The Rocker

It's been a long while since I posted. First trimester was rough. I had no energy nor motivation left to do anything. I contemplated why I blog and whether I should keep it going. I figured its a helpful way not to bombard FB feeds with my many pictures and a good way to keep a log of all my strange adventures. So here goes...again.

Lately, we are into downgrading. Usually people want to upgrade. But we are very excited to downgrade in this season of our lives. Just need more simplicity. A friend told me, "If you get rid of all this stuff, you will treasure what you have left."

So...
-Sold almost all of my designer handbags on Ebay.
-Sold my many furniture re-dos.
-Planning on moving out of our acre big lot and moving to a town home.
-Repurposing things like parts...

Speaking of repurposing. I sold my nice Glider and ottoman last year. Now that I am in need of another one, I've been debating whether I should reupholster the old chair I bought on Craigslist.

The one on the left: It's a swivel and rocker. SOLID construction and they don't make things like that anymore. (That's one of the reasons I love buying old. It can really outlast the new stuff.) But I just have 0 energy to reupholster the whole thing. So I decided I'll take the guts of it and repurpose it for a new glider.


1. Bought a comfy chair from Ikea w easy machine washable slipcover.

 

 

 

2. Measured the bottom of the chair. Did not attach the legs. 

(Guess who likes to read manuals like daddy...um...its in the blood. Good thing Ikea manuals are all picture-based.)

3. Bought a piece of wood and attached the metal glider mechanism. This is where the money is. Nice heavy metal. South Carolina construction from the 70's. Works better than new. It swivels and rocks.

4. Encouraged my laborers to work hard into the night and past bedtime.

 

 

 



Attaching the wood onto the bottom of the chair.

Finished product. Swivels. Rocks. Washable. 

Lesson Learned:
-Whoever thought of washable slipcovered furniture is a genius.
-Slightly uncomfortable getting rid of stuff I've had for years, but once I started, it felt liberating.

Love,
Sunnyluna

Infant Carseat Canopy

While moving cross country, I gave away most of my baby gear. I realized the one thing I really needed was a carseat so I can bring the baby home from the hospital. Hm...pretty important. So my friends here in NJ graciously offered me to borrow theirs during the months they were not in use.

Luckily, during my trip to LA, my friend Alice offered me her carseat, bases, and stroller. So guess who lugged all that back to NJ? Yup, I love exception items. Ships free.

It inspired me to make a carseat canopy. It was the most useful baby shower gift I received about 3 years ago, so I made one with some improvements.

 

 

Love this pattern...

 

 

Polka dot velcro straps

Added elastic in the back so it won't fly open in the cold winter months

 





Warm and natural cotton on the flip side

 



Lesson Learned:

-Don't ask my mom to help me carry 6 pieces of luggage and toddler. She's been sick for a week. Ask my dad.


Love,
Sunnyluna

Craigslist Find: Extremely Long Vintage Dresser

You know that book that goes something like..."If you give a mouse a cookie..." then you have to do a whole lot of other things..

Well this is one of those things.

I love my HP1020 Laser Black Ink Printer. It's printed over 1000's of pages for my dissertation drafts over the years. It usually sits in my dining room floor. I felt like we needed a place for it to go...like a nice home that it deserves.

So, my bright idea was to buy a huge dresser that I can hide the printer in (Mind you, this printer is really tall and wide and no modern dresser fits this type of printer in a drawer).

Couple restless nights later, I found a vintage dresser that was over 70 inches. It had drawers and cabinet space of the printer. I can't find the original picture anymore because it was so long ago (It's been about 4 mos on this project). But it was pretty heinous.

After lots of sanding, priming, and coats of paint, it looked like this.

The paint color was "metal" or something by Waverly.

 

 

 

 

Chief busted out the middle divider so that the printer would fit.

 

 



 

Tito watching the Asian Handy Manny at work.

 

 



It was ok, but just wasn't loving it. My whole philosophy on turning my house upside down is to not live with something I can tolerate, but to live with things I actually love.

 

An aside: my first year of college, a young man asked me out on a date. I told my HS bible study teacher about him and described him as "I don't love him but I can tolerate him." The wise sage told me to stay far away from finding a partner you can tolerate and to look for someone you really love. What a wise old soul, huh.

 

 

Same thing applies to dressers.

 

 

So I ripped it apart, sanded, and re-painted with a color I didn't expect to like, but actually fell in love with. Much like life.

 

 

But I skipped the process of priming, thinking I could just wing it and sure enough it was peeling by the next day. So this time, the whole family sanded the whole thing down to its bare wood and did it right the third time around. Much like life...live and learn.

 

 

So here it is now:

 





With sunflowers we grew from seeds. Attached gold hammered knobs.

 

 

 

It's a huge dresser. Hello Kitty's face on the pumpkin.

 

 

 

There's my printer!!! with a paper drawer underneath.

 

 

 

Notice I still use my 1999 discman. Drilled holes behind the dresser and linked it to my ipod player on top w a minijack.

 

Lined with something spunky inside.

 



 

The hard part was moving the dresser. We had to load it in the jeep and drive it as close to the house as possible. Then lined the floors with plastic vinyl and slid it across with towels underneath. About three times. I'm very thankful Chief is still married to me. 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson Learned:

 

Love it, or get rid of it. If possible.

 

 

 

Love,

 

Sunnyluna





Houndstooth Reupholstered Chair

Our new reading chair

I was searching Craigslist and found someone who was selling this old chair for $25. It was made in the 1960's-70's. It looks gross, but it had solid construction and was made in North Carolina, which is always a good sign. 

I'm such a sucker. I went for one, but ended up buying both their hideous chairs. 

It took me forever to gut the chair. I basically ripped out every seam and staple.

And then ended up with this...

After I gutted the chair, I ordered a Houndstooth fabric. It was versatile enough to use in any room. The fabric cost me waaaay more than the chair. But it was really worth it because I always end up not loving end product if I don't really love the fabric.

The fabric was so thick I had to hand cover these buttons because the conventional kit wouldn't work. One reason why this project took so long. 

My $70 sewing maching busted after 4 years. When I took it to the shop to have it serviced, they said, "Oh please. Just buy another one." Made sense since it cost $150 to get it fixed. So shout-outs to Chief and Amazon Prime. You guys are awesome.

And my mom was in town to help with the piping.

Progress..

 Finished! (not really...but good enough)

Lesson Learned:

Somethings are trash. Somethings are not. If only it were easy to know the difference.


Love,

Sunnyluna

Craigslist Finds: Sodor Island

I worked at a group practice back in Los Angeles. During one of our last lunches there, my supervisor/mentor whispered into my ear, "Get ready for Thomas." Little did I know, she was foreshadowing the inevitable transformation into the Thomas-the-train-obsessed boy that our little boys will face.

It's like listening to a 12-year-old boy's voice grow deeper.
It's like realizing your kid's jeans are flooding 2 inches and wondering, "When did this happen?"
It's the quiet but shocking realization your baby is not a baby anymore...but a little boy.

I don't have 75 bucks to drop every Target trip on Thomas. So I scoured Craigslist and found a lady who had collected almost everything.

We talked on the phone. She was sad to sell. But it's not really about Thomas. It's about how our boys are growing up so fast. Her son said to her, "Mom, I'd like for you to get rid of my Thomas table. I'm ready for a Lego table." It was one of those defining moments for her that her little boy wasn't so little anymore. I felt the same.

So we made the deal happen. We emailed a few times even after the transaction, which I never do, because it was really a sentimental exchange. She was inviting me into the Thomas world as she was exiting.

This is just the first batch of trains. Disinfecting...

The previous owner laid out and nail gunned the tracks in one of the several official TTT (Thomas the Train) configurations. Really??? I didn't know that existed. 

I added more rails and all of the little shops.

Engine wash

The Honey Factory

They buzz around...

Tidmouth Sheds!!!

The bridge moves up and down

Cranky the Crane? Idk...

James is vain but lots of fun... (Trees from Nara's Party)

Speechless. 

Lesson Learned:

I never knew how much I loved playing with trains.


Love,
Sunnyluna

Rummage Sale Treasure

Thanks to my friend, Yoonha, the fam heard about a rummage sale in Princeton sponsored by the local hospital. We dug around here and there. Chief wanted a projector & screen probably so he could continue his FIFA career in style...but we ended up walking away with this.

It's an architechtural drawing of the Cologne Dome in Germany. It is one of the most extraordinary cathedrals in the world. The project started in 1248 AD. Fully completed by 1870s. Talk about a long project.

It needed some work. Not of fan of the birch framing. Very dusty. 

Painted the frame black and cleaned up. Fit well above my piano and chevron rug.



Lesson Learned:

1. I'm quite unsupportive of Chief's FIFA career.

2. Rummage sales can be a lot of fun.


Love,

Sunnyluna

The Greenhouse

Los Angeles
Buy potting mix.
Buy plants and containers.
Done in 20 mins.

New Jersey
Till the soil.
Pull weeds.
Remove stones.
Plant.
Shoo deer.
Shoo vicious squirrels.
Fill groundhog holes.
Rabbits?
So many dang bugs.
Done in 2 weeks with a backache.

Both are enjoyable, but the animals and critters are really hard to control. Deer fencing works, but if I were going to pay for deer fencing on someone else's land, might as well get a greenhouse so I can garden throughout the winter.

So Grandpaly and the family made it happen.

Bought lumber and parked out in the field

My laborers unloading, aka mother-in-law & father-in-law



Chief wondering, "When will this end? I'm a white-collar man. My body can't handle this manual labor..."

Needed to pull the grass. So heavy I tell ya!

"Nice job, guys. Keep it up.".....as he sips on his pouch.



The frame is up. Took us a whole day just to pull that corner of grass.



The vinyl is going up. Made the mistake of buying 6mm vinyl which only allows 45% sunlight. Changed to 3.5mm which allows 85%. 

Chief working late into the night to till that new jersey soil.



Has a door and everything. Hope it works. 

What was I doing? Cutting wild flowers and taking pictures. Something to that effect.

We will see if this works...


Lesson learned:
I really appreciate farmers.



Love,

Sunnyluna