: a room that feels much roomier, there’s more room to walk around the bed (less kicking it as I try to crawl into bed without waking laurie up), and the wall that’s going to be the new closet is now unencumbered with furniture. Oh, and instead of two 50 watt heat lamps pointing straight down at your face, we have more lighting, and independently controllable lamps, so I can read while Laurie crashes. and if we want, we can

and — laurie likes it. And so do I. And it’s definitely not something you’re going to find at Levitz, that’s for sure.

Unlike Laurie’s new office secret project a couple of months ago, she knew something was going on, just not what (who else do you think I was asking where to find things like upholstery fabric? — for the record, the folks at Calico Corners rock. Very helpful with a relative newbie to all of this.

The fabric panels are plywood, backed with 2″ of high density foam and a layer of batting, and then everything was put together using pocket screws and my new kreg jig. Still to come: new chests (we have a set tentatively picked out), drapes on the window to replace the mini-blinds (or perhaps roman blinds, or something. anything but the “dorm” look), new carpets, and then paint. None of the interior has been painted since we moved in here (has it really been ten years?) and some of it needed it then — but we’ve been working more on the exterior and “bones” of the house (which is the smart thing to do, but it’s damn nice to see stuff being made nice again that you can see….)

Interesting project, with a number of new techniques. It also gives me some confidence both in the skills I’ll need for some upcoming projects (one reason I did this now was if I screwed it up, I could tear it apart and not worry about it — my next project modifed the house itself as I get going on the new fireplace facade), and that my workshop finally allows me to, well, work.

I’ve also spent the last month of weekends shutting down the front yard for the fall, cutting down all of the irises, trimming back the roses, and pulling all of the weeds (well, first round of weeds. In a couple of weeks, I’ll go out and roundup the stuff that comes up to try to slow down the damned bermuda grass) — and dropped 20 sacks of redwood bark as mulch. finished just in time for this first rain storm of the season. here’s hoping it stops again and gives me a couple of weeks to clean up the back and get the spring bulbs into containers… but even if not, it’s great doing my fall cleanup in, well, fall instead of February like I have the last couple of years.

Up front, the fall daisies are still going at it, the rhodie is doing a little blooming for some reason, the irises are in for one final round of blooms, and we still have some roses going at it, and the Dahlias haven’t given up, although they’re slowing down and getting ready for their winter sleep. So we will have some color, and will into November. And then it’ll all start up again sometime in January…. (those of you in snow country, just grimace quietly…)

nice to finally finish something up, and have it come out as planned, and really look good.

(yes, I’m an admitted HGTV Geek. And the inspiration for the headboard came from an episode of The Designer Guys, out of Toronto and HGTV Canada, and found on Discovery Home here in the States. And I have to admit — their new series, Design Rivals, simply isn’t as good. the original series was about design, and the two had a good, interesting chemistry because they didn’t see eye to eye on things. Design Rivals is more oriented towards playing up the rivalry, which many episodes comes across as false and forced, and the design aspects are stuck in as an afterthought; I can see why they did it, since the disagreements created the spark that made the first series interesting, but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired for me….)