spool-ed!

so nick and i talk several times on the phone every day while we're at work. here was a conversation we had last week (to the best of my pregnant memory):


nick: so, would you ever want a spool?


erica: like one of those giant ones the electricians at your work use???


[we'd obviously had this conversation before... or i spend a lot of time at construction sites]


nick: yeah, i asked them what they do with them when they're done, and they just throw them out. they said i could take a few if i wanted.


erica: uhhhh... yeah! what size?


nick: they're pretty varied. i can bring home a few and anything you don't like we can get rid of.


see? i have a COOL husband! so yesterday i was driving home from work, again on the phone with nick... 'cuz that's how we roll. and he said he had a surprise for me...

oh how i love him!!!


sorry, i pretty much only take photos on my phone now. 


but really! cool, huh? here's our plan: take it down six inches (so it's more level w/ the couch), stain it, weather/sand it to make it look a little more vintage-ish, do some light stenciling, wrap some rope around it.


and ta da! i'm SO excited! :) i promise, if you're not already as excited as i am, you will be!


(side note: since there's a two inch hole in the middle, nick's going to put in a little console that will be flush with the wood. you'll be able to raise it up and it will be wired with an outlet or two. ummmm... cool! i like that guy!)

the closet: part one

i feel like i should show people that we actually are doing things to our new house. so let me start with the entry-way closet. it looked like this when we first moved in:

well, after we took off the door and did some mudding and sanding and such. my dream was for it to look like this:

(source here). found on pinterest... most of the projects in my house will come from my pinterest boards, i'm quite certain :)


so first we needed to take out the shelf. eventually we'll put in another one, but i wanted it higher so that coats don't hit people in the head when they sit down. and we wanted to paint. here we are (nick, erin and myself) ripping out the shelf. i was less successful than my husband.. go figure! excuse the quality of the photos, it was late at night and pretty dark.

i guess that was after the shelf was out... we were pulling out nails. i just loosened them for everyone, that's why they made it look so much easier... yeah. that's it.

then i painted. here's the result (i took it far away so you can't see how messed up one of the lines is :)). we still want to add a bench w/ baskets underneath and a few other cute embellishments! so there will be a part two.

it's the same kind of grey we're going to do in the baby's room. it's much lighter than it looks in the photograph, but i'm pretty pleased with it :) we still have lots of other projects, but now at least you can see one of them. ta da!