DIY Antique Railroad Board

 Here is the Easy Step-by-Step for my Latest Creation: 

A Large Antique Railroad Schedule Sign 

For Over Yy Back Door:

Fair warning, this is a project that takes up some space, the area over our back door is fairly large so I wanted to do a project that had some size, and brought a big punch of impact. This is a great project if you have a large area that you want to fill up or as a background layer for what you 
already have in place.

I got the idea for this sign when I was visiting a museum here in Michigan, I saw one in a display and snapped a photo, thinking that it was an awesome DIY idea just waiting for the perfect spot.

#1. First you start with the board, something of this size needs to be light enough for hanging without bringing in a civil engineer, so I went with a product called Hardboard. It is thin and has one smooth side and one rough side. It is a pressed wood product (you might remember it from your grade school days) and I picked mine up at the Home Depot. They have it in several pre-cut lengths, but the dimensions did not fit my needs so I picked up an entire full sheet. The full sheet was only $9 and I cut the exact size I wanted out of it, saving the other pieces for another project (ask for help with the table saw if you need it, no trips to the emergency room please!)

#2. Paint: Here is where a little trickery comes in. When folks look at the finished board, they think it is a chalkboard, even though it is not. If you want your board to be a functing chalkboard, paint yours with chalkboard paint. However, my board is hung over head level and I was not intending to write on it, so I wanted the look of chalkboard without the cost. So I painted my board with black tempra paint. Yep, the cheap stuff that you can pick up anywhere and that kids use all the time in art class. I did a couple coats of black paint on my board and left it to dry:

#3. Lettering & Lines: for this you will need a T square (I borrowed my husband's from the garage) a pencil, stencils, printer and white paint (I chose an antiqued white from Walmart that I paid $1 for) Measure the height of the board and do the math to figure out where your lines will go: for example, I wanted the header to be the biggest space, so if your board is 50 inches tall, start with the height of the header: 5 inches, south and north headers: 2.5 inches each, all the rest are 2 inches for a total of 50 inches. You are going to use your square to make a mark at those measurements on both sides of your board and then use you T square to draw the lines connecting those marks. Mine did not light up exactly, but I did not sweat it, we are going for homemade here, so get as close as you can and move on to making your dividing lines for the No, From, To, Due, Reported, Leave, and Trk. columns:

                                          

Lettering: I used stencils with a fancy scroll font that I picked up at Walmart for the "South Bound" and "North Bound" Headers and I printed out the Pere Marquette Rail Co. on my computer in a font I liked and then taped the printouts to the board and traced over the letters firmly with a pen, which leaves a faint outline on the black paint that you can use as you guide to paint. *you can name your railroad whatever you want, the town you live in, your families' name, what ever strikes your fancy. I also painted the main title letters with crackle medium first, let it dry, then painted it again with my white paint, which caused the letters to crackle, adding to the "old" look of the sign.

#4. Finishing touches: otherwise known as the fun part! Beating up the sign. I used sandpaper to sand all the edges of my finished sign, especially the corners where I took off quite a bit of paint. Sandpaper was also used to lightly sand the words to make them look weathered. I also dinged and scratched up the front of my sign with a screwdriver. A great tip is to use some masking tape to pull some of the paint off. Take a strip of tape, place diagonally on the sign and pull off quickly, it will leave a nice, mottled tape mark that really adds to the antique feel! (you can see one of these marks in the photo below, crossing over the word "Bound" at the bottom of the sign) The last step before hanging was to take a piece of chalk, held flat, to cover the entire sign in a layer of chalk. I then used my hand to rub in the chalk/wipe it around, which gives the black tempra paint that "chalkboard that has been written on and erased a thousand times" look, you see in the finished photo at the top of this article. My board was placed in a permanent home, so we leveled and screwed through the board right into the studs of the wall (use a stud finder) with dark colored screws to make sure the sign would not fall or warp. You can attach hangers to the back if your prefer. Add a piece of chalk tied to a length of twine looped around one of the top screws and 

Ta Da! ~ a one-of-a-kind piece that will get compliments 

from everyone that sees it!

Retch To Rustic DIY Stairway

Hello Folks! I am so happy to announce that I finished my back stairway re-do            over the weekend!

This hallway was always a sore point for me, most people come in our house through the back door, which either leads up into the kitchen or down into the basement family room. We had already re-done the basement and freshened up the kitchen, but the back stairway/entry way left MUCH to be desired. It was fugly, no bones about it.


The walls were faux-painted in a creepy skin color/almost pink and the walls were so beat up and full of dings and cracks and holes that it looked like bulls had been on parade. There was also a charming silvery wallpaper border that went around only halfway before stopping in a messy end where someone had ripped it off. Oh, did I also mention the light was just a bare bulb hanging there? Nice right?! The handrails were painted a "once was white" and were almost goopey they were so dirty and gross, and the carpet on the stairs was a very cheap, very old and very smelly berber blue that was stapled down with no edging, no moulding, no nothing.

In fact there was no moulding or trim anywhere in this hallway. I was fed up with being embarrassed about this space, especially since it was the first stop on your way in the back of the house. Not having a bunch of money or time, here is the list of what we did on the cheap to get from our before to our after~

DEMO: gross part: ripping up the carpet and pad from the stairs, this was pretty easy and it was good to get that stuff out of the house. I used pliers and a screwdriver to remove all the left over staples that did not come up with the carpet. We were left with light colored wood stair steps and the risers (the up and down part of the steps) were just plywood, so kinda ugly. We also filled and sanded all of the dings, cracks and dents in all the walls at this point and removed the wallpaper border. Tip: use a hairdryer if it does not come off easy, usually heating up the glue helps it peel right off. 

Handrails: This was pretty easy, I took the handrails off the wall, and put them over sawhorses outside. I then sanded the crap out of them until all of the old nasty paint was gone, hit them one more time with a fine sandpaper, wipe down and sprayed with a clear coat. I also took the original brass hardware holding up the rails and hit them with my favorite hammered bronze spray paint: TA~DA! Instantly better! p.s. I love rustic, & wanted to make it look like it has been there forever, so I left some dings and a bit of white paint on my handrails, feels more charming :)

Paint: White, white, white. I painted everything white semi-gloss which instantly turned this from the dark hallway of doom to a brighter, more cheerful space!

Steps: K, this was a biggie, trying to figure out what to do with the steps without spending a ton of money or taking years off our lives with stress. My solution? I stained the wood steps themselves a dark brown, 2 coats made them a color I love (I use a Minwax stain and finish in 1 product). I chose to let the stairs weather naturally, they have already gained some light spots and the edges on a few steps are show a bit of wear. This might drive you nuts, but it is the kind of thing I LOVE! I wanted it to look like an old farmhouse stairway, since the original part of the house is over 100 years old, I wanted the steps to look like they have been there with dogs and kids running up and down them forever.

Beadboard: For the stair risers, we bought a couple sheets of white breadboard from our local home improvement store and cut pieces to fit each stair riser, which we then air nailed into place. We followed that with a piece of quarter round where the riser meets the step to give a nice finish (and to hide any wobbly cuts we made on the table saw) We also added a piece of breadboard to the "bump out" ledge wall you see in the photos, that wall was crumbing and it ending up being a nice touch and matched the steps and the ceiling. 

TIP: when you are cutting your pieces for the step risers, take a pen and number your steps, then write down the measurements for each step on a piece of paper next to their number. For example: Step #1 is 4 feet 2 inches wide and 9 inches tall, etc. When you are cutting, write the number on the back of each piece as you cut it. Believe me, you are going to have a bunch of pieces that are similar in size, you don't want to drive yourself crazy trying to figure out which piece goes in which spot. If you are lucky like us, our steps were all the same width so we just measured the hight, cut, wrote the number on the back, moved on to the next one, and so on……

Moulding and More Moulding: An important part of this project was the trim. We measured and went up to the store and cut and painted the moulding ourselves. We bought basic, cheap wood trim since I was painting it all white. Trimming in all the areas such as the doors, the baseboards, the outside corners, and the ceiling was a bit of a pain but boy does it make a difference! And the secret to great looking trim is calk. Not joking, it's your new best friend. My husband would air nail the trim up and I would follow right behind him with white calk in my calking gun. Run a smooth line of calk anywhere trim meets the wall or another piece of trim. Smooth with a finger, have a damp rag ready to wipe up behind your finger smoothing and a paper towel on hand to wipe up excess calk. Trust me, it's easy and cheap to do and it is the difference from a professional looking finished project and crappy looking moulding. It hides many sins, so pick some up when you are at the store! 

Extras: We threw up a light that I found for less than $15 at Menard's and some funky coat hooks, some stick up chalkboard shapes and a basket I found on sale in the little side nook. I made the curtains myself from fabric and ribbon I found at Walmart and used fabric bonding tape instead of sewing them because I was feeling lazy. I am looking forward to adding a few nick-nacks from my collection into the space now that we are all done. 

2 weekends of work= a whole difference space that I can be proud of!

Let's Get Real About Romance

Today's post is half wake-up-call & half rant, so if you are not in the mood to get slapped with some stone cold reality, please feel free to go back to your game of Candy Crush……

The recent passing of Valentine's Day has me thinking about not only my relationship with my husband of 12 years, but relationships in general, including what we teach our children. Risking much hate mail, I propose the following 5 guidelines for real-world romance, tongue placed firmly in cheek…..

#1. Please Remember That Your Partner Loves You Because Of The Awesome & Unique Snowflake You Are, NOT because you will be the 2nd half of some weird combined organism. I am a firm believer that no one, at any point, should be caught dead on a couples bike, wearing any kind of matching clothing or sharing a common email address. Sorry, it's just not right. If anything, please remember that there is an entire world of people that must interact with you, and sometime JUST you. Together you are awesome, but make sure there are no matching Halloween costumes in your future. 

#2. Real Love Is Tiny, Not Disney Epic Big. This is something that I have had to remind myself of several times in my relationship. Everyone loves that first gush of feelings, but I think we sometimes get caught in the trap of "my spouse should do so-and-so to prove they love me" or "If you really cared about me then you would X or you would do Y or you would act the exact way I think I want you to act." Please! That sentence was hard enough to type, let alone live up to. Shut your mouth and pay attention, because I am telling you the cold hard truth right now: You don't want someone that will do as they are told every single day, You DO want someone that will take the time to scrape your car windows for you in the dead of winter without you asking.

#3. Get real about what you want, not what you think you want. Resist the pull of pop culture! Stop punishing your partner for exhibiting traits that drew you to them in the first place! Personally the idea that I would want a man that is super in-touch with his feelings, had a nice feminine side and was not afraid to be vulnerable sounds a lot like dating the pain in the butt roommate I dealt with my first semester of college. What I do know and am not afraid of saying out loud: I want a MAN, an honest to goodness man. I want someone that will balance my sometimes-a-hot-mess self. We can't BOTH be mushy and weepy, I need me a rock, a backbone of my family. Someone who can teach our son what a man is, how he treats people, about dignity and hard work and fun and standing for something. Someone who can help me teach our kids how to treat others and demand to be treated in return. You may enjoy your emo-hipster who is unable to change a tire, but personally, I am heading home with the biggest bada*s in the room. Everyone needs someone who will sometimes hold their hand and sometimes keep them in check…..especially folks like me…..who happen to have a big mouth..

#4. There is no boss at home. Please, please, please try to remember that you and your partner are just that, PARTNERS! That does not mean that everything will be equal and fair, you will figure out pretty quick who is better at keeping the grass cut and who is best at folding fitted sheets. Or if you are like us, you figure out what chores that you loath and will trade them with your spouse for chores that they can't stand. There will be areas where either you or your partner will do the lion share of work, but here is the biggie: Your way of doing things is not the "right" way, it's just your way. Repeat that a couple times to yourself when you are ready to pick a fight over something stupid like how the dishwasher is loaded or how the carpet is vacuumed or the bills are paid or the kids are put to bed. Your partner is not your child, you are not in charge, accept that you need to either let some stuff go and be happy that you have someone that will help you out with tasks or keep your freakin' mouth shut and do it yourself. Those are your only choices, so the next time you start telling the love of your life the "correct" way to make a bottle or that their dirty laundry "belongs" in the hamper, take a deep breath and get over yourself. A dirty sock is just a dirty sock, not a secret commentary on the level of respect someone has for you. Pick it up or leave it there…….it feeds the happy, I promise!

#5. And finally….remember that you are in love. Sometimes this is easy and sometimes I want to punch my husband in the throat and laugh while he writhes on the ground. But I have found that stopping what I am doing in random moments to text my husband, or go find him in another room for a quick peck and a casual "Love you babe" does more for my marriage than any couples vacation or manufactured date night. ALWAYS kiss hello and goodbye, even if it's just a quick peck, even if you are out in public, even if you are surround by friends or kids or the apocalypse. ALWAYS say "hi babe" or "bye hon" & I love you. My husband does not give amazing foot rubs, he does not buy me jewelry or flowers, he isn't even always nice to me, but when he shows up at the ice rink to coach our son's team and five feet in the door he looks around for me, wades in through all the hockey moms sitting there and chatting to tell me "hi" and give me a quick kiss before heading for the locker room, that is what makes him my  everyday white knight…..bushy red beard and all….

Rusty Love

It never fails; when I drag some dirty chunk of metal from a bucket at a yard sale, or dust off a forgotten  and forlorn little something at the Re-Store, the person next to me asks "what are you going to do with that?!"
Confession time: I have a chronic case of rusty love. If it's dirty, dusty, rusty & dented, it's usually coming home with me, even though I rarely know what to do with it at the time. I just know if it catches my eye and captures my heart, that it will eventually find the perfect place in our home.

I know that many folks prefer the shiny, the slick, the brand new from the store, but the reason I choose well-worn is simple~ you can trust rust. There is something about a house filled with found treasures that lets you know that you can relax, that no one is going to walk by and tell you to take your feet off the coffee table. Feel free to run and yell and goof off, this house is fun. I couldn't care less if you wear your shoes inside, and I don't think I could find a coaster for your drink if you paid me.

So I will continue to hunt for the one-of-a-kind, and May my home always be rusty, chippy, a little bit kooky, and always filled with love and warmth to welcome friends….

Move It Around

As I sit here, locked in the throws of yet another snow day, I have turned to using what I already have around the house to re-decorate in the hopes that it will keep me occupied and avoiding activity similar to The Shining. One of my favorite things to collect are wooden folding rulers, I love the graphic nature of the numbers and they can be readily found in many sizes and colors at garage sales and antique shops for a couple bucks a pop. I had previously hung them on the moulding of my doorways in our house: 

Since the bookshelves in our den were screaming out for something decorative on top, I went on the hunt throughout the house to find something to repurpose. Not wanting to get all involved in the cutting and nailing to make traditional stars, I just bended the rulers into star shapes and used some thread to hold the ends together. I started with the 3 in the top photo and now have a collection of ruler stars in all different shapes and sizes which never fail to "measure up" in the compliment department…….sorry, couldn't help myself…..