It's Great To Be Home

A Tisket, A Tasket . . . An Overnight Guest Basket

Even though most of our friends and family live right here in Dallas, from time to time we get a special treat and I get to play hostess when someone drops by to stay with us for the weekend.

My friend Abby is our most recent house guest – she was in town to attend our friend Jen’s engagement party (which you saw here). Prying Abby out of Austin for the weekend is no easy feat, so I wanted to make sure that she felt right at home while staying at our house.

When you’re staying at someone’s house, it can get really old always having to ask them where everything is – so when Abby came to stay, I decided to cut out the middleman (me) and just give her the goods. That way she would have everything that she needed right at her fingertips!

It turns out that I already had everything I needed on hand, so this project cost me zero dollars. Here’s the little goodie basket that I whipped up in no time for Abby’s bathroom:

I started out with this cute wire basket that I snagged at Home Goods awhile back for only $7.99. I was instantly smitten when I saw it, and had to have it. Months later, inspiration struck and I knew it would be perfect for a guest goodie basket . . . with just a few little changes, of course!

While I loved the deep wood handles, the problem with this little guy is that he was an off-white color – it didn’t really have the spa-like vibe that I was going for in the jack ‘n jill bath. No worries, it was nothing a little spray paint couldn’t fix! The first step was to mask off the handles with painter’s tape:

Then I busted out my trusty silver spray paint, made especially for metal like this wire basket:

Just a few quick sprays with the paint (check out those lovely plastic gloves) and the basket was ready to bask in the sun and dry. Don’t ask me why we still have that old rusted thing that’s supposed to corral gardening hoses – but I’m glad we do, ’cause it was the perfect place to hang the basket to dry.

You may have noticed that I always spray paint outside on the grass – that’s because of all those lovely fumes. If I’m painting something flat on the grass, like a mail slot, then I’ll usually put something under it to protect the grass. But in cases like this where I can just hold the to-be-spray-painted-item in the air, I don’t bother protecting the grass – so far, none of the little paint particles have marked the grass and even if they did we could just mow them away. However, I do always make sure that I’m far away from the house or the fence – I don’t think a big blotch of spray paint would do much to help the exterior of our house!

The last step was to add a few goodies to the basket – things like lavender shampoo and conditioner, soap, toilet paper and washcloths are sure to make any guest happy.

So there you have it! Using just items that I had on hand, I was able to whip up this pretty little basket in about an hour. Not only was Abby a happy camper, but now I can just replenish it for each new guest – how easy is that?

Ready to make your own welcome basket? What little things do you do for your guests to make them feel at home?

This post is shared with A Soft Place to Land.

Make A Storage Unit From Salvaged Materials. Step 2: Bust Out The Hand Saw

Hold on to your paint brushes – I’m back with another step in my tutorial for creating a custom storage unit out of salvaged cabinetry!

This step involves a hand saw, so get excited!

So far, we’ve painted our salvaged cabinetry and now we’re ready to create a countertop for our storage unit. The hubby and I salvaged a bunch of hollow core doors from our house during our remodel - I’ve had big plans for them for awhile, and I was super excited to finally get to put one of those babies into action with this storage unit project.

Here’s what you’ll need to turn a hollow core door into the perfect countertop for your storage unit:

~ 1 hollow core door

~ hand saw

~ painter’s tape or masking tape

~ Sharpie

~ screwdriver

~ measuring tape

~ sawhorses or something you can rest the door on

1. Measure up. Unless you have freakishly deep lower cabinets, you’ll need to cut down your door so that you only have a small lip for your countertop. Just place the door on top of the cabinets and play around with the amount of overhang that you have until it looks right – I went with about a 3 inch lip on mine (for a total counter depth of about 16 inches) so that I would have room on top of my cabinets to actually work on projects, display larger items, etc.

2. Tape it up. Once you know how large your countertop is going to be, use painter’s tape or masking tape to mark your “cut line.” Make sure to tape around both sides of the door, and draw a center line down the tape with your Sharpie (you can draw the line on one side only). There are two reasons for taping the door – first, it clearly marks the line that you’re going to cut with your hand saw and, second, it helps keep the wood from splintering while you’re cutting. It’s not a perfect fix for splintering, but it definitely helps.

3. Remove the excess. Since this hollow core door was actually hung in our house, it had a door knob and hinges that needed to be removed. However, if you’re only using part of the door you can get away with only removing the door knob or the hinges – just use your screwdriver to take off whichever hardware is on the side of the door that you’re using. In my case, I just had to remove the hinges.

4. Go to town. Bust out that handsaw!! In a perfect, responsible world, you’ll place your door on two saw horses so that everything is stable and safe while you’re making your cut with the handsaw. I didn’t have saw horses – while I definitely do not recommend trying this at home (safety first!!), I just propped my door up against a wheelbarrow that we had in our garage and started sawing away.

At this point, you’ll definitely be glad that you have a hollow core door rather than a solid core door. As you can see from the picture above, the majority of the hollow core door is just a wood veneer and cardboard spacers – the only real wood are two pieces of 2 x 4 at the top and bottom of the door. I had a tough time cutting through the wood at the top and bottom of the door, but the middle part of the door was relatively easy to cut through – but don’t get me wrong, my wimpy bicep was definitely screaming the next day!

5. Paint’er up. Your door is almost ready! Now just prime and paint the areas that will be exposed, like the sides and underside of the lip. You don’t need to paint the whole underside or the top, since the cabinets will be covering most of the underside and our awesome custom treatment will be covering the top.

Stay tuned to see how this salvaged storage unit all comes together!!