our time of affliction

One of my undergrad professors provided a gigantic bowl of candy before every exam.  He would tell us it was there to "comfort us in our time of affliction."

Monday night, Jared and I will be taking an exam testing our knowledge of APA standards.  The exam will test knowledge on formating standards for in text citation and references.  The exam will also test grammar knowledge and usage.

As you can imagine, it has been a real heart throb to study for.

I made brownies.  To comfort us in our time of affliction.

Whatever happens, choose the preferred answer!   

And choose a brownie, because you will feel better.  Guaranteed.

Even if you find yourself questioning the placement of every word in a sentence.  Like I am doing now.

Mom, and chance you want to come study with me this weekend?  Please?  Please oh please oh please?  I will feed you brownies...

The Couch

EDIT: if you're here from a link party and want more details of what's going on in this room, I just wrote a post about it here.


Yesterday Jared and I rearranged our furniture.


Now, before I begin, (ahem, Mom) I will be taking more pictures of our whole house... sometime... soon?  Yes, sometime soon.  You'll get to see some of it, and in a future post I will explain where eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeverything came from.  But not today.  Today we're just going to rock the couch.


Obviously, our couch is in our living room.  Our living room is also our dining room and our kitchen.  It's just one long room.  Granted, there is a guest room that we could turn into a dining room, but that'd be... weird.  And I have other plans for that room. 


Anyway, you may recall our couch journey.  We got rid of Lenny/Lester and started brain storming for a new one.  It was super fun to put our heads together on this one.


We were leaning towards using pallets because we thought we could get them for free, but both of our dad's gave us wood.  Between the two of them, Jared had exactly what he wanted.

 

Jared started assembling it a day or two after we moved.

Yesterday, after we finished rearranging the living/dining/kitchen room, I snagged some
pictures of the couch.  The sun was moodier than a woman yesterday so the exposure isn't fantastic, but they'll give you a feel for the beast.  And it will not stop me from giving you a grotesque amount of pictures.  Maahahahahaha.


(I feel like there should be some sort of drum roll.  Know that I am madly drum-rolling on my legs at this moment.)

That's it, folks! 

It was a joint effort between Jared and me.  He did all the structural work and I handled all the textiles.  

And this is where The Ugly Chair sits.  And that's our dining area.  (See... sneak peak!!)

The only thing I don't like about the couch sitting against the wall (as opposed to in the middle of the living space) is that you can't see the door, which makes me sort of sad.  But, the whole room is a lot more open this way.

The "cushion" is a mattress that I essentially slipcovered and used a ribbon closure.  I used five large square pillows to line the back of the couch, two regular bed pillows, one body pillow, and that little green and white goober that we already had.   I found a sweet burlap bag in my dad's barn that I abducted, with permission, naturally.

The couch frame and the coffee table match pretty well, though the wood came from different states.  Neato, eh? 

So, that's our couch!  Yeah, it's a little like a daybed (probably a lot) but it works perfectly for long afternoons of studying, movie watching, reading, napping, sprawling, and lounging.  It's really comfortable.   

And now... I need to pull dinner out of the oven before Jared eats me.  I'm afraid if I make him wait any longer that might be a very real possibility.  

Update: I've had several requests for my email address so more specific questions can be asked.  If you'd like to do that, shoot me an email at mmcdaniel@siu.edu.  Use it, don't abuse it, y'all.

P.s.  I've never done this before, but I linked this up to Perfectly Imperfect's Furniture Feature Link Party, Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday and Freckled Laundry Textile Party.   Just for kicks.  And they're my favorite.

The Ugly Chair, Pt. Dos

I talked to my mom this weekend.

She kindly asked me to start taking pictures of our house.  Mom.  She's pretty much the reason I started this blog in the first place, so it seems reasonable to start taking pictures of our house.

But I protested.  Because it's what I do.  And I still protest... so. many. projects. not. quite. complete.  But I decided that it's alright, I'll take pictures anyway.  It's been raining for days (okay, two or three), but this morning the sun broke out which knocked all of my protests out of the park.  

During the restoration process, I thought about taking a bunch of pictures but there are plenty of good upholstery tutorials out there.  Also, those tutorials would tell you that every chair is different.  Not every ugly chair is The Ugly Chair, you know what I'm saying?

So, let's recall the... "uniqueness" of The Ugly Chair before, shall we?

 

Reusing the springs could have been an option, but there were two missing.

Look at all that delicious stuffing.

Instead of trying to find more springs, we got a piece of plywood and trimmed it to the hole and screwed it in place (correction, Jared did these things).  

I knew I wanted to use foam but I hadn't really thought through the price of foam.  It's pretty expensive.  In the future, I would probably try to find an ugly chair that had great foam.  But, I was already into the journey with The Ugly Chair so it was faaaaaaaaaar too late to back out.  So, Jared and I started looking for creative ways to get foam.  We even discussed getting a free couch off craigslist and harvesting its foam.  But, then we would have had a whole couch to deal with.  While we were garage sale-ing one Saturday morning Jared found an ottoman for $3.  It had two layers of foam, a thick one and a thin one and it was perfect.  And it was $3.  

I waffled on the color--I really did want to refinish the legs, but I realized that our living room has a lot of wood already and that things might get a little dark.

And...

It's plain and simple.  

 

We painted it with paint leftover from painting our dining set.  The fabric is drop cloth, the same fabric we used for the couch.  I distressed it all a little

just for kicks.   I finished it in a clear wax. 

I relied heavily on Miss Mustard Seed.  She has lots of great info on drop cloths and painting, because, quite frankly, she's fanfreakintastic.  Her fanfreakintasticness introduced me to Shauna at Perfectly Imperfect.  If you're thinking about messing around with any sort of furniture restoration you'll find them both incredibly helpful.  And inspiring.  And delightful.  I didn't start dreaming about furniture until I found them.  I wish I meant dreaming in a metaphorical sense, but I don't.  I've dreamt of furniture twice in the last two weeks.  Maybe I shouldn't look at craigslist so much, eh?

She's not as wrinkly as she looks in the picture.  

I finished the back with some piping I had leftover from the couch.  I attached it with hot glue to hide the seams.  It's not perfect but I decided that I'm going to be totally peachy with it.  I don't need perfection.  It's official.

So now, we have The Ugly Chair!  

We still call it The Ugly Chair, and I'm a little afraid that someone is going to come over and hear us call it The Ugly Chair and think that we think it's ugly.  

But we think it's great. 

It'll be all awkward because they'll think it's ugly, but we think it's beautiful...

So that's it, Mom.  There's The Ugly Chair.

fooooooooootball and the weeeeeeeeeekend

I was going to blog on Thursday.  I really wanted to blog on Thursday.  I've gotten into a Sunday afternoon blogging rut and I was really hoping to break it.
Thursday around noon I was prepared to take a test and then call it a weekend.  A homebody weekend.  A crafty weekend.


But, that didn't happen.


Instead, Thursday around noon, I made not one friend, but two friends.  


That's right, we're making friends.


Friday, Jared and I went to a recreation networking conference in the morning.  We stayed for a little bonus golf afternoon--haha!  I laugh, because neither of us had golfed before.  We golfed in different groups, and my group was hilarious in that they let me hit the ball whenever and always laughed.  So really, we probably should have been kicked off the course because we didn't play every hole and sometimes, well, okay, once, I lost the ball.  Woops.  But I found a replacement ball in the woods, so it all balances out, right?


Friday night we were going to go to free salsa lessons, but it turned out to be a formal salsa dance celebration, for all those that already knew how to salsa.  {Insert graceful leaving here}


Saturday morning, we went to the farmers market.  There is a pretty decent market in Carbondale considering the population.  Our friend's (haha!  we have friends!  okay, I'll stop being weird about it) family sells cheese.  A fresh bunch of basil, sweet potatoes, cheese, and fresh flowers later we lazed all afternoon.


Saturday night was SIU's first home football game.  I'd never been to a college game before, and it was really fun.  Free bbq beef brisket before the game was really fun too... yum.

Hey, refs, how's it going?

We don't own any SIU apparel.  Or anything maroon.  Oh well. 

We won!  Just barely (messy second half) but we did win.  

 Me, Beth, Kathrin, Mike and Mike's nachos.

Now, we're home.  Ahhhh... home.  Hi, my name is Mary and I'm a homebody.   

And I am not ashamed.

I never...

{these pictures have nothing to do with this post.  except the last one, because it just happened}


I have never played the game, "I never" with just myself before.  Until right now...


I have never run so many red lights in my entire life.  Carbondale has minuscule yellow lights.

I have never used highlighters more than I have in the last two weeks.


I have never been so content to have to clean.  Why?  We have a place to clean!

I have never wanted to run away with Fernando (my vacuum) and my sewing machine more than I do now.  I love them.  And they love me.  And we make each other really happy.

I have never had my own herb garden before.  Grow, young green beautiful things, grow!


I have never been good at decorating an office.  My GA cubicle is no exception.  It has a green paint chip and a list stuck to the walls.  That's it.

I have never liked dressers before.  But over the last month I've decided a dresser is essential for the guest room.  I check craigslist daily and even had a dream last night about finding the perfect dresser.  


I have never met Curious George before.  Until now.  Right now.  In Barnes and Noble.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Blast from the past

Today, I'm pretending to do some homework and am preparing a presentation in which I introduce myself for class Monday night.


Visual aids are a must, of course.  Which means that I had to scan some pictures into my computer.


These made me especially happy today, because it's my Dad's birthday so it seemed appropriate to stroll down memory lane.   


Happy Birthday, Daddy!  I love you!
Thanks for creating the childhood that created me into the woman I am today--I'm really grateful for you!
(Jared loves you too, but he's a whole lot less sentimental about it).

 

Love you, Dad!