Moving, Moving, Moved!

Not really. We're still in the process. We've only lived in this house, what? Almost six months. My poor long-suffering mother has been having to put up with our stuff for far longer than I'm sure she imagined. We've finally moved most of the furniture. I think we just have three bookshelves, two steamer trunks, and a coffee table to go. That'll have to wait until Sunday, though. In the meantime, I'm cleaning my house and hers trying to sort through and get rid of the last four years of not-quite-hoarding. I'm tired of living out of boxes and bags, and I'm tired of constantly finding things I don't give two figs about but not the things I actually need.

This goes for books, too, unfortunately. We are most definitely book hoarders! I've found books I haven't read in years with pages falling out and it has taken all my willpower to just THROW IT AWAY. There's an Office 2007 book that I keep thinking, "Gosh, we should donate this to the thrift store." And then I have to remind myself that that was SEVEN YEARS AGO. Goodness! Where did the time go? I finally threw away my Creative Suite 2 book. And Ruled Britannia which was molding. And Oliver Twist. And all my Harvard University Press catalogs of "really interesting book" porn. The last were admittedly the hardest, and that probably tells you way more about me than you ever needed to know. Nobody likes Oliver Twist anyway.

So now we've got probably five or six boxes worth of books sitting around in piles waiting to go to the thrift store. My plan had always been to sell them when I opened my used book store, but that dream's on hold for probably the next thirty-five years and these babies aren't getting any younger. We can't haul them off quite yet because I only want to make one trip to said Salvation Army and we still have a ton of clothes to go through. We've been doing laundry for two days now and the end is nowhere in sight.

We've had to rearrange quite a bit to accommodate things. When I realized I couldn't live without books in my living room, we had to move Casablanca. It's now behind the door, which bothered me until I realized that means it's out of direct UV light, preserving the colors better and also positioning Humphrey so that his soulful gaze rests more easily upon mine. The dresser and fan and recliner and end tables all ended up in places they had originally been unintended for, as well. C'est la vie.

I'm excited about getting everything over here, though. It's finally feeling more like a home and less like a half-empty apartment. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go rotate the wash.

Custom or IKEA?

I've long admired all these DIY bloggers I follow. Many of them aren't afraid to roll up their sleeves and custom build themselves something they long for. In theory, I'm not either. I can roll up plans and measurements with the best of them. But executing those plans is another story. I'm strangled by fear of screwing up and wasting tons of money. I'm also hampered by the cost of getting someone else to build my plans professionally. Suddenly, this morning I cast my thoughts to a post I've been enamored with by Kenz over at IBK.

Why not take something with the bones you want and make it into what you need?

And wouldn't you know there's an IKEA just over the state line in Atlanta, Georgia? :-)

Now, this is a lucky turn of events for us. It would cost us about $60 in gas to drive my dad's truck there and back. Why is that lucky? Because shipping to our house would cost twice as much as the actual product! Try a minimum of $199 the last time I calculated. However, despite the savings I definitely don't want to make the trip more than once, so I'm measuring and plotting and planning exactly what I'll need.

There will be seams where all the pieces fit together. That can't really be avoided. And I hate the idea of all those little holes running down the insides for "adjustable" shelving. Before we spend any big bucks, I'm going to get a few brands of white filler putty and see how well they cover and how much it'll take. Then, of course, I'll have to run moulding around the crown and base to give the pieces a more solid look.

I've actually already figured out that I can build a five-cabinet media and book shelf over our couch for about $150. Not too shabby, eh? I think the kitchen "bar" project is going to cost quite a bit more, probably around $400. I know that sounds like a lot (it is!), but it would easily cost three times that to pay someone to build it and only slightly less than that were I to do it myself.

Here's some of the products I'm thinking of mixing and matching:

Of course, I'm still looking through their vast catalog. There's so many sizes and shapes to choose from to make exactly what I need. Have you ever done an IKEA hack? Have you ever taken a piece of furniture and turned it into something else?