Weekend Project: Guest Room + Light Boxes

This weekend's project was to finish up the final touches in the guest room.  While that room has been functional since we moved in (meaning it had a comfy bed and sheets), we still had to put up the shelves and pictures in the room.  This was pretty easy since we essentially moved the guest room as-is from our old house, so we didn't have to buy or plan anything new.  We just had to set aside the time to pull out the tools and get it done.  We drilled the IKEA picture shelf in above the bed and just set the framed photos onto it.  Then an easy-peasy hanging of some art that my friend Tiffany gave me when she moved to Minneapolis.

Then came the difficult part:  the light boxes.  We had bought these fun light boxes at IKEA a few years back to use as a night light for the guest room.  It is a metal frame with two light bulbs in each, and then you can select from a variety of glass art to place in front of the light box.  We had this one with the Leaf design to match our bedding:

The pane is made of glass, but it survived the move.  It did not, however, survive me dropping it as we were unpacking.  We went back to IKEA on the chance that they still carried this design - we have bought a lot of things there that they are still carrying years later.  But no such luck.  An internet search didn't show up any for sale either.  So Matt decided that we could make our own with some plexiglass and spray paint.

He bought a pane of the plexiglass from Home Depot, and I picked out a nice green shade of paint.  We used the dimensions of the surviving glass pane to measure out our new plastic panes, and Matt cut them out of the sheet using an exacto knife.  I used some butcher paper to cut out the new leaf pattern that I wanted to paint on.  I held the paper template in place over the new panes while Matt sprayed the leaves on.  A quick second template for the stem and some brown paint, and we had a masterpiece on our hands :)  Matt finished them off with white spray paint to make the glass more opaque, and then we left them out to dry and air for a few hours.  Once we had the light boxes drilled into place on the walls by the bed, we slid in the new panes and voila!  

We are now calling the guest room complete - welcome to Hotel Hesselbacher!

Close-up of the new Light Box

Lights out to see the Light Boxes in action

Weekend Project - How to Re-cover Your Dining Room Chairs

This weekend, Matt and I decided to tackle one of our projects from our to-do list: re-covering the seat cushions of our dining room chairs.  A few years back, we were given a huge, beautiful Crate & Barrel table with ten chairs from a friend of my aunt's.  At the time, our house was too small for the furniture, so we stored part of it at Kim's house and part of it in our attic.  In our new house, there is a dedicated dining room, which was one of the many draws of the place for me when we were house-hunting.  I have always dreamed of hosting big family or friend meals at a nice table big enough for everyone!  So the table has been set up in the new dining room for the whole four months we have been living here, but our goal to get the cushions re-covered got pushed to the back burner.  This weekend, we finally felt the motivation to get the project off of our to-do list!

Here is what the cushions looked like before:

 

 

Yup.  Gold.  With tiny Asian people... fishing, maybe?  Lovely for some, I'm sure, but not our style and not fitting for the decor in our home.  Plus, it felt a little weird/racist to be sitting on those nice Asian people's faces :)  It was time for them to go.  So we headed over to the fabric store to pick out a new pattern.  I found a nice, cream-colored linen with a very subtle floral pattern all over it.  From afar, it just looks like a plain, neutral fabric, but once you get closer you can see the detail.  Perfect for a house where we are trying to balance my love for all things girlie with Matt's desire to not live in pink and purple flowery cloud.  

 

 

Close-Up of the Fabric

 After that the real work began:

Step 1: Remove the Cushions from the Chairs

This went really fast - just take a power drill on reverse and remove all of the screws holding the cushions onto the chair frames.  Set the screws aside for later.

Step 2: Remove the Old Covers from the Cushions

This took a while and was a tedious little task.  Good thing I secretly want to work on an assembly line and don't mind mindless work at all!  I took a flat head screwdriver and pried up the old staples.  All 600 of them between the ten chairs.  For any staples that wouldn't come out willingly, I took a pair of pliers and gave them a light yank.  Hardest part of this step was keeping track of all of the flying staples as I popped them off one by one.  I would recommend vacuuming right after this step :)

Prying up the staples

Sooo many staples...

Step 3: Cutting the Fabric

Next it was time to cut the new fabric into the correct size.  We measured the old swatches of fabric that we had just removed to use as a template, since that seemed to be the easiest way to get an accurate size.  You could also lay the cushions on the fabric and give yourself 1-2 inches of hangover as well.  Once I had cut all 10 pieces of fabric to size, I threw them into the steam dryer to get the creases out.  You could also iron the fabric once it's cut, but I don't own an ironing board and I'm a little lazy :)

Step 4: Covering the Chairs with the New Fabric

This step takes the longest and is probably the most difficult part.  The best way to do it is to have someone help you by stretching the fabric while you put the new staples in place.  We set the cushions onto the fabric pieces (making sure the correct side of the fabric would be facing up once everything was stapled down!)  Then I stretched the first side over the cushion while Matt added staples about half an inch apart all along the side.  You could use less staples, but they are cheap and it guarantees that your fabric will stay in place.  Then we just moved around the sides of the cushion, stretching and stapling until everything was on tight.  The most important thing here is to make sure you are smoothing the fabric as you stretch it to ensure you don't have any visible creases on the cushion tops.  This is trickiest on the corners, which is why it's helpful to have a second pair of hands and eyes to ensure you're getting it right.  Once everything is stapled down, I cut away the excess fabric (without getting too close to the staples - otherwise they could tear through the linen and ruin your tight cover).  Repeat for all 10 chairs.

Step 5: Re-Attach Cushions to Chairs

Lastly, we screwed all of the cushions back onto their chair frames.  I held the cushions in place and made sure none of the fabric excess hung over, while Matt did the drilling.  Some of the screws or chairs were a little funky and wouldn't re-attach.  Over the years, screws would sporadically fall out, and we were hoping to avoid this in the future.  So for the ones that didn't fit quite right, Matt added some Liquid Nails to make sure the cushions stayed attached to the frames.

And that was it!  The whole project start to finish took us about three hours start to finish for all 10 chairs.  And the end result is lovely!  I love how my dining room looks now and I can't wait to host people for the first time at our new and improved table!

Finished product

My Dining Room - finished!

Aruba Vacay Part 2

Waiting for the bus

Picking up where we left off:  Day 4 of our trip we decided to make like locals and take the bus to downtown Oranjestad to walk around.  We figured the $0.50 bus ride would be better than a $15 taxi, so we went for it.  However, buses in Aruba are not the same as the Metros here in Phoenix.  For one thing, the driver didn't speak a bit of English and we don't speak one bit of Dutch (the native language there).  And it's not so much a "bus" as it is a van that drives locals around.  At one point, the driver was taking back roads and side streets through really run-down industrial parts of town, and we started getting worried that the bus didn't go to downtown at all.  We thought they might be taking us to a ghetto little town called St. Nicholas where, as Madi informed us, the "chocolate people" live.  Sounds delightful until you realize the people don't make chocolate and Madi was apparently a little racist.  So Matt and I start quietly panicking and make a plan to get off at the next stop no matter what.  When the bus stopped, we went to jump out and the driver must have seen our confusion.  She stopped us and managed to communicate, "No. Stay. Shopping next."  Phew!  Sure enough, the next stop was the downtown shopping area we wanted to be at.  Thank goodness she took pity on us so we weren't wandering around lost all day.

Shopping downtown was ok - nothing too exciting.  It was more of a major mall than unique shops like I had been hoping.  After a while, we decided to try a restaurant on the pier called Pincho's that we had read about, so we walked about a 1/2 mile up the shore.  We were sad to find out that they were only open for dinner, and it was still only about 1:00pm.  We were starving, so we walked up the beach further until we came upon a weird little place called Nikki Beach.  I thought we were at a hotel, given the pool on the patio and the large building, but apparently it was more of a club.  The whole experience there was weird.  Everyone there was European (mostly Dutch) and kept confusing Matt and I for Dutch-speakers as well given our fair skin and blonde hair.  They moved at a slow pace and were slightly rude, explaining to us "that's the European way."  Makes me re-think my aspirations to visit Europe someday soon :)

After a whole day of too much strangeness, we decided to treat ourselves to our fancy dinner for the trip.  We had read GREAT reviews about the Screaming Eagle restaurant that was just a short walk on the beach from our hotel.  So we made a reservation and headed over.  The cool twist to the restaurant is that you can choose to sit at a regular table, or you can sit in their bed area where you have your own private lounging bed with a privacy canopy around it.  Up for the experience, we chose to sit in the bed area.  It was really fun being served our food on a breakfast in bed tray.  And the food was insanely good!  Fresh mahi, awesome soup and salad.  Since it was our anniversary, they also brought us a decadent dessert with a fun sparkler fireworky thing in it.  The whole experience there was great and we went home full and happy.

Eating in bed at the Screaming Eagle

Sparkler in our dessert

Snorkel site

Sailing

Day 5 was our Sail and Snorkel day.  We went out on our excursion ship and coasted around the island a bit.  It was a gorgeous day and we had a great time sitting on the bow of the ship and feeling the breeze as we sailed.  They took us to a few different snorkel sites, the best of which was a sunken ship from the war.  It was really neat and kind of eerie to see the ship sitting on the shallow ocean floor with barnacles all over it.  There were a lot of fish around there that we had a good time spotting.  Matt is the best at finding the unique sea creatures (like eel, octopus).  I can only find the colorful ones :)  As our boat made its way to our third and final snorkel site, we had an unintended adventure as the boat came in to the cove where we planned to drop anchor.  Matt commented that we were coming in pretty fast, and he hoped they were planning to stop before we hit some rocks up ahead.  Since this was a sailboat and not a motor-powered one, there would be no way to pull back fast.  Sure enough, we slid into the cove and felt a jolt as the bottom side of the ship scraped along the rocks.  The crew was visibly upset as they jumped in to asses the damage.  Not bad enough to keep us from getting back safely, but you could tell someone would be getting their butt handed to them back at the marina!

Hanging out at Moomba Bar

After our sailing time, we walked up to the high rise area of Palm Beach.  There was a lot of activity there, apparently the sand tennis tournament was taking place that week (like volleyball and badminton.  But not.)  We grabbed lunch at a place called Moomba Bar that my cousin Bridget had suggested, and from there we could watch all of the beach activities taking place.  The beaches in that area made us very glad that we had chosen to stay in the low rise area, as they were very crowded and not nearly as relaxing as our Bucuti.  That night, we just headed back to our hotel and had burgers on our beach.  I could get used to that lifestyle.

Day 6 was nothing more than laying out at the beach, taking a break to dip in our pool or the ocean, then heading back to the beach for more sun.  We only broke that routine to grab a quick lunch at Matthew's, and then a quick dinner at Chalet Suisse.  The food there was not as nice as the name of the restaurant implied, but not much of our food stacked up after the Screaming Eagle meal.  Funny side story: any time we were in the ocean, these crazy ass pelicans would dive into the water at full speed to catch fish.  It startled me every time, but one time in particular a bird dove out of nowhere one foot away from my head and scared me so badly I screamed.  Matt and the other beach-goers had a good laugh at my expense there :)

Matt hanging out in the ocean

My friend Paco who lived at our hotel.  Fun fact about Paco: he screamed "Water" every morning, but his jumbled voice made it sound like he was screaming "Murder"  Fun times.

On day 7, we were ready for a little more action, so we headed up the beach to rent some jet skis.  Matt drove while I held on and enjoyed the ride.  We cruised around for about half an hour, exploring different parts of the island coast.  Jet skis are so much fun - we may bite the bullet and just buy some someday.  After that and some obligatory beach time, we decided to head to the Palm Beach shops to see what kind of nightlife they had.  We ate dinner at a cute place called Taste of Belgium (that had great Belgian waffles!)  They also had some live entertainment there that Matt and I shared a good chuckle over.  The woman singing had a thick Aruban accent, but was singing very modern pop songs like Lady Gaga and Black Eyed Peas.  Then we walked around the outdoor mall area.  Since it was close to Christmas time, a group of native Arubans were putting on a Christmas music show for free in mall amphitheater.  We stopped by to listen to that for a while and it was fun, funky and upbeat.  We bought our souvenir for the trip at one of the shops, settling on a tree ornament with an iguana on it.  I loved seeing all of the lizards all around town on this trip, so I thought it would be a fun way to remember our time here.  Back at the hotel, we snuck a bottle of champagne onto the beach and just listened to the waves as we drank to our last night in Aruba.

Belgian waffles

The next morning, we packed up our things and headed down to the beach for one last dip in the water and soak in the sun.  On our way back in, we got a fun surprise when we finally encountered a friendly iguana who wasn't afraid of us!  In fact, one of the other guests had sat down in the lawn to get a picture of the little guy, and he climbed right up onto his leg to say hi!  I told Matt to wait where he was while I ran to our room and grabbed a banana.  The iguana liked the look of the treat, so he walked right over to us and proceeded to eat the whole freakin banana!  It was adorable and awesome, and I thought it was a fun way to say goodbye to this awesome island. 

Our little buddy munching a banana

Matt hand-feeding a wild iguana

We headed home that afternoon and got back to AZ tired and glad to be back in our own bed.  And also happy to be reunited with our sweet pup, who had fun being spoiled by my sister for the week.  We had such a great time on this trip and made some great memories.  I would love to go back to Aruba someday to relax on those beautiful beaches again.  But now we are looking forward to our 3rd anniversary trip later this month to Playa del Carmen, Mexico!

 

 

Until next time, Aruba

Aruba Vacay

Matt and I celebrated our 2-year wedding anniversary back in October (of last year. Yikes.  Obviously, I am great at keeping this thing current.) One year later, I'm getting around to writing about our celebratory trip. After much deliberation, Aruba won out as the vacation spot for the year and we were not disappointed! Here's a rundown of our trip:

Day 1 consisted of Lots o' Travel.  The only downside to Aruba is that it is really frickin far when you live on the west coast. Not surprisingly, that destination is more popular for east coasters and Europeans, but we weren't going to let a little distance stop us from enjoying the gorgeous Aruban beaches. Friday night after work, we packed up our bags with mostly swimsuits and sunscreen and Kim drove us to the airport for our red eye flight. We had been crossing our fingers for a first class upgrade to make plane sleeping a little more bearable, but no such luck. We tried in vain to sleep upright - leaning against opposite sides of the same giant pillow I brought from home - but ended up only catching short naps. At our layover in Philly, we grabbed some coffee and donuts and decided to just stay awake for the second leg of the trip. After 9 and a half total hours in the air, we finally touched down in Aruba and breathed in the warm ocean air.

A quick trip through customs, then we were on our bus to the hotel. Aruba has 2 distinct sections on the tourist side of the island: the high rise hotels on Palm Beach and the low rise area on Eagle Beach. The high rise was more about the restaurants, bars and nightlife activity, and the low rise was all about the beach. While we like both, we decided that this was a relaxing vacation and booked our room at the Bucuti and Tara Beach Resort in the low rise area. We were greeted with champagne and told that our room wasn't quite ready, so they gave us some drink vouchers and directed us to the outdoor hotel bar. After a quick lunch and some drinks, we were led to our room where we unpacked and changed into our beachwear.

Our Beach

Happy Hour Drinks

The rest of the afternoon was spent on the prettiest beach I've ever been to. Matt commented that he felt like we were in a Corona commercial; The sand was powdery and white, the turquoise water was a perfect temperature and perfectly clear, and the waves were low and gentle. The temperature there was always in the mid-80's with a light breeze rolling through. You could lay under one of the many palm umbrellas and have drinks brought to you all day if you wanted - just dipping into the ocean or the pool whenever you needed a refresher. It was beautiful.

Beach

 

Hotel Grounds

Hotel Pool

At dinner time, we walked across the street to a little restaurant called Pizza Bob's for a quick meal. We split a pizza and listened to a... unique performer.  After that we were exhausted and hit the hay for a 12.5 hour nap. 

Relaxing on the Beach

The next day, we had breakfast out on the hotel's restaurant patio.  We ended up eating here every morning because it was just such a nice way to start the day; looking at and listening to the water, eating good food, and even getting cold hand towels brought around so we could cool off.  Then we headed back to the room to get our swimsuits on.  Surprisingly, 5 minutes later when we looked out the window, the gorgeous clear weather had turned into a freak random downpour.  These rainstorms came and went during our trip - always unexpected and usually only lasting 5 or 10 minutes before everything went back to beautiful.  Caribbean weather is weird.

Mmm.. tirimisu

We spent a lot of time at the beach, and a lot of time at the hotel bar for happy hour.  As we walked up and down the beach, Matt commented that the sand felt like we were walking on Peeps (those marshmallow Easter candies).  The sand was just so fine and gave under our feet so nicely.  We weren't sure we would ever want to come home.  That night, we went to a little Italian restaurant at the hotel next door called Giorgio's.  We were underwhelmed with the food itself, but the tirimisu dessert was delightful.

Day 3 was an adventure day - we woke up early to go on an excursion called Madi's Magical Tour.  This native Aruban woman named Madi came and picked us up in her big, red Jeep and took us along with one other guest on a tour around the island.  She told us the history of Aruba as we drove along and answered all of the questions that we had.  Our first stop was Andicuri Beach and the natural bridges.  It was cool to see the rock bridges that had been formed by years of wind and water.  The largest natural bridge had actually been destroyed in a hurricane a few years back, but the 3 remaining bridges were lovely.  We were able to walk out onto them and look out over the ocean while Madi took our pictures.  Next it was off to the Natural Pools to snorkel around.  The fish were bold and took bread right from our hands.  The best thing here was that the pools are high above the actual ocean, so it was sort of like being in an amazing infinity-edge pool!  Before taking us home, we made one last stop at a private beach with intense waves.  She told us that if we were confident in our swimming skills, we could take a dip.  Matt and I were feeling pretty good so we let the waves knock us around for a while before heading in.  The tour was great and definitely one of the highlights of our trip.

Natural Bridge

Beach on our Tour

Rock Formations

When we got back to the hotel, we had lunch at a restaurant down the street called Matthew's.  It's been kind of our vacation tradition to eat at anywhere with Matt's name in it, and it never steers us wrong.  There was an iguana walking around the restaurant that I tried to lure over with treats.  He seemed interested, but got scared when I came too close and ran away.  After lunch, we went back to our hotel for some beach, pool, a quick and easy dinner and then off to bed.

My Shy Iguana Friend

To be continued, since this is getting a little long with all of the pictures :)