Making a Rental a Home

So, due to the whole credit business and the deal on the house falling through, Hubby and I are going to be stuck in the rental for the foreseeable future. (Check out the back story here.) At first, this was really upsetting to me. The house we are in now is small and only has two bedrooms. The walls are all off white (or as I like to call them dirty white). I spent an hour scrubbing our small bathroom walls one day and went through a huge amount of supplies. The walls still look dirty.

The second bedroom seemed ridiculously small. It housed our office with a desk, large bookcase, display cabinet, futon, and a jewelry armoire and it seemed jam packed. All I could think was where are we going to put a crib? Hubby told me everything would be fine and that we'd just move furniture out of the room. All I could think was where in the hell are we going to move it to?

We have two enclosed porches, one on the front of the house and one on the back. The front one is my "craft" (or chaos) room. I had a lot of stuff jam packed in there as well. Hubby thought we could move the futon and the computer desk in with the craft stuff. I was not buying it, but Hubby, it turns out, has better vision than I.

Not only did the futon fit, but it made a nice place for me to sit down and work on small things like jewelry in front of the t.v. The computer desk fit nicely on the other end of the porch. All of my crafting supplies and surfaces fit around everything else.

As for the bedroom (soon to be the nursery), the crib fits in there perfectly as well as an armchair (which I'll eventually replace with a rocker). The tall bookcase stayed and another small bookcase came in for baby storage. There is even room for a dresser/changing table.
I've started decorating a little bit. I'm trying not to go overboard, since we still don't know if it's a boy or girl. (See discussion on color schemes here and here.) I've been mostly sticking with the black and grays, since that will go with either color scheme.

Now, I know these descriptions are better with pictures. I'll show you the current status of the nursery, but it looks bare and undecorated right now, so be wary of that. As for the craft porch/office, you'll have to wait until I can finish reorganizing because it's a total disaster right now! ;) All right, enough disclaimers, on with the pictures:

Corner with the crib:Opposite corner with armchair (also note some of Hubby's "office" decor is still on the walls. This will get relocated if we have a girl!) :


Tall bookcase that stayed:

The final corner with display cabinet and room for dresser/changing table:

Since all this, I've been reading on various blogs ways to make even a rental feel like your home. Nobody does this better than The Nester over at The Nesting Place (see what I mean here and here) She even has a post about being brave and painting the walls in your rental here. Her attitude is don't ask if the landlord never said not to and if you have to paint it back when you leave so be it. (Now granted, The Nester is talking about painting the walls a neutral color). Now, if only I could convince my Hubby this is a good philosophy....

I'll keep you all up to date on rearranging our house (with more pics I promise!) as I can. (Read: if I have the baby tomorrow, you're SOL for awhile!) ;)

Do you live in a rental? Have you? What did you do to make it a home?

Happy Crafting!

Newest Creation: Vintage Tin Memo Board

I've had a stack of vintage tin trays forever. I've been meaning to do neat things with them. Finally, I took one and transformed it. But not too much. I decided to keep it simple on this one and make a magnetic memo board. I loved the design on this nautical themed tin, so I decided to go for it. Here's the end result:

I love the anchor detail on this. I had some cotton rope in my stash (originally picked up in the fabric notions section of walmart). Looks are a little deceiving on this one. I put a hole in each side of the tin using a nail and hammer. Then I used wire to make a little hanger to thread the rope through on the back. I covered the wire on the front of the tin with cute little rope knots. The knots are just hot glued on.

I took my fabric button kit like this one:and some blue and white ticking fabric I had and made buttons. Then I cut the back button part off and stuck them to magnets. Ta Da! Now I have a set of matching magnets. Here's the board at work:

So, what do you think? I love the way this turned out. I need to do this to more of my tin trays! There are a few that are plain silver that I'm thinking of painting with chalkboard paint in the middle. Wouldn't that be great?

Happy Crafting!

*Shared over at:
Do it Yourself Day at A Soft Place to Land

Through the Wringer: The Finale

First off, I want to apologize for doing these segments so sporadically. The baby is due any day now and it’s been increasingly hard to do things. On with the story!

I had retaken the bar and was not so patiently for the results. Finally, April came around. It was the big day. I took the morning off. The office had planned a big lunch celebration (no pressure!). D took the day off so he could be with me when we found out. The list came up. I had my number in my hand. I was too afraid to look, but couldn’t look away. D slowly scrolled down the screen until he got to where my number should be…and it was there! I passed the bar! D and I hugged each other and started crying. The office waited about 15 minutes after they knew scores were posted to call me. This time, I had happy news to share.

I felt like things were finally going to be all right for D and I. We both had jobs. I had finally passed the bar. We were starting to settle into our town and our lives together. D had a scare at work. They let a bunch of people go. Luckily, D was not one of them. A few months later, they let D’s boss go. D is now the only one with an engineering degree left at the company (it’s a small company). Realistically, this means D finally has pretty good job security. D has been working there for almost three years now.

D and I are now expecting our first child. The baby is due on April 3rd (as I said, any day now!). We started looking at houses. We looked at a lot of houses. And then, we looked at some more houses. We finally found one that we like a lot. We had previously been given verbal pre-approval at the bank. We put in an offer. After a little negotiation, we accepted a counter-offer. We sent the purchase agreement on to the bank. Then the bottom dropped out.

Apparently, the federal standards had changed from our previous discussions with the banker. Our credit scores were now too low according to the new standard (but not the previous one). It didn’t matter that we had 10% to put down on the house. At this point, it looks like the dream of owning a house will have to wait. We have one “hail Mary pass” so to speak out there, but I’ve resigned myself to the fact that we’re not going to be able to get a house right now.

On top of all this, one of the attorneys in my office informed me that “they weren’t sure if they were keeping me yet.” So, I may have to find another job in this economy. I’m not looking forward to that. So, it may be for the best that we weren’t able to get the house. All the sea of uncertainty has been hard on D and I during the 9th month of my pregnancy.

Despite all this, I feel like we’ve been through worse. All the job losses, taking the bar twice, etc. makes me feel like D and I are prepared for whatever comes next. We have always been able to turn things around and they have always worked out for us. Every time life gives us a blow, it seems like it isn’t long before we are back on top. D and I have been through the wringer several times, but the only way to squeeze out the extra water is to do so. And it does feel nice to get rid of all the extra water weight!

I hope you enjoyed our story. It feels good to share it with all of you.

Happy Crafting!