Category: DIY

How to: oil a wood cutting board

Start with your board

Start with your sad dry wooden cutting board. It’s so far gone you think you might get splinters, but don’t lose hope.

Mineral Oil: part time laxative, full time super hero

Get some of this stuff. Mineral Oil. Don’t use olive oil. Have you ever smelled olive oil that’s had too much air exposure and gets that horrible rancid smell? That will happen to your cutting board if you use olive oil. No, no. Yucky. Next step.

spill and wipe

I’m sure your grandma knows how to do this better. I’ve heard people say everything about going with the grain or against it or around it, but I don’t actually know what any of that means. So, I spill the mineral oil on it, try to spread it out while I spill, then wipe the entire board with oil using a paper towel. It’s not the most graceful process, but it get’s the oil in there.

Ooooooo. Ooooooil.

Bing. Bang. Boom. You got yourself a well oiled machine! Wait, not machine. Well oiled cutting board, let’s make that the new phrase. Huzzah! Easy as pie, babies. Pie you can eat off of your beautiful cutting board.

xoxo,
Adora

| Posted on Thursday, the 20th of June, in the year 2013 by Adora Mae

Guest Post by Briana Bramm

What’s that saying about being poor making you thrifty? I can’t remember. Maybe I imagined it. Either way, I think it’s true. I’ve never been more creative in anything than when forced to work with limited resources, in this case, monetary resources. Because I like to redecorate and still afford groceries, I’ve been learning how to take an idea for something I love but can’t afford.

How does that tie-in to a dresser re-finish? I’ll explain.

There’s a dresser I love at Ikea. It’s beautiful, cream colored with black hardware, 7 drawers, pretty much exactly what I wanted for my room re-model. However, the $300 price tag caught me every time. Whenever I’m going to make a big purchase, I compare what else I could get for that amount of money to decide if it’s worth it. For $300 I could go to the keys for a weekend. I could get a cheap flight somewhere. I could do months of Pilates classes. I could cook a whole bunch of fancy dinners and drink a lot of wine. Sigh. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

So on to plan B, I headed out to the thrift shop with Amy and Adora. And at Faith Farm I found this treasure. For $60 I found a dresser whose shape I loved. The color not so much, but it was nothing some sanding, priming, and painting couldn’t fix. And of course some black spray paint for the hardware.

So I give you my monochromatic take on a French dresser. I’m excited to see this piece against my book-wall. Let me know what you think!

xo. Brie

We fit the dresser in the back of Adora’s car (barely) but that didn’t leave much room for me!

Through the glass door, sanded and primed!

I painted the white first and let it dry for a day, then taped around the top and painted the black top.

All finished! Moved into my room against the book wall.

Room is coming along! Next project will be bed coverings and curtains. Stay tuned…

Briana is a beautiful SEO/Ad genius who works with me at my day job and has an amazing blog over at accordingtobrie.com that you should check out!

xoxo,
Adora

| Posted on Monday, the 17th of June, in the year 2013 by Adora Mae

You may have noticed

Some of you commented on the new coffee table in my Slipcover update post. That is acutally not a new coffee table, but the result of a loving husband FINALLY reading the pin I sent him of the Ikea hack coffee table update by The Feminist Mystique months ago and while I was away at NTEN; surprising me by doing the project. Here are some of the pictures he took along the way.

Start with the big Ikea coffee table

Get some unfinished 1x4's and cut them to be a little longer than the coffee table top.

Get some unfinished 1×4’s and cut them to be a little longer than the coffee table top.

stain!

If you’re artsy, drill holes on the ends, cut the heads off of masonry nails and hammer them in.

ooo masonry nails

glue it down

and you are done (after it dries)

ta da! ooo la la!

Totally works!

I got to say, the boy can get stuff done.

xoxo,
Adora

| Posted on Friday, the 14th of June, in the year 2013 by Adora Mae

Update on the couch (slipcover)

Well… actually an update on our couch. I told you here that my mom was coming to help me make a slipcover. She came, she saw, she sewed. I helped…a little. So, now I present to you the slipcover that my mom and I sewed BY HAND in one weekend…and the cushion covers that I sewed. My couch is all right angles and the duck cloth we made the slipcover with had finished sides that looked nice enough to me so we carefully (cleverly) planned the entire thing to have minimal sewing required. The back and sides of the couch were one long cut of the cloth that even came over the top of the back and ended where the seat meets the back of the couch, another piece went from the floor over the front meeting the other seam. Then we had diagonal seems at the top of the two corners, and some in the front where there are rectangular pieces. We ran out of cloth to cover the ottoman, so I put it in the guest room closet for now and I got to say, I think the room looks much bigger without it. So, for about 22 yards of duck cloth (yes, we had to hit up 2 different’ Joanne’s) and upholstery thread and needles I paid about $150. Not too bad, and much cheaper than any new couch, or buying a 13 foot long slip cover. I threw some skinny dowels into the recesses making the couch fit tighter and my mom iced her swollen fingers and we ended up with this beauty…

TA-DA!

The dashed lines mark the seams. The seams are identical on both sides of the couch because the couch is symmetrical. There is an angled seam at the top of both corners of the couch that runs down to meet the seat area. A seam along the back of the sitting area, as well as the two sides. We gave extra room for these when sewing and stuffed them down with dowels to keep the couch taught. Then there are square seams on the front of the couch arms.

back corner seam

Front of the arms of the couch, square seams

I love it

So what do you think? It was easier than I thought it would be, we got it done in a day and a half [BY HAND] if we had used a machine, it would have been a few hours tops. Do you want to try something like this? Do it.

xoxo,
Adora

| Posted on Thursday, the 13th of June, in the year 2013 by Adora Mae

Up-Bicycle Beach Cruiser make over

I told you here that one of the keys to success at being a one car couple is fixing up your bike… so here is how I fixed up my crappy $80 Walmart Beach Cruiser a.k.a. my main mode of transportation.

When I rolled my bike out of Walmart back in 2010, this is what it looked like. Sorry for the small picture…it’s very low res.

When I first got my bike I wanted the ‘cranbrook’ stickers off of them. These were the first things to go. This is where the stickers used to be.

My next addition (years ago) was a basket. This one was I think $15 or $20 at Walmart. Josh bought it for me back when we were dating. It’s big enough to hold my purse and maybe one or two other things. Great for small trips, not grocery shopping though.

A Bell! I love it. I wanted it, I got it. Thanks again to Josh.

This isn’t the original seat that came with the bike. I wore the original seat out and every time I would ride it little pieces of black would be stuck to my butt. So, when I became dependent on the bike, a new seat was in order. Picked this super big butt seat up at Walmart for $15

Stuff is getting serious. Added this rear rack so I could then add a big enough basket that I could grocery shop when I needed to. I ordered this off Amazon and it came with NO directions but my wonderful husband figured out how to get it on here like a champ.

I found this basket at HomeGoods for $15. I liked that it was metal so I could zip tie it to the rear rack. I haven’t towed much in it yet, so we will see how it holds up to full grocery weight.

I’m still considering repainting the whole thing or just the rack and basket. What do you think? Am I missing anything? How have you fixed up your ride?

p.s. all my iphone shots were made pretty by A Beautiful Mess‘ photo App.

xoxo,
Adora

| Posted on Saturday, the 8th of June, in the year 2013 by Adora Mae

My Old Room

Back when I moved out of my first apartment and in with my [seriously ended up to be totally] awesome roommate, Victoria who I met on craigslist; I did a massive change in the style of my room. I went from a whole apartment to living in just a room with a very small closet, so I just picked a theme and I went with it. My entire room was white. My all white room looked so clean – I love love loved it. I thought (and still do) that it looked like it was out of a magazine. I wasn’t blogging back then and I recently stumbled across some photos of my old room, not really a complete view of it but random bits of happiness. So, here it is, the last room I had as a single girl. You were so good to me, Hillsboro Light Towers.

Josh turned a random little table that Devin saved from the garbage for me into a full on vanity by adding light but hiding all cords. I wish I had a shot of my antique map of Auckland in 4 8×10 frames on the wall.

My shelf. I couldn’t commit to painting the canvases so I wrapped them in white wrapping paper. They’re still like that above our couch in the living room.

I got this little stand from a garage sale for free, it was all brown and the door was rattan. That same day I got a helpful Lowes employee to cut a piece of wood into the perfect size to cover the door, glued a filagree wood piece on it and painted it white. I love the way it turned out. Later, my parents wedding photo found its way into that frame.

Andy came and did a shoot in my room once. The black guy in a white room jokes were plentiful.

A shot from Andy’s shoot

Messing around with Andy’s camera

When my sweet parents stayed with me…sleepy little love birds.

When my parents came to visit and stayed with me, my dad said I had saved him the cost of a hotel. So, he got me this white TV and called it even. He loves to try and be ‘logical’ when spoiling.

I have to admit, living on a1a with the ocean on one side and the inlet on the other was amazing. Totally a God thing that I got to experience this for $500 a month.

So, what do you think?

xoxo,
Adora

| Posted on Friday, the 7th of June, in the year 2013 by Adora Mae