Why Blog?

I'll share a little secret with you...I'm not that talented. I'm also not exceptionally smart. I know a lot of people smarter and more talented than me. I'm not wealthy and I don't have exceptional taste. But there are a couple of things I am. I am cheap. I am exceptionally picky. I am determined. This combination of traits gets me in trouble sometimes. Mainly it means that I can be in a store and upon seeing something that I want I immediately think "I wouldn't pay that for that!!" And that thought is almost immediately followed by "I could totally make that/build that/fix that myself." This usually ends well, but not before I have discovered that I have neither the skills, the tools, nor the knowledge necessary to build/make/fix what it is I am trying to do. Eventually, however, I figure it out and in most cases I still save money and don't hurt myself too badly.

For example, I wanted curtains for my house that coordinated not only with one another, but all the upholstered furniture in the house. I scoured home stores, I even priced custom curtains (I won't even write down the number I was quoted, since it hurts my head to see that many zeros). But in the end, I could not find anything I would deign to have in my house, much less pay the ridiculous price they were asking. My solution? Buy 75 yards of fabric, steal my mother's sewing machine and my dad's power tools and voila! Curtains for 32 windows. I also bruised my tailbone falling off the ladder, and melted the carpet trying to iron curtains on the floor, because the weight of them made my ironing board fall over.

I also wanted a dining room table. I wanted it to be black, and I wanted it to be very large scale, since I live in an old house with a huge formal dining room. BUT...I wanted it to be stained black, not painted. AND...I wanted to pay no more than two thousand dollars for the table and chairs. So, you can see where I might run into problems, trying to find a very large, very specific piece of furniture, with an extremely limited budget. My solution? I'll buy a table and chairs at an unfinished furniture store ($800.00 for the table, $120.00 apiece for the arm chairs, $90.00 for the side chairs, within my budget), then I'll refinish them myself! A perfect solution! Because they wouldn't sell all that stain and stuff if just anybody couldn't do it, right? It became clear that I was in over my head from the minute the delivery men left.

But did I learn my lesson? No, of course not. A mere 6 months after finishing my table and chairs, I could be found at the hardware store purchasing $2400.00 worth of lumber because I wanted to build a fence. Because they wouldn't rent gas-powered post-hole diggers if you needed any skill to use them, right? Two pulled muscles, multiple trips to the chiropractor, many many bruises, scrapes and cuts, and two months later I had a fence. I had also managed to completely alienate my younger brother, my neighbors on both sides, and destroyed a friend's reciprocating saw.

I also sew my own clothing because I don't like anything in the stores. Occasionally I have disastrous failures that I sneak into the trash after dark so no one else can see what it is I have done. But more often I get a custom-fit garment that garners plenty of compliments. And the best part? I don't have any special equipment. I have my grandmother's singer sewing machine and an iron. No steam table. No serger. No blindstitch machine. Just a regular old run-of-the-mill Singer sewing machine that you can pick up at any fabric store for under $300.00. In fact, every sewing accessory I have can be purchased at your local fabric store. If it was meant for me to have a serger, they wouldn't have put the one reputable store that sells them 23 miles from my house. I'm not going to the 'burbs for anything, especially a $1200.00 sewing machine.

So, back to my original point. I'm not that special. But, through trial and error I have learned how to do an incredible variety of things around the house that most normal people would hire someone to do. While putting myself through my self-imposed crash course in home renovation, repair, minor construction, home decor, sewing, and tailoring I have gained some skills. I have also saved an ass-load of money by doing things myself. But, I have also learned the wrong way to do some things, as well as recovered and done things the right way and that is the reason for this blog.

If I can do it, anyone can do it. Seriously. I am the prissiest, fussiest, hate-to-get-dirty girl in the world. This, combined with extreme clumsiness would seem to indicate that I have no business being around power tools, or even anything that heats up or is sharp. But I can do it. And you can, too! And I'll show you how. And you can laugh at my mistakes, and snicker when it looks like I'm in over my head, but in the end, if I can pull it off, so can you!