Box of Sunshine

It seems that Oregon has had a particularly grey and rainy winter, or at least that is what my Facebook feed was telling me.  My BFF was reaching the height of winter fatigue and fighting a never ending cold, and I found myself wishing I could send her some of the plentiful Arizona sunshine.  Then I remembered seeing a cute idea on Pinterest awhile back for sending a "box of sunshine" (I'm not sure who first came up with this idea, but it might have been Happy Money Saver).  Since citrus is so plentiful here this time of year, I decided to build the box around that.  I went on a mission to find yellow and orange things to fill the box with, and made a few citrus treats.  Here is what I came up with!

In the box:

Locally grown oranges

Lemon Curd made from local lemons (maybe don't send this in the mail - it needs to be refrigerated)

Blood Orange Syrup made from locally grown blood oranges

Lemonheads

Dried mango and candied ginger tucked into cute little yellow and white treat bags

A citrus juicer

Yellow and white chevron stripe washi tape

Yellow and white chevron stripe straws

Lemon soap

Lemon body wash

Yellow note cards

Emergen-C Super Orange Drink Packets

Tazo Wild Sweet Orange Tea

A mix CD that I made (Yes, we still make each other mix CDs.  We would probably still make each other mix tapes if we had the technology)

Packaging for oranges

Lemon Curd and Blood Orange Syrup

Little Sunshine

Don't be jealous of my artwork.  Why dinosaurs, you ask?  I think the more important question is why NOT dinosaurs?

This was a really fun package to put together, although finding yellow and orange things when you are looking for them is harder than you would think!  I had tons of ideas for items to put in this package that I couldn't find.  But I did end up finding more than enough cute things that fit the theme, and in fact almost didn't have enough room for everything.  

You can tailor the contents to whoever you are sending the package too.  Rather than just going out and buying a bunch of cheap generic stuff, I wanted to pick out specific items that I thought my friend would like and want to use.  This added to the challenge and made picking out the items more fun.  You could really take this idea and adapt the theme to be any color or even a state theme.  Run with it!

Wine Wednesday: 99 Vines Pinot Grigio

Happy Wine Wednesday, everyone!  Here is another wine that we picked up at the BevMo! Five Cent wine sale.  This is a California Pinot Grigio, it doesn't taste oaky at all, so I'm going to guess that it is aged in stainless steel barrels. I don't taste much fruit in there, but it has a little bit of light fruitiness when you look for it.  I would almost call this wine tangy - but it really is in a pleasant way.  This has a nice, refreshing acidity to it, with a pretty light flavor, which I think makes it a great warm weather wine.

At $9.49, this is a nicely priced wine, and with the Buy One Get One for Five Cents price, it really is a great deal.  This is a good everyday wine that I would recommend.

Wine:  99 Vines Pinot Grigio
Year: No year listed :/
Region: California
Purchased From: BevMo!
 Price: $9.49
Verdict: 3.5/5

Wine Wednesday: Redtree Pinot Grigio

Happy Wine Wednesday, everyone!  Remember last week when I wrote about Total Wine, the awesome giant wine, beer and liquor store?  Well, there is ANOTHER store here in Arizona (and California) similar to that called BevMo! (That wasn't an unnecessary exclamation point, it is actually part of the name of the store).  We went here for the first time last weekend when we wanted to pick up a bottle of wine to bring to a party.  We happened to be there during their famous 5 cent wine sale.  The deal is that on certain wines when you buy one, you get another one for 5 cents.  Can't beat that!  I thought that their prices were generally higher than Total Wine, but when you factor in the 5 cent wine sale, you can get some pretty great deals.  One of the wines we picked up was this Redtree Pinot Grigio.

This is a great crisp wine that could be paired with lighter foods.  It has some fruity tones to it, but nothing overt.  There is also a teeny bit of oak in there somewhere, but it is subtle.  I am not a fan of oak at all, and it doesn't bother me.

This is a pretty good, mild wine that I would recommend, particularly because it is in the under $10 category.  The regular price on this is $8-10, but since we got it on sale we got 2 for $10 - really, you can't get a good wine for less than that.

Wine:  Redtree Pinot Grigio
Year: 2011
Region: California
Purchased From: BevMo!
 Price: $9.99
Verdict: 3.5/5

DIY: Paint that IKEA Table!

Most people have at least one piece of inexpensive furniture around their house that they are not that fond of. It's not that the piece isn't functional anymore.  It's just that your style has changed, or back in 2001 when you bought it, light birch wood was all the rage, and now it looks hopelessly dated.  But then, you don't really want to get rid of it, because it's a perfectly good piece of furniture, aside from being ugly and not matching anything that you own.  Well, I'm here to tell you: you can paint it!

Our Ikea table before: Dated "Birch Effect"

Like most people, I was under the assumption that laminate furniture could not be painted.  However, I started doing some research and I found that it is totally possible!  You just need to follow a few rules:

Supplies needed - not including the paintbrush and sandpaper/sander

1. Lightly sand the surface.  EVERY tutorial that I read, except for one, recommended that you sand the furniture.  I listened to the masses and sanded.

2.  Prime.  You MUST prime.  I used the highly recommended Zinsser oil based primer.  The reason that I used the oil based one and not the water based one is because the oil based primer can cure overnight, but the water based one requires a full 7 days to cure before you can paint.  Ain't nobody got time for that!

This is the primer that you want

3.  Paint.  I used my beloved Behr again, this time in a deep based since I chose black as the color I was painting my table.  I didn't see the exact black that I wanted in the sample paint chips, so I talked to the paint guy and he made one that was just "black black", which is what I wanted.  It took two coats of paint to get the coverage that I wanted.

Behr Premium Plus Ultra Paint

4.  Protect with a topcoat.  I used Minwax® Polycrylic® Protective Finish in Clear Satin.  I HIGHLY recommend satin instead of gloss.  I started out with gloss, and it was harder to work with and didn't look as good.  I wanted my furniture to be a little bit shiny, but the Satin provides a really nice sheen and looks great.

Quart and spray can of Minwax Polycrylic in Clear Satin

So, I pulled our Ikea "Birch Effect" table and six chairs out to the garage and started sanding.  I used the corner cat that we had previously purchased to do the sanding, which helped it go a little faster, but I have to say that sanding is by far my least favorite part painting.  The chairs we have are actually solid wood, they are the Stefan chairs from Ikea, but they had a varnish on them that I wanted to remove.  The table top is a veneer, so you have to be more careful with that.  You only want to lightly sand to remove the shiny varnish, but you don't want to sand too much because you can sand through the veneer to the MDF or particle board that is underneath, and you don't want that.

 After sanding, I used a paint roller to apply one coat of Zinsser oil based primer to the table and chairs.  I had one spray can also, and I used that to do the slats of the chairs because I knew that getting in there with a paint brush would be time consuming and messy.  The spray cans are expensive compared to the liquid quart sized cans, and they don't have much primer in them.  One spray can only covered the slats on the backs of six chairs!  I think it would have taken at least 3 spray cans to cover all the chairs, and probably 2 more to do the table.  If you have a flat surface (such as a table or dresser) using a roller is pretty quick and easy.  But if you have something with a intricate surface, or many corners (like chairs, or a piece that is more detailed) you may want to spend the extra money and just use spray cans.  Just be prepared to buy several cans - probably more than you think you need.  

I only did one coat of primer, let that dry overnight, and then started painting the next day.  As I said, I was using the BEHR PREMIUM PLUS ULTRA® Flat Enamel because I knew I would be using a glossy topcoat.  If you know anything about paint, you know that the more matte a paint is, the better it is at hiding imperfections.  So, the paint went on pretty smoothly and looked great. I used a roller again on the table, and because of the flat surfaces, it was really easy and quick. I would roll over one section of the table, and then grab a paint brush to catch the drips and smooth out the edge of the table.  The chairs took longer because of all the corners and surfaces.  I ended up using the roller on the seat and the other areas I could reach, and then going back over it with a brush to get the places the roller missed.  It is important that you catch drips as quickly as possible, because once they dry you need to sand them to get rid of them, and they start to dry pretty quickly.  I did two coats of paint, letting the first coat dry overnight before applying the second coat.

Finally, it was time to apply the topcoat.  At this point, I had selected the Minwax Polycryic in Gloss for my  topcoat.  I decided to start with the table and use a roller again, since using the roller with the primer and paint had worked out so well.  Big Mistake.  Huge.  DO NOT do this.  The topcoat went on unevenly and looked absolutely horrible.  I was so upset!  I had worked so hard, and now my table looked terrible!  That was when I decided to switch to the Satin topcoat.  I also did more reading online, and I found out that you should either used a high density foam roller OR a brush when working with the Minwax polycrylic.  So, I decided to grab a few foam rollers when I was at Home Depot picking up the Satin Minwax.  I stood in the aisle a very long time trying to decide if I should just get spray cans for the top coat or go with a liquid quart again.  I ended up buying one spray can and one quart so that I could use the spray can on the difficult parts of the chairs.  

My table still had that horrible, uneven coat of polycrylic on it, so I decided to sand it down - the directions on Minwax suggest that you sand between each coat using 220 grit sandpaper.  So I took my corner cat and started sanding.  HORRORS!  Sanding totally ruined my paint job.  It unevenly removed paint in certain areas, letting the primer show through.  RUINED.  Yes, I was upset.  Also, I was out of paint, as it took the entire quart of Behr to do two coats on the table and chairs.

Sanding disaster!

Nooooooooooooo!

Back to home depot to get a sample sized pot of paint matched to my table paint.  I finished sanding my table so that the surface would be smooth - it now had spots of primer showing through the paint all over the tabletop.  I slapped on two more coats of paint and it looked great again.  I DID NOT SAND anything after this.  I then applied the Minwax Polycrylic using a brush.  The key is to work quickly, apply very thin layers and do long, even strokes, catching any drips as soon as possible.  The topcoat goes on milky white, but dries clear as long as you have applied a thin coat.  If there are drips, they will dry white, so be sure to catch those.  I did five coats on the table top since it will be getting heavy use and be getting wiped down often.  I did two coats on everything else (the apron and legs of the table and the chairs).  I used the spray can on the chair backs and it was wonderful.  I still had to paint the topcoat on the other parts of the chairs, and it was time consuming and messy.  It would have probably taken two spray cans to cover all six chairs fully, and probably two more for the table.  For the chairs, I used a foam brush, foam roller and regular paint brush. If you only chose one tool to apply this with, I would say go with a regular, but high quality paint brush.  You don't want to be picking brush hairs out of your newly painted furniture.  Minwax even makes a brush specifically designed for their product, but I didn't use it as I only discovered it after I finished my paint job.

Finally, I was finished!  Well, almost.  I had made the mistake of using the roller to apply a coat of gloss to one of the chairs before I realized it was horrible.  It is still sitting in the garage like a red headed step-child because I am burnt out on sanding and painting, and we have five perfectly good chairs!  I'll fix it eventually.  Probably.

Lonely Chair

After curing overnight in the garage, we brought everything back inside, put together and it is sitting majestically in the dining room.  We have not used it yet because I read that paint needs thirty days to fully cure, and I am paranoid about messing it up after all of that work.  It looks great, though, and I am really happy with it.

After! (Now with leaf!)

Sans the banished chair

So, in conclusion, here is what you need to paint your laminate furniture:

220 and 120 grit sandpaper (can do by hand or use an oscillating sander)

Zinsser Oil Based Primer (other bloggers have used Kilz with success as well)

Latex paint of your choice (I used BEHR PREMIUM PLUS ULTRA® Flat Enamel)

Water Based Topcoat (I used Minwax® Polycrylic® Protective Finish in Clear Satin)

2 high quality paintbrushes (one for paint, one for topcoat)

1 cheap paintbrush (for the oil based primer - you will likely throw this brush away)

Optional (but you will probably be happy to have)

2 paint rollers (one for primer, one for paint)

1 paint tray if you are using rollers (use the pinterest trick and cover with foil during each use so that you can reuse the same tray and just throw away the foil)

1 cheap foam brush (for topcoat)

1 high density foam roller (for topcoat)

Steps:

1. Sand

2. Prime

3. Paint

4. Protect

This took me almost two weeks total because I got sick in the middle of it, but if you worked on it every day and didn't run into the same problems that I did, you could probably get this done in less time. Let each coat cure overnight, except maybe the topcoat - that is fine with just curing for a few hours between coats.

Wine Wednesday: Kudos Pinot Gris

As you can probably tell by now, I am a Pinot Gris girl.  It is by far my favorite type of wine, so it is the one I drink most often.  I know that wine snobs agree that white wines don't really count, and the really good wine is red - but I think that is a matter of opinion.  The good wine is the wine that you like.

K and I made a stop at one of the stores that gives Arizona a big old check mark in the
"pro" category - Total Wine and More.  One of the things that confirms Arizona as a party state is that they really, really love alcohol here.  There is booze everywhere you look!  Wine and beer before lunch?  Sure!  Arizona beer week overlapping with Arizona cocktail week?  Why not?  Giant, warehouse sized stores selling noting but beer, wine and liquor?  Absolutely.

This store is pretty cool, and there is nothing like it in Oregon as far as I know.  They obviously have a huge selection, and their prices are great.  We don't really like going there too often because the parking lot and store itself is usually a crowded nightmare, but we popped in last week to pick up a bottle of wine and ended up with...four bottles of wine.  Also a bottle of vodka.  But hey, we're talking about wine here!

I bee-lined to the Pinot Gris section and was intrigued when I saw a bottle of Oregon Pinot Gris that was unfamiliar.  The Wine is called Kudos, and is from the Willamette Valley in Oregon.  Apparently it is bottled in Dundee, Oregon, which is the wine country outside of Portland.  I am familiar with many Oregon wineries, so I really wanted to try this one that I had never heard of.

What a great wine!  This is light and refreshing, a little fruity but not overly so.  This would be a great spring and summer wine for sipping out on the patio.  I would definitely buy this again, and recommend it.

Wine:  Kudos Pinot Gris 
Year: 2011
Region: Willamette Valley, Oregon
Purchased From: Total Wine
 Price: $12.99
Verdict: 4/5

DIY: TV Shelves

So, K and I have been searching for a new entertainment center for, like, forever to replace his old Ikea "birch effect" Lack TV Stand.  We searched and searched, but could never find one that we loved for under five hundred dollars.  We almost bought one at Ikea (a step up from the Lack...like one step up), but we decided to hold off since we weren't that excited about it.  When I saw THIS idea on pinterest, I knew that I had found "the one".  I am so happy with how it turned out!

This is like the before and after pictures in weight loss commercials where the person is all frumpy and not wearing any makeup before to make the after look even better.  Our before wasn't normally that bad, this was right before starting the project.

I have this problem that I think is the root of all of my time management issues.  I seem to think that everything is going to take significantly less time than it actually does.  And then when I am in the middle of a project I either run out of time or I am shocked at how long it is taking.  Obviously you aren't in danger of running out of time when building an entertainment center, so my reaction here was to be surprised at how long this project took.  Which was not actually that long - it was probably about three days of work, not including shopping for supplies.  As new homeowners and inexperienced DIYers, this probably took K and I a little longer than people who may have more experience building things.  But we are so happy with how it turned out, and I think we learned so much from this projects (plus, we acquired some new tools!).

My beloved sander

We pretty much made our shelves exactly like the inspiration photo, except I didn't want to do the chains as our style isn't quite that rustic.  To me it looked like the chains were more aesthetic than functional anyway.  We spent a LOOOONG time at the hardware store getting supplies.  We had measured our wall, figured out where the studs were and decided how long we wanted the shelves.  We finally decided on 12x1 pine boards for the shelves, then spent forever picking out boards that weren't warped.  We picked two 8 foot boards and then had the store cut the boards each into one 78 inch and one 18 inch board.  That way we had two long shelves and two short shelves, but we only had to buy 2 boards and none of the wood was wasted.

Some things that we bought - five inch brackets, small saw, screws, wall plates

We decided to paint the boards white to match the trim and blinds in the house, and so I went with Behr Premium Plus Ultra Interior Satin Enamel in Swiss Coffee.  I have been in love with Behr since I painted my closet with it, and I love that it has the primer in it already.  And I went with the color Swiss Coffee because when I asked the paint lady at Home Depot what the standard, builder grade color was for trim in most houses she said "I don't know, maybe Swiss Coffee?"  PS - Swiss Coffee is white, not brown like you might think something named coffee would be.  And she was right, it is a very close, if not exact, match.

I sanded the boards with my brand spanking new Ryobi Corner Cat Sander - we bought it both for this project and some other projects I had planned.  I love it!  It made the sanding go really quickly.  After sanding I applied two coats of paint with a brush.  A roller would have made quick work of it, but since I had left my roller sitting out after painting the closet, I had to throw it away.  Take care of your brushes and rollers, people!  But even with a brush, this was a pretty easy and quick painting project.  Just be sure to catch any drips before they dry and make your new shelves look like a three year old painted them.

Making sure the brackets are level

After they were painted, they cured for a few days while we did other stuff, and then it was finally time to start the exciting part!  We decided that when we wall mounted the TV we wanted to hide the cords, and so we read THIS tutorial on hiding the cords in the wall.  Apparently this is not "up to code", just FYI.  This was by far the most frustrating part of this project. It requires that you cut two holes in your wall, one right behind the TV, and another straight down from the first hole for the cords to exit the wall.  We ran into multiple problems with this, the first one being that there is SOMETHING in the wall blocking the cords from  dropping to the bottom.  We are not sure what it is, but it is like a hard metal plate.  No getting around that.  So, after spending what felt like hours trying to push the cords through the wall, only to discover that there is an actual blockage, we decided to cut ANOTHER set of holes in the wall.  Nothing like cutting four rough holes in the smooth, beautiful wall of your brand new house.  Also, the above tutorial suggests that you buy something called steel fish tape to feed your cords through the wall.  K and I were like "Pfffft, no way are we buying that, we can just push them through without it, or at worst make our own tool to feed them through the wall."  NO!  Don't think that you can do this.  It was after much heartache and frustration that we realized we should have just bought the damn fish tape, and so it was back to Home Depot for me the next day to pick some up.  Luckily, I had spotted one in the clearance section, and it was still there.  Because, I mean seriously, who ever buys that?  Anyway, now we are the proud owners of Steel Fish Tape that we will probably never use again.  The reason it was so hard to get the cords through the wall was because of the insulation, and the steel fish tape is just flexible but sturdy enough to push past the insulation.  I know it doesn't sound like that would be difficult, but trust me, it is.

Ahhhhhh!  The terrifying moment that you start to cut a hole in your wall.

It looks much better after you slap a wall plate on it.  Yes, that is the original failed hole on the far left.

OK, so finally we had the TV mounted, so it was time to put up the shelves.  We had agonized over brackets, and finally went with the five inch brackets because I liked the simplicity of them (I HATED the ugly, super cheap metal brackets and was not having those in my living room .  The issue here is that we needed ten brackets, and the nice ones were about ten bucks each.  So right there you are looking at a hundred dollars.  For brackets.  K wanted to get at least eight inch brackets, but that meant either get the super ugly ones or spend $100 on brackets. We ended up exchanging three of the brackets for the more expensive, larger brackets for our bottom shelf  because it is the one holding the heavy items.  Really, if you are going back and forth between brackets, just get the larger ones.  If you have a twelve inch shelf, you need an eight inch bracket.  Our brackets are offset because we wanted them to be screwed into the studs.  I was going to do what my inspiration blogger did and paint the brackets the same color as the wall, but I haven't done it yet, and at this point the metal is just fine with me.

The cheaper five inch brackets.  Not very sturdy for a twelve inch shelf.

Much sturdier and more attractive brackets.  Also more expensive.

I styled the shelf with mostly with things I already had, although I did pick up a accessories at Marshall's (my new favorite store, I had a hard time controlling myself in there!).  I also thought a long time about how to hide the cords and plugs at the bottom of the shelves.  I'm not really a basket person, and so I wanted to come up with something different.  I started thinking that I would prefer a box to a basket, and that is when I started thinking that I would like to do some vintage crates.  My parents are antique lovers, and so when I told them how I was planning on trying to find some vintage soda crates, they sent me a coca-cola crate that they had.  I picked up the other two crates at a local antique store in Gilbert, Flashback Antiques.  I just love how they look!

Vintage soda crates hiding cords

Some vintage blocks my mom gave me, plus my life philosophy.

The vase was one of my Marshall's scores.

We have had the shelves up for about a month now, and we absolutely love them.  They are a great focal point in the room, plus we get to feel all proud of ourselves every time we look at it because we made it!

What you need for this project:
Boards cut to desired size (we used 12 inch by 1 inch pine boards cut to 78 inches and 18 inches)
Paint for the boards
Brackets ( 3/4 the size of your boards - 12 inch board needs 8 inch bracket)
Wood screws (we used 3/4 inch for the boards and 1 3/4 inch for the studs)
Power Drill
Screw Driver
Level
Small Saw (if you are wall mounting TV)
TV Wall Mount Kit (if you are mounting your TV)

Again, if you are mounting the TV and want to hide the cords, I strongly suggest you read THIS tutorial over at House of Hepworths.  If is really detailed and gives you all of the info you need.

Before

After