DIY Toddler Hand Rail

My daughter and granddaughter, Squeak, have an apartment in my basement.  Even though they have their own home, Little Miss spends as much time upstairs with me as she does downstairs with her mom. 

Little Miss is 2 and super independent. Too independent. She comes from a long line of stupidly independent women and the gene didn't skip her.  

She's now taking to coming and going as she pleases, absent an adult. On the stairs. She goes up. She goes down.  She gives me a near heart attack every time. 

She is tall enough to reach the hand rail, but, her hand is too small to actually grip it.  She refuses to sit and scoot down the stairs once she figured out she could walk up like a grown ass adult. One foot in front of the other.  Not step up and plant both feet on one stair, then do the same on the next. Nope. She's a one foot after the other.  

And I'm too old for this kind of terror. 

So I decided to get her a toddler hand rail. But they don't really exist - at least as far as I could find. There were thick ropes people hung to their existing rails, and that would probably work fine. But it also made me nervous for no rational reason. 

So I thought about it for a few days, and came to a solution.  I needed a 12 foot hand rail.  I looked on line and didn't find anything I really liked.  So I took Little Miss to the hardware store. I found a 3/4" dowel that she could grip completely with her little tiny hand. I bought two. I bought four hand rail hardware mounts. 

I had Little Miss be my biggest helper and hold the dowel so I could see how high it needed to be. 14" from the bottom was just right.  

A few drill holes, lots of measuring and re-measuring, some stud finding, about two hours, and bam!  Railing in place.  It's not beautiful, but it's functional and hopefully it saves her from any slips or falls  

She was so proud using it going down the stairs and then up again.  I feel so much better knowing she has a good grip. 

It's not beautiful. But it's sturdy, functional, and Little Miss thinks shes a really big girl now.  Mission Accomplished. 

This is a three tier pull down spice rack. It was the first thing I wanted on my list of wants for the new house. Finding one that wasn't a bazillion dollars though, that's another story. And Amazon didn't have any that were not expensive AND in stock at the same time. 

I think I found this on some random website and bought it at 3 in the morning or something because I cannot for the life of me recall where I got it, I only know it showed up one day and I said, oh yea. I forgot about you.  

This was trickier to install than the wine rack. I had to measure, mark, drill, remark and re-drill, remeasure, and again perform body contortions. But finally I got it.  And it's one of the best things I've ever owned with regard to space saving projects.  

ten out of ten recommend.

DIY Re Upholstered Couch and Chair

When I first my new house, I fell in love with the small "formal" living room. I knew this would be the Christmas Tree room in December. That was the only plan I had. The room gets great eastern light and it's become my grow plants, lounge and read while the dogs nap on me, room. My son in law calls it the terrarium room. 

      

Anyway, I knew that I wanted a loungy couch in here. So I found this red gem at a going out of business sale. 

I searched for about a month until I found the material I wanted, a suede-y but easy to clean, soft and welcoming material in a smokey blue/grey. (I really wanted a deep, deep red wine color but I couldn't find material that was under $1,000). 

So, after I found the material, I bought an electric staple gun, some razor wire stuff (flexible metal tack strip), a staple puller, pliers, I watched at least 10 hours of videos on how to reupholster your own furniture, and how to recover buttons and and tuft a couch; then I bought more supplies, thousands of staples, buttons, scissors, twine, and new legs for the couch because the that came on the couch were gross.

It took three weekends to completely disassemble, then reassemble, cover, and finish; and be happy with my efforts. The videos weren't lying when they said THOUSANDS of staples. 

I didn't take photos of the process, though I wish I would have because it would have been helpful for the next project.

It's hard to tell how good she really looks with the shadows and the indentation from my ass, but I'm proud of her. 

I had almost a whole roll of material left so I decided I'd recover my old lady chair. She was a cool ten bucks at the Goodwill.  I got her in 2015 and she is so comfortable.  The dramas gave me endless shit for having an "old lady chair" until the first time they sat there. THE most comfortable chair for reading that I've ever owned. No joke.  

BUT. I don't have room for her in this house.  So I asked Drama #1 if she wanted the chair for her new house.  She did. And I said I'd get right on it. 

Narrator: she did not get right on it.

Instead, I got the seat recovered, and the inside front sections done and then my stapler broke.  By the time I got a new one, it was summer; then I was really busy. And lazy. But mostly really busy.  So the chair sat in the spare bedroom, half done, lonely and sad, waiting for me to finish.  And finally I did. This month.  Literally, two years  after I started. I'm glad it's done and out of my house. Drama #1 is glad it's done. And I'm proud of this one too: