Boys striped bedroom

Here are the before pictures of this room.  I know it is hard to see but there were so many holes to patch it looked like a bad Venetian plaster job.

First I patched, primed and painted this room.

My son really wanted diagonal stripes.  I wanted a room he could have for a while and not out grow.  This is what we came up with.  When I started this I really had no plan as far as width of stripes and how many stripes.  If I did I would have changed it along the way.  I do my best work with no plan.  

I started by snapping a chalk line then masking it off with tape.  Then measuring up 18 inches and masking another line.  (If I had someone around to help I would have done less measuring and more chalk lines.)

We have this weird wall in this room so I continued the stripes around this room.  This was the trickiest part.  It took three tries to get the angle right.  I just went with what I felt looked right.  My husband asked why I didn't figure it out mathematically.  (How do you do that?)

After that it is just a matter of masking and painting.  I tried a few things to see what would give me the crisp lines I wanted. 

I tried using a putty knife to press on the tape making sure it was sealed well.  That helped a little but the line was definitely fuzzy.

Once I had a line on both sides I could use as a guide, I was able to use my Purdy brush and get a good line without tape.  This saved a lot of time.  I had to go slow but I didn't have to tape.  I love my Purdy brush. 

(The top is blue paint not blue tape)

A great tip for a crisp line is to mix a little caulk with water and spread it over the edge of the tape with your finger.  Let it dry for a minute, then paint.  This creates a great seal.  Just be sure to remove the tape while the paint is still wet. 

 (okay this pic is from a different project, but you get the idea)

This chocolate brown line was done this way.  Super crisp lines but time consuming.

After a lot of touch up the stripes were finished

 This project was very fun but really time consuming.  I think the stripes took me at least 12 hours to do.  I would recommend convincing someone to help you.  I tried to use paint I already had and mix paint together to make the colors I didn't have (I have a lot of leftover cans of paint).  For this project I spent $14 on paint and $7 on tape.  I feel it is a big impact for $21.

Top 10

Our hanging bed project made the top 10 in the DIY club monthly contest. YEA!  There are some amazing projects (some I think I will copy) you should check them out.  Winners announced next Monday.

I have also been featured over at Apartment Therapy, Sarah Rae Trover wrote this wrote this about our hanging bed

It's no secret that we have a love for hanging beds. The idea of our kids not being able to shove their toys and dirty clothes under them is almost more thrilling than date night. This one makes a big statement, could hold an entire slumber party in the air and we're 100% completely in love and in awe of the handiwork!

You can find this totally rad creation over at Sticks and Stones Home Decor. We always appreciate parents who have a mission to create something awesome and seek inspiration from other sources to get the job done. For this project they examined the way swings are held up on front porches and went from there.
They've been kind enough to share the entire project from start to finish and it's totally doable at home assuming you have a spare bed frame laying around and are handy with tools (or know someone who is). The cabling system is less daunting than you think and we whole heartedly give this diy dream room two thumbs up!

Thanks Sarah

Had I known I was having company I would have finished the room and tidied up the picture a little.  (When I wrote this post I only had 12 followers, mostly family and friends.  I didn't know it would end up on site thousands of people read every day.)  I wanted to get this post done quickly because I really, really want to win the DIY Club monthly contest.  Have you seen the list of sponsor products.  DIYers dream. 

Thanks DIY club.  This is a really fun.  You made my day.

Wasps are eating my house

I have a huge fear of spiders or anything else that crawls and is supposed to be outside (like wasps).  When I was first married and living in a basement apartment, I would put a mason jar over a spider and leave it there until my husband got home to kill it.  I just can't squish them or pick them up in a tissue.  When I do I itch for hours and can't quit thinking about how it felt to squish that spider.  (I know I need therapy.)  When I had babies crawling on the floor I couldn't do the mason jar thing anymore for obvious reasons so my husband bought me a bug vacuum.  It's really a kids toy, it sucks up the bug so you can look at it closely (why anyone would want to do that is beyond me.)  Now I convince the neighbor kids that it would be really fun if they sucked the intruding spider up in the really cool bug vacuum and I promise them candy, or money, whatever it takes. 

So to my horror this morning, while washing the walls and ceiling in our master bedroom in preparation to paint, my hand went through the ceiling.  I was so confused.  It was as though there was no drywall in that part of my ceiling.  I couldn't believe it.  I saw this gray, thin, paper layered stuff in the hole.  I couldn't figure out what it was.  So I took a screw driver and poked in there a little and found this.

A wasps nest.  Apparently wasps when trying to expand their nests will eat through drywall.  AHHHH.  They had eaten all of the drywall, including the paper and the textured sheet rock mud.  The only thing left was the paint.  Thankfully the nest wasn't active and there were no wasps in there or I would have to put my house up for sale.  I had my husband come home and drill out the nest.  Now we have this.

This is all that was separating me from a wasps nest, paper thin paint

I may have to stay at the Holiday Inn tonight.

Diarrhea of a Limpy Kid??

So my son did his very first book report on his favorite book.  Diary of a Wimpy kid.   This is the poster he proudly made.

My youngest daughter just couldn't get the title right and kept calling it "Diarrhea of a Limpy Kid."  I am not sure that book is on the approved book list.  Somehow Gumby, Living with Irritable Bowel Syndrome doesn't feel like a Newbery Award Winner.  What do ya think?

How To Hang a Bed

When we set out to do this project we had no idea how to make this happen.  However, we figured it could be done.  People hang porch swings all the time, we decided to look at how those are constructed and go from there.

Here is a picture of our plans (sorry the writing is so small)

Now I will walk you through it.

We first started with a frame to attach to the ceiling.  Kind of like a picture frame only on a slightly larger scale.

This is just a huge rectangle, the same size as a twin bed, attached to the ceiling.  We used 2x6's to make this frame.  Our neighbor helped us with this part.  He has an amazing wood shop but I think he might be in the Mormon Mafia or Witness Protection Program or something.  He wouldn't let me take any pictures.  He claimed he had to maintain a security clearance and he can't pop up on any Internet sites.  (Whatever, I have a blog to do, what's more important:)  Anyway, we routered the edges in his shop and then joined them together using an awesome tenon joinery system he had (ya, it's on my x-mas list). 

Before we attached the frame to the ceiling we attached the eye bolts to the frame.  First we counter sunk a washer and a nut to the top side of the frame, the side that would go next to the ceiling.  We drilled a pilot hole for the eye bolt.  Then screwed it through the wood into the washer and nut.

Then we added Gorilla Glue to hold the bolt tight. 

see the Gorilla Glue dripping

Then we sawed off the rest of the bolt with a hack saw.

Next we found all the ceiling joists with a stud finder and drew lines on our ceiling marking the joist.  Ceiling joists are 16 inches apart on center meaning the center of one joist is 16 inches away from the center of the next joist.

 If you look close you can see our pencil marks on the ceiling

This is probably the most important step of the whole process.  It must be secured to the center of the joist for this to be strong enough to hold this woman

(oh wait that's me)

We attached the frame to the ceiling with 16, 4-inch lag screws.  We counter sunk the head of the screw

We puttied the holes.

Then I spray painted it black using Krylon spray paint in a satin finish.

I know it would have been a lot easier to paint the frame before we installed it but I rarely do things the easy way.  (I protected the ceiling with poster board.)

I also think it would have been cute to add bead board to the center.  But I had already added enough projects to the basement and marriage counseling is like $75 an hour, and this is supposed to be a thrifty DIY blog.

Next I made the bed. I used a 20+ year old bunk bed that we had lying around.  I cut the legs off and added bead board to the head board and foot board, then just painted it with Krylon satin black spray paint. 

We attached eye bolts to the bed

We used this Ferrule set to secure the cables that suspend the bed.  The Ferrules are made from aluminum and you just squish them with a hammer around the cable.

Looks like this when squished

We used this quick link to connect the cable to the eye bolt just in case we need to move the bed for some reason.

And now we have this

This bed is strong.  I would never let my daughter sleep on it if it weren't.  Each cable holds 1500 lbs. My daughter is a tumbler and the bungee system at her gym is constructed very similar.

Just a few details.  The bedding is from Walmart.com, it is called, Twilight Garden, was $35.00 when we ordered it.
Paint colors- We used Porter Paint, Silken Touch, the color is Hot Pink Kiss (this covered in two thick coats, not bad for pink) We used a gray primer underneath because this was new construction.  The Gray walls are also Porter Paint, Silken Touch, the color is Flagstone.  (We added a sparkle mix-in to the gray paint.  The idea was to make it sparkle like Edward.  Edward is fake and this didn't work.  Don't waste your money.)

We hope to finish the rest of the room soon.  Thanks for reading and happy swinging!!

I am linking this project up to the DIY CLUB monthly contest here's the link (and maybe a few other places.)

Hanging Bed

Never watch HGTV with you daughters.  I am warning you, don't do it.  Or you will find yourself doing a project like this one.  My daughters love to watch all those before and after shows with me and while sometimes it feels like I am raising my best buds, it can really get you into trouble.  My daughter first saw a hanging bed on "That's so Raven" she knew she had to have one.  (Never mind that the bed she saw was on a TV set who had professional carpenters on the payroll.)  This is what we came up with. 

First the before ( I love "before and after" posts, but this is really a, "before and after so far" post, because this room is far from done.

We used a 20 year old (at least) bunk to make the bed.  We just cut it down, added bead board to the head board and foot board and put it back together.  (Notice the milk crate she is using as a stool to get up on this thing.  Like I said before this room is far from done.)

This project has a lot of steps so check back and I will walk you through what we did.