I've been a bit busy in the yard

Before:

After:

(not pictured: me collapsed in a heap on the couch afterwards)

Lazy Kid room overhaul

Lazy Kid's birthday is coming up this weekend, and we decided it was time for her to have a bit more "grown up" looking room.  First up: troll Craig's List for weeks to locate a non-ugly loft bed set we could afford.

Next up: Paint the walls and drawer fronts in Lazy-Kid-mandated colors.  Note: the polka-dot things are storage buckets we screwed to the side of the loft so she'd have someplace to put her alarm clock and box of kleenex.  I was pretty excited to find something that matched ALL of the colors the kid had already chosen.  Yay, Target!

We picked out some coordinating fabrics and used it to cover some foam-core to make bulletin boards to display her artwork.

We repainted her shelf, and the ladder rungs to the loft.

We finally cut her curtains off so they don't drag on the floor, bought some of the easy-fill picture frames for kid artwork, and got a desk chair.

We fixed her bookcase so the back doesn't fall off anymore, and I reorganized her books so that she can find them more easily.

We're also testing a super-secret product for Lazy Husband's work, which I can't talk about here, but it's super cool and I can't wait to show you the shots of that.

At any rate, the room is ostensibly "done," with only a few things here and there that need to be fixed (like I really should HEM the curtains, not just whack them off with a pair of shears and say they're good enough). The kid loves it so much that she actually keeps it clean, I love that the part you can see from the hallway looks much nicer than it did before, and Lazy Husband loves that the whole shebang only cost about $500, including the bed, dresser, new desk, chair, etc.  That's a win-win-win situation!

If I had a hammer (and a decent staple gun)

My craftiness has been channeled into our new patio room, where I have traded my knitting needles for a hammer and some panel adhesive ...

While I had the paint out for the paneling, I rehabbed a wooden bookshelf I pulled off of a trash pile last summer.  One coat of paint and a yard of fabric later, and voila! Instant happy bookcase!

Simplest fabric project ever.  Fabric, scissors, staple gun.  I didn't even measure it, just cut it to fit as I went.

This won't be the last thing I'm making for the room, so keep your eyes peeled for more projects soon!